Roles and relationships in qualitative research on teachers' thinking: A reconsideration

Much research about teachers and teaching is still planned and conducted by researchers who give little thought or effort to the involvement and learning of the teachers who are their subjects. Whilst this continues to be the predominant research paradigm, and until collaborative networks between educators from different sectors of the professions are established, the traditional separation between academics - those who research - and teachers - those who teach - will remain, and the usefulness of research to both communities will continue to be subject to critical comment. This paper proposes a set of different roles and relationships for researchers involved in qualitative research in which researchers may also be consultants, and in which affective, human-relating skills hold the same importance as the more traditional technical skills of the researcher.     

Finding Diego: A Bilingual Student Integrates School,Language, and Identity

This article presents a mixed-methods case study of Diego, a bilingual teen who completed public school in Florida. During adolescence, Diego negotiated multiple identities: successful student, Mexican American, bilingual, and typical U.S. teenager. Diego provided interviews and bilingual (English/Spanish) writing (narrative/expository) in 2008 (at age 12, Grade 6) and in 2012 (at age 16, Grade 10). A qualitative analysis of his interviews and a quantitative linguistic analysis of his writing reveal central elements of Diego’s language development as related to academic English and identity. Educational implications for working with bilingual adolescents are discussed.     

Promoting Metacognitive Decision-Making in Teacher Education

Effective teachers are characterized by their abilities to make thoughtful, deliberate, and informed adaptations while teaching (Hoffman & Pearson, 2000). These in-the-moment teaching decisions are guided by a complex web of teacher knowledge. Raising teachers' awareness of the decisions they make on a moment-by-moment basis may aid in thoughtful, more deliberate decision-making and more robust instruction. We charge that preservice teachers can acquire this skill, as well. This article highlights practices employed in preservice teacher education courses as a means to promote awareness of, and engagement with, in-the-moment teaching decisions. Using examples from mathematics, social studies, and literacy methods courses, we describe our processes to intentionally cultivate preservice teachers' adaptive teaching skills through metacognitive decision-making.     

Discrimination reversal learning in newts

The results of field research suggest that, contrary to being behaviorally inflexible, some amphibians may have the ability to respond effectively to changing environments. The performance of seven newts (Triturus viridescens) was studied across 20 successive reversals of a spatial discrimination problem in a dry T-maze. Submersion in shaded water served as reinforcement for correct responses. The subjects showed a decrease in mean errors across reversals and across ordinal trials within sessions. These results are discussed in terms of the importance of using biologically relevant methodologies in the study of comparative animal learning.     

Liberal studies and critical pedagogy in further education colleges: ‘where their eyes would be opened’ (sometimes)

This paper revisits the liberal studies movement, a significant feature of the English further education (FE) sector from the 1950s until the beginning of the 1980s. Its central argument is that liberal and general studies (LS/GS) and similar provision offered a vehicle where, at least in some circumstances, certain politically-motivated FE teachers were able to engage in forms of mutual, dialogic teaching and learning which can be conceptualised as critical pedagogy—or at least as close to critical pedagogy as can be achieved within the formal education system in a nation such as England. The paper draws on interviews with former FE lecturers who taught various forms of liberal studies to vocational students in FE colleges across England during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Whilst it is recognised that LS/GS was always contested terrain, data presented in this paper provide evidence to suggest that the spirit of critical pedagogy existed amongst a certain strand within the liberal studies movement, at least for a time—even if not all learners wished to be emancipated by their studies.