Empowerment and relationships: A classroom model to enhance student motivation

This project focused on the goal of establishing a classroom model of motivation in which the source of student motivation is based on internal mechanisms or structures, along with the establishment of greater self-regulatory opportunities for students, and which results in greater student empowerment and motivation. One-hundred current elementary and secondary teachers and 100 university preservice teacher education students completed a 40-item Likert-type questionnaire that focused on four classroom dimensions of affirmation, rejection, student empowerment and teacher control. The results of this project suggested that, although veteran and preservice teachers agreed on the need for teacher control in the classroom, there was less agreement about their perceptions of the need to create a classroom environment of positive affirmation and student empowerment. Implications for future research and the need for creating an affirming, empowering, motivational classroom environment are discussed in light of the limitations for teachers and schools to encourage these constructs associated with recent federal legislative policies.     

阿坝师专体育专科课程设置改革探索

通过文献资料、专家访谈及对阿坝州文体局相关领导问卷调查等方法,探讨新时期体育系专科培养目标、培养规格以及课程体系的改革。     

基层电大教师专业发展:问题及化解

现代远程开放教育以新型的教育模式对电大教师提出了更新、更高的要求,但目前基层电大在教师专业发展问题上,不管是学校层面,还是教师自身层面,都存在不容忽视的问题,必须采取针对性措施进行有效的化解,使基层电大教师在专业知识和能力上得到全面提升,以承担起现代远程开放教育新的教育模式所赋予的全新角色和全新任务。     

Teacher Judgments of Student Reading and Math Skills: Associations With Child- and Classroom-Related Factors

The purpose of the study was to examine whether students’ linguistic skills and task-avoidant behavior (i.e., the child-related factors) and the mean level of academic skills (reading comprehension and math) of classmates (i.e., the class-related factor) are associated with teacher judgments of children’s reading comprehension and math skills. The participants were third-grade Estonian-speaking students (n?=?656; age 9?11 years) and their classroom teachers (n?=?51). The results of the structural equation modeling path analyses indicated that teachers tend to judge students showing higher academic and linguistic skills and lower avoidance behavior as higher on the reading comprehension and math skills. In contrast, the classmates’ higher academic skill level was related to lower judgments of individual children’s reading comprehension and math skills by teachers.     

The Professional Education of Teachers

Teachers, unlike their counterparts in other professions such as doctors and lawyers, lack professional control over their profession. This paper examines how this has come about in the United Kingdom by identifying the problems in seeing teaching as a profession and explains why the professional development of teachers should be a central concern of universities. Many parallels can be drawn with problems highlighted in this paper and those encountered elsewhere.     

Trainee teachers' conceptions of teaching and learning,classroom layout and exam design

The objective of this study centres on identifying and classifying the conceptions of teaching and learning held by future secondary school teachers, and on analysing the relationship between these conceptions and the way classroom space is organized and exams are designed. The test instruments used were applied to a sample of 138 graduates, who were all following the Pedagogical Aptitude Course (CAP) during the academic year 2002/03. Results show that the more traditional teaching/learning models are related to a more vertical classroom layout. Significant correlations between beliefs and exam demands were also found.     

The professional developmental needs of higher education-based teacher educators: an international comparative needs analysis

A universal lack of attention to the professional learning needs of teacher educators is the driver for this study, which considers the most effective ways to support the professional learning of higher education-based teacher educators. At a time when many industrialised countries are engaged in systemic educational reform, this study provides an international and comparative needs analysis through a survey of 1158 higher education-based teacher educators in the countries participating in the International Forum for Teacher Educator Development: Belgium, Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK. Our results suggest that while teacher educators are only moderately satisfied with their professional development experiences, a strong desire exists for further professional learning. This desire, influenced by their professional context, relates to their current beliefs concerning ‘best practice’ in teacher education, the academic skills required to further their professional careers and knowledge of the curriculum associated with their fields of expertise.     

论文本课程与教师对教学过程的控制

在中学课程的微观层次上 ,文本课程与教师都对教学过程有一定的控制作用。这种控制作用 ,从空间结构的角度分析 ,表现为课程线性结构与非线性结构 ;从教学信息流的角度分析 ,表现为课程信息流的集中控制结构与非集中控制结构。不同的控制形式对课程的影响各有利弊 ,并有各自的形成原因     

Research-based teacher education? Exploring the meaning potentials of Swedish teacher education

In this article, we explore the meaning potentials of teacher education in terms of the significance of a research-based approach and the different pedagogic identities that such an approach implies. The study’s aim is to examine the important factors for education to be considered research-based and to identify and analyse the research base of teacher education in Sweden. The results from the analysis of a large number of course documents and from a survey administered to teachers and students in four teacher education programmes indicate that the emerging potential meaning is that teacher education is generally a strongly framed professional education with a relatively weak and adapted research base. The analysis of the classification and framing of disciplinary content and pedagogy in the Swedish teacher education curriculum points at different pedagogic identities emerging from the different meaning potentials that are made available to the students. We argue that a thorough understanding of research-based teacher education needs to be grounded in both course content and its research base as well as other possible pedagogical aspects of research-based education; the education as a whole must be included in the concept of research-based education.     

Understanding teachers’ motivation for and commitment to teaching: profiles of Chinese early career,early childhood teachers

ABSTRACT

To better understand the reasons underlying attrition and the teacher shortage, and to develop ways to attract and retain high-quality teachers in early childhood education, it is necessary to explore teacher motivation and commitment to teaching. Although previous research has investigated various aspects of teacher motivation and commitment to teaching, little attention has been paid to this in the context of early childhood teachers, especially early career teachers. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with 12 early career, early childhood teachers in mainland China, this study aims to examine early career early childhood teachers’ motivation to teach and commitment to teaching in the Chinese context. Four distinct types of early career, early childhood educators were identified: committed passionate, committed compromiser, undecided, and uncommitted. Each of these had unique motives for teaching and different levels of commitment to kindergarten teaching in mainland China. The four types of early career early childhood teachers identified in this study demonstrate the diversity and complexity of teaching motivation and commitment to teaching in the field of early childhood education. The findings from this study can provide implications for policy-makers and teacher educators to enhance novice teachers’ motivation and commitment to teaching in the early childhood context.