Improving teachers’ self-efficacy in applying teaching and learning strategies and classroom management to students with special education needs in Hong Kong

This study examines the impact of a revised one-week training course on teacher self-efficacy in terms of improving teaching and learning strategies and classroom management to support students with special educational needs (SEN) in ordinary schools in Hong Kong. Various teacher-related variables (i.e., level of prior training in special education, confidence in teaching students with SEN, knowledge of legislation and policies, years of teaching, teaching experience with students with SEN, gender, and school type) are analyzed among 347 regular primary and secondary teachers. Teacher confidence and school type are determined to be significant predictors for the self-efficacy of teachers in inclusive education.     

Inclusivity through exclusivity: An evaluation of the provision of a special education needs (SEN) placement within second level art & design teacher education in the Republic of Ireland

It is a feature of Irish second-level teaching that teachers will encounter pupils with special educational needs (SENs). To prepare them, the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) has designated SEN placements as part of the ITE programme, whereby students are immersed in SEN settings. These placements have been acknowledged as good practice by Merriman & Rickard, on behalf of the National Parents and Siblings Alliance (2013). Over the ten-year duration of this specific SEN placement, this immersion has led to positive outcomes for both the student teachers and the centres in which they have been placed.     

Activism through attrition?: An exploration of viral resignation letters and the teachers who wrote them

In recent years, there has emerged a new phenomenon in response to contemporary educational policies: public teacher resignation letters. Through the theoretical frames of participatory democracy and identity, and analyzed in light of literature on teacher attrition and activism, we investigate the following questions with 8 teacher resigners: (1) What are the rationales of and implications for teachers to resign in public ways? (2) How are teachers' public resignation letters a reflection of their personal and professional identities?     

Associations of newly qualified teachers’ beliefs with classroom management practices and approaches to instruction over one school year

We focus on assessing whether newly qualified teachers’ professional outcome expectations and their beliefs about students’ intellectual potential are associated with teachers’ self-reported classroom management and instructional practices. One hundred and eighteen novice teachers participating in the induction year programme were studied during their first years as full-time teachers. Results attest to a salient association between teachers’ more optimistic views of the malleability of students’ intellectual potential and teachers’ confidence in themselves as positive change agents in student outcomes. Also, teachers’ belief-set in the beginning of their career was shown to be associated with significant differences in the level of using instructional practices promoting mastery goal orientation in the classroom as well as offering students emotional support during the learning process. In the light of the significant belief–behaviour links demonstrated, more explicit attention to the sophistication of teachers’ ability beliefs in teacher education programmes is recommended.     

Multiple dimensions of teacher identity development from pre-service to early years of teaching: a longitudinal study

Based on dialogical self theory framework that highlights three dimensions of identity construction (multiplicity vs. unity; social vs. individual; discontinuity vs. continuity), this study explored multiple aspects of teacher identity development over time, in relation to the unity of self, the way the social environment is negotiated, and the shifting or continuing pattern over time. The study employed a qualitative, longitudinal study design that followed five pre-service teachers for four years, including three waves of interviews. Variations of each participant’s journey to develop their teacher identity over time are described. Implications relevant to researchers, teacher educators, and pre-service and beginning teachers are discussed.     

Conceptualising the surveillance of teachers

Schools are risky places: the risk of a poor Ofsted report, the risk of sliding down league tables, the risk of teachers abusing children, the risk of teachers being falsely accused of abuse. As a result of risk anxiety and the ever-increasing sophistication of technology, the surveillance of teachers has proliferated, becoming a future-oriented pursuit to manage this risk. Drawing on the surveillance studies literature, this article attempts to theorise the surveillance of teachers. Firstly the article argues that there are three types of teacher surveillance: the vertical perpetuated by Ofsted and senior school leaders such as teaching observations and learning walks, but also students recording their teachers on mobile phones; horizontal surveillance enacted by peers in terms of concertive control, but also parental surveillance via online and offline networks; and, finally, intrapersonal surveillance embracing reflective practice, data reporting and self-policing proximity from children. The article then concludes by arguing that while surveillance in schools embraces the themes of modern surveillance in general, by doggedly retaining the proximal and the interpersonal, it should be considered a hybrid form between traditional and modern forms of surveillance.     

Whiteness in the academy: using vignettes to move beyond safe silences

This point of departure presents the writings of a White, female teacher educator’s experiences in the academy. Through the use of vignettes, the author discusses how four recent experiences – and her writing about those experiences – reveal the insidiousness of silence and Whiteness in the academy.     

Teachers’ perceptions of their most significant change: source,impact, and process

The purpose of the study was to examine the differences among significant changes in the practice of individual teachers. Seventeen US teachers were interviewed about the most successful change in their teaching career. The differences in teacher change were based primarily on the source and impact of the change. The sources of change were divided into two categories: other-initiated or self-initiated. The level of impact was determined in three ways: by whether teachers described a new practice, a new direction, or a change in their beliefs. By organizing according to both the source and impact of the change, four types of change were identified: Response to School Initiatives, Professional Development Initiatives, Student-Centered Changes, and Self-Designed Changes. Self-Designed changes were further distinguished based on the time required for the change process. Implications for developing new strategies to foster teacher development are discussed.     

Student victimization by peers in elementary schools: individual, teacher-class, and school-level predictors

Objectives

This study examined individual and contextual factors that explain students’ victimization by peers among 4th- through 6th-grade Jewish and Arab students.

Method

A total of 120 homeroom teachers and 3,375 students from 47 schools participated. The study explored how students’ reports of violence are influenced by individual factors (gender, age, perception of school climate, victimization by teachers, and fear) teacher-class factors (school climate, homeroom teachers’ characteristics such as self-efficacy, and education) and cultural affiliation as a school level factor.

Results

The results showed that levels of victimization vary significantly between classes and between schools. However, the vast majority of variation in students’ victimization lay at the individual level. Factors such as fear, physical and emotional victimization by teachers, and gender affected levels of students’ victimization by peers.

Conclusions

Students victimized by peers are more likely to be victimized by their teachers and to miss school because of their fear of violence. Further research should be conducted to investigate additional teacher, class and school factors that can predict levels of students’ victimization.

Practice implication

Based on the study's results, efforts to deal with school violence should be targeted to students and school staff. It is essential to design and implement a “whole school” approach that includes participation of the entire school community. Furthermore, intensive individual treatment should be given to victimized students to improve their sense of safety and protection on school property. In addition, the findings emphasized the need to design and implement school intervention programs in a sensitive way that takes into consideration children's developmental stages and other factors that affect their levels of victimization. The results showed that younger children do not take advantage of the many positive effects that can be achieved from positive school policy and good relationships with staff. It might be that more efforts should be made to raise victimized students’ awareness by emphasizing that schools have rules that are there to protect them.     

Using social stories to decrease aggression and increase positive peer interactions in normally developing pre‐school children

Social stories have been widely used for children with autism and developmental delays; however, little research has been conducted that examines their effectiveness with pre‐school children who have no developmental delays. The present study investigated this previously undocumented use of social stories. Social stories were used to decrease aggression and improve positive peer relations in a Head Start pre‐school setting. Participants included three four‐year‐old pre‐school students. A single‐subject, ABC multiple baseline design with counterbalanced treatment order was implemented where social stories were compared to a neutral book. Direct observations and pre‐ and post‐Behaviour Assessment System for Children‐2 (BASC‐2) Teacher Rating Scale (TRS) scores were examined. Results revealed some support for the usefulness of social stories in this setting and with this population. Limitations of the study are discussed and directions for future research are provided.