论区域职业教育的可持续发展观

可持续发展的定义在全球范围内为数不少，然而对职业教育可持续发展的定义却不多见。通过阐述职业教育可持续发展的概念及内涵，从职业教育与人的可持续发展的关系、职业教育与经济可持续发展的关系、区域性职业院校可持续发展的途径，三个方面进行了可持续发展观的探讨。     

新理念下的教师发展性评价

本文探讨了发展性教师评价的任务和方法，并结合实际情况给出了实施建议。     

湖南文化软实力提升与湖南民族传统体育文化开发

开发民族传统体育文化对于提升湖南文化软实力起着重要作用。通过研究分析,指出了湖南民族传统体育文化所具备的优势;同时,对湖南文化软实力提升过程中湖南民族传统体育功能开发所面临的问题进行了探讨,并针对这些问题提出了相应对策。     

理解儿童

理解儿童要基于儿童特点。从“思维能力”、“双重生命”、“心理预置”、“幼态持续”、“儿童的原始特质”及“儿童世界的丰富性”等几方面采理解儿童。就是为了更好地去对儿童进行教育。理解儿童的教育,要相信“人可以教育”;要尊重自然,引导自由;要关注成长“关键期”;要重视游戏的价值。理解儿童就要走进儿童的世界。鉴于此,要尊重儿童本能;要坚持儿童立场;要关注儿童成长的完整性;要构建“润泽课堂”;要重视教师的人格引领以及文化熏陶对儿童的影响。     

Three secondary school teachers implementing student-centred learning in Iraqi Kurdistan

In Iraqi Kurdistan, the educational system is going through significant changes. The educational system influences the students’ attitudes, and one wants the educational system to support the young democracy. In this study, student-centred learning (SCL) is seen as a first step to learning, but also to participation and engagement as a citizen. Three secondary school teachers worked with researchers from Norway and Kurdistan to implement SCL strategies in their daily teaching. Teachers experienced changes in their roles when emphasizing the importance of students’ participation in the learning processes. They could not lecture most of the time; they needed to make more space for the students’ activities and allow them to become more active. They acted more as mentors for their students. The content of the teaching also changed. When the teachers lectured it was about their subject. When the students were expected to be more active, the teachers also had to teach the students how to be more active. The traditional way of furnishing the classrooms in Kurdistan has been rows of benches and desks for the children and a desk by the board for the teacher. This way of furnishing was described as a hindrance when organising for students’ participation. The teachers’ experiences were of main interest in this action research project. Their responses to interview questions were validated by classroom observations. Also, a group of researchers with very different cultural and scientific background collaborated. This was in itself an interesting side effect in this action research study.     

Personally driven professional development: reflective self-study as a way for teachers to take control of their own professional development

This article is about personally driven professional development through the use of reflective self-study. The argument that teachers need to take responsibility for their own learning while also taking decisions on how and in what areas to develop is strongly made throughout the article. Data for this article were gathered over a 10-year period where the author engaged in several studies using self-study as methodology. Between studies, the author kept using reflective self-study as a professional development tool, and it is these data between various studies that were analysed using thematic and reflective analysis. Such analysis resulted in various overarching themes that show how reflective self-study can be of benefit if used by teachers researching their own classrooms. Benefits include teachers taking full ownership of their learning, relevance of learning, learning that is ongoing and not restricted to specific times and places, taking problematic situations as learning opportunities and how other sources take on new relevance through reflective self-study. Some implications for teacher-education programmes and current school structures are also discussed.     

Reformation of VET and demands on teachers’ subject knowledge – Swedish vocational teachers’ recurrent participation in a national CPD initiative

This study investigates continuing professional development (CPD) of vocational teachers, with a focus on recurrent participation. Vocational teachers need to be competent as teachers and in relation to their vocational teaching subject. Reformation of Swedish vocational education in order to strengthen the working-life connection imposes demands on teachers to have up-to-date knowledge about the vocations related to their vocational subjects. To support the reform, vocational teachers have been offered to participate in a new national CPD initiative targeting their vocational competence. The study concerns participation in this initiative. Drawing on a socio-cultural perspective, vocational teachers’ CPD implies boundary-crossing between school and working-life. Theory concerning adults’ participation in education is considered relevant to understand conditions for such boundary-crossing, and learning, among vocational teachers. The article specifically investigates patterns in vocational teachers’ recurrent participation, which is expected to clarify the factors influencing further participation in professional development. The strongest predictor of recurrent participation, when adjusting for the influence of other factors, is the type of municipality that the teacher comes from, with low populated municipalities having the lowest likelihood of participation. Furthermore, recurrent participation is more likely by participating teachers from adult education or from privately owned schools, and by male teachers.     

Exploring Emotional Intelligence Among Master's‐Level Counseling Trainees

The authors explored the relationship between counseling trainees' emotional intelligence (EI), empathy, stress, distress, and demographics. Results indicated that higher levels of EI were associated with lower stress and distress, higher affective and cognitive empathy, and age. These findings suggest curricular integration of EI and potential utility of EI measures to evaluate students' progress throughout the program.     

The importance of environment for teacher professional learning in Malta and Scotland

Current reforms in the Maltese and Scottish educational contexts can only be fully implemented if teachers radically transform the way they teach. Teacher professional learning is an important mechanism that policy-makers, school leaders and administrators have to achieve this. Teacher professional learning is, above all, situated within the specific social workplace environment of teacher practice. Thus, schools need to be recognised as important sites of professional learning for teachers. In Malta and Scotland teachers were asked about their professional learning to identify how the learning environment within individual schools affects professional learning. In both countries, collaboration and school leadership were key components in determining a school’s learning environment. Data analysis led to the production of examples of expansive and restrictive features. Policy-makers, school leaders and administrators can use these features to examine how schools operate in terms of helping or hindering professional learning in the school environment.     

The challenges of beginning teachers in urban primary schools

This study provides insight in the variety of urban-related challenges that beginning teachers experience in urban schools. Literature on urban teaching focuses on teaching children from low socio-economic status (SES) and/or culturally diverse backgrounds. In many European cities, however, schools are populated by both children from relatively high and from low-SES backgrounds. This study examined the problems and challenges of beginning teachers in Dutch urban primary schools. Teachers were interviewed at schools with different student populations. Results showed that, although many of the challenges that beginning teachers experienced concern the same themes, their actual manifestation differed related to schools’ student populations. For instance, the problem of ‘parental contact’ referred to both the extreme involvement and demands of highly educated wealthy parents at some schools and the diverse backgrounds of parents at other schools. Results of the study can be used to develop adequate preparation and support for beginning urban teachers.