Assisting beginning teachers and school communities to grow through extended and collaborative mentoring experiences

Mentoring as a strategy to assist and retain beginning teachers in the profession has been perceived as the panacea for reducing attrition rates. Whilst this may be true in many cases, mentoring alone has been unable to stem the flow of resignations. In this essay on scholarship and teaching, the author explores surrounding mentoring programs. New ways of professional learning are suggested that encompass mentoring within a whole school approach, with a particular focus on the school as a collaborative community of learners.     

Understanding disorganised attachment: theory and practice for working with children and adults,by David Shemmings and Yvonne Shemmings

Preschoolers with autism face a number of challenges in integrating into different community activities owing to behavioural, communication and emotional concerns. Since the year 2009, the Hong Kong Heep Hong Society has developed a training programme for enhancing community participation among individuals with autism. The current project reports findings of a qualitative study of special education teachers’ perceptions concerning a range of issues with regard to the programme. Semi-structured one-to-one interviews were conducted to gather information from eight teachers who used the community participation programme. The results indicated that teachers perceived the programme as a useful tool for promoting community participation among preschoolers with autism. However, participants pointed out a number of barriers to implementing the programme effectively. The participants suggested ways to improve the quality of community participation programmes. Implications for teachers and other professionals are discussed.     

An investigation of student teachers' study strategies with respect to certain variables

This study aimed to determine the study strategies of student teachers attending vocational education faculties and whether these habits are affected by certain variables (department, year of study, positive perception of university and lecturer, time spent studying). The study sample consisted of a total of 746 student teachers from 5 departments, 380 of whom were freshman students and 366 of whom were senior students. The results revealed that student teachers' study strategies were at a moderate level. Additionally, it was observed that study strategies scores were higher for freshman students than for senior students, for students with a positive perception of university than for those with a negative perception, and for students who studied more than 5 hr weekly than for those who studied 3 hr or less.     

Understanding changes in teachers' ICT practices: a longitudinal perspective

With the introduction of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into schools came the expectation that teachers would adopt ICT and change their practices in particular ways. Research indicates that teachers have not changed in the ways expected. Suggested in this paper is that limitations in current research methodologies documenting change in teachers' practices are restricting thorough examination of change in teachers' practices mediated by ICT. This paper reports on the design of a study aimed at investigating teachers' practices from an alternative position from the current research. The research design is a grounded, longitudinal, qualitative study using assorted analysis for the collection and interpretation of the data. This involves a combination of secondary analysis of archive data and collection and analysis of primary data. Participants were able to retrospectively describe and understand their own archived and new data, in interviews and observations. This paper focuses on ways this research design supported examining teachers' practices as including a number of dimensions and the way these dimensions were influenced by the context in which they were situated. Also, the ways this research design provided a means for examining the changes that developed from the teachers' own narratives. This gave some insight into the ways the teachers' understood the changes in their own practices. Examining change from this perspective supports understanding of how and why changes in teaching practices mediated by ICT occur or don't occur. It also contributes to examining the bigger phenomenon of ICT and the long‐term impact it is having on teaching practices.     

Pre-service teachers’ TPACK competencies for spreadsheet integration: insights from a mathematics-specific instructional technology course

This article explored the impact of strategies applied in a mathematics instructional technology course for developing technology integration competencies, in particular in the use of spreadsheets, in pre-service teachers. In this respect, 104 pre-service mathematics teachers from a teacher training programme in Ghana enrolled in the mathematics instructional technology course for one semester. Strategies applied in designing the course were: aligning theory and practice, collaborative design, learning technology by design, modelling how to use technology and scaffolding authentic technology experiences. The pre-service teachers’ technology integration competencies were assessed through analysis of lesson plans and lesson observations, their self-reported technological pedagogical content knowledge and attitudes towards technology. Findings show that pre-service teachers’ technology integration competencies improved after participation in the course. All strategies were considered important, but in particular, scaffolding authentic technology experiences including feedback from teaching try-outs made significant contributions to the pre-service teachers’ developed technology integration competencies. The study provides guidelines that can serve as a benchmark for implementing strategies in the design of a subject-specific teacher education programme in preparing pre-service teachers to integrate technology in teaching.     

Effective Strategies for Information Technology in Teacher Education: the use of an evolving permeation model

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the debate in recent years about the most effective strategy for establishing the use of information technology in teacher training establishments in the United Kingdom. Evidence is presented to support the notion that efforts should continue to permeate the use of information technology throughout the courses of such establishments. However, the paper suggests that staff development and the degree of permeation of information technology within the culture develop alongside each other. As one of these variables change, it feeds the development of the other; neither is an independent variable though both are influenced by external factors. Recognising this as a relatively slow process, the paper proposes a model of evolutionary permeation.     

职业教育 “双师” 培训的价值取向及路径选择

职业“双师”作为职业教育的主要教育者,明确正确的价值取向是进行“双师”培训的一项重要内容。通过完善培训体系、优化培训内容。创新培训模式以及构建完善的实践技能训练体系等途径完善“双师”的培训途径。     

中小学全面开设书法课的几点思考

教育部要求近期在全国中小学全面开设书法课,这是一大好事.但也将遇到很多困难.如师资奇缺的问题,新开课缺乏相应条件和规范所带来的教学效果问题,以及在开课过程中如何解决书法课与其它学科协调及融合的问题.要解决这一系列问题,教育主管部门以及各学校、地方书协应加强协作,对拟转岗的在职教师和拟应聘任教的社会书法家及时开展培训,教研部门应加强中小学书法教育教学研究,高校应积极开展专业辅修,教育行政部门应加强督导,同时还应进一步加强对中小学书法教育的重视与规范.     

高校教学质量测评系统的需求分析研究

本文通过对高校教师教学质量测评系统的需求进行详细分析,细化了系统的功能需求,描述了测评的四个阶段,对每一个阶段分模块进行描述,采取了面向对象方法描述了每一个模块.在系统设计阶段采用了统一建模语言,对测评系统进行了三层架构,并应用了包的设计对复杂的业务进行了处理,最后用Java为编程语言实现了系统测评的四个阶段,并用先进的测试方法对系统进行了测试,实现了系统设计的各项功能.     

“UDS”合作共同体建设的理性认识和实践探索

"UDS"合作共同体是由高师(University),地区(District)和学校(School)三方构成,以实现教师专业良性发展为目标,以教育资源共享为条件,基于外部制度安排和内部环境所构建的教师学习与发展实践共同体。特色发展为契机、教师专业发展为根本、项目研究为驱动器、课堂教学为主阵地、制度安排为保障是"UDS"合作共同体的实施策略。