Teachers’ reports of learning and application to pedagogy based on engagement in collaborative peer video analysis

Given international use of video-based reflective discussions in teacher education, and the limited knowledge about whether teachers apply learning from these discussions, we explored teachers’ learning of new ideas about pedagogy and their self-reported application of this learning. Nine inservice and 48 preservice teachers participated in video-based reflective discussions and documented their learning, sources of knowledge that contributed to their learning, and application of this learning to their teaching in their practica courses. A total of 227 response sheets with this information were collected. Multilevel logit regression was used to examine how sources of learning and content learned were related to teachers’ application of learning to their teaching practices. We found that teachers reported applying 40% of their learning; particularly, what they learned about methods and materials for instruction, and that they learned from both video and discussion almost equally.     

论音乐课堂中的教学机智

课堂教学是一个不断生成新情境的过程,面对教学中的各种新问题、新情境,不但需要教师有充足的教学准备,还需要有临场处理的能力,即教学机智。良好的教学机智,将有助于化解课堂中的各种问题,从而提高音乐课堂教学效率。     

教育改革与合作学习在纽约——美国纽约市公立学校第2学区教学改革纪事

20世纪80年代后期至今,纽约市公立学校的第2学区进行了一场教学改革,数学教科书采用以建构主义为理论基础的CMP,在教学上强调合作学习.教改迫使学生以一种全新的方法来学习数学,同时,数学教师参加了长期的强制性在职培训;教改的效果尚无定论,因为在实施"纽约州新标准考试"的7年中(1999-2005年),全学区8年级数学成绩达标学生人数几经起伏.     

Inter-professional collaboration in action research

This article describes an example of inter-professional action research conducted by teachers and university-based researchers/teacher educators in a vocational college in the Netherlands. The research was aimed at the professional learning of the teachers on their pedagogical approach to a new curriculum initiative. Despite a difficult context in the Netherlands for a type of action research in which teachers and researchers work in democratic collaboration on the improvement of teaching practices, this inter-professional collaboration worked out well. The participants worked, inspired by shared commitment towards the students, as equal partners. In the findings and conclusion insights developed about key elements for inter-professional collaborative research, such as the importance of common relevance, shared responsibility for the research and mutual trust and respect for differences in professional identities and working conditions are addressed.     

Selected Representations of Teachers and Teaching in Twentieth-century Anglo-Irish Fiction and Memoir: Some Literary-critical and Pedagogical Explorations

This paper has two complementary objectives. After providing some theoretical perspectives on fiction generally, and on the teaching of fiction more specifically, it firstly evaluates, from a literary-critical perspective, a reasonably representative selection of the portrayal of teachers and teaching in some twentieth-century Anglo-Irish fiction and memoir. That initial, literary-critical evaluation of the texts, while focusing on aspects of both form and theme, seeks also to uncover the fascinating spectrum of models of teaching represented, some benign, but many quite dark and even, to a degree, sinister. The second half of the paper then suggests a range of pedagogical strategies which could be used, in the sixth-form classroom, to explore the richness and complexities of those portraits and of the contexts against which they are written. That in-depth pedagogical exploration is closely informed by the specifications for AS and A-level English teaching provided by two representative Examination Boards – the Council for Curriculum Examinations and Assessment (CCEA), which is based in Northern Ireland, and the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA) – and the exploration thus is linked closely to the demands and contexts for sixth-form English teaching both in Northern Ireland and in the UK as a whole.     

Attitudes towards inclusion in higher education in a Portuguese university

In this article, we present data concerning the inclusion of students with disabilities in higher education (HE) at a Portuguese university. This research is part of a wider project designed to understand the trajectories and experiences of students with disabilities at the University of Algarve. This exploratory study raises questions about inclusion and discusses this concept based on the perspectives of academic and non-academic staff. A qualitative approach was used to provide an informative exploration of attitudes towards inclusive education and recommendations for promoting best practices therein. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews. We found positive perceptions of university staff members about the inclusion of the students with disabilities. However, more effort is needed to provide these students with opportunities to continue their academic career in HE and to promote inclusion, personal development and participation in social and economic life. Although inclusive education is on political and educational agendas, the perception of disabilities as deficits prevails. The findings of this study, therefore, reveal that changes must be implemented to effectively adopt the social and educational model of disability.     

Inclusion: Dimensions of inclusion in education

The understanding of inclusion in education has transcended the assumption that inclusion is about students with special needs. It concerns the inclusion of all children. With systems theory as a framework, the article argues that in order to handle inclusion as a phenomenon that concerns all children, we need an operational definition of inclusion differentiated according to three dimensions. The first dimension covers different levels of inclusion. The second dimension concerns different types of social communities in and out of school, from which a child may be included or excluded. The class is one such type of social community, but equally important is membership in the self-organised community of children in the school-yard, the bilateral relationships with other children and/or teachers, etc. The third dimension concerns different degrees of being included in and/or excluded from the different communities. The point is that a child is not either completely included or excluded, but that he/she is included in or excluded from the different communities in different degrees. A comprehensive matrix definition is presented combining the three dimensions, which matches the present understanding of inclusion in education.     

Engagement in Language Policies and Practices with and for Vietnamese Minority Student Youth

Drawing on the recent call for repositioning youth as creative and responsible agents in language and education research (e. g., McCarty & Wyman, 2009) and the notion of engaged ethnography (e.g., Davis & Phyak, 2015), the researcher engaged 16 minority student youth in a remote mountainous province in Vietnam in interrogating the realities of the current language policies (LP) while working actively with them to give rise to effective and responsive LP transformations. Youth’s resistance to the current LP, their critical awareness of their linguistic wealth, and their comprehensive recommendations for LP improvements greatly affirm themselves as resourceful and responsible agents in decision-making and pedagogical revitalizations. This article calls for respecting and recognizing youth’s power, voices, and rights, and invites them to deconstruct educational policies to promote multilingualism and effective educational change. Towards this end, I discuss implications to promote youth engagement in language education policies and practices.     

A multi-year study of pre-service teachers’ literacy practices in the content areas: time epistemologies and indicators of stasis and growth

This three-year study focuses on 42 pre-service teachers’ perspectives on integrating literacy into their content area teaching. Pre-service teachers described time as an influential factor shaping their teaching practices, and, we found, that perceptions of time influenced pre-service teachers’ reported ability and willingness to plan for and enact the implementation of literacy strategies as part of content area lessons. While we noted a number of factors related to time, we were particularly drawn to three time-related factors that signified for pre-service teacher participants’ active roles and agency in how they were enacted in the classroom. Identifying temporal concerns about curriculum, learner response to literacy practices, and use of classroom time to scaffold learning allowed us to specify aspects of participants’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) development as well as facets of limited PCK growth. Using time as a theoretical lens to view pre-service teachers’ accounts of literacy practices, we suggest, provides insights into their PCK, specifically indicators of stasis and growth, and understanding about pre-service teacher resistance or acceptance to the infusion of literacy into content area teaching.