Impact of the National Writing Project's College-Ready Writers Program in High-Need Rural Districts

By 2013, all 50 states and the District of Columbia had adopted college- and career-ready standards in English language arts and mathematics, placing a greater emphasis on argument writing to prepare students for life after high school. Solving the specific problem of how to help teachers teach to new standards for argument writing as well as the broader problem of improving teaching and learning requires continued efforts to understand how to support teachers in making substantial changes in instruction. This paper reports on a district-randomized controlled trial of the National Writing Project's College-Ready Writers Program (CRWP), implemented in high-need rural districts in 10 states, testing one instance of professional development paired with supporting curricular resources and a formative assessment tool designed to shift instruction to align with the new college- and career-ready standards in English language arts classes in Grades 7–10. Researchers randomly assigned 44 rural districts either to receive two years of CRWP or to be in a business-as-usual control group and found positive impacts on teacher practice and student source-based argument writing.     

Literature review: The role of the teacher in inquiry-based education

Inquiry-based education receives much attention in educational practice and theory, since it provides pupils and teachers with opportunities to actively engage in collaboratively answering questions. However, not only do many teachers find this approach demanding, it also remains unclear what they should do to foster this type of education in their classrooms. Our research question was: Which teaching strategies are used by K-12 teachers when promoting inquiry-based education in their classrooms and what are the reported outcomes?After searching for empirical studies on this topic, we examined 186 studies investigating different ways in which teachers can promote inquiry-based education. Analyses revealed varying teaching strategies, differing with regard to direction (teacher directed, student directed and mixed) and different perspectives of regulation (meta-cognitive, conceptual, and social regulation). Results show that important teacher strategies in metacognitive regulation are: focussing on thinking skills, developing a culture of inquiry, supporting inquiry discourse, and promoting nature of science; in conceptual regulation: providing information on the research topic and focussing on conceptual understanding; and in social regulation: bridging the gap between high and low achievers, organizing student learning in groups and focussing on collaboration processes.     

Career plans of final-year South African student teachers: migration to ‘greener pastures’?

Teacher loss due to migration is a global phenomenon that impacts both developed and developing nations the world over. The aim of this study was to find out about the career plans of final-year South African student teachers. A group of final-year Bachelor of Education student teachers from a South African university responded to a questionnaire on intra- and intercontinental migration. The responses were analysed quantitatively and/or qualitatively. The findings showed that 79% of the students indicated that they would be teaching in South Africa, 8% were planning to teach in another country, while 8% were undecided. More than a third of the students (38%) said that they would like to teach in another country in five years’ time. Just more than a quarter of the students (27%) preferred Australia as a destination country. The student teachers’ most important motive to teach in a foreign country was the opportunity to travel, followed by earning a higher salary, and professional development. The student teachers indicated that their most important migration needs before leaving South Africa were information about health care, accommodation, and banking assistance.     

教师教育新体系下省级教育学院的发展

论述了我国教师教育新体系的构建使得省级教育学院目前的办学状态已难以为继，必须进行新的抉择。转型或改制是教师教育新体系下省级教育学院实现可持续发展的必由之路。省级教育学院转型为综合性普通高校符合高等教育的未来发展趋势。     

Emotional experience, expression, and regulation of high-quality Japanese elementary school teachers

The present study investigates the emotional experience, expression, and regulation processes of high-quality Japanese elementary school teachers while they interact with children, in terms of teachers’ emotional competence. Qualitative analysis of interview data demonstrated that teachers had various emotional experiences including self-elicited negative emotions. The major expression patterns were identified as direct staging and the suppression of emotions. Teachers considered emotion expression in front of children as a skill, and their emotion regulation processes involved considering various purposes, appropriately using emotion expression, and ideal teacher images. The findings suggest that high-quality teachers effectively use emotional competence in teaching.     

教师专业化教育改革的风险及其防范

教师专业化教育改革作为一种朝向预期目标、改进实践的有意识尝试,在增进未来教师专业知识、锻炼专业技能、陶冶专业精神等方面取得成效的同时,面临的最主要风险是如何处理不同类型教育间的协调、平衡与融合,包括:通识教育与专业教育的同步优化,文理学科知识与教育专业知识的有效融合,以及专业针对性与职业普适性的兼顾并重。为规避和防范可能的风险,需要深入探索教师教育规律,树立代价意识,强化教育学术意识,建立多元参与的改革决策体系。     

高校英语教师自主能力现状调查研究

对安徽省两所普通高校119位英语教师进行问卷调查,了解高校英语教师自主能力状况,通过spss17．0对数据进行分析,结果显示：普通高校英语教师自主能力较为乐观,但还有待于提高。他们具有较强的终身学习和专业发展的需求,也具有一定的反思能力,有较强的促进学习者自主学习能力,但对环境的支配能力较弱;男女教师在专业发展和反思能力上存在显著性差异,男教师相对而言具有更强的专业发展能力和更强的反思能力,熟手教师对课堂的控制评价能力和专业发展能力均明显优于新手教师。     

Biopower,disciplinary power,and the production of the 'good Latino/a teacher'

This inquiry explores who is the ‘good teacher of color’. Through Michel Foucault's notion of biopower and disciplinary power, the analysis attempts to problematize the subject-position of ‘teacher of color’ by exploring how a Latino intern and a Latina intern negotiated their subjectivity in a large diverse school district. Participants' construction of subjectivity was found to be located within the nexus of the school district, the university, and the Latino counter-discourse through which biopower and disciplinary power operated.     

增强“90后”大学生理想信念教育实效性的思考

理想信念教育是大学生思想政治教育的核心。针对90后大学生群体,理想信念教育应该更加贴近大学生思想与生活的实际,尊重理想信念生成规律,把理想信念教育融会在关注大学生自我发展和解决大学生实际问题的过程之中;把社会理想、长远理想、崇高理想的实现融会在个人理想、近期理想和一般理想的实现之中;把理想信念教育融会在帮助大学生进行正确价值判断与选择的过程之中,真正把理想信念教育落到实处。