A teacher competence development programme for supporting students’ reflection skills

The Teachers of Promise study has followed the work histories of 57 primary and secondary teachers who had been identified at the beginning of their third year of teaching as having the potential to make a significant contribution to the profession. Using data from surveys and interviews, this paper reports on what sustained or inhibited their initial commitment to and enthusiasm for ‘making a difference’, six years later, both in the classroom and in broader school leadership roles. Satisfaction with their day-to-day experiences in their schools was a particularly strong driver of teachers’ career decisions over time. Thirty-four teachers responded to survey items that were used to identify three different groups of teachers: a group of 10 primary school teachers with the highest levels of job satisfaction who were ‘fulfilling their promise’; a group of 21 primary and secondary teachers who were ‘persevering and coping’; and three teachers who were ‘detached and disengaged’. The group with the highest levels of job satisfaction taught in primary schools where they felt respected and valued, and supported to develop their teaching and leadership expertise. School leadership practices and school cultures in the other two groups diminished teachers’ overall job satisfaction and contribution to collective knowledge building in their schools. Almost all of the teachers had retained their commitment to students, to their current schools and to teaching as a career, including those with lower levels of satisfaction. Although these teachers reported ‘collegial’ relationships with their peers, individualistic school cultures, most often in secondary schools, impacted on their opportunities to learn with and from their colleagues. Few secondary school teachers felt appreciated, and included in school decision-making or had found it possible to combine high standards of classroom teaching with management responsibilities. The study indicates that while most promising teachers were still satisfied with teaching after nine years, relatively few were in schools where they were able to make the impact that had been predicted for them early in their careers.     

Teachers' Questions and Responses during Teacher-Student Feedback Dialogues

In vocational education, students have to develop competences for reflection to self-regulate their development during their career. Students' reflection can be supported by teachers interacting with students and giving them prompts. In this study, 46 videotaped feedback dialogues of 23 teachers and their individual students were analysed. A total of 16 teachers participated in a training programme and 7 teachers formed a control group. The study aimed to investigate teachers' questions and responses and students' reactions, and the effects of the training programme. Analysis showed that, in the post-test, the trained group used a broader repertoire than the control group. The trained group, on average, used more hybrid prompts, deep reasoning questions, and prompt responses, which potentially stimulate students to elaborate and reflect.     

Predicting the choice of physics in secondary education

Against a background of disappointing percentages of students choosing exact and technical studies and the academic choice research tradition, a study into the choice of physics in secondary education has been carried out. It focuses on the predictive value of certain characteristics of the curriculum, the differences between schools and the stability of the choice variable. Two cohorts of students in a representative sample of schools filled in written questionnaires, four times in two years. The data were analysed in several ways that complemented each other, including multilevel analysis. The main predictor of the choice of physics in secondary education is perceived future relevance and no significant differences between schools exist. The choice variable is not stable. Many students feel uncertain about their choice of study and profession. Academic choice processes should be more connected with career choice processes. Certain characteristics of the physics curriculum can be expected to further the possibilities for students to experience physics and physics-like contents and problems as being personally meaningful and interesting.     

Feedback providing improvement strategies and reflection on feedback use: Effects on students’ writing motivation, process, and performance

This study investigated the effects of feedback providing improvement strategies and a reflection assignment on students’ writing motivation, process, and performance. Students in the experimental feedback condition (n = 41) received feedback including improvement strategies, whereas students in the control feedback condition (n = 41) received feedback without improvement strategies. Within each feedback condition, half of the students received a reflection assignment on feedback use and the revision (experimental reflection condition), while the other half received a reflection assignment on feedback perception (control reflection condition). Results indicated that in the experimental feedback condition writing performance gained from the control reflection assignment, while in the control feedback condition it gained from the experimental reflection assignment. Improvement strategies negatively predicted self-efficacy beliefs, especially when initial self-efficacy beliefs were low, and positively predicted planning/revising. Reflections on feedback use and the revision positively predicted mastery goal when mastery goal initially was low or moderate.     

Developing and validating a design for teacher portfolio assessment

Developing and using a design for teacher portfolio assessment is a complex process including several components: the domain to be assessed (the teacher competences), the content standards or criteria, the portfolio format, the completion of the format (by teachers) with content, and the scoring of the portfolios (by raters). For a portfolio assessment to be valid, these components should be systematically linked. Using a chain model of the assessment process two links were verified: the link between content standards and portfolio format, and the link between content standards and raters’ scoring. Eight experts evaluated an initial portfolio assessment design. They greatly supported the design, including the link between standards and format. Subsequently, using the format 18 teachers developed a portfolio. Six raters scored these portfolios according to eight content standards. Their scoring was substantially based on the content standards. Implications of the results and suggestions for research are discussed.     

Teacher beliefs and teacher behaviour in portfolio assessment

This study concerns the relation between teachers’ beliefs towards teaching behaviour and their actual teaching behaviour in teacher portfolio assessment. We analysed the beliefs and behaviour of 18 teachers as described in their portfolios. In addition, each portfolio was independently assessed by two trained raters on eight content standards and the teachers’ classroom behaviour was assessed by their own students in a questionnaire (n=317). Linear multilevel analysis showed that part of the raters’ assessments of the teachers’ beliefs and their behaviour as described in their portfolios was significantly related to the students’ assessments of their teachers’ behaviour. Teachers with high raters’ assessments on the content standard about ‘choosing and arguing for teaching strategies that meet students’ knowledge, abilities and experience’ had significantly higher student assessments than teachers who were judged low on this standard. Implications of the results and suggestions for further research are discussed.     

Interactive Instruction to Prevent Attention Problems in Class

This article reports the development and implementation of a strategy designed to bring persistent attention problems in class (off-task behaviour) under the control of teachers and students. The strategy enables the teacher to recognise the demotivating meaning that a task situation can have for a student. By pinpointing this situation in short dialogues with the student, the teacher encourages the student to make his or her own task proposal with the intention of turning the task into a feasible challenge. The strategy was designed from a cognitive-motivational interpretation of attention problems, and it is given shape in four programs for elementary schools. The theoretical frame of reference, the characteristics of the strategy, and the implementation of the programs are set out. Furthermore, an evaluation study is reported. The results indicate that teachers using the strategy can deal more effectively with students who have task behaviour problems. The students' on-task behaviour in this study increased in units of time from 60–70%. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

From student to teacher: reducing practice shock and early dropout in the teaching profession

SUMMARY Shortage of teachers is one of the major challenges facing the teaching profession. One of its causes is the high proportion of dropout in initial teacher education and during the start of the career. Since 1995, a nation-wide project has been underway in the Netherlands, aiming at a decrease of dropout by incorporating an intensive practice period in the final year of the initial teacher training programme. An evaluation of the project shows that the practice shock and the resulting dropout rate were indeed reduced. Relevant factors seem to be the degree to which student teachers were accepted and deployed in the school, the supervision and mentoring provided, encouragement of reflection, and the gradual increase of independence.