Showing papers on "Teacher education published in 1996"

A review of research on teacher beliefs and practices

Abstract: Summary During the past 15 years or so, teacher education research has made significant strides in studying the complex relationships between teacher beliefs and practices. This new line of research has generated important findings that are of practical implications for teacher education. This article reviews this small body of research and, in so doing, elucidates the two competing theses (i.e. ‘consistency’ vs ‘inconsistency') that are recurring in the literature on the relationships between teacher beliefs and practices. It begins with an overview of traditional research on teaching in general, followed by a discussion of teacher cognition under which teacher beliefs/theories are subsumed. After introducing the notion of ‘the Missing Paradigm’ in the mainstream teacher education research, the article examines the theoretical frameworks underlying teacher beliefs and practices research. Next it provides a synthesis of recent research on teacher beliefs and practices, addressing critical issues germane t...

Teacher Learning and the Mathematics Reforms: What We Think We Know and What We Need to Learn.

Abstract: The work of professional development is as uncertain as practice itself, Ms. Ball points out. Our challenge is to experiment, study, reflect on, and reformulate our hypotheses. All of these are necessary if we are to successfully engage a wider community - to "scale up" reform by sowing ideas. These are times of ambitious efforts to reform curriculum and instruction in mathematics. Reformers have invested time and energy in the creation of new mathematics standards and state curriculum frameworks.(1) A host of innovative curriculum projects are under development, and many states are in the midst of changing their state assessments.(2) Now there is increasing talk of "scaling up" the reform effort, of developing ways to reach more teachers.(3) As one who has been engaged in mathematics reform at several levels - as an elementary teacher, as a district-based resource teacher, as a teacher educator, as a researcher, and as a contributor to the Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics, published by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) - I suggest that we take a closer, more skeptical look at what we think we know about teacher learning and about the teaching envisioned by the reforms and that we consider what "scaling up" might mean. A central tenet of my argument is this: because the mathematics reforms challenge culturally embedded views of mathematics, of who can - or who needs to - learn math, and of what is entailed in teaching and learning it, we will find that realizing the reform visions will require profound and extensive societal and individual learning - and unlearning - not just by teachers, but also by players across the system.(4) What might such ambitious learning entail? In this article I focus on the learning of teachers. I examine four questions: 1) What do we think we currently know about how teachers learn? 2) What do we know about the thing to be learned - this new approach to the teaching of mathematics? 3) What do we know about teachers and what they bring to learning about such teaching? 4) What don't we know about teaching and teacher learning that might matter in trying to "scale up" the mathematics reform effort, and how could we go about learning more? What Do We Think We Know About Teacher Learning? Over the past decade, research and practice have yielded a mass of working ideas about teacher learning.(5) Some of these ideas have been investigated in studies of teacher learning and teacher education. Some have emerged from the practice of experienced teacher educators. Others are part of the current ideology. I use words like "ideas" and "beliefs" deliberately here. To call these tenets "knowledge" seems problematic, for they are unevenly inspected and warranted. For example, the proof of some of these ideas about teacher learning is circular. That is, professional development projects are designed with these ideas in mind; then, when the project is judged "successful" by some standard, this result is taken as validation of the ideas. Other ideas about teacher learning are not supported with evidence at all but are advanced as moral positions. They are seen as an inherent good. This does not automatically reduce their potential value, but it should shape our understanding of what they represent. I am not saying that any of the ideas we currently have are wrong. But I am urging that we be more skeptical of what we think we know. Some of the ideas in the following list are so vague as to need considerably more development, while others may be true only in certain ways or in some situations. Despite their varied genesis, a small number of ideas about teacher learning show up repeatedly - in discussions, in professional development projects, and in the literature. They concern teachers, what teachers need to know, and the conditions and arrangements that support teacher learning. * Prior beliefs and experience. What teachers bring to the process of learning to teach affects what they learn. …

Evaluating the Effect of Teacher Degree Level on Educational Performance.

Abstract: Dr. Dan D. Goldhaber is a Research Analyst with the Center for Naval Analyses in Alexandria, VA. His research focuses on a wide range of K–12 schooling issues including the productivity of private and public schools, the relative returns to educational resources, and teacher labor markets. Parts of his dissertation titled, "Public and Private High Schools: School Choice and the Consequences" have been published in Economics of Education Review, and in an upcoming article in Phi Delta Kappan. He has also worked on the issue of the effects of teacher race, gender, and ethnicity on student performance using NELS:88, published in Industrial and Labor Relations Review, and more recently with Dominic Brewer on the observable and unobservable influence of teachers on student performance, forthcoming in the Journal of Human Resources.

Teacher Learning in Language Teaching

Abstract: Part I. Research Issues in Second Language Teacher Education: 1. The Unstudied Problem: Research in learning to teach second languages Part II. Studies of Teacher Decision-Making: 2. Teacher decision-making in the adult ESL classroom 3. Starting all over again: From teaching adults to teaching beginners Part III. Narrative Studies: 4. I'm not typical: Stories of becoming a Spanish teacher 5. Learning to teach together teaching to learn together 6. The language learner's autobiography: Examining the apprenticeship of observation Part IV. Language and Discourse-Based Studies: 7. What's in a Methodology? 8. The role of collaborative dialogue in teacher education 9. Renaming experience/reconstructing practice: Developing new understandings of teaching Part V. Teacher Learning: The Preservice Experience: 10. Learning How to Teach: a case study of teachers in the RSA Cert. 11. Student foreign language teachers' knowledge growth 12. multicultural Classrooms and cultural communities of teachers Part VI. Teacher Learning: In-School Practice: 13. The vision vs. the reality: the tensions of the TESOL practicum 14. Towards reflective teaching: curriculum development and action research Part VII. Teacher Learning: Specific Teacher Education Interventions: 15. Learning how to teach ESL writing 16. When input becomes intake: tracing the sources of teachers' attitude change 17. Theorizing from practice: case studies of training ESL teachers through structural reflection.

What Matters Most: A Competent Teacher for Every Child.

Abstract: The report of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future offers a blueprint for recruiting, preparing, supporting, and rewarding excellent educators in all of America's schools, according to Ms. Darling. Hammond. For the details, read on. We propose an audacious goal . . . by the year 2006, America will provide all students with what should be their educational birthright: access to competent, caring, and qualified teachers.(1) With these words, the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future summarized its challenge to the American public. After two years of intense study and discussion, the commission - a 26-member bipartisan blue-ribbon panel supported by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York - concluded that the reform of elementary and secondary education depends first and foremost on restructuring its foundation, the teaching profession. The restructuring, the commission made clear, must go in two directions: toward increasing teachers' knowledge to meet the demands they face and toward redesigning schools to support high-quality teaching and learning. The commission found a profession that has suffered from decades of neglect. By the standards of other professions and other countries, U.S. teacher education has historically been thin, uneven, and poorly financed. Teacher recruitment is distressingly ad hoc, and teacher salaries lag significantly behind those of other professions. This produces chronic shortages of qualified teachers in fields like mathematics and science and the continual hiring of large numbers of "teachers" who are unprepared for their jobs. Furthermore, in contrast to other countries that invest most of their education dollars in well-prepared and well-supported teachers, half of the education dollars in the United States are spent on personnel and activities outside the classroom. A lack of standards for students and teachers, coupled with schools that are organized for 19th-century learning, leaves educators without an adequate foundation for constructing good teaching. Under these conditions, excellence is hard to achieve. The commission is clear about what needs to change. No more hiring unqualified teachers on the sly. No more nods and winks at teacher education programs that fail to prepare teachers properly. No more tolerance for incompetence in the classroom. Children are compelled to attend school. Every state guarantees them equal protection under the law, and most promise them a sound education. In the face of these obligations, students have a right to competent, caring teachers who work in schools organized for success. The commission is also clear about what needs to be done. Like the Flexner report that led to the transformation of the medical profession in 1910, this report, What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future, examines successful practices within and outside the United States to describe what works. The commission concludes that children can reap the benefits of current knowledge about teaching and learning only if schools and schools of education are dramatically redesigned. The report offers a blueprint for recruiting, preparing, supporting, and rewarding excellent educators in all of America's schools. The plan is aimed at ensuring that all schools have teachers with the knowledge and skills they need to enable all children to learn. If a caring, qualified teacher for every child is the most important ingredient in education reform, then it should no longer be the factor most frequently overlooked. At the same time, such teachers must have available to them schools and school systems that are well designed to achieve their key academic mission: they must be focused on clear, high standards for students; organized to provide a coherent, high-quality curriculum across the grades; and designed to support teachers' collective work and learning. We note that this challenge is accompanied by an equally great opportunity: over the next decade we will recruit and hire more than two million teachers for America's schools. …

Perspectives on learning to teach

Abstract: This paper looks at issues subsumed by the phrase "learning to teach" that have implications for the design and conduct of teacher education. The first section lays out a temporal perspective by examining the times and places of learning to teach. The second section brings together disparate strands of research on the learners of teaching, looking at who prospective teachers are, orientations to learning, experience with dive:sity, and prospective teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning, subject matter, students, and preservice and beginning teachers. The third section examinei different ways people have conceptualized the content of learning to teach, including domains of professional knowledge, the tasks of teaching, professional standards, and lessons for teacher educators". The fourth section discusses processes and opportunities in learning to teach. By presenting ideas about the when/where, who, what and how af learning to teach, the study hopes to raise teacher educators' consciousness about a neglected part of the conceptual and practical foundations of their work. (Contains 107 references.) (Author/ND) * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ************************* *

Teacher Vulnerability: understanding its moral and political roots

Abstract: Many teachers experience a seme of vulnerability in their work. Analysing primary school teachers’ professional biographies, the author reconstructed the main sources of this vulnerability: administrative or policy measures; professional relationships in the school; limits to teachers’ efficacy. Further analysis of the meaning this vulnerability has for teachers revealed its moral and political roots. Vulnerability implies the feeling that one's professional identity and moral integrity are questioned. Coping with it therefore implies political action in order to (re)gain the social recognition of one's professional self and restore the necessary workplace conditions for good job performance. Finally, autobiographical reflection and story telling are suggested as effective strategies to deal successfully with the sense of vulnerability

Skills and Other Dilemmas of a Progressive Black Educator.

Abstract: In this article the author reflects on her practice as a teacher and as a teacher of teachers. Arguing from her perspective as a product of the skills-oriented approach to writing and as a teacher of the process-oriented approach to writing, she describes the estrangement many minority teachers feel from the progressive movement. Her conclusions advocate a fusion of the two approaches and point to a need for writing-process movement leaders to develop a vocabulary which will allow educators who have differing perspectives to participate in the dialogue.

The Self-Directed Teacher: Managing the Learning Process.

Abstract: 1. A context for classroom action 2. The planning process 3. Classroom interaction 4. Classroom dynamics 5. Instructional groups 6. Managing resources 7. Affective issues in the language classroom 8. Monitoring and evaluation.

Detracking America's schools: Equity at zero cost?

Abstract: Schools across the country are ending the practice of grouping students based on ability, in part, because of research indicating that tracking hurts low-ability students without helping students of other ability levels. Using a nationally representative survey conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics, (NCES) we reexamine the impact of tracking on high school student achievement through the estimation of a standard education production function. This approach allows us to control for the possibility that track is correlated with factors such as class size and teacher education. In addition, we address the possibility that there are unobserved student or school characteristics that affect both achievement and track placement. Our results indicate that abolishing tracking in America's schools would have a large positive impact on achievement for students currently in the lower tracks, but that this increase in achievement would come at the expense of students in upper-track classes.

Reform of and as Professional Development

Abstract: Reform-minded professional development imposes the heavy burdens of coping with the uncertainties of change. The good news, according to Mr. Sykes, is that educators are beginning to turn their creativity toward teacher learning and to develop promising new practices. Two judgments frame the contemporary concern for the professional development of teachers. The first reckons that teacher learning must be the heart of any effort to improve education in our society. While other reforms may be needed, better learning for more children ultimately relies on teachers. What lends urgency to professional development is its connection to reform and to the ambitious new goals for education that are to be extended to all students. Can professional development lead education reform? The second judgment regards conventional professional development as sorely inadequate. The phrase "one-shot workshop" has entered educational parlance as shorthand for superficial, faddish inservice education that supports a mini-industry of consultants without having much effect on what goes on in schools and classrooms. The resources devoted to professional development, this judgment charges, are too meager and their deployment too ineffective to matter. These twin observations form the most serious unsolved problem for policy and practice in American education today. Reformers have launched efforts to set goals and standards of various kinds, to create school reform networks, to decentralize governance and management, to restructure schools, to charter new schools, and so on. But efforts to promote teacher learning that will lead to improved practice on a wide scale have yet to emerge. The process of reform itself needs reforming to achieve better ongoing teacher learning.(1) In addition to teachers, such "reform of reform" must involve many actors in the system. Teachers are frequently the targets of reform, but they exert relatively little control over professional development. The system of professional development is deeply institutionalized in patterns of organization, management, and resource allocation within schools and school districts, as well as between districts and a range of providers that includes freelance consultants, intermediate and state agencies, professional associations, and universities. Moreover, the system is increasingly structured by means of federal, state, and district policies. This system is powerful, resistant to change, and well adapted to the ecology of schooling. The system supplies jobs for many educators and operates as a series of exchanges through which incentives and rewards are distributed. Hence, many interests are at stake in any proposals for the reform of professional development. At the same time, in the interstices and around the margins of the system, alternative practices flourish that may hold promise for reform-oriented teacher learning. This Kappan special section explores such practices, concentrating on underlying assumptions, descriptions, and emerging problems. The articles strike a balance between advocacy for new approaches and honesty about the difficulties. The authors seem mindful of history's lesson not to oversell reform lest the results disappoint. Yet they do propose new visions of professional development that recast teacher learning in ways that parallel the teaching reforms themselves. The tenor of the writing is at once refreshing and sobering. I am reminded of the tensions within my own teaching. As I write this introduction, I am also reading student journals for a course I teach. My students are in the fifth year of a five-year teacher education program. They serve as teaching interns in local schools while they take several graduate courses. The course I teach concentrates on professional roles and responsibilities and introduces these novice teachers to aspects of their work other than direct instruction. Their journals are poignant. …

Examining Values and Beliefs About Teaching Diverse Students: Understanding the Challenges for Teacher Education

Abstract: This paper presents empirical evidence regarding the capacity of teacher education programs to influence the values and beliefs of those who enroll in them and offers insight into the conditions th...

Currents of Reform in Preservice Teacher Education

Abstract: Provides a comprehensive and critical analysis of the efforts to improve the education of preservice teachers, demonstrating an awareness of the limitations of contemporary teacher education reform proposals. The debate is placed in an historical, theoretical and political context.

Voices from the Language Classroom: Qualitative Research in Second Language Education

Abstract: Part I. Teaching as Doing, Thinking and Interpreting: 1. The best laid plans: teacher's in-class decisions to depart from their lesson plans 2. Hidden voices: insiders' perspectives on classroom interaction 3. Teaching style: a way to understand instruction in language classrooms Part II. Classroom Dynamics and Interaction: 4. In or out of the action zone: location as a feature of interaction in large ESL classes in Pakistan 5. Reticence and anxiety in second language learning 6. A window on the classroom: classroom events viewed from different angles Part III. The Classroom and Beyond: 7. Socializing with the teachers and prior language learning experience: a diary study 8. Sardo revisited: voice, faith, and multiple repeaters 9. Language learning diaries as mirrors of students' cultural sensitivity 10. I Want to Talk With Them, But I Don't Want Them to Hear Part IV. Curricular Issues: 11. Curriculum renewal: an investigation into changes in learner and teacher behaviors in classrooms in the sultanate of Oman 12. U.S. language minority students: voices from the junior high classroom 13. Voices for improved learning: the ethnographer as co-agent of pedagogic change 14. Registration and placement: learner response Part V. Sociopolitical Perspectives: 15. Conflicting voices: language, classrooms, and bilingual education in Puno 16. The functions of code-switching amongst high school teachers and students in KwaZulu and implications for teacher education 17. Different languages, different practices: socialization of discourse competence in dual-language school classrooms in Hungary Part VI. Implications for Teachers and Researchers: 18. Redefining the relationship between research and what teachers know 19. The tapestry of diversity in our classrooms.

Effective teaching and learning : teachers' and students' perspectives

Abstract: Gaining access to teachers' and pupils' perspectives on teaching and learning the National Curriculum context teachers' craft knowledge pupils' craft knowledge and how it interacts with that of teachers teachers, pupils and subjects individual differences among pupils conclusions - the crafts of the classroom implications for policy on curriculum development and teacher education.

Teaching English as a Foreign or Second Language: A Teacher Self-development and Methodology Guide

Abstract: "Teaching English as a Foreign or Second Language, Second Edition", is designed for those new to ESL/EFL teaching and for self-motivated teachers who seek to maximize their potential and enhance the learning of their students. This guide provides basic information that ESL/EFL teachers should know before they start teaching and many ideas on how to guide students in the skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. It stresses the multifaceted nature of teaching the English language to non-native speakers and is based on the real experiences of teachers. The second edition of "Teaching English as a Foreign or Second Language" includes a wider range of examples to coincide with a variety of teaching contexts - from K - 12 schools, to university intensive language programs and refugee programs. It is also updated with discussions of technology throughout, and it considers ways in which technology can be used in teaching language skills. Sources for further study are included in each chapter and in the appendixes.

Teachers' Maxims in Language Teaching

Abstract: In recent years, there has been a growing interest in general research on teaching as well as research on L2 teachers, in the mental images, thoughts, and processes teachers employ while they teach. These mental processes are believed to provide interpretative frames which teachers use to understand and approach their own teaching. This article focuses on the nature and role of teaching principles. Observations of teachers and conversations with them about how they conduct their lessons suggest that teachers develop personal principles which inform their approach to teaching. These principles function like rules for best behaviour, or maxims, and guide many of the teachers' instructional decisions. The nature of teachers' maxims is discussed through analysis of teachers' accounts of their teaching and lesson protocols. Teachers' maxims appear to reflect cultural factors, belief systems, experience, and training, and the understanding of which maxims teachers give priority to and how they influence teachers' practices is an important goal in teacher development. Implications for teacher education are discussed. The final source of the knowledge base [of teaching] is the least codified of all. It is the wisdom of practice itself, the maxims that guide (or provide reflective rationalization for) the practice of able teachers. (Shulman, 1987, p. 11)

Relationship between Teacher Beliefs and Science Education Reform.

Abstract: (1996). Relationship between teacher beliefs and science education reform. Journal of Science Teacher Education: Vol. 7, No. 4, pp. 247-266.

Practice into Theory into Practice: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy for Students We Have Marginalized and Normalized.

Abstract: This study is a synthesis of ethnographies conducted in both North American and Australian cross-cultural and interethnic classrooms. It establishes nine assertions about culturally relevant teaching in such settings. It argues that both the understandings and classroom practices included in these assertions provide teachers with potential starting points, informed by current best practice, for praxis-reflecting upon their own practices within a framework of participatory democracy for all. For more than 30 years, ethnographers have been investigating teaching in cross-cultural and multiethnic settings. In so doing, they have accumulated a wealth of knowledge about what teachers do-teachers' practice. As a result, we know much about what works and what does not work with Native American, Australian Aboriginal, Hispanic, Latino, Hawaiian, Asian American, African American, Mexican American, and Torres Strait Islander students. An ethnology, or synthesis, of these studies was made. It consists of nine assertions about culturally relevant pedagogy and so provides two outcomes useful for practitioners working in cross-cultural or multiethnic classrooms. One outcome is a theoretical perspective on how we need to think about teaching in such settings. I contend that we need to rethink what we are doing as teachers of these students who are an increasing percentage of the school populations we teach. This rethinking will not dramatically change the way we teach, but it will give us a clear framework for beginning to understand the various groups of students we teach and, thus, for teaching them better. This framework avoids victim blaming, although it fully encompasses the social context of both schooling and family life, and informs classroom processes designed to maximize learning for all our nations' children-not just those from the groups that traditionally have succeeded in our schools. The other outcome is a series of informed and tentative starting points for the classroom processes of teachers who want to reflect on issues of social justice, particularly as it relates to ethnicity and culture (which, of course, overlap both class and gender). I claim that the starting points are informed because they derive from a variety of research projects Anthropology & Education Quarterly 27(3):285-314. Copyright ? 1996, American

An Empirical Test of Conclusions from Effective Schools Research.

Abstract: Effective schools variables identified in several literature reviews were collapsed into 6 constructs, and the independent effect of each construct was empirically tested on student achievement level. The data for this analysis were taken from the National Educational Longitudinal Study for the years 1988, 1990, and 1992. The regression analysis of the data indicates that the most important effective schools characteristics are an achievement-oriented school culture, principal autonomy in hiring and firing teachers, and high teacher morale. No evidence was found that teacher empowerment, teacher education level, most principal influences, and quality of relations between the administration and the school are related to student performance.

Student Teacher Understanding of the Greenhouse Effect, Ozone Layer Depletion and Acid Rain

Abstract: SUMMARY This paper provides an overview and discussion of a study of student teachers’ knowledge and understanding of the greenhouse effect, ozone layer depletion and acid rain. It describes the results of a small scale survey designed to ascertain details of student knowledge and misconceptions about these environmental issues. The study reveals familiarity with the term ‘greenhouse effect’, but little understanding of the concepts involved. One common misconception is that the greenhouse effect is the result of ozone layer depletion. In contrast, there is a clear understanding that the ozone layer protects the Earth from harmful radiation and that it is currently being destroyed by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Burning coal is linked to the formation of acid rain, but there is little appreciation of why trees in Scandinavia are being destroyed by this process. Recommendations for lecturers and student teachers are made from the findings.

Student Teachers' Subject Matter Knowledge within the Domain of Area Measurement.

Abstract: This paper describes a research project whose major aim was to evaluate first-year teacher education students' understanding of subject matter knowledge in the domain of area measurement. In contrast to many previous approaches to evaluating teacher education students' subject matter knowledge, the approach adopted in this study not only focused on the student teachers' substantive knowledge but also on their knowledge about the nature and discourse of mathematics, their knowledge about mathematics in society and their dispositions towards mathematics. To this end, each student was clinically interviewed whilst engaged on a set of eight tasks that were developed for the study. The development of the tasks was a major component of the study and this is described in detail. The results of the tasks are given and the paper concludes with a discussion of the findings. This discussion focuses primarily on the implications that these results have for preservice mathematics education courses.