Teacher professional development

This current research investigated the relationships among teacher effectiveness, self-efficacy and
academic achievement of English education study program students in three universities in Palembang with 110
teacher samples and 329 student samples. Three questionnaires were used to measure three independent
variables and cumulative GPA was used to measure dependent variable. The hypotheses were tested by using
Pearson Product Moment, Multiple Linear Regression, Independent Sample T-Test and Anova One Way. The
result revealed that teacher effectiveness as perceived by the teachers themselves added to teacher effectiveness
and self-efficacy as perceived by their students related significantly towards students’ academic achievement (R
= 0.694) with the contribution of 48.2%. The results also revealed that there was a significant difference in terms
of teacher effectiveness as perceived by the teachers themselves and as perceived by their students; there was no
significant difference in terms of gender and study duration towards students’ self-efficacy; and there was no
significant difference in terms of gender but there was a significant difference in terms of study duration of the
students towards students’ academic achievement. Therefore, it is suggested that future studies investigate the
relationships of other factors which may contribute to students’ academic achievement.
Keywords: teacher effectiveness, self-efficacy, academic achievement

Efforts to improve the quality of South Africa’s teachers and their teaching have been underway for several years. Initiatives in the form of a new curriculum, the upgrading of qualifications, the development of subject competence and support for continuing professional development have had some success, but much more remains to be done. This paper suggests that years, perhaps decades, of concerted and sustained effort will be required to confront the numerous challenges facing teacher education and development. There is a need for better systemic coordination, more effective funding, improved recruitment and retention and enhanced training and support. Importantly, though, South Africa is not unique in being faced with these challenges, and much of what needs to be done is already being done; it just needs to be done much more, and much better.

As was the case with many newly independent African nations, Somalia was beset by a language problem whose complexity had begun well before independence and the unification of British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland in 1960. With three languages (English, Arabic, and Italian) used as media of communication in government offices and in schools, various Somali administrations struggled to contain the impasse but found no tangible solution. Barely three years after Mohamed Siad Barre seized power in October 1969, he had his military regime introduce the Somali orthography in the Latin alphabet. Based on this milestone, Siad Barre's military rule is highly commended for taking a remarkable step forward in what came to be known as the Somalization project. However, officials of the government and Somali scholarship failed to

Apart from John Dewey, no American educational reformer has been as internationally successful and influential as Helen Parkhurst, the founder of Dalton education. In the twenties and thirties of the twentieth century, Dalton education was spread throughout the world. There was Dalton education in America, England, Germany, the Netherlands, the Soviet Union, India, China and Japan. Particularly in the Netherlands and Japan, Dalton education has remained in existence. In recent years there has been a revival of international interest. It crops up again, for instance, in England, Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Poland and China.

The Netherlands is the country with the highest density of Dalton schools. At the moment there are four hundred, three hundred and seventy of which are elementary schools. Comprising five percent of all elementary schools, Dalton education is by far the largest educational reform movement in the Netherlands. And, contrary to Montessori, Jena Plan and Waldorf education, it is steadily on the increase: approximately one hundred schools have been founded in the past five years. The only Dalton school in America, is the school that Helen Parkhurst founded herself in 1919, and which she was subsequently to direct for more than twenty years: the Dalton School in New York. It is a renowned school. But its fame is not due to its origins as an experiment in progressive education. The Dalton School is the second most expensive private school in New York.

We begin with an account of the original practice and theory of the Dalton Plan. The first chapter is mostly historical: a concise reconstruction of the history of the development of the Dalton Plan. The second chapter characterizes the theory of the Dalton Plan based upon our interpretation of texts written by Parkhurst.

English language learning and teaching, as any educational process, is penetrated by several
dynamic concepts which are in a state of constant flux, dialogue, tension, and
complementarity. One of such concepts is that of authenticity, the main theme of the 42nd
FAAPI Conference and the contributions included here.
It is not within the scope of this introduction to provide a definition of authenticity
because, even though definitions are necessary, it would be reductive to do so. Instead, we
attempt here to indicate some roads which the concept invites us to explore in relation to our
professional practices inscribed in larger situated contexts.

For teacher professional development, you do not have to rely on experts to tell you what does and does not work or to explain to you what research says about something.  Action research enables you to become your own expert.  This article describes how action research can be used to develop each of the four types of knowledge necessary for teacher expertise: pedagogical knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, content knowledge, and knowledge of learners and learning.

What might braiding social justice orientations to teaching, learning, and educational change with collaborative inquiry-based professional development afford teachers, their students, and our communities? This article unpacks two professional development initiatives to articulate how inquiry co-constructed by and with teachers can take up diversity as generative. The Aboriginal Early Literacy and Curriculum for All projects involved iterative and critical examinations of practice and opportunities for educators to collaboratively consider and create practices that address contextual and social factors. Educators worked together to situate emerging knowledge and beliefs while also challenging the sources and consequences of assumptions.

Action research is a type of research related to one’s professional practice.  In the field of education, it can be defined as the process of studying a school, classroom, or teaching-learning situation with the purpose of understanding and improving the quality of actions or instruction.  In this sense, it is the ultimate form of teacher reflection.  Described in this chapter expert are the basic elements and the steps of action research.

This paper argues that, in order to take place, space and scale more seriously in the study of our discipline, we have to complement the pervasive understanding of geography as a tradition of thought or an extended conversation with an understanding of our discipline as a tradition of practice, in which the main focus is on the becoming of geographers. It is argued that the theme of 'what it takes to be a good geographer' is a fertile way to study this process of becoming. The four main advantages of this approach are illustrated empirically in the body of the argument by the author's reflections on his socializing within two very different geographical traditions.

In this contribution we firstly refer to the actions that have been taken in the Argentinean state higher education system to foster the development of academic literacy, and that have paved the way for the consolidation of a field of action and thought that has gradually situated academic reading and writing at the center of the learning process in academic contexts. Secondly, we present an interview with Charles Bazerman that was carried out during his visit to the Universidad Nacional de Entre Ríos in 2014. Dr. Bazerman refers to the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) movement as a powerful approach that addresses writing development from all the disciplines, to the role of genre and to how technology is changing the way we teach writing.

En este trabajo nos referimos a las acciones que se han llevado a cabo en el sistema universitario público argentino para promover el desarrollo de la alfabetización académica y que han contribuido a la consolidación de un campo de acción que ha situado gradualmente a la lectura y la escritura en el centro del proceso de aprendizaje. Seguidamente, presentamos una entrevista con Charles Bazerman realizada durante su visita a la Universidad Nacional de Entre Ríos en 2014. El Dr. Bazerman se refiere al movimiento Escritura a través del currículum como un enfoque potente que impulsa el desarrollo de la escritura desde todas las disciplinas, al rol del concepto de género y a la manera en que la tecnología está cambiando la forma en que enseñamos a escribir.

Background/Context: This study examines education in the context of neoliberalism and how current educational policies such as high-stakes testing and mandated curriculum create schooling environments hostile to social justice education. Relying on education for liberation literature, teacher education for social justice scholarship, and work on critical pedagogy, this study explores how new teachers who teach from a social justice perspective navigate the challenges of their first year in teaching. This study asks, What strategies do new teachers use to stay true to their vision of teaching for social justice despite the challenges they face in their school environments?  The participants were all members of a social justice critical inquiry project (CIP) group that met at the university from which they graduated.  The teachers developed four strategies for teaching for social justice. First, by participating in a critical inquiry project, the teachers supported each other by building a safe haven that protected their vision. Second, the participants camouflaged their critical pedagogy by integrating it with the mandated curriculum, which allowed them to teach from a social justice perspective without rousing the concerns of their administration. The third strategy was to develop their students as agents of change. Finally, in a few instances, the teachers went public with their work by rejecting or speaking against policies that they felt were not in the best interests of their students. Conclusions/Recommendations: Although these four strategies allowed participants to successfully create critical classrooms, they did not impact the larger neoliberal forces that maintain unjust schooling experiences. This has implications for teacher education, and the author suggests recommendations for schools of education.

This paper details a model of teacher professional growth and relates the model to the research data on which the model is empirically founded. A key feature of the model is its inclusion of four analytic domains in close correspondence to those employed by Guskey (Educational Researcher 15(5), 1986) and others, but the model proposed in this paper identifies the specific mechanisms by which change in one domain is associated with change in another. The interconnected, non-linear structure of the model enabled the identification of particular ''change sequences'' and ''growth networks'', giving recognition to the idiosyncratic and individual nature of teacher professional growth. One major value of a change model grounded in empirical data lies in its capacity to stimulate speculation, research and development regarding possible change mechanisms as yet unexplored and unexploited. In its current form, this model offers a powerful framework to support the analyses of those studying teacher change (or growth) and the planning of those responsible for teacher professional development. r

Despite the large body of research that supports the use of synthetic phonics for the teaching of reading in English for beginners, "English for Me" syllabus designed for grade one students in Oman still delivers reading instruction through whole word reading.  This quasi-experimental study investigated the effectiveness of integrating synthetic phonics instruction on developing early reading skills (namely phonics identification, phonemic awareness and word reading skills). The study also compared students' performance in early reading skills with the minimum required level set by the Ministry of Education in Oman.  Two intact classes comprising  fifty grade- one- Omani students from Yanabi- Al-Hikma School in Batineh South Governorate participated in the study. One class, the experimental class, was taught using a commercially available synthetic program  called Jolly-Phonics while the control class was taught using the traditional method of whole word reading . The Jolly-Phonics program delivers instruction through the direct application of systematic, multisensory, synthetic phonics . Both groups were pretested on measures of phonics identification, phonemic awareness and word reading prior to the 9-week intervention using either the experimental or control method. Then students were post-tested on all measures immediately after intervention. Data analyses using t-test results support that direct instruction using synthetic phonics techniques significantly increased phonics identification, phonemic awareness and word reading skills of readers. Recommendations are made to introduce synthetic phonics for grade one students in government schools in Oman.

B. Haßler, L. Major, P. Warwick, S. Watson, S. Hennessy, B. Nicholl  (2016). Perspectives on Technology, Resources and Learning: Productive Classroom Practices, Effective Teacher
Professional Development. Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. April 2016. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Available from http://tiny.cc/perspectives.

This paper presents a case study of assessment practices in one PG unit of study being taught by the author in the last 2 year. Based on an understanding of assessment in terms of constructive alignment (Biggs, 1996) and consequential validity (Boud, 1995; Linn, Baker, & Dunbar, 1991; Messik, 1989), this paper evaluates the current assessment protocols in this unit. Biggs (1996) argues that learning is best achieved if there is a constructive alignment between the learning goals, teaching approaches, and assessment techniques. Each of these should relate to the other. It is when these three elements are finely calibrated that learning is at its peak. In this paper, I evaluate the degree of constructive alignment in the unit of study under focus. Assessment documents are studied in relation to the theoretical insights gained from the literature and related to the course aims and objectives. In addition, students’ evaluation of these assessment protocols are examined and these are compared to the unit coordinator’s goals and understanding. The results help outline future directions in assessment practice for this unit.

It is naïve to think that a finished teaching product can be created in four semesters of any teacher preparation program.  These programs instead provide the knowledge and skills for pre-service teachers to begin their journey toward being and becoming skillful professionals and eventually, expert teachers.  Toward this end, there are two necessary elements: developing knowledge and engaging in reflective analyses.  This expert describes each element.

Since the 1990s, in Argentina there has been considerable concern over whether higher education institutions must undertake the responsibility of teaching academic skills to their student population or if both undergraduates and graduates ought to cope with the enculturation process without assistance. Although academics seem to have reached an agreement and have put forward a number of actions aimed at facilitating the access of university students into their target discourse communities, there is still heated debate about how the issue must be approached. In this article we describe the initiatives carried out at two engineering colleges: the Facultad de Ciencias de la Alimentación and the Facultad de Ingeniería belonging to the Universidad Nacional de Entre Ríos that have paved the way for the inclusion of academic literacy development in the curriculum.

The survey presented in this article examines current teachers’ beliefs and attitudes towards information and communication technologies (ICT) in education. A total of 1165 primary and secondary education teachers participated in the study, immediately after following a training programme on basic ICT skills. The authors’ results showed that the majority of the teachers in the sample have positive attitudes towards the training programme they attended, the general role that ICT can play in education and the integration of ICT in the educational process. The authors’ findings also revealed some parameters that interfere negatively, thus making many teachers cautious of or sceptical about ICT integration in educational practice. Multivariate analysis identified three groups of teachers that exhibited a consistent approach: a group of teachers having positive attitudes towards the items of the research, a second group with negative attitudes and a third one with neutral beliefs about ICT in education. Moreover, the authors’ analysis extracted significant information on the profile of the teachers within each of the three groups. They found that personal factors (subject matter, teaching experience and gender) are strongly associated with the beliefs and perceptions teachers hold about ICT in education.

This article focuses on a variety of instructional models all of which can be said to be teacher-centered instruction.  Described are Direction Instruction, the Elements of Effective Skills Instruction, Expository Teaching, and Mastery Learning.

The purpose of this article is to provide a review of empirical studies investigating the impact of professional learning communities (PLCs) on science teachers' practices and knowledge. Across 14 articles that satisfied the definition we embraced, most were devoted to the change in science teaching practices, disciplinary content knowledge (DCK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of K-12 science teachers. Although a small number of studies have implicit focus on comparing measures of student learning, we set out to examine the studies in science education and present how teachers engaged in PLCs focusing on examining and exploring strategies to promote student learning. Analysis of the related studies resulted in the following: PLCs can help teachers increase their PCK and DCK; increases in PCK and DCK may facilitate the change in teacher practices from traditional into more inquiry-based approaches; science teachers collaboratively focusing on student learning in PLCs are more likely to change their practice; and studies do not embrace student learning as an essential feature of PLCs. Methodological flaws and future directions along with implications for science teachers' professional development are discussed.

With disproportionately high attrition rates for teachers of Color, there are many lessons to be learned from veteran teachers leaders that can inform how we train teachers.  In this article, I share my analysis of interviews with 11 women of Color veteran teachers who serve in formal or informal leadership roles within social justice education.  Their reflections reveal how teacher education programs—justice-oriented or not—fell short in preparing them for the hostile racial climate of schools, thus putting them at increased risk of being pushed out of teaching.  This article also points to collectivized spaces of racial literacy development—called critical professional development (CPD)—that have helped to sustain them in the field.  These teachers’ narratives offer significant insights for teacher education to better prepare teachers of Color for long, effective, and transformative careers.

This study aimed to analyse the usefulness of educational computer games in teachers’ professional development. The study used the game Atlantis Remixed, which is intended to be a technologically rich and individualized learning environment. The study used formative research to demonstrate what works and what does not work for the use of educational computer games in teachers’ professional development, and improvements to be made for this purpose in learning environments in Turkey, where schools are equipped with technologically rich learning and teaching environments as part of the FATIH (the Movement to Increase Opportunities and Technology) project. The study included ten participants. Of these, five were teachers who participated in the implementation, and five were instructional technology experts. The study found both positive and negative results with respect to the use of Atlantis Remixed for teachers’ professional development and articulates the participants’ opinions and suggestions.

Preface

Earth science is an inherently local subject. No two places share exactly the same sequence of events that led to the way they are today. In this sense, Earth science is a subject to be explored in one’s own neighborhood, examining the detailed sequence of rocks for the history that has gone on under our feet. What is not possible from only one location is making sense of why this particular sequence of events took place when and where it did, particularly relative to sequences in other places around it.

The distribution of rocks and landforms can be explained by processes that shape areas covering thousands of kilometers, such as the volcanism, mountain building, and sedimentary basins that accompany converging plates. These processes link widely separated sequences in a common history.

Earth science educators at the Paleontological Research Institution, in working with teachers, have noted that no single source for educators exists that attempts to make sense of the disparate local features of the Midwestern United States in terms of a basic sequence of historical events and processes. Nationally distributed textbooks make few references specifically to the Midwest region. While a number of reasonably good resources exist for individual states, these do not take enough geographic scope into account to show how, say, the coals of Illinois are related to the Late Ordovician marine sedimentary rocks of southwestern Ohio, or why fossil fuels are found in some states and iron mining occurs in other nearby states. Further, these resources are not necessarily “teacher-friendly,” or written with an eye toward the kind of information and graphics that a secondary school teacher might need in their classroom. This Teacher-Friendly Guide is intended to fill this need for teachers. The volume is part of a national series of seven Teacher-Friendly Guides to regional Earth science, covering all 50 states.

Explaining why (for example, certain kinds of rocks and their mineral resources are found where they are) is the most effective way of providing students with a tool to remember and predict the nature of local Earth science. The Midwest (though, like states, an artificial political area), is of the right scale to discuss the evolution of significant portions of sedimentary basins, but also includes ancient igneous and metamorphic rocks. This means most Earth processes are illustrated by rocks present within a day’s drive, and that Earth phenomena can be illustrated with examples in areas students and teachers are likely to have been to or at least heard of. Since the rocks and landforms are relatively accessible, regional Earth science is an excellent subject for hands-on, inquiry-based teaching using, for example, real rocks and landforms. A transect across the Midwest in several places will reveal most major rock types that students should know and will come into contact with over the course of their lifetimes.

The chapters chosen are by no means an exhaustive list, but reflect especially the historical side of “solid Earth” geosciences. Each chapter starts with a brief review, then (in most chapters) describes the Earth science of three natural regions with the Midwest. There is a resource list at the end of each chapter. There is a chapter on fieldwork, not only on suggestions for how to do it, but how to integrate the field into your curriculum through “virtual fieldwork experiences.” There are chapters on Big Ideas in Earth system science—a few major conceptual ideas that run throughout the subject—and on using real-world regional Earth science in the context of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

We would hope for our students that, years from now, they will be able to make sense of the place they live and the places they visit, through a comprehension of a few Big Ideas and a basic grasp of the “big picture” story of geological history of their area. It is our hope that this book might help teachers, and their students, grasp such a coherent understanding of their regional and local Earth system science.

For teacher professional development, you do not have to rely on experts to tell you what does and does not work or to explain to you what research says about something.  Action research enables you to become your own expert.  This article describes how action research can be used to develop each of the four types of knowledge necessary for teacher expertise: pedagogical knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, content knowledge, and knowledge of learners and learning.

In a period of radical educational reform, improving understanding of teachers' professional learning is important for those who seek to make changes in classroom practice. Research-based enquiry is seen as the foundation of re#ective practice, enabling teachers to generate pedagogical knowledge. However, teachers' professional learning is inadequately theorized, and there is a lack of clarity about the type of theoretical framework to guide their development. This article gives insights into how teachers change their theories and practice. The data are drawn from a research study carried out in England which examined nine early childhood teachers' theories of play and their relationship to practice. As an unintended outcome of their close involvement in the data collection and analysis, all of the teachers changed their theories, or practice, or both. The contexts which stimulated these changes and the learning processes which the teachers experienced are described and analyzed. On the basis of these data, a three-stage model of change is proposed and explicated, based on Fenstermacher's theory of professional learning. The conclusions indicate a need for a theoretical underpinning for teachers' professional development which might also inform the design of teacher education courses.

A strong base of research is needed to guide investments in teacher professional development (PD). This article considers the status of research on PD and articulates a particular direction for future work. Little is known about whether PD can have a positive impact on achievement when a program is delivered across a range of typical settings and when its delivery depends on multiple trainers. Despite a consensus in the literature on the features of effective PD, there is limited evidence on the specific features that make a difference for achievement. This article explains the benefits offered by experiments in addressing current research needs and-for those conducting and interpreting such studies-discusses the unique methodological issues encountered when experimental methods are applied to the study of PD.

‘Gifted and talented’ has become the official way of referring to high-achieving, able school pupils. The author questions the validity and appropriateness of this label and calls for a more sophisticated and inclusive framework.

Author profile: http://www.wlv.ac.uk/default.aspx?page=13209

"Trainee teachers following the three-year undergraduate BEd course at the University of Wolverhampton undertake a final-year research study. This project requires each individual to investigate an aspect of teaching and learning within an early years or primary school setting.

Reflections on Research presents, in publication, a selection of these final-year projects completed by trainee teachers in 2008 and 2009.

The students themselves have looked back upon the project to critically evaluate the positive and not so positive elements of their investigation. They also considered how what they did as student teachers remains relevant to what they do now as qualified professionals working in the classroom.

See also ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Doing Your Education Research Project’, published by SAGE: http://bit.ly/IrLHvD, and on FACEBOOK: http://on.fb.me/QsLY2Q"

This article examines NCATE requirements for field experiences in the context of research related to teaching, learning, and teacher education. According to NCATE, field experiences , sometimes referred to as practicum experiences, usually occur while students are taking teacher education coursework.  These occur before clinical practice, which is the final classroom experience that occurs just prior to licensure (student teaching or an internship). Field experiences provide a contextual framework to enhance the understanding of skills and concepts learned in education methods courses.  According to NCATE standards field experiences “may” occur in off-campus settings.  Some types of field experiences such as micro-teaching, videotape analysis, case studies, computer simulations, and the use of video technology can take place in on-campus settings.  While these should not be used to replace in-school field experiences they can enhance or extend them.

In the book "The Dalton Plan: Origins and Theory of Dalton Education" we have depicted the historical-theoretical context of the Dalton Plan by comparing the practice and theory of Parkhurst with ideas on education and reform to which she refers: those of the poet cum philosopher Emerson, the developmental biologist Conklin, the psychologist Swift, the educational philosopher Dewey, the education reformer Montessori and the efficiency researchers Taylor and Bobbitt. In this last chapter we discuss the outcome. First we consider how Parkhurst relates to then contemporary science, research, theory development and discussion on education. We then summarize our findings.

Given the scarcity of scaffolding in classrooms, we developed a professional development program (PDP) focusing on scaffolding. The PDP was based on a model of contingent teaching consisting of three steps: diagnostic strategies, checking the diagnosis and intervention strategies. The development of four social studies teachers’ scaffolding knowledge, use of scaffolding in practice and reflections on practice were analyzed. Insights regarding openness, students’ understanding, and co-construction e that occurred while reflecting with the model of contingent teaching e appeared to foster teachers’ scaffolding development. A fourth step, checking students’ learning, is suggested as an additional step in contingent teaching.

— Many technologies are shaping the way we learn and teach engineering education. Using learning technologies successfully in the classroom requires educational research to discover the usefulness of existing tools, the absence of desired tools, and the best pedagogical-use models to ensure that student knowledge grows and matures. This paper documents the results of a global survey on engineering education learning technologies that was distributed to a diverse group of engineering researchers and practitioners. The survey asked each participant to choose the three learning technologies that will likely impact engineering education in the near future. 375 participants responded to the survey offering the current view of learning technologies in engineering education. The results from data mining are documented so that researchers in learning technologies can focus on theory and product development.

This chapter focuses on an inquiry-oriented and multi-partner approach to teacher education and teacher professional learning created to inspire and support transformational change. In the project described in this chapter, the formation of and interactions between three regional professional learning networks (PLNs) empowered educators to re-imagine and redesign practices and structures across institutions, roles and regions in British Columbia (BC).

This paper examines one model of professional development, the use of video clubs in which groups of teachers watch and discuss videotapes of their classrooms. Specifically, the paper investigates the learning that occurred as four middleschool mathematics teachers participated in a year-long series of video club meetings. Over time, discourse in the video clubs shifted from a primary focus on the teacher to increased attention to students' actions and ideas. In addition, discussions of student thinking moved from simple restatements of students' ideas to detailed analyses of student thinking. Furthermore, teachers began to reframe their discussions of pedagogical issues in terms of student thinking. r

This paper documents a teacher-training workshop designed to address the problem of motivating instructors and learners of English in Japan. It first provides a brief overview of the relevant research to date on motivation and the Japanese English education context. It then explores a series of interviews (n＝6) with in-service Japanese high school teachers of English, which ultimately proved to be the impetus behind this study. Findings from an analysis of these interviews revealed a lack of learner motivation was the primary concern for in-service teachers. It also revealed that in-service teachers felt ill-equipped to deal with this problem. A workshop was then created to provide pedagogical support for Japanese teachers of English. This workshop first involved examining the different factors that influence motivation, before moving on to showcase how the use of authentic materials by instructors can greatly enhance learner motivation. It concluded with a discussion of the specific problems that instructors typically face. Feedback from a post-workshop questionnaire suggests the workshop was highly successful. Finally, implications and future workshops are discussed.