This study investigates how inservice teachers constructed new knowledge, the extent of knowledge construction achieved, and how instructors participated in and facilitated the online discussion to affect knowledge construction. One finding is that most inservice teachers seemed to favor discussion activities at the stage of knowledge confirmation rather than knowledge construction. Another finding is that some facilitation approaches used by the instructors when serving as both facilitator and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Computer Mediated Communication, Inservice Teacher Education, Teacher Role, Online...
This study used a systems perspective to determine whether differences exist between classrooms of expert (n=35) and novice (n=35) teachers on the cohesion, communication, and flexibility dimensions of the Classroom Systems Observation Scale (CSOS). A 50-minute observation using the CSOS was conducted in elementary school classrooms in New York State. The study found classrooms of expert teachers had statistically higher levels of classroom communication and flexibility than classrooms of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teaching Experience, Classroom Communication, Classroom Environment, Beginning...
The objective of the study was to examine the effectiveness of an intervention based on attribution retraining with regards to student misconduct and coercive teacher behavior. An intervention would lead to a sustained decrease in misbehavior and coercive discipline without using any external control systems. In this case study, a male, veteran Grade 8 teacher and his students were involved in a long-lasting conflict characterized by an increase of disruptive student conduct and the teacher's...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Grade 8, Intervention, Retraining, Discipline Problems, Behavior Problems, Behavior...
The original study upon which this article is based began with a seemingly simple question that had origins in the author's own experiences as a high school teacher. Why do some teachers talk too much when they are teaching, and what can a teacher education program do to address this problem? When informed, then transformed, by available research in the area, the question becomes more accurate and useful for teachers and teachers educators. How can a teacher education program enable teacher...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Student Participation, Interaction, Teacher Education Programs, Teacher...
This study brings together insights from research on teaching and learning in specific subjects, learning environments research, and effectiveness research, by linking teacher interpersonal behaviour to students' subject-related attitudes. Teaching was studied in terms of a model originating from clinical psychology that was adapted to education. Teacher interpersonal behaviour was analysed in terms of two, independent behaviour dimensions called Influence and Proximity. This study investigated...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teacher Influence, Statistical Analysis, Proximity, Motivation, Educational Research,...
This study focuses on the relationship between teacher-student interpersonal behaviour and students' attitudes toward science. To investigate this relationship, student perception data have been gathered with 1021 secondary science students, located in 31 classes in Kashmir, India. Teacher interpersonal behaviour was conceptualised in terms of two behavioural dimensions, Influence (the degree of teacher control in communication with students) and Proximity (the degree of cooperativeness between...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Teacher Influence, Teacher Background, Proximity, Educational...
The study sought to investigate how pre school teachers and their pupils interact during instruction in numeracy lessons in Nigeria. The sample consisted of 2859 pupils from 72 pre-primary institutions/classrooms (selected through stratified random sampling to ensure adequate representation of private, public, urban and rural schools). The collection of data involved using two observational instruments (Classroom Interaction Sheet, CIS and Ten-Minute Interaction Instrument, TMI) to record...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Students, Language Usage, Group Activities, Data Analysis, Class...
This paper presents results of a study attempting to identify the extent to which teacher effectiveness research and research into teacher interpersonal behavior can help us collect valid and reliable evaluative data from students about their teacher behavior. The major findings of teacher effectiveness research are outlined and the process that was followed in order to design questionnaire measuring student views of their teacher behavior in the classroom is presented. The main findings of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Questionnaires, Achievement Gains, Teacher Evaluation, Content...
This study investigated associations between teacher-student interaction and students' attitudes towards chemistry among 497 tenth grade students from three independent schools in Singapore. Analyses supported the reliability and validity of a 48-item version of the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI). Statistically significant gender differences and stream differences (i.e. gifted vs. non-gifted) were observed for numerous QTI scales, but gender x stream interactions also emerged....
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Teacher Student Relationship, Grade 10, Interaction, Gender...
This study reports on the algebraic generalisation strategies used by two fifth grade students along with the factors that appeared to influence these strategies. These students were examined over 18 instructional sessions using a teaching experiment methodology. The results highlighted the complex factors that appeared to influence student strategy use, which included: (a) input value, (b) mathematical structure of the task, (c) prior strategies, (d) visual image of the situation, and (e)...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Grade 5, Mathematics Education, Algebra, Mathematical Concepts, Elementary School...
A multiple baseline design across participants was used to determine how teacher greetings affected on-task behavior of 3 middle school students with problem behaviors. Momentary time sampling was used to measure on-task behavior during the first 10 min of class. Teacher greetings produced increases in students' on-task behavior from a mean of 45% in baseline to a mean of 72% during the intervention phase. Teacher greetings represent an antecedent manipulation that can easily be implemented in...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Time on Task, Teacher Student Relationship, Middle School Students, Middle School...
Social relations are often seen as transactions between individuals. The dynamic teacher, accordingly, is one who gives energy and knowledge to students. Because this understanding fails to appreciate the relational forces at work in the lively classroom, it produces unhealthy attitudes toward education. Teachers who try to live up to it will not only burn out, they will distort their students' educational development. The vitality of the classroom comes from an energy that is created between...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teacher Student Relationship, Phenomenology, Classroom Communication, Classroom...
Communication in society today is characterised by rapidly changing and emergent forms of meaning-making in a context of increased cultural and linguistic diversity. The need to teach these new literacy practices referred to as multiliteracies, is now embedded within systemic policies in Australia. This research paper is a response to these imperatives, releasing key findings of a critical ethnographic study concerning interactions between pedagogy and access to multiliteracies among culturally...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Ethnography, Literacy, Cultural Pluralism, Global Approach,...
Group work is a widely used learning approach in higher education where it is seen as encouraging the development of collaborative skills and attitudes while producing an assessable product. Group assignments can, however, create dilemmas and tensions for both staff and students. Students often seek academic intervention in the form of support and dispute arbitration; and the types of interventions employed to deal with issues arising during and after group work, and the effectiveness of the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Intervention, Assignments, Cooperative Learning, Higher Education,...
Every teacher is a messenger. The message that a teacher communicates and portrays is acquired formally and informally through systematic study, and environmental and socialization processes. While formal study happens consciously within a particular period of time, experiential learning that impinges on the development of the message happens all the time. It is a pervasive force with a long incubation period. No matter how the effects of environmental processes are suppressed and ignored,...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Beginning Teachers, Speech Communication, Secondary Education, Teacher Student...
The author had a conversation one late afternoon with an untenured colleague from another department regarding chili pepper ratings. Her colleague explained that the popular RateMyProfessor.com Web site allows students to rate faculty members not only according to standards of "clarity," "helpfulness," and something called "easiness," but also in terms of "hotness," denoted with a cheerful cartoon of a red chili pepper. Many of her colleague's students...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Cartoons, Feedback, College Faculty, Student Attitudes, Higher Education, Role of...
In 2002-03, a qualitative case study explored the perspectives of 70 stakeholders connected to two community-based adult literacy programs in Manitoba, Canada. Four themes emerged from within-case and cross-case analyses of the data: program design, human relations, community context, and financial support. Instructor-learner and learner-learner relationships were essential to the theme of human relations. Research participants noted the powerful impact that these relationships had on the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Program Design, Financial Support, Classroom Environment, Human...
The interest in online learning has been growing at a rapid pace, especially for professionals who find it inconvenient to attend face-to-face workshops or courses. This is particularly true for educators pursuing inservice professional development, as there is precious little time to be away from their classrooms. This need, combined with the growing demand for science content courses for teachers, resulted in the NSF-funded National Teacher Enhancement Network, a series of online science...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Online Courses, Professional Development, Teaching Methods, Inservice Teacher...
Teachers have the ability to give students opportunities to produce alternative, artistic responses to concepts they learn in school. When a student writes a poem for a character in an assigned story or engage in other activities, the classroom becomes a more interesting space, and students think in new ways. For gifted children, such opportunities can mean the difference between an enriched, challenging experience and just another dull day in class. Differentiated instruction can provide the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Academically Gifted, Student Reaction, Art Expression, Individualized Instruction,...
Knowing how teachers in China understand excellence in teaching is an important precursor to developing teaching standards. This study explores the conceptions of excellent teaching held by 20 middle school teachers in the north of China. A phenomenographic approach with grounded theory was used to interpret teachers' descriptions of a time when they delivered excellent teaching. Four main themes were found: (1) caring for students, (2) guiding students' all-round development, (3) connecting...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Middle Schools, Middle School Teachers, Teacher Effectiveness,...
The mathematical performance of Chinese students, from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, is widely acclaimed in international comparisons of mathematics achievement. However, in the eyes of the Western educators, the environments established in Chinese schools are deemed relatively unfavourable for mathematics learning. This paper reports on a study that investigates the characteristics of effective mathematics teaching in five Shanghai schools. Findings reveal that those characteristics...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Mathematics Teachers, Mathematics Education, Mathematics...
From an Invitational Education perspective, e-learning will only succeed as an educative environment if educators are able to provide an e-learning environment that preserves dignity and encourages communication. The converse: using an online environment to "throw information" at students has the opposite effect; it is experienced as deeply disinviting. This article identifies some of the more common disinviting practices currently being experienced by learners who are new to an...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Online Courses, Distance Education, Computer Uses in Education, Educational...
Critics of Invitational Education and other self-concept approaches to learning have long argued that there is a lack of empirical data to support the claims that approaches to student instruction based on self-concept theory are central to effective learning. Ellis (2001) examines a number of these analyses where self-concept, self-esteem, and self-efficacy are derided as antecedents to successful learning. However, by examining the empirical research on classroom management, all of the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Self Efficacy, Teacher Student Relationship, Classroom Techniques, Educational...
We developed and evaluated the G3S-SP, a scale measuring health sciences graduate students' perceptions of the quality of their supervision. The scale was developed from a literature review and existing questionnaires. Feedback from health sciences graduate students and supervisors led to a revised version of the scale that was mailed to 215 students enrolled in eight programs of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the University of Sherbrooke. Analyses show that mean satisfaction...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Measures (Individuals), Supervision, Student Attitudes, Sciences, Validity, Graduate...
Issues facing schools abound from No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation. In science and mathematics teacher pre-service and in-service preparation, these issues are paramount for institutions of higher education, especially in terms of the definition of a "highly qualified" teacher. Within this paper, the authors discuss the science and mathematics issues facing the nation. Specifically, they examine the literature supporting the major/minor teaching certification (with a major...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Teachers, Secondary School Science, Science Teachers, Teacher...
Career and technical education represents an important and understudied educational option for high school students. This qualitative study utilized data from one exemplary career and technical education (CTE) center to address the question of how talented and general education students' part-time CTE experiences differed from their traditional high school experiences. The secondary students in this study simultaneously attended both the CTE center and a traditional high school. Through...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Vocational Education, Educational Experience, Student Attitudes, High School...
This qualitative study involved five doctoral counselling students from a major Canadian university who shared critical incidents of barriers and facilitators of reflective practice in their graduate experiences. Sixteen incidents engendered reflection while eight hindered open reflection. Conditions found to facilitate reflective practice included (a) experiencing a trusting relationship, (b) opening up with fellow students, (c) engaging in reflective tasks, (d) having self-trust/risking, and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Critical Incidents Method, Graduate Students, Doctoral Programs, Counselor Training,...
This paper explores key gender differences in motivation from a quantitative perspective and presents findings from a qualitative study into boys' perceptions of motivating teachers and motivating pedagogy. Data collected from 3773 high school students suggest that girls score significantly higher than boys in their belief in the value of school, learning focus, planning, study management, and persistence while boys rate significantly higher in self-sabotage/self-handicapping. However, girls...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Student Motivation, Program Development, Academic Failure, Gender Differences, Males,...
Using Susanmarie Harrington's investigation of the presence and absence of basic writing students in articles in the "Journal of Basic Writing" as a starting point, this article investigates the visibility or invisibility of race in student-present articles from 1995 to 2005. The investigation reveals that the discursive practice of colorblindness still governs the representation of race in basic writing scholarship, particularly where teacher race is concerned. (Contains 1 note.)
Topics: ERIC Archive, Basic Writing, Stereotypes, Authors, Racial Factors, Race, Student Characteristics,...
In this article, the authors present the lessons learned by the teaching community from the September 11 attack and the ongoing war on terror. The ongoing war against terrorism presents some unique challenges to the nation's educators. Classroom teachers must cope with explaining to their students the daily war news and acts of violence. Decisions must be made about whether to continue with "business as usual" in the classroom or to devote class time to discussing current events. It...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Current Events, War, Terrorism, Violence, Student Attitudes, Anxiety, Teacher Student...
In this article, the author shares the lessons she learned about teaching when she left her kindergarten classroom for a college classroom. She relates how she initially experienced disequilibrium between her personal practical theories about teaching and learning and her actual practice as a new college teacher. She relates that she recreated her personal beliefs and practices as a former kindergarten teacher in her new role as a college teacher by adhering to her three core beliefs: (1)...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Theory Practice Relationship, Kindergarten, Preschool Teachers, College Faculty,...
For centuries Canadian First Nations education has been a substandard, abusive means of dealing with the "Indian Problem." In recent decades Native education has been under-funded and employed non-indigenized models. Despite these facts, many are surprised when these efforts fail another cohort of children. This article outlines Canadian Native education including attainment and attrition, curriculum, Native epistemology, and Indigenous practice and theory. Finally, a Curriculum Model...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Objectives, American Indian Education, Outcomes of Education,...
Students, faculty, administration, and community members of three Iowa rural school districts were interviewed to identify educational issues in their communities. The results of the Iowa investigation are compared with the results of the Claremont Graduate School investigation published in "Voices from the inside: A report on schooling from inside the classroom" (1992). The Claremont study investigated large urban schools. The Iowa study provides insight into small, rural school...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Urban Schools, Rural Schools, School Districts, Teacher Student Relationship, School...
In this article, the author talks about the disproportionate gap in the graduation rates in colleges and universities, which highlights the need for the higher education community to rethink strategies for improving the retention of students of color. To increase the graduation rates of students of color, the author suggests addressing the issue of the hidden curriculum, the unwritten and unspoken values, dispositions, and social and behavioral expectations that govern the interactions between...
Topics: ERIC Archive, First Generation College Students, Higher Education, Graduation Rate, Affirmative...
A critical issue in teacher education today is the mismatch between racially homogenous teachers and students from increasingly diverse cultural backgrounds. In the United States, the student population is becoming more diverse while the teaching force is becoming increasingly monocultural, white, and middle class. Current data on the teaching force also reveal that the prospective teaching population is predominantly white, middle class, monolingual, female, rural and suburban. The impact of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Student Diversity, Whites, Minority Group Children, Cultural Pluralism, Teacher...
In this article, two teacher educators examine two curriculum moments they have experienced, one with children and the other with pre-service teachers. They find possibilities for shifts in their understandings and insights into their own identity making and that of students. Drawing upon Connelly and Clandinin's (1992) notion of teachers as curriculum makers, they consider how students shape curriculum alongside teachers in classrooms. Students' and teachers' actions and words shape not only...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Faculty Development, Teacher Educators, Transformative Learning, Teaching Experience,...
Preparing European-American preservice teachers for diverse urban school settings pose multiple challenges. Of primary concern are the differences in race, culture, and community between teachers and students. Because new teachers prefer to work where they grew up, most preservice teachers want to teach students who are like themselves in familiar settings, and they are often uncomfortable interacting with families from ethnic and language minorities. Despite these challenges, preservice...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Language Minorities, Preservice Teachers, Urban Schools, Teacher Student...
A four year panel study at an ethnically diverse commuter university examines the relationships among assessments of professor performance, GPA, academic program satisfaction, and perceptions of equal treatment of students of varying ethno-racial origins. Repeated analyses of variance indicate that although the first three of these variables do not clearly divide on the basis of ethno-racial origin, non-European origin students are more likely than those of European origin to perceive that not...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Student Diversity, Grade Point Average, Personality Traits, Satisfaction, College...
This study examined the use of science professors acting as mentors to enhance the science competency of early childhood educators. Findings indicate that mentor-mentee dyad interactions varied; however, mentors were able to assist with curriculum, science content, and resources. Although standards-based units were developed, there was little "real" science inquiry present. Findings did not support a higher-quality product that involved a mentoring relationship versus a nonmentoring...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Preservice Teachers, Mentors, Science Instruction, College Faculty, Teacher...
There is strong evidence that participation in education and training can produce social capital outcomes. There is also strong evidence that such outcomes are useful outcomes; they can enhance the development of other outcomes often called human capital and they can contribute to the social-economic wellbeing of the learners and the communities in which they live. Yet, little research has been done on the pedagogy and other conditions that produce social capital outcomes in education and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Human Capital, Numeracy, Adult Literacy, Social Capital, Outcomes of Education, Well...
The ancient Greeks proclaimed, "Know thyself." This prescript is particularly critical in the educational arena because no pedagogical tool can serve a teacher or a student who lacks self-knowledge. Effective educators understand that only by knowing and capitalizing on their own and students' strengths can they achieve true excellence. Unfortunately, many of us focus on repairing weaknesses rather than using our strengths to their greatest advantage. For preservice and in-service...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Academic Achievement, Self Concept, Positive Reinforcement, Teacher Responsibility,...
While case studies and narratives are often used in teacher preparation programs, the focus of these materials is usually upon the examination of effective strategies in instruction, assessment, and classroom management. The investigation described in this article examined the value of teacher stories about professional interactions for both the writers of the stories and the future teachers who read the stories. Following this is a description of research designed to investigate the power of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Classroom Techniques, Preservice Teacher Education, Reflective Teaching, Case...
Historically, preservice teacher education programs have not adequately prepared teachers in parent involvement or family-centered practices. Because teachers do not routinely encourage family involvement, and parents do not always participate when they are encouraged to do so, the importance of preservice training to involve family members in children's education is paramount. Recognizing this gap in training and the concern that most beginning teachers do not naturally have the skills to...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Preservice Teacher Education, Preservice Teachers, Teacher Education Programs, Parent...
In the author's pilot study of teacher-student sexual dynamics in five preservice teachers high school classrooms, one piece of data stood out from among the rest of the interview transcripts, field notes, and email correspondence--not as an aberrant outlier; the content, feeling attracted to a student, echoed across the data set. Rather, this one journal entry from Sandra (a pseudonym), a graduate student seeking secondary English certification, encompassed much of what the author was hoping...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Student Teachers, Graduate Students, Data Analysis, Interpersonal Attraction, Teacher...
The behaviors of many college students have changed over the past 10 years. These behavioral changes include a rise in poor social skills, such as inappropriate actions and comments in social situations. It has become increasingly important for educators to incorporate proper behaviors and professional etiquette in their curricula for physical education teacher education (PETE) students, especially when preparing teacher candidates to teach students with disabilities. This article examines the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Physical Education, Student Behavior, Attitudes toward Disabilities, Disabilities,...
What is it about teaching that draws teachers to a culture of education? What kinds of experiences influence teachers' selection of content and pedagogy? It is often the teaching moments that fall outside of the planned course of tasks that become collaborative constructions of the teaching and learning experience. In order to enjoy and benefit from such moments, it is important for teachers to be passionate about their job, be willing to be vulnerable, explore new ways to teach, make the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Learning Experience, Thinking Skills, Teacher Student Relationship, Teacher...
This article discusses how the critical examination of "culture as difference" and "culture as hierarchy" is often lacking in the Spanish language classroom. As such, the author suggests that the current challenge in the Spanish language classroom is to identify techniques to enhance not only students' language proficiency but also their cultural awareness. One way to achieve this is by applying a critical pedagogical approach to the language classroom. Critical pedagogy is...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Critical Theory, Cultural Awareness, Course Content, Spanish, Language Proficiency,...
This study focuses on three new teachers, Arnie, Andrea, and Frank, who are New York City Teaching Fellows (NYCTF), a program of alternative teacher recruitment and certification that is in its third year at an urban public college in New York City. This study focuses on just three of the Fellows in order to have a more intense look into the thinking of new teachers who have made a commitment to teach in poor urban schools for two years and who are now choosing to either remain urban teachers,...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Urban Schools, Urban Teaching, Public Colleges, Teacher Recruitment, Alternative...
The study reported in this article was focused on the first field experience in a teacher education program developed around themes of equity and social justice within a larger framework of inclusive education. The community-based field experience entails one-on-one mentoring in which elementary preservice teachers (PSTs) work with African American children in local public housing neighborhoods. This field experience challenges PSTs to work with and get to know children, families, and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Preservice Teacher Education, African American Children, Preservice Teachers,...
This article presents the authors' ongoing research into two different pedagogical projects within teacher credential courses: one in critical multicultural education and the other in foundations of education. The data were gathered in Northern California and in Colorado. Both projects were designed to help students-teachers become more aware of how they relate to their own students, and of the knowledge that they take for granted. Of particular interest was the body of knowledge that may be...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Multicultural Education, Hidden Curriculum, Foundations of Education, Teacher...