Report on the study of community college professional development programs and activities in Illinois spublic community colleges.

"September 1988."

Teaching techniques for part-time community college instructors.

"OLAC19D."

Developments in assessment and teaching methodologies in modern languages in England and France in response to educational reform (1975-1985)

This comparative study considers the main causative factors for change in recent years in the teaching of modern languages in England and France and seeks to contribute, in a general sense, to the understanding of change in comparable institutions. In England by 1975 the teaching of modern languages in the comprehensive schools was seen to be inappropriate to the needs of children of the whole ability-range. A combination of the external factor of the Council of Europe initiative in devising a needs-based learning approach for adult learners, and the internal factor of teacher-based initiatives in developing a graded-objectives learning approach for the less-able, has reversed this situation to some extent. The study examines and evaluates this reversal, and, in addition, assesses teachers' attitudes towards, and understanding of, the changes involved. In France the imposition of `la reforme Haby' in 1977 and the creation of `le college unique' were the main external factors for change. The subsequent failure of the reform and the socialist government's support of decentralisation policies returning the initiative for renewal to schools are examined and evaluated, as are the internal factors for changes in language-teaching - `groupes de niveau' and the creation of `equipes pedagogiques'. In both countries changes in the function of examinations at 15/16 plus are examined. The final chapter compared the changes in both education systems.

Étude des relations entre le développement professionnel des enseignants du postsecondaire et leur bien-être psychologique au travail

Réalisé en milieu collégial (cégep)

Étude des relations entre le développement professionnel des enseignants du postsecondaire et leur bien-être psychologique au travail

Réalisé en milieu collégial (cégep)

Teachers – Shaping One Life at a Time

A Montana Public Radio Commentary by Evan Barrett. Published newspaper columns written by Evan Barrett on this topic, which vary somewhat in content from this commentary, appeared in the following publications: Missoulian, June 16, 2015 Ravalli Republic, June 16, 2015 Montana Public Radio, June 17, 2015 Montana Standard, June 19, 2015 Great Falls Tribune, June 22, 2015

The impact of outcomes-driven curriculum reform on teacher perspectives of professional practice

This thesis is the result of an investigation of a Queensland example of curriculum reform based on outcomes, a type of reform common to many parts of the world during the last decade. The purpose of the investigation was to determine the impact of outcomes on teacher perspectives of professional practice. The focus was chosen to permit investigation not only of changes in behaviour resulting from the reform but also of teachers' attitudes and beliefs developed during implementation. The study is based on qualitative methodology, chosen because of its suitability for the investigation of attitudes and perspectives. The study exploits the researcher's opportunities for prolonged, direct contact with groups of teachers through the selection of an over-arching ethnography approach, an approach designed to capture the holistic nature of the reform and to contextualise the data within a broad perspective. The selection of grounded theory as a basis for data analysis reflects the open nature of this inquiry and demonstrates the study's constructivist assumptions about the production of knowledge. The study also constitutes a multi-site case study by virtue of the choice of three individual school sites as objects to be studied and to form the basis of the report. Three primary school sites administered by Brisbane Catholic Education were chosen as the focus of data collection. Data were collected from three school sites as teachers engaged in the first year of implementation of Student Performance Standards, the Queensland version of English outcomes based on the current English syllabus. Teachers' experience of outcomes-driven curriculum reform was studied by means of group interviews conducted at individual school sites over a period of fourteen months, researcher observations and the collection of artefacts such as report cards. Analysis of data followed grounded theory guidelines based on a system of coding. Though classification systems were not generated prior to data analysis, the labelling of categories called on standard, non-idiosyncratic terminology and analytic frames and concepts from existing literature wherever practicable in order to permit possible comparisons with other related research. Data from school sites were examined individually and then combined to determine teacher understandings of the reform, changes that have been made to practice and teacher responses to these changes in terms of their perspectives of professionalism. Teachers in the study understood the reform as primarily an accountability mechanism. Though teachers demonstrated some acceptance of the intentions of the reform, their responses to its conceptualisation, supporting documentation and implications for changing work practices were generally characterised by reduced confidence, anger and frustration. Though the impact of outcomes-based curriculum reform must be interpreted through the inter-relationships of a broad range of elements which comprise teachers' work and their attitudes towards their work, it is proposed that the substantive findings of the study can be understood in terms of four broad themes. First, when the conceptual design of outcomes did not serve teachers' accountability requirements and outcomes were perceived to be expressed in unfamiliar technical language, most teachers in the study lost faith in the value of the reform and lost confidence in their own abilities to understand or implement it. Second, this reduction of confidence was intensified when the scope of outcomes was outside the scope of the teachers' existing curriculum and assessment planning and teachers were confronted with the necessity to include aspects of syllabuses or school programs which they had previously omitted because of a lack of understanding or appreciation. The corollary was that outcomes promoted greater syllabus fidelity when frameworks were closely aligned. Third, other benefits the teachers associated with outcomes included the development of whole school curriculum resources and greater opportunity for teacher collaboration, particularly among schools. The teachers, however, considered a wide range of factors when determining the overall impact of the reform, and perceived a number of them in terms of the costs of implementation. These included the emergence of ethical dilemmas concerning relationships with students, colleagues and parents, reduced individual autonomy, particularly with regard to the selection of valued curriculum content and intensification of workload with the capacity to erode the relationships with students which teachers strongly associated with the rewards of their profession. Finally, in banding together at the school level to resist aspects of implementation, some teachers showed growing awareness of a collective authority capable of being exercised in response to top-down reform. These findings imply that Student Performance Standards require review and, additional implementation resourcing to support teachers through times of reduced confidence in their own abilities. Outcomes prove an effective means of high-fidelity syllabus implementation, and, provided they are expressed in an accessible way and aligned with syllabus frameworks and terminology, should be considered for inclusion in future syllabuses across a range of learning areas. The study also identifies a range of unintended consequences of outcomes-based curriculum and acknowledges the complexity of relationships among all the aspects of teachers' work. It also notes that the impact of reform on teacher perspectives of professional practice may alter teacher-teacher and school-system relationships in ways that have the potential to influence the effectiveness of future curriculum reform.

Promoting rural and remote teacher education in Australia through the Over the Hill project

Attracting quality teachers to rural areas is an ongoing international concern. Teacher education institutions have been criticised for contributing to this problem by failing to raise an awareness of teaching in rural areas in their teacher education programs. This study investigates preservice teachers’ perceptions towards teaching in rural areas after participating in a rural experience through the Over the Hill project. A self-selected group of second and third year preservice teachers from a regional campus of an urban Queensland university participated in a six-day rural experience, which included being billeted with local families, attending local community events and observing and teaching in rural primary and secondary schools. Data collected from the preservice teachers before and after the rural teaching experience were analysed to reveal positive perceptions towards teaching and living in rural communities. The findings revealed that even a brief immersion into rural schooling communities can positively influence preservice teachers’ attitudes towards seeking rural teaching placements. These findings have implications for the ways in which teacher education institutions can promote rural teaching opportunities in their teacher education programs.

Yhteinen käsityö peruskoulun 7. luokalla : Opettajien kokemuksia yhteisen käsityön opetuksesta ja organisoinnista

Finnish education politics presume that basic education should be equal to all students. While organising craft education equality can be understood as similarity or as possibility to choose. The possibility to be able to choose whether textile or technical craft despite of one´s gender has been the aim of laws and curriculums already over 30 years. In practice it´s almost impossible to students to ignore feminine and masculine roles that go deep into our culture. Choosing craft has been divided by gender, which is the reason why possibility to choose has not been good enough to educationalists of equality. The latest guidelines for the National core curriculum for bacis education were issued in 2004. According to curriculum craft education consists parts of both technical and textile craft. All students should take part in both sectors of crafts. Furthermore, one can be given a possibility to consentrate his studies in whether textile or technical craft. The curriculum does not set the rules how the education should be organised, which means that it can be organised in many ways depending on city, school or teacher. Teachers and other specialists have contradictory feelings towards shared craft education, because traditional way to see craft in Finland is to separate textile craft from technical craft. Both crafts have some common features that are introduced in curriculum. Besides there is many equal things in craft theories that bind textile and technical craft to each other. The main purpose of this research was to find out, how shared craft education has been organised at the 7.th grade in Finnish comprehensive school, and which things affect in the settlements. Second goal was to describe and compare teachers´ experiences in teaching shared craft education. Third aim of this study was how shared craft has changed craft education. I collected the research material in May 2006 by interviewing both textile and technical craft teachers who teach shared craft. The material consists of fourteen theme interviews. In the analysis of the material I used theoretic bounded document analysis. According to the research there are three different ways to organise shared craft education: 50 50-arrangement, exchanging period and project week. In the schools that carried out 50 50-arrangement teaching was realised mainly in heterogenous groups. Principals had usual a lot of authorization on how to arrange craft education, which means that their views on equality, laws and curriculum affected in the settlemets more than teachers´ opinions. Teachers´ attitudes to shared craft were mainly positive. The changing of craft education can be divided in two parts: the aims and the containings of the curriculum have changed, as well as the meaning of the craft as core subject. Teachers have been forced to decrease the containings of both textile and technical crafts. Despite of eliminations both crafts still have comprehensive containings. Teachers decided what to teach by these argumets: Students should learn some basic things or produce a certain product. Usually teachers had also a lot of experience and special intrests in crafts. According to this research there is four significant meanings for shared craft education: 1) developing readiness for doing things, 2) developing skills of thinking, 3) delight of doing things and 4) teaching attitude.

Ammatillisten opettajien tieto- ja viestintätekniikan opetuskäytön intentionaalisuutta selittävät tekijät

Intention-based models have been one of the main theoretical orientations in the research on the implementation of information and communication technology (ICT). According to these models, actual behavior can be predicted from the intention towards the behavior. If the level of intention to use technology is high, the probability of actual usage of ICT increases. The purpose of this study was to find out which factors explain vocational teachers intention to use ICT in their teaching. In addition, teachers of media and information sciences and teachers of welfare and health were compared. The study also explored how regularly ICT was applied by teachers and how strong their intention to apply the technology was. This Master s thesis is a quantitative study and the data was collected using an Email survey and Eform. The instruments were based on a decomposed theory of planned behavior. The research group consisted of 22 schools of media and information sciences and 20 schools of welfare and health. The data consisted of 231 vocational teachers: 57 teachers worked with media and information sciences and 174 with welfare and health. The data was analyzed using Mann-Whitney U-test, factor analysis and regression analysis. In addition, categorized results were compared with previous study. In this study, the intention to use ICT in teaching was explained by the teachers attitudes and skills and the attitudes of their work community. However, the environment in which ICT was used, i.e., the technical environment, economical resources and time, did not explain the intention. The results did not directly support any of the intention-based models, but they could be interpreted as congruent with the technology acceptance model. The majority of the teachers used ICT at least weekly. They had a strong intention to continue to do that in the future. The study also revealed that there were more teachers who had a critical attitude towards ICT among the teachers of welfare and health. According to the results of this study, it is not possible to state that ICT would not suit any one profession because in every group with teachers with a critical attitude towards ICT there were also teachers with a positive attitude.

Web 2.0 e inglês como língua estrangeira: atitudes de professores e alunos adultos

O presente estudo tem por objetivos compilar e analisar percepções sobre o uso de ferramentas web 2.0 no ensino de inglês como língua estrangeira e aliar a análise de atitudes à teoria da Andragogia, que trata do aprendizado de adultos, proposta por Knowles (1973, 1975, 1984, 1990). O assunto parece não contar com estudos coordenados, visto que Thomas (2010) apenas muito recentemente editou um compêndio com trabalhos envolvendo as possíveis aplicações de recursos da web 2.0 no estudo de uma língua estrangeira e as percepções de alunos, embora outros estudos, como os de Rosell-Aguilar (2004), Conole (2008), Kárpáti (2009) e Jarvis e Szymczyk (2010) tenham discutido o assunto isoladamente. Neste trabalho é realizada a compilação das opiniões de alunos adultos e de professores de inglês como língua estrangeira. Como instrumento de coleta de dados optou-se pela utilização de questionários fechados. Tal abordagem possivelmente dá a esta pesquisa um caráter inédito, ao menos no que se refere à coleta de atitudes de alunos adultos e professores brasileiros de um curso de idiomas quanto ao uso de ferramentas web 2.0 no ensino de uma língua estrangeira. A análise dos dados mostrou que aprendizes adultos e professores têm atitudes positivas e estão preparados para a utilização de recursos web 2.0 em sala de aula. Conclui-se, entretanto, que embora a maioria dos participantes desta pesquisa concorde que o uso de tais ferramentas contribui para o ensino de inglês como língua estrangeira, alguns ajustes e procedimentos ainda devem ser implementados para que as ferramentas web 2.0 se tornem não apenas um acessório, mas parte integrante do processo de aquisição do idioma

Development and characterization of novel transgenic techniques for the study of neuronal circuitry

Modern neuroscience relies heavily on sophisticated tools that allow us to visualize and manipulate cells with precise spatial and temporal control. Transgenic mouse models, for example, can be used to manipulate cellular activity in order to draw conclusions about the molecular events responsible for the development, maintenance and refinement of healthy and/or diseased neuronal circuits. Although it is fairly well established that circuits respond to activity-dependent competition between neurons, we have yet to understand either the mechanisms underlying these events or the higher-order plasticity that synchronizes entire circuits. In this thesis we aimed to develop and characterize transgenic mouse models that can be used to directly address these outstanding biological questions in different ways. We present SLICK-H, a Cre-expressing mouse line that can achieve drug-inducible, widespread, neuron-specific manipulations in vivo. This model is a clear improvement over existing models because of its particularly strong, widespread, and even distribution pattern that can be tightly controlled in the absence of drug induction. We also present SLICK-V::Ptox, a mouse line that, through expression of the tetanus toxin light chain, allows long-term inhibition of neurotransmission in a small subset (<1%) of fluorescently labeled pyramidal cells. This model, which can be used to study how a silenced cell performs in a wildtype environment, greatly facilitates the in vivo study of activity-dependent competition in the mammalian brain. As an initial application we used this model to show that tetanus toxin-expressing CA1 neurons experience a 15% - 19% decrease in apical dendritic spine density. Finally, we also describe the attempt to create additional Cre-driven mouse lines that would allow conditional alteration of neuronal activity either by hyperpolarization or inhibition of neurotransmission. Overall, the models characterized in this thesis expand upon the wealth of tools available that aim to dissect neuronal circuitry by genetically manipulating neurons in vivo.

"Dann bin ich ja überflüssig, richtig?" Vorstellungen von Lehrpersonen über Lernerautonomie im Musikunterricht

Das im Folgenden skizzierte Projekt befasst sich mit Lernerautonomie als Konzept in der Musikdidaktik aus der Perspektive von Lehrenden. Es ist eingebettet in ein Forschungsprojekt an der Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg mit dem Titel „Lernerautonomie in der Musikdidaktik – eine empirische Studie“ unter der Leitung von Anja Rosenbrock. Etwa 20 Studierende haben im Jahr 2011 die Fähigkeit zum bzw. die Selbstevaluation des autonomen Lernens von Schülern im Musikunterricht an Gymnasien untersucht. [Das] Forschungsvorhaben stützt sich zwar auf die Untersuchung Rosenbrocks, fügt sich jedoch nicht vollkommen darin ein. Nicht Schüler, sondern Lehrer bilden hier die Untersuchungsgruppe. Sie fanden in der Autonomieforschung bisher nur wenig Beachtung. Dabei weisen jüngere Untersuchungen auf die große Bedeutung der Lehrer für die Entfaltung autonomen Handelns seitens der Schüler hin. In einem leitfadengestützten Interview wurden die theoretischen Kenntnisse von Lehrern über Lernerautonomie, ihre unterrichtspraktischen Erfahrungen mit dessen Förderung im eigenen Musikunterricht sowie die persönliche Einstellung gegenüber dem Ansatz erhoben. Zwei zentrale Fragestellungen bestimmten die Auseinandersetzung: 1. „Über welche Vorstellungen von Lernerautonomie verfügen die Lehrer?“ 2. „Wie positionieren sich die Lehrer gegenüber Lernerautonomie und womit begründen sie die jeweiligen Haltungen?“ Damit werden einerseits die Lehrpersonen, die in ihrem Unterricht Lernerautonomie anbahnen, in den Fokus der Betrachtung gerückt, andererseits aber auch die Lernenden, als innerhalb einer solchen Unterrichts‐ bzw. Lernform Agierende, erfasst. (DIPF/Orig.)

Representações de professores de educação especial acerca do sucesso educativo de alunos com necessidades educativas especiais

Dissertação de mest., Psicologia da Educação, Especialidade: Necessidades Educativas Especiais, Universidade do Algarve, 2006