Analysis of english teachers' perceptions related to strategies studied in a in-service course in Cuenca

El presente estudio describe las percepciones de los profesores fiscales de inglés en relación a las estrategias aprendidas durante una capacitación realizada en el año 2012 por un grupo de investigadores de la Facultad de Filosofía de la Universidad de Cuenca. En el año 2014, este grupo de investigadores inició un proyecto para analizar el impacto de dicha capacitación. Este es el marco contextual en el cual se desarrolla el análisis de la percepción docente. La propuesta está basada en el método exploratorio. El instrumento de investigación fue la entrevista personal a diez profesores que participaron de la capacitación en el año 2012. Los resultados fueron analizados con la ayuda del Software Atlas ti. Se identificaron catorce códigos diferentes que fueron agrupados en cuatro grupos de familias: estrategias comunicativas, aprendizaje significativo, percepciones de las necesidades e inconsistencias. Todas estas familias de códigos convergieron alrededor del Aprendizaje Basado en Tareas (ABT), el cual permitía generar un outcome, cuyo significado específico es la generación de un producto a partir del uso del idioma inglés por parte de los estudiantes. Un hallazgo importante fue que casi todos los profesores recordaron varias estrategias aprendidas en la capacitación, mismas que sumaron un total de nueve, además la mitad de docentes estaba usando el outcome en sus clases, ello da cuenta de la percepción positiva que tienen los docentes sobre el curso, a pesar de haber transcurrido dos años de su clausura.

Job satisfaction among primary school personnel in Madagascar

This article analyzes the job satisfaction of primary school teachers in Madagascar. Based on the estimation of multilevel models, low wages and problems getting paid, job insecurity, lack of in-service training, high pupil-teacher ratios, and lack of basic infrastructure and teaching materials are identified as the main reasons for dissatisfaction. Principals’ control of teachers’ activities also adversely affects satisfaction, suggesting that, in Malagasy schools, neither school directors nor teachers have succeeded in adopting organizational cultures based on cooperation among their members. These results are likely to stimulate debates on educational policy, both in Madagascar and in many other developing countries.

Multicultural education : the understandings of preschool teachers in Singapore

For multicultural education to be effective, it must be introduced in the early years and reinforced throughout the school years. It is important for teachers of young children to be equipped with the appropriate knowledge, skills and positive attitudes to promote multiculturalism in their classrooms. This paper reports on a survey involving preschool teachers in Singapore who were participating in an in-service training course. The teachers completed a questionnaire to indicate their understandings of multicultural education and their perceptions of its importance in early childhood education. The findings indicated that the teachers endorsed the need for multicultural education in preschools and the importance of children learning tolerance and understanding of other cultures in the Singaporean context. However, while preschool teachers held positive attitudes towards multicultural education, there was limited understanding of the challenges in implementing an anti-bias teaching and curriculum approach. The implications of these findings for preschool teacher education programs in Singapore and in other countries focus on supporting teachers in developing more critical and deeper understandings of multiculturalism.

Digital Storytelling within a Service-Learning Partnership: Technology as Product and Process for University Students and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse High School Youth

This chapter describes a university/high school partnership focused on digital storytelling. It also explains the multi-stage process used to establish this successful partnership and project. The authors discuss the central role that technology played in developing this university/high school partnership, a collaboration that extended the impact of a digital storytelling project to reach high school students, university students, educators, high school administrators, and the local community. Valuing a reflective process that can lead to the creation of a powerful final product, the authors describe the impact of digital storytelling on multiple stakeholders, including the 13 university students and 33 culturally and linguistically diverse high school youth who participated during the fall of 2009. In addition, the chapter includes reflections from university and high school student participants expressed during focus groups conducted throughout the project. While most participants had a positive experience with the project, complications with the technology component often caused frustrations and additional challenges. Goals for sharing this project are to critically evaluate digital storytelling, describe lessons learned, and recommend good practices for others working within a similar context or with parallel goals.

Best practice in peer-led curriculum content : informing an interactive program to improve passenger safety among high school seniors

Despite ongoing improvements in behaviour change strategies, licensing models and road law enforcement measures young drivers remain significantly over-represented in fatal and non-fatal road related crashes. This paper focuses on the safety of those approaching driving age and identifies both high priority road safety messages and relevant peer-led strategies to guide the development school programs. It summarises the review in a program logic model built around the messages and identified curriculum elements, as they may be best operationalised within the licensing and school contexts in Victoria. This paper summarises a review of common deliberate risk-taking and non-deliberate unsafe driving behaviours among novice drivers, highlighting risks associated with speeding, driving while fatigued, driving while impaired and carrying passengers. Common beliefs of young people that predict risky driving were reviewed, particularly with consideration of those beliefs that can be operationalised in a behaviour change school program. Key components of adolescent risk behaviour change programs were also reviewed, which identified a number of strategies for incorporation in a school based behaviour change program, including: a well-structured theoretical design and delivery, thoughtfully considered peer-selected processes, adequate training and supervision of peer facilitators, a process for monitoring and sustainability, and interactive delivery and participant discussions. The research base is then summarised in a program logic model with further discussion about the quality of the current state of knowledge of evaluation of behaviour change programs and the need for considerable development in program evaluation.

“Well, hang on, they’re actually much better than that!” : disrupting dominant discourses of deficit about English language learners in senior high school English

This paper explores how four English teachers position their English language learners for critical literacy within senior high school curriculum in Queensland, Australia. Such learners are often positioned, even by their teachers, within a broader “deficit discourse” that claims they are inherently lacking the requisite knowledge and skills to engage with intransigent school curricula. As such, English language learners’ identity formation is often constrained by deficit views that can ultimately see limited kinds of literacy teaching offered to them. Using Fairclough’s (2003) critical discourse analysis method, analysis of 16 interviews with the teachers was conducted as part of a larger, critical instrumental case study in two state high schools during 2010. Five competing discourses were identified: deficit as lack; deficit as need; learner “difference” as a resource; conceptual capacity for critical literacy; and linguistic, cultural and conceptual difficulty with critical literacy. While a deficit view is present, counter-hegemonic discourses also exist in their talk. The combination of discourses challenges monolithic deficit views of English language learners, and opens up generative discursive territory to position English language learners in ways other than “problematic”. This has important implications for how teachers view and teach English language learners and their capacity for critical literacy work in senior high school classrooms.

Teachers' perceptions of effects of terminal examinations on teaching and learning at the secondary school level in Zimbabwe

This study was particularly aimed at the examinations and the effect they have on schooling at the secondary school level in Zimbabwe. The views and opinions of teachers on the use of terminal examinations for certification and the influence they are seen to have on teachers' approach to the curriculum were examined. The literature has shown that there is widespread criticism of the justice and effects of terminal examinations. It is argued that they lead to an over-emphasis of that which is measured, knowledge and intellectual ability, at the expense of that kind of education progress which is almost impossible to measure in an end-of-the-course assessment. Three hundred and six secondary school teachers responded to a survey which asked for teachers' perceptions of examinations and the curriculum. The findings of this study indicated that teaching is structured towards examinations. Although teachers are trying to teach and develop reasoning skills and other activities, the pressure of examinations and the importance of doing well in them force teachers to restrict themselves to examination requirements.

Teaching College Writing in a High School Setting: The Impact of Concurrent Enrollment on Teacher Learning and Practice

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Typologies of teachers in Florida tobacco use prevention education (tupe) programs

This study described teacher perceptions of TUPE program effectiveness in Florida in an attempt to determine whether teacher training or teachers' perceptions of tobacco norms may predict teacher amenability. A statewide survey provided information about how teachers' perceptions of program effectiveness are affected by variables such as: tobacco use norms, training variables, and classroom activities. Data were obtained from a telephone survey conducted in Florida as part of the Tobacco Pilot Project (TPP). The sample included 296 middle school teachers and 282 high school teachers as well as 193 middle school principals and 190 high school principals. Correlational and hierarchical regression analyses identified correlates and predictors of teachers' ratings of effectiveness. Results suggest that the more teachers support TUPE and believe it to be valuable and effective, the more likely those teachers are to implement TUPE classroom activities. In conclusion, higher amenability appears to be associated with more effective implementation of TUPE.

An evaluation of a curriculum response to the State of Florida mandate for computer literacy at a large comprehensive high school in Dade County, Florida

Minimum Student Performance Standards in Computer Literacy and Science were passed by the Florida Legislature through the Educational Reform Act of 1983. This act mandated that all Florida high school graduates receive training in computer literacy. Schools and school systems were charged with the task of determining the best methods to deliver this instruction to their students. The scope of this study is to evaluate one school's response to the state of Florida's computer literacy mandate. The study was conducted at Miami Palmetto Senior High School, located in Dade County, Florida. The administration of Miami Palmetto Senior High School chose to develop and implement a new program to comply with the state mandate - integrating computer literacy into the existing biology curriculum. The study evaluated the curriculum to determine if computer literacy could be integrated successfully and meet both the biology and computer literacy objectives. The findings in this study showed that there were no significant differences between biology scores of the students taking the integrated curriculum and those taking a traditional curriculum of biology. Student in the integrated curriculum not only met the biology objectives as well as those in the traditional curriculum, they also successfully completed the intended objectives for computer literacy. Two sets of objectives were successfully completed in the integrated classes in the same amount of time used to complete one set of objectives in the traditional biology classes. Therefore, integrated curriculum was the more efficient means of meeting the intended objectives of both biology and computer literacy.

The research pathway to developing a health promotion intervention for the high school curriculum

Introduction: Schools provide the opportunity to reach a large number of adolescents in a systematic way however there are increasing demands on curriculum providing challenges for health promotion activities. This paper will describe the research processes and strategies used to design an injury prevention program.----- Methods: A multi-stage process of data collection included: (1) Surveys on injury-risk behaviours to identify targets of change (examining behaviour and risk/ protective factors among more than 4000 adolescents); (2) Focus groups (n= 30 high-risk adolescents) to understand and determine risk situations; (3) Hospital emergency outpatients survey to understand injury types/ situations; (4) Workshop (n= 50 teachers/ administrators) to understand the target curriculum and experiences with injury-risk behaviours; (5) Additional focus groups (students and teachers) regarding draft material and processes.----- Results: Summaries of findings from each stage are presented particularly demonstrating the design process. The baseline data identified target risk and protective factors. The following qualitative study provided detail about content and context and with the hospital findings assisted in developing ways to ensure relevance and meaning (e.g. identifying high risk situations and providing insights into language, culture and development). School staff identified links to school processes with final data providing feedback on curriculum fit, feasibility and appropriateness of resources. The data were integrated into a program which demonstrated reduced injury.----- Conclusions: A comprehensive research process is required to develop an informed and effective intervention. The next stage of a cluster randomised control trial is a major task and justifies the intensive and comprehensive development.

Identity development in career-changing beginning teachers : a qualitative study of professional scientists becoming school teachers

This qualitative study provides a critical case to analyse the identity development of professionals who already have a strong sense of identity as scientists and have decided to relinquish their professional careers to become teachers. The study followed a group of professionals who undertook a one-year teacher education course and were assigned to secondary and middle-years schools on graduation. Their experiences were examined through the lens of self-determination theory, which posits that autonomy, confidence and relationships are important in achieving job satisfaction. The findings indicated that those teachers who were able to achieve this sense of autonomy and confidence, and had established strong relationships with colleagues generated a positive professional identity as a teacher. The failure to establish supportive relationships was a decisive event that challenged their capacity to develop a strong sense of identity as a teacher.

Adaptive teachers embracing new ways of learning with robotics in Chinese schools

In July 2010, China announced the “National Plan for Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development(2010-2020)” (PRC 2010). The Plan calls for an education system that: • promotes an integrated development which harnesses everyone’s talent; • combines learning and thinking; unifies knowledge and practice; • allows teachers to teach according to individuals’ needs; and • reforms education quality evaluation and personnel evaluation systems focusing on performance including character, knowledge, ability and other factors. This paper discusses the design and implementation of a Professional Learning Program (PLP) undertaken by 432 primary, middle and high school teachers in China. The aim of this initiative was to develop adaptive expertise in using technology that facilitated innovative science and technology teaching and learning as envisaged by the Chinese Ministry of Education’s (2010-2020) education reforms. Key principles derived from literature about professional learning and scaffolding of learning informed the design of the PLP. The analysis of data revealed that the participants had made substantial progress towards the development of adaptive expertise. This was manifested not only by advances in the participants’ repertoires of Subject Matter Knowledge and Pedagogical Content Knowledge but also in changes to their levels of confidence and identities as teachers. It was found that through time the participants had coalesced into a professional learning community that readily engaged in the sharing, peer review, reuse and adaption, and collaborative design of innovative science and technology learning and assessment activities.