Proof in the pedagogic pudding? The challenges of promoting evidence-based teaching practice in a research-focused institution

Drawing upon the findings of a mixed methodological study, this paper critically analyses the cultural, pedagogical, and organisational issues encountered by academics and support staff working within a newly established Centre for Learning Innovation and Professional Practice tasked with facilitating a new teaching-focused policy in a previously research-led institution. The aim of this policy is to assure that, across the institution, teaching is given the same priority and kudos as research. Focusing specifically staff perceptions of the impact of the new policy on various aspects of academic life including, pedagogic practice, student support, staff training, and organisational management, the paper critically addresses the cultural and attitudinal challenges of change management (Kotter, 1996) within a ‘grey-brick’ university. In doing so it makes a significant contribution to current academic theory and debate in the areas of pedagogic practice and organisational management.

The use of digital educational resources : the contribution of research in the supervised teaching practice in basic education

This article aims to reflect on the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the educational context, focusing on the potential contributions of the use of Digital Educational Resources (RED) in the process of teaching and learning. For this purpose, the results of the use of the RED will be presented:. Digital Classroom - The World's 1st Year Carochinha The study was accomplished in a class of the 1st grade of the 1st CEB, composed of 27 students, aged 6-7 years in Castelo Branco City Schools Group within the Supervised Teaching Practice. The results obtained after the analysis and processing of the data showed that when using this RED students show they have acquired the content covered by the fact that they enhanced levels of greater interest, commitment, motivation, commitment and initiative in the course of activities proposals. But, perhaps because they are students of 1st year of the 1st CEB, do not neglect the presence and monitoring of the teacher and the use of paper-based resources. This means that there should be a complementarity that reconciles the human factor (teacher), with the use of digital media resources and paper support resources (Manual).

Beliefs, Teaching Practice and Proposals for the Attention of Cultural Diversity: the Case of a Costa Rican Teaching and Three Nicaraguans Infants

This article presents data from a research that studied a teacher belief regarding three Nicaraguan students. Specifically, presents findings related to teaching practice and its relation to diverse education proposals. It includes an analysis of four subcategories: daily dynamic of a teacher who works with infants of another culture, students’ assessment in the classroom, discipline strategies to children, and diverse beliefs and proposals. The data shows that, in the classroom, the teacher does not demonstrate different treatment to Nicaraguan and Costa Rican children, suggesting that equal treatment is the strategy per se used by the teacher to solve the issue of cultural diversity in the classroom. On the other hand, discipline is assumed by the teacher with scolding criteria, using a loud tone of voice and aggressive vocabulary.

O ensino do esporte paralímpico na escola a partir da visão dos professores : o caso do Goolball e do voleibol sentado = The teaching paralympic sport at school from teacher's perspective : the case of Goalball and sitting volleyball

Universidade Estadual de Campinas . Faculdade de Educação Física

Implications, large and small, from chemical education research for the teaching of chemistry

Research studies in chemical education pose a communication problem for chemists. Unlike the findings from other specializations in chemistry the findings in chemical education tend to be reported in education journals that are not readily accessible to most chemists or chemistry teachers. This lecture is an attempt to remedy this gap in communication. Research studies fall into three broad categories. (i) issues related to the content of chemistry itself, that is, What content to teach? And What meaning of each topic is to be conveyed? (ii) issues related to how chemical content is taught, such as, the role of lectures, practical work, particular pedagogies, etc. and (iii) issues related to its learning, that is, learning of concepts, conceptual change, motivation, etc. Findings in each of these categories of research over the last twenty years have drawn attention to opportunities for improving the quality of chemical education in each of the levels of formal education where chemistry is taught. Sometimes the research findings seem small since they, in fact, merely diagnose the actual problem in teaching and learning. At other times, the research findings are large because they provide a solution to these problems. What remains to be done is to disseminate the findings so that appropriate teaching occurs more widely, with its consequent gains in the quality of learning. Research findings, of these small and large types will be used to illustrate the potential of research to make the practice of chemical education more effective.

The Transformation of Practical Teaching Focusing on Dialogic Learning

This study investigates the transformation of practical teaching in a Catalan school, connected to the design, implementation and development of project-based learning, and focusing on dialogic learning to investigate its limits and possibilities. Qualitative and design-based research (DBR) methods are applied. These methods are based on empirical educational research with the theory-driven of learning environments. DBR is proposed and applied using practical guidance for the teachers of the school. It can be associated with the current proposals for Embedding Social Sciences and Humanities in the Horizon 2020 Societal Challenges. This position statement defends the social sciences and the humanities as the most fundamental and important ideas to face all societal challenges. The results of this study show that before the training process, teachers apply dialogic learning in specific moments (for example, when they speak about the weekend); however, during the process and after the process, they work systematically with dialogic learning through the PEPT: they start and finish every activity with a individual and group reflection about their own processes, favouring motivation, reasoning and the implication of all the participants. These results prove that progressive transformations of teaching practice benefit cooperative work in class

An after-school literacy program : investigating the experiences of students with literacy difficulties, their volunteer tutors, and the tutors' transition into the teaching profession

This research responds to a pervasive call for our educational institutions to provide students with literacy skills, and teachers with the instructional supports necessary to facilitate this skill acquisition. Questions were posed to gain information concerning the efficacy ofteaching literacy strategies to students with learning difficulties, the impact of this training on their volunteer tutors, and the influence of this experience on these tutors' ensuing instructional practice as teacher candidates in a preservice education program. Study #1 compared a nontreatment group of students with literacy difficulties who participated in the program and found that program participants were superior at reading letter patterns and at comprehending the elements of story grammar. Concurrently, the second study explored the experiences of 19 volunteer tutors and uncovered that they acquired instructional skills as they established a knowledge base in teaching reading and writing, and they affirmed personal goals to become future teachers. Study #3 tracked 6 volunteer tutors into their pre-service year and identified their constructions, and beliefs about literacy instruction. These teacher candidates discussed how they had intended to teach reading and writing strategies based on their position that effective teaching ofthese skills in the primary grades is integral to academic success. The teacher candidates emphasized the need to build rapport with students, and the need to exercise flexibility in lesson plan delivery while including activities to meet emotional and developmental requirements of students. The teacher candidates entered their pre-service education with an initial cognition set based on the limited teaching context of tutoring. This foundational ii perception represented their prior knowledge of literacy instruction, a perception that appeared untenable once they were immersed in a regular instructional setting. This disparity provoked some of the teacher candidates to denounce their teacher mentors for not consistently employing literacy strategies and individualized instruction. This critical perspective could have been a demonstration of cognitive dissonance. In the end, when the teacher candidates began to look toward the future and how they would manage the demands of an inclusive classroom, they recognized the differences in the contexts. With an appreciation for the need for balance between prior and present knowledge, the teacher candidates remained committed to implementing their tutoring strategies in future teaching positions. This document highlights the need for teacher candidates with instructional experience prior to teacher education, to engage in cognitive negotiations to assimilate newly acquired pedagogies into existing pedagogies.

The teaching practicum as an opportunity for professional growth: perceptions of three associate-teachers /

The purpose of this study was to examine the student-teaching practicum as an opportunity for professional growth for associate-teachers. Three associate-teachers from one school board in southern Ontario were purposefully selected to participate in the study. Participants were interviewed before and after one 4-week teaching practicum. They were asked to keep a reflective journal during the practicum, and provided with questions to guide their reflection. The literature suggests that meaningful professional development is contextual and requires reflection on practice. For example, Schon's (l987b) hall of mirrors phenomenon occurs when teachers reflect on their own practice while observing and guiding the practice of others. Findings from this study suggest the teaching practicum has the potential to be a valuable professional development opportunity for associateteachers, but that the university and the school board affiliated with the participants do not conceptualize it as such. As well, the research suggests that although all participants found the teaching practicum valuable, the extent to which they were able to grow professionally depended on their professional personality. In addition, it was found that the reflective journal enhanced opportunities for associate teacher reflection. This research suggests that universities and school boards may wish to consider the studentteacher practicum as a professional development opportunity.

Inclusive teaching practice in the Jewish day school: general studies teachers' experiences /

Little research has been done on inclusive education in the context of the Jewish day school general studies classroom. This qualitative case study research examines the inclusive teaching experiences of 2 general studies teachers in their respective grade 4 classrooms in 2 traditionally structured dual curriculum Jewish day schools. Data analysis of qualitative open-ended interviews, classroom observations, postobservation discxissions, and school and formal curriculum documents yielded understandings about the participants' inclusive practice and the challenges of the traditional Jewish day school structure. Eight themes that emerged related to understandings and questions about time limitations, an emphasis on efficiency, the day school structure, inclusion models, the need for increased teacher collaboration, and tension between curriculum-as-plan and curriculum-as-lived. Discussion of the findings suggests the need for further research in inclusion and integrated curriculimi in order to better understand possible restructuring of the traditional Jewish day school fi-om the time efficiency constrained dual curriculiun structure to a more flexible structure conducive of a meaningful and dynamic lived curriculum.

Teachers' professional learning within communities of mathematics-for-teaching practice

Ontario bansho is an emergent mathematics instructional strategy used by teachers working within communities of practice that has been deemed to have a transformational effect on teachers' professional learning of mathematics. This study sought to answer the following question: How does teachers' implementation of Ontario bansho within their communities of practice inform their professional learning process concerning mathematics-for-teaching? Two other key questions also guided the study: What processes support teachers' professional learning of content-for-teaching? What conditions support teachers' professional learning of content-for-teaching? The study followed an interpretive phenomenological approach to collect data using a purposive sampling of teachers as participants. The researcher conducted interviews and followed an interpretive approach to data analysis to investigate how teachers construct meaning and create interpretations through their social interactions. The study developed a model of professional learning made up of 3 processes, informing with resources, engaging with students, and visualizing and schematizing in which the participants engaged and 2 conditions, ownership and community that supported the 3 processes. The 3 processes occur in ways that are complex, recursive, nonpredictable, and contextual. This model provides a framework for facilitators and leaders to plan for effective, content-relevant professional learning by placing teachers, students, and their learning at the heart of professional learning.

Reflections About the Teaching Methodology Processes Related with the Cognition of the Superior Education Student

In concordance whit permanent global and local changes in superior education, not only in Colombia but in the world, and having in account the relevance of pedagogical actions and their incidence in the student’s cognitive level, it’s necessary analyze and to reflect about the mecanism involved in the learning processes, in order to improve the curriculums and inside of them, the teaching methodologies, pedagogy an didacts that promote better the students cognition. In the present article an analysis is made of teaching methodologies developed in Institutions of superior education with subsequent learnings that not always facilitate the cognitive development of the student, as well as a proposal of educative innovation elements aimed to guide the teachers into a careful consideration of their pedagogical practice.

A framework for English? Or a vehicle for literacy? English teaching in England in the age of the Strategy

This article considers the evolution and impact on schools in England of the "Framework for English" since its introduction in 2001, a national initiative that follows on from the National Literacy Strategy, which focused on primary schools. Whilst acknowledging that the Framework is part of a whole school policy, "The Key Stage Three Strategy", I concentrate on its direct impact on the school subject "English" and on standards within that subject. Such a discussion must incorporate some consideration of the rise of "Literacy" as a dominant term and theme in England (and globally) and its challenge to a politically controversial and much contested curriculum area, i.e. "English". If the Framework is considered within the context of the Literacy drive since the mid-1990s then it can be see to be evolving within a much changed policy context and therefore likely to change substantially in the next few years. In a global context England has been regarded for some time as at the extreme edge of standards-driven policy and practice. It is hoped that the story of "English" in England may be salutary to educators from other countries.

Student teachers’ perceptions of reading and the teaching of reading: the implications for teacher education

This article reports on research which identified perceptions of reading and the teaching of reading held by trainee teachers and the impact on my provision as a teacher educator. It found that students’ past and present experiences of learning to read and being a reader influenced their perceptions of what reading is and of what it means to teach reading. As a teacher educator, I am not able to give students long experience of seeing children becoming readers, but I am able to give them richer experiences of reading in personally and culturally relevant contexts. This has implications for the nature of subject knowledge required by a student teacher of reading and the curriculum and practice of teacher education.