Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

First Amendment Knowledge Of Classroom Teachers, Gary L. Taft

Ed.D. Dissertations

This research examined the knowledge of the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America possessed by teachers in two secondary high schools in East Tennessee. Additionally, an attempt to evaluate the relationship between church attendance in protestant evangelical churches and the teacher’s ability to address church/state conflicts within parameters previously established by the United States Supreme Court was conducted. Finally, the role of social environment was examined in teacher’s knowledge of the first amendment. Prior research within this context has produced evidence that teachers are in fact not adequately prepared to address church/state conflicts within their …

Ctl Winter 2011 Newsletter, University Of Denver, Office Of Teaching And Learning

Office of Teaching and Learning Newsletters

Winter 2011 Newsletter from the University of Denver, Center for Teaching and Learning. The newsletter highlights events, workshops, software updates, and resources for faculty.

Emancipatory Education And Democratic Politics: An Analysis Of The Sociological Imagination In A First Grade Classroom, Ellen Lin

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This autoethnographic research follows my personal and professional experiences as an elementary teacher reflecting upon the travails and joys that come with journeying toward a more liberating pedagogy and democratic experience along with first grade students. Braced with Freire’s 1970 summoning to resist dehumanization in society and education, I have pursued with disappointment existing democratic and humanizing trails in schools. Excited to exit one district and move to another known as “exceptional” in the region, I found myself even more limited by a tightly controlled system. Unwilling to give up hope, I began in my second year to infuse more …

Teaching Grammer And Writing: A Beginning Teacher's Dilemma, P. Smagorinsky, Amy Wilson-Lopez, C. Moore

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

This longitudinal case study follows one high school English teacher’s path of concept development over a two-year period encompassing her student teaching and first year of full-time teaching, both at the same rural school in the southeastern United States. The authors use a sociocultural theoretical framework emerging from the work of Vygotsky to focus on the construction of activity settings and the ways in which settings help to shape concept development. In particular, the analysis finds the teacher drawing on apparently inconsistent pedagogical traditions and their associated mediational tools: one centered on a teacher’s authoritarian control of the curriculum and …

Language And Literacies In The Borderlands: Children Acting Upon Theworld Through Testimonios., Cinthya M. Saavedra

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Democratic Education Only For Some: Secondary Schooling In Northern Uganda, Philip Kelly, Stephen Odama

Curriculum, Instruction, and Foundational Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article analyzes the effects of the political, social and cultural contexts of secondary education in northern Uganda. Specifically, the authors examine interactions between several factors with the schooling system, including

• post-colonial curriculum,
• centralized examination system,
• several decades of war and instability,
• poverty, and
• intra-national and inter-tribal prejudice and discrimination.

Informing the analysis is the fact that Uganda is a democracy and thus has certain democratic responsibilities to its children and students. To explore these issues, the lenses of democratic theory and critical theory are employed.

How To Teach The Art Of “Doing” Research: Lessons Learnt From Teacher Education Program In Pakistan, Nilofar Vazir, Rashida Qureshi

Book Chapters / Conference Papers

No abstract provided.

Teachers’ Professional Development Through Integrating Ict In English Language Education: A Case From Pakistan, Ayesha Bashiruddin

Book Chapters / Conference Papers

No abstract provided.

Transforming Classroom Discourse And Pedagogy In Rural Zimbabwe Classrooms: The Place Of Local Culture And Mother Tongue Use, Jacob Marriote Ngwaru

Institute for Educational Development, East Africa

Rural African classrooms are still practicing discourses and pedagogies that contribute towards students' continued underachievement and marginalization. The use of behaviourist-based pedagogical approaches and the exclusion of learners' socio-cultural experiences including their mother tongue (MT) still characterize most classroom practices. The use of classroom discourse that severely constrains opportunities for pupil participation and the development of higher order thinking skills has also been noted. This paper describes an intervention based on the principles of transformative and constructive developmental pedagogy designed to improve approaches to teaching and learning in a primary school in rural Zimbabwe. Examples of prevailing classroom practices organized …

Becoming A Teacher And Staying One: Examining The Complex Ecologies Associated With Educating And Retaining New Teachers In Rural Australia?, Margaret Plunkett, Michael Dyson

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The problem of teacher retention has intensified in Australia, particularly in rural areas, with a number of studies suggesting that beginning teachers are not entering the profession with a commitment to remaining there. This paper reports on a study of 102 new teachers graduating from a rural campus of a major Australian university. Utilising a self devised survey over a 3 year period, graduate reflections were captured on what it meant for them to become a teacher. The research sought to determine graduates’ goals and aspirations for working in the profession in both the long and the short term. Participants …

Pre-Service Teachers' Epistemological Beleifs And Conceptions Of Teaching, Harun Yilmaz, Sami Sahin

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This study aimed to investigate pre-service teachers’ views about teaching and the relation of those views to epistemological beliefs, gender, and subject areas. The data collection tool was adapted from “The Traditional Teaching (TT) and Constructivist Teaching (CT) Scale,” developed by Chan and Elliot (2004). Participants consisted of 490 pre-service teachers from different teacher education programs in Turkey. Principal component analysis was carried out, and nine items were removed from the adapted questionnaire because of low loadings. The data analysis showed that pre-service teachers preferred constructivist teaching views more than traditional teaching views, and this correlated with their epistemological beliefs. …

Characteristics And Competencies For Teacher Educators: Addressing The Need For Improved Professional Standards In Turkey, Servet Celik

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Although a great deal of attention has been given to the nature of teaching and the qualities a good teacher ought to possess, there has been little emphasis on the specific characteristics and competencies that teacher educators should have. This paper discusses whether setting explicit standards for teacher educators would help or hinder efforts to improve the quality of teaching about teaching, touching on the viewpoints of student teachers versus professional organizations regarding standards of quality and exploring the implied and explicit standards of academic institutions for language teacher educators in the U.S. and Australia, in comparison with the less-defined …

Sustaining School Colleagues’ Commitment To A Long-Term Professional Experience Partnership, Judith Peters

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This paper presents findings from a qualitative study that investigated school participants’ perceptions of the benefits, challenges and supportive factors related to their involvement in a long-term school/university professional experience partnership. Data were collected through interviews with coordinators and a written survey completed by mentor teachers from 4 schools. The findings indicate that participants perceived the program to have a number of benefits for both staff and school students and that participation was supported by effective communication, flexible funding arrangements, local autonomy to interpret and adapt the program and the continuity arising from the long-term nature of the partnership. The …

Self-Efficacy Beliefs Of Novice Teachers And Their Performance In The Classroom, Hasan Ozder

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This study examined the data related to the novice teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and their performance in the classroom. The researcher collected both qualitative and quantitative data for this study. According to the findings, teacher self-efficacy beliefs of the novice teachers were found to be at a sufficient level. The novice teachers reported that they frequently use “verbal reprimands” , “establishing classroom rules and routines collaboratively with students”, “daily lesson planning”, “reinforcement towards student achievement”, “multiple intelligences activities”, “discussion technique”, “concrete exemplification”, “visually supported extra activities”, “oral questioning”, and “itneractive teaching methods” in the classroom.

Continuing Medical Education And Pharmaceutical Industry, Farhan Saeed Vakani, Wasim Jafri, Almas Amin, Mughis Sheerani

Department of Continuing Professional Education

Continuing medical education providers' (academia) and industrial relationship is drawing attention all over the world. To date, there are no national commercial support guidelines available in Pakistan to properly regulate cooperation between the two distinct entities. However, the fact is that the future of all continuing medical education depends on pharmaceutical support and the providers are heavily dependent on the pharmaceutical industry to remain in action. It should always be remembered that medical education and profession is regarded as a moral of enterprise based on a blind faith between the physician and the patient. The funding support by the industry …

The Personal Values Of School Leaders In Pakistan: A Contextual Model Of Regulation And Influence, Sharifullah Baig

Professional Development Centre, Gilgit

This paper illuminates the sources of personal values and their influence on the leadership practices of two school head teachers in the particular context of Pakistan. A comparative case study method has been followed within the qualitative research paradigm where semistructured interviews, observations, and document analyses were used as the main data collection tools. This study finds that the types of personal values and the motivational bases for the acquisition of such values are very much contextually-centered. The data for both principals, despite the exceedingly different characteristics of their childhood communities, reveals that the inherent religious and communal values of …

Nsu Master Of Science In Leadership [2011], Nova Southeastern University

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice College Archive

No abstract provided.

An Exploration Of Worldview And Conceptions Of Nature Of Science Among Science Teachers At A Private Christian High School, Kara M. Kits

Dissertations

Both worldview and conceptions of nature of science (NOS) are important components in teaching and learning science. However, few empirical studies have examined the interplay between both of these components for teachers or students. Therefore, this study examines the possible relationship between worldview and conceptions of nature of science for secondary science teachers who currently teach at a Christian school.

Qualitative methodologies developed a rich description of the worldview beliefs and conceptions of NOS for teachers in this study. Eight secondary science teachers employed at a private Christian school participated in the study. A Views of Nature of Science (VNOS) …

Direct Inference Instruction: The Effects On Fourth Grade Students' Reading Comprehension And Motivation, Kalee Bengtson

Masters Theses

This research investigated student motivation and comprehension when an inference strategy was explicitly taught to fourth-grade students. Students in the experimental group (n=18) received instruction in an inference strategy developed for the purpose of this study that was based upon the five-step inference strategy created by Fritschmann, Deshler, and Schumaker (2007). Scaffolding instruction, the teacher modeled questioning the text and answering questions using a graphic organizer. After the teacher modeled the process, students worked in groups to read the text, question the text, make inferences, and answer questions at the end of the text. Finally, students completed the process independently …

My Kanawha, Anne Dipardo

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

A longtime English educator revisits James Moffet’s notion of “agnosis” as she discovers her West Virginia ancestry.