Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

Table Of Contents And Introductory Materials For Vol. 21, No. 2, 2013-2014, Bruce Quantic

The Advocate

This content includes the table of contents and editorial information for vol. 21, no. 2 (Fall-Winter 2013-2014).

Teaching Elementary Economics Using Children's Literature, Julia Mittelberg

The Advocate

Teaching economics to elementary aged children can be a challenge for classroom teachers. Using popular children’s literature is an engaging and fun way to involve students in learning important economic lessons while integrating the content with language arts standards. This article will describe how to use children’s books to teach economic ideas and it provides the reader with numerous examples of popular literature that can be employed to effectively teach concepts like opportunity cost, scarcity, and resources. Additionally, recommendations for using the books and how to find appropriate texts by grade level using existing on-line databases are included.

Teaching economic …

Common Core - Uncommon School: Teaching And Learning In The Walton Rural Life Charter School In Walton, Ks, John R. Morton

The Advocate

Editorial

Introduction: John Dewey’s quintessential quote perhaps sets the stage for the premise of this article better than any other source. His “learn by doing” approach to education has been in and out of vogue since the 1930s.

Undoing The Factory Model: A Practical Field Test In Blended Learning, Adam C. Holden

The Advocate

Merely, introducing new technologies into the classroom does little to address the needs of students–while it might create a welcome instructional environment for them, it does not address the compelling “elephant in the room.” Being able to orchestrate a student-centered, technology-rich lesson requires much expertise on the part of the teacher and a system-wide universally acknowledged educational technology plan. This study examines the paradigm shift required of teachers and the practical reality of adopting a blended learning environment to meet the needs of a diverse school district.

Journey To Solla Sollew: Teacher Candidates, Resiliency, And Children's Literature, Gayla Lohfink, Susan Unruh

The Advocate

Today’s elementary student must learn coping strategies in order to deal with life’s challenges—social, emotional, and academic—in his or her changing world. To foster the development of such learning, teacher preparation programs must include instruction in which teacher candidates study how to facilitate their students’ awareness of mechanisms for recovering from life’s setbacks and show resiliency. This article presents a training module for enhancing pre-service teachers’ pedagogical knowledge of resiliency. Examples of recent publications of children’s literature are shared and modeled as lessons to exemplify how this particular resource can be used to encourage resiliency in children.

Literacy, The Graduation Rate, And Economic Development: How The Vaccination Approach To Literacy Instruction Impacts The Economy Of Kansas And The Nation, Carolyn L. Carlson

The Advocate

Introduction: Almost seven thousand students drop out of high school every day (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2010b). It is estimated that one in ten high schools in the United States is considered a “dropout factory” – a term given to a high school where no more than 60% of the students who begin attending the school as freshman complete their senior year (Zuckerbrod, 2007).

The Changing Face Of School Accountability: A Charge To Teacher Educators To Make Radical Changes, Kirsten Limpert, Stuart Ervay

The Advocate

Since the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) initiative is being replaced by a much different approach called Common Core Standards (CCS), education’s challenge is to find ways to effectively incorporate the CCS guidelines within local curricula. This paper discusses past, current, and future teacher education as they relate to NCLB and CCS. In addition, four specific recommendations are made as we examine possible features of future teacher preparation programs as they relate to curriculum, instruction, assessment, and academic program decision-making.

Table Of Contents And Introductory Materials For Vol. 21, No. 1, 2013, Bruce Quantic

The Advocate

This content includes the table of contents and editorial information for vol.21, issue 1 (Spring, 2013)

Teacher Candidates' Awareness And Acceptance Of Diversity, Lori Cook-Benjamin, Beth Walizer, Keith Dreiling

The Advocate

Introduction: Like many colleges of education and the departments within them, concerns exist on the best way to provide teacher candidates with clinical (also referred to as “field” in the literature) based experiences that meet accreditation outcomes. In the Report of the Blue Ribbon Panel on Clinical Preparation and Partnerships for Improved Learning (NCATE, 2010), members of the panel stressed the importance of using a “clinically based model” for teacher preparation.

Education In Finland: Reflections From A Field Trip Abroad, Debbie Mercer, Lotta Larson

The Advocate

Introduction: After hearing much about the Finnish education system, we recently jumped at the opportunity to visit the country to explore schools and education organizations as members of a professional organization tour. In this article, we aim to reflect upon what we learned, provide multiple perspectives of the Finnish education system, and discuss possible implications for Kansas educators.

Fun-Defense: Games That Teach Fundamental Martial-Arts And Build Self-Esteem., Damon Leiss, Paul Luebbers

The Advocate

Associations have been made among having a low self-esteem and both being a bully and being bullied. With bullying and its victimization being a common problem in today’s schools, increasing students’ self-esteem could benefit schools with this dilemma. Learning martial arts has been shown to increase students’ self-esteem. However, training in martial arts can take considerable time, usually more time than can be allotted in a typical middle school physical education unit. This paper provides teachers a way to increase students’ self-esteem and confidence by quickly teaching and reinforcing fundamental martial arts skills through a game series known as “Fun-Defense.”

First-Year Teachers' Dispositions: Exhibited And Perception Of Being Taught, Shane Kirchner

The Advocate

The NCATE standards adopted in 2000 mandated the assessment of teacher dispositions. However, the lack of specificity of the construct has led to an environment where many institutions struggle to develop high-quality disposition assessments. The result is a hodgepodge of constructs and systems; some that work, some that do not. This quantitative study used a modified version of the Teacher Disposition Index to identify the extent to which first-year teachers self-reported exhibiting the dispositions and whether they perceived they were taught the dispositions by the teacher education programs from which they graduated.

Differences In Principals' Data Use For Decision Making: An Administrative Probelm-Solving Perspective, Mingchu Luo, Jerry Will, Climetine Clayburn

The Advocate

As school leaders, principals must seek, use, and make sense of data and information. This study presents the findings of a survey study of 182 high school principals’ data use and examines the differences in the extent of principals’ data use for decision making in solving various dimensions of administrative problems. Results show principals used data frequently for decision-making in instructional leadership, organization operational leadership and school vision leadership, among which data use in instructional leadership was most frequent. Principals’ use of data was significantly less frequent in the leadership dimension of collaborative partnerships and larger-context politics. This article ends …