Daily Teaching Practice Research Articles

Executive function in education: from theory to practice

I. Executive Function: Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks1. Executive Function: Binding together the Definitions of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Learning Disabilities, Martha Bridge Denckla2. Hill, Skill, and Will: Executive Function from a Multiple-Intelligences Perspective, Seana Moran and Howard Gardner3. Executive Capacities from a Developmental Perspective, Jane Holmes Bernstein and Deborah P. Waber4. Connecting Cognitive Science and Neuroscience to Education: Potentials and Pitfalls in Inferring Executive Processes, Kurt W. Fischer and Samantha G. DaleyII. Executive Function Difficulties in Different Diagnostic Groups: Challenges of Identification and Treatment5. Executive Function Difficulties and Learning Disabilities: Understandings and Misunderstandings, Lynn Meltzer and Kalyani Krishnan6. Nonverbal Learning Disabilities and Executive Function: The Challenges of Effective Assessment and Learning, Judith A. Stein and Kalyani Krishnan7. Executive Dysfunction in Autism Spectrum Disorders: From Research to Practice, Sally Ozonoff and Patricia L. SchetterIII. Interventions to Address Executive Function Processes8. Executive Function in the Classroom: Embedding Strategy Instruction into Daily Teaching Practices, Lynn Meltzer, Laura Sales Pollica, and Mirit Barzillai9. Executive Control of Reading Comprehension in the Elementary School, Irene West Gaskins, Eric Satlow, and Michael Pressley10. Addressing Executive Function Problems in Writing: An Example from the Self-Regulated Strategy Development Model, Steve Graham, Karen R. Harris, and Natalie Olinghouse11. The Strategic Math Classroom: Executive Function Processes and Mathematics Learning, Bethany N. Roditi and Joan Steinberg12. Teaching Metacognitive Strategies That Address Executive Function Processes within a Schoolwide Curriculum, Irene West Gaskins and Michael Pressley13. Deficits in Executive Function Processes: A Curriculum-Based Intervention, David Rose and Katherine Rose

A paleontologia na educação infantil: alfabetizando e construindo o conhecimento

A Paleontologia é recomendada pelos PCN como tema de ciências para o ensino básico brasileiro, sendo freqüente em muitos livros didáticos no País. Abordagens mais completas sobre o tema são, ainda, escassas no dia-a-dia das escolas, devido mais à deficiência dos professores do que ao desinteresse ou dificuldades de aprendizado dos alunos. São descritas aqui iniciativas de atuação junto à Educação Infantil, envolvendo o colégio, professores e alunos. O que se propõe é usar a Paleontologia na alfabetização e na construção do conhecimento, por meio do contato dos alunos com esse tema desde suas atividades educativas iniciais. Visa à popularização do conhecimento paleontológico, à aproximação entre Universidade-Escola, à formação continuada de professores e à prestação de assessoria na elaboração/execução de atividades. As atividades aqui relatadas, mais do que idéias a serem copiadas, devem servir como idéias geradoras de idéias, sendo adaptadas à realidade e às condições de cada um dos interessados.

Seeing things differently: restorative justice and school discipline1

… helping to incorporate the principles of human rights, democracy, tolerance and mutual respect, the rule of law and peaceful resolution of conflicts into the daily practice of teaching and learning …2 Bullying, harassment, anti-social behaviour, drug abuse—in recent years many safety issues concerning student behaviour confront school authorities. How should schools respond to behaviour that threatens school safety? Much discussion surrounds school responses and the levels of stand-downs, suspensions and expulsions. There is debate also concerning the pre-emptive measures, such as searching and drug testing, introduced by schools in an attempt to guard against such behaviour. The question needs to be asked: Why do young people behave badly in school? Is it that the majority of students feel that schooling is something that is ‘done to them’ rather than a process in which they are active valued and significant participants? Should schools be moving towards more meaningful involvement of students not only...

Putting the child first how one student teacher negotiated the moral landscape of teaching

One student teacher's moral development process is uncovered, using a case study approach to capture the participant's internal processes and the constructed social context. The participant was in the first eight‐week placement of her semester‐long student teaching assignment, a kindergarten classroom in a rural public elementary school with a diverse student body. The participant believed that her professional moral responsibility was to “put the child first.” She believed this included protecting the child's dignity and autonomy, creating a close classroom community, establishing trust between teacher and child, fostering productive communication among all adults in the child's life, and safeguarding the child's health and safety. The participant maintained these priorities in her daily teaching practice and used them in her decision‐making process. However, the decisions that she was required to make during her early weeks of student teaching led to a modified understanding of her values. Democratic discourse and professional autonomy were associated with the process of moral development in this case. Theoretical and practical implications are described.

Locating Gender Bias and Systemic Discrimination in Public Schooling Bureaucracy.

The contemporary model of bureaucracy guiding the daily functioning of public schooling in Canada is discussed in terms of its propensity for gender bias and systemic discriminatory practice. Systemic discrimination in bureaucracy is situated in a global culture of gender, founded on a universal acceptance of the duality of human sexuality, and rooted in dominant discourses of masculinity and femininity. Addressing inequities in the public schooling bureaucracy that are linked to the duality of masculinity and femininity and the resultant imbalance in the divisions of bureaucratic power and authority between men and women is fundamentally a gender issue. As such, facilitating stability-enhancing radical reform in the public schooling bureaucracy is an infinitely complex task—insofar as the foundations of the modern bureaucracy are closely tied to core sociopolitical constructs based on the so-called nature of sex, gender, and the natural distribution of knowledge-power. In the context of a critically pragmatic and practical suggestion for change, this article contextualizes Ramsay and Parker's (1992) neo-bureaucracy (p. 269) as a model of reform that offers the possibility for broadly defined acceptance in the teaching profession and the wider society, while bringing issues of equity and social justice to the forefront of the daily practice of teaching and learning in public schools.

Locating Gender Bias and Systemic Discrimination in Public Schooling Bureaucracy

The contemporary model of bureaucracy guiding the daily functioning of public schooling in Canada is discussed in terms of its propensity for gender bias and systemic discriminatory practice. Systemic discrimination in bureaucracy is situated in a global culture of gender, founded on a universal acceptance of the duality of human sexuality, and rooted in dominant discourses of masculinity and femininity. Addressing inequities in the public schooling bureaucracy that are linked to the duality of masculinity and femininity and the resultant imbalance in the divisions of bureaucratic power and authority between men and women is fundamentally a gender issue. As such, facilitating stability-enhancing radical reform in the public schooling bureaucracy is an infinitely complex task—insofar as the foundations of the modern bureaucracy are closely tied to core sociopolitical constructs based on the so-called nature of sex, gender, and the natural distribution of knowledge-power. In the context of a critically pragmatic and practical suggestion for change, this article contextualizes Ramsay and Parker's (1992) "neo-bureaucracy" (p. 269) as a model of reform that offers the possibility for broadly defined acceptance in the teaching profession and the wider society, while bringing issues of equity and social justice to the forefront of the daily practice of teaching and learning in public schools.

Cacophony and Fugue: pre‐service narratives create conversation about drama education

Teacher preparation seeks to develop reflective practitioners who examine and re‐examine teaching and learning, knowledge, beliefs and values. Articulation of teacher voice‐‐use of language to explain, describe, question, explore or challenge‐‐is vital. Teacher voice implies that a teacher can speak her or his own truth and be heard. Inherent barriers in teacher education, especially in drama education, impede reflection and teacher voice. These include: (a) isolation‐‐particularly problematic in drama education‐‐students feel marginalised in both theatre and education departments; and (b) student culture favouring practice over theory, a perception created when education departments ignore arts students and drama methods texts ignore education theory. Three drama educators, two Canadian and one American, use drama student teacher written cases to develop reflection and community in pre‐service secondary drama teachers. The cases are introduced during the methods class. While each case can be explored on many levels, the collection is organised to fit methods class topics, e.g. Planning and Presenting Lessons. These cases are a very powerful teaching tool because they are stories of real experiences, perceived as authentic. When methods students discuss the issues in the cases, they must be careful to respect the author's voice and to avoid making decisions based on a surface reading of the case rather than on close reading and reflection. Methods students also tell stories from their own experiences either as a student themselves or in field placement situations to help them relate issues in the cases to their own future practice. By confronting their own ideas about teaching drama, not only are they discovering what they do and do not know, but they are also finding their own voice. Each student teacher then writes a case about a challenge, concern, or issue occurring during the practicum. Students have to be taught to write as ‘ethnographers’ of their own practice. They keep a journal recording events that might become part of the case and reflecting on daily teaching practices. The case is written in two stages: first, the students try to depict the story accurately; and second, the students try to ‘step back’ from the events in the case and analyse and reflect on the experiences integrating theory as they do. Well‐written cases can empower future teachers because they have learned from their experiences and they have had the opportunity to look forward to what they might do differently ‘next time’. By understanding their own story, these pre‐service teachers move forward on the continuum of articulating their own teacher voice. The cycle, and thus, the conversation, is completed when new cases are used in subsequent methods classes. The methods professors who use these cases have found that their understanding of drama education and teacher preparation has been strengthened from the cases and from their own conversations with each other. The result is an emerging conversation about drama education.

Assessing and Improving the Accuracy of In-Service Teachers’ Perceptions of Daily Practice

This paper describes the effects of two instructional strategies on (a) the accuracy of self-monitoring by in-service teachers, and (b) the resulting changes in their daily teaching practices. Independent recordings of teacher and student practices were first compared to teacher self-ratings. Two self-monitoring instructional procedures were then introduced to determine their effectiveness in improving the accuracy of the teachers’ self-perceptions of their classroom practices. A single-subject A-B-A-C design was used to document procedural effectiveness. Results indicated (a) the utility of a behavioral systems observational approach for describing daily classroom activity; (b) the superior effectiveness of verbal and videotape feedback, when compared to verbal only, in facilitating self-monitoring accuracy; and (c) a positive effect of improved self-monitoring accuracy on teacher and student practices related to subject matter learning. Results suggest incorporating the use of self-monitoring accuracy as a facilitating component to the teacher education process.

FAT MEN IN PINK LEOTARDS OR STUDENTS WRITING TO LEARN ALGEBRA

ABSTRACT This paper presents the findings from a study of the learning experiences of a group of undergraduates enrolled in a writing intensive college algebra course. The curriculum of the course included the usual algebra content; however, the daily teaching and learning practices in this course involved extensive writing to learn activities and journal writing. Many of the writing activities were successful in terms of facilitating student comprehension of mathematical content and could easily be incorporated into any math course. Overall the study revealed that the use of words allowed the student writers to gain ownership of the algebraic content.

An Approach to Organizing the Undergraduate Social Science Major around Learning Outcomes

Discussions about the of the sociology major may be shifting from an almost exclusive concern with program evaluation to an exploration of explicit components of learning. That is,faculty members usually clarify outcomes as a way to refine their framework for evaluating the disciplinary integrity of their curriculum, measured primarily as the content of their courses. In addition, however, faculty members are beginning to regard outcomes as statements of what students should be able to do as a direct result of experiencing the curriculum. Questions then arise about how faculty members can know most clearly whether their students are demonstrating the expected outcomes, and how learning for outcomes can be encouraged. This article sets forth the approach of one liberal arts college faculty to designing an entire curriculum around two types of explicit learning goals. After describing the abilities and outcomes of our curriculum, I explore some features of the daily practice of teaching and curriculum development in a social science department that uses assessment of students' development of outcomes as both a method of evaluation and a learning activity in itself. Syllabi and assessments of learning from two courses are presented as examples.

History and philosophy of science in physics education

Physics education in the Danish upper secondary school system has undergone a major reform, starting in August 1988. The earlier science‐centred physics curriculum has given way to a presentation of physics as a human activity, one way of obtaining this aim being through a compulsory introduction to elements of the history and philosophy of science. Following a brief presentation of the main reasons for including the historical‐philosophical dimension in physics teaching, this article describes how this dimension‐‐which was unfamiliar to most physics teachers‐‐was implemented in daily teaching practice. The implementation took place in three steps: (1) the development of a comprehensive teachers’ guide, (2) a nationwide in‐service teacher training programme, and (3) the publication of a number of students’ books written according to the guidelines of the committee responsible for all aspects of the implementation programme.

Docência universitária: formação pedagógica no âmbito da pós-graduação

Este estudo visa compreender o papel da Metodologia do Ensino Superior e da Organização do Trabalho Pedagógico no desenvolvimento da docência universitária. Na perspectiva da pesquisa qualitativa, foram adotados os seguintes procedimentos para a coleta de dados: análise documental, entrevista, observação e grupo focal. As análises mostram que a formação pedagógica universitária privilegia a organização do trabalho pedagógico sob a ótica da heterogeneidade e da contextualização, enfatiza os princípios da unicidade entre teoria e prática e a indissociabilidade entre ensino, pesquisa e extensão, mas deixa transparecer o contexto da educação básica. Ficou evidente a preocupação com a relação pedagógica, a formação e a participação dos pós-graduandos na produção do conhecimento e o estabelecimento da relação entre o plano proposto e a prática docente cotidiana. Conclui que essas disciplinas percorrem caminho ascendente no âmbito da pósgraduação, faz ponderações sobre a formação de docentes universitários e apresenta sugestões para seu fortalecimento.