Effective Professional Activity Research Articles

Discursive Authority and Sociocultural Positioning in the Mathematics Classroom: New Directions for Teacher Professional Development

Abstract This article discusses findings from a two-day teacher conference focusing on discursive authority and sociocultural positioning in mathematics classrooms. The conference was designed to study how research on classroom discourse could be transformed into effective professional development activities. We describe how the focus on discourse, positioning, and authority was operationalized and made pragmatic for the teachers by focusing very closely on specific language use in classrooms. For each of the six workshops of the conference, we outline the goal of the workshop, the activities that were structured to reach those goals, and the theoretical constructs that were introduced to the teacher participants. We then draw on (a) transcripts of video and audio recordings, (b) material produced by the teachers, and (c) survey data, to discuss how these theoretical constructs were taken up and leveraged by participants as a means of reflecting on their own and other's practice.

Teacher Academy Induction Learning Community: Guiding Teachers Through Their Zone of Proximal Development

This is a preliminary analysis of The Academy for Teacher Excellence (ATE) induction support provided through the Teacher Academy Induction Learning Community (TAILC). In response to current US teacher attrition rates, ATE–TAILC’s primary objective is to retain teachers in the classroom and provide support to ensure they are fully prepared to meet the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students. In this manuscript, we will share the TAILC component as a support structure for teacher candidates/interns during the apprenticeship period, which commences while obtaining certification requirements and continues during/through their first years of teaching. Data were collected vis à vis surveys, individual and group interviews, and induction mentors’ classroom observations. Qualitative methods were used to analyze the data. We describe and discuss effective services and professional development activities provided to 69 novice teachers. We concluded that effective teacher induction support assists novice teachers through their zone of proximal development in becoming members of a community of practice.

Rationale behind investigating positive aging among symphony orchestra musicians

Musicianship is seen as a life-long process, requiring specific adjustments to changes in age and environment, based on developmental stages each unique in structure of musical activity, motivations, and achievements. Nonetheless, studies relating to music development have focused exclusively on precocious musical beginnings and early childhood, prodigious adolescents, or academy trainees. As yet, there has been no great interest in musicians above age 50, and needless to say while very little is known about older musicians, a small number of studies published highlight underperformance and loss in support of age-linked deficits to music performance. Without a doubt, there is a serious need for attention to be placed on those who still can perform music – not only on those who can no longer perform music. Collective efforts should begin to focus on performing musicians who have maintained a professional career well into the fifth decade of their lifespan, especially as performing musicians live to an older age, extending their phase of active music-making well beyond what was once considered time to withdraw from effective professional activity. The current paper puts forth a call for music science to embrace a new arena of empirical study – positive aging among symphony orchestra musicians.

Psychology of Safety and Resistance to Terrorism

Psychographics of survivors of emergency situationsBesides injuries, emergency situations cause psychological stress.Below are listed the main parameters of any emergency situation that influence the psychological stress intensity: 1) hostility of the situation (danger to life, physical and mental integrity of the individual or that of his/her relatives);2) suddenness;3) intensity of negative effects; 4) long duration of negative effects; 5) ambiguity and unpredictability of the situation; 6) impossibility of taking control of the situation (the situation develops against the individual's will); 7) lack of social support; 8) aversion to his/her own behavior in an emergency situation; 9) incompatibility of the new experience with habitual reality; 10) impossibility of explaining the situation rationally.Let us characterize the most frequent consequences of emergency situations.1. Changes in the affective sphere. Disturbances of the emotional sphere may manifest themselves in emotional dullness, depression, dismal mood, and inability of experiencing joy, love, and creative enthusiasm. One constantly feels helpless and doesn't know what s/he is supposed to do. Intrapersonal conflicts and crises become more intense. The feeling of shame and guilt arises; the effect of survivor's guilt is widespread among survivors: the person blames himself/herself for surviving the traumatic situation that cost others their lives.2. Changes in the cognitive sphere. The survivor's memory deteriorates, s/he becomes amnesiac and cannot recall the traumatic events and experiences problems with concentration.3. Changes in behavior. The person's behavior becomes illogical, inconsistent and unpredictable. Excessive activeness and hypervigilance (detecting threats becomes the person's dominant trait) may be observed. Innocuous but sudden stimuli may produce a reaction of fear: the person starts behaving in a way as if s/he were in danger.Psychological reactions of specialists, who deal with the consequences of terrorist attacks, as the result of work with victims of emergency situationsThe first people who get in contact with the victims of accidents and terrorist attacks are rescuers and secret services agents.Meeting a person with a traumatic experience always produces strong personal reactions. Taking account of such reactions is an indispensable condition for an effective professional activity of those who come to the rescue of survivors. It is also an essential parameter of protecting doctors and their patients.In the second half of the XXth century psychologists started examining the reactions of helpers (rescuers in the first place) to mass traumas and deaths.The following characteristic psychological and pshycosomatic reactions of the rescuers and secret service agents were described:1. Irritability: the person feels weak and can't do anything; the effectiveness of his/her activity decreases; every now and again causeless grudge against somebody or something arises.2. Tachycardia: the person knows that s/he is in very good health but feels pain in the chest and symptoms of heart attack.3. Nervous tremor.4. Inability to act rationally: the person suddenly loses the ability to exercise his/her duty normally and can't remember his/her official responsibilities.5. Bursting into tears.6. Anxiety: the person takes up different activities and cannot differentiate important from unimportant.7. Exhaustion: suddenly, the person feels devastated, cannot take a single step, and wants to sit down. Every single muscle aches.8. Pestering: the person feels the need to talk and to share his/her terrible experience with somebody. S/he tends to retell the same story over and over again.9. Escape reaction.10. Despair: the person loses his/her self-control, breaks down, feels dizzy, and wants to hide in a secluded place. …

Transformative learning‐based mentoring for professional development of teacher educators in information and communication technologies: an approach for an emerging country

Teacher educators need professional development in effective use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in order to keep up with the changes and developments in ICT and to pose as a model for teacher candidates. For the purpose of meeting teacher educators’ professional development needs in ICT, it is necessary to take adult‐education‐based learning theories as the basis for the organization of effective, productive and practical professional development activities. In emerging countries like Turkey, the approach should be to find the samples of successful applications and revise them according to the country. In this respect, the purpose of this study is to suggest a structure to be executed through one‐to‐one mentoring based on the transformative learning theory in order to meet professional development in ICT. In the scope of this study, in order to meet professional development in ICT in Turkey, the characteristics and the functioning of the structure of one‐to‐one mentoring based on the transformative learning theory are explained. Finally, the present study puts forward some suggestions regarding the application of the structure and mentions the contributions of the structure to professional development in ICT.

A case study approach to increasing teachers’ mathematics knowledge for teaching and strategies for building students’ maths self-efficacy

Teachers of middle school mathematics should have a deep conceptual understanding of the elementary mathematics taught in middle school, should possess the mathematics knowledge for teaching that is required to effectively teach mathematics in middle school and should have the ability to effectively teach mathematics to, and enhance the maths self-efficacy of, a culturally and socially diverse middle school student population. The challenge is to design effective professional development activities that enhance these desired attributes in both in-service and pre-service middle school mathematics teachers. This article reports on an attempt to design and evaluate one such activity that focuses on mathematics knowledge for teaching and self-efficacy building.

What Works in Professional Development?

hat do we really know about the relationship between professional development and improvements in student learning? What evidence validates that relationship, and how trustworthy is that evidence? What does that evidence tell us about the characteristics of truly effective professional development activities? These questions guided one of the largest and most inclusive syntheses of research on effective professional development conducted to date. Scholars from the American Institutes for Research analyzed findings from over 1,300 studies that potentially address the effect of professional development on student learning outcomes. The project was sponsored by the Regional Education Laboratory-Southwest (REL SW) and funded by the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education. The findings from this comprehensive analysis, titled Reviewing the Evidence on How Teacher Professional Development Affects Student Achievement (Yoon et al. 2007), shed new light on the complex relationship between professional development and improvements in student learning. It is hoped that they also will lead to new and better research on this vitally important dimension of the educational improvement What Works in Professional Development?