Frequency Of Teachers Research Articles

Occupational Differences Between Alzheimer’s and Aphasic Dementias

We aimed to determine whether there is an association between teaching and the development of progressive speech and language disorders (SLDs). Occupation was compared between 100 patients with a progressive SLD, 404 patients with Alzheimer's dementia, and the 2008 US census. In SLDs, the most common occupation was teacher (22%) versus 8% in Alzheimer's dementia. The odds ratio (OR) of being a teacher in SLDs compared to Alzheimer's dementia was 3.4 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.87-6.17). No differences were observed in the frequency of other occupations. The frequency of teachers was higher in SLDs compared to the US census, OR of 6.9 (95% CI = 4.3-11.1). Farming, forestry, and fishing occupations were more frequent in SLDs compared to the US census. We identified an association between progressive SLDs and the occupation of teaching. Since teaching is a communication demanding occupation, teachers may be more sensitive to the development of speech and language impairments.

An Examination of Typical Classroom Context and Instruction for Students With and Without Behavioral Disorders

Classrooms are complex social systems in which teachers and students interact in a variety of ways across contexts. Of issue is both the nature and frequency of teachers' use of what typically are considered effective instructional practice and the typical manner in which students respond to different teacher behaviors. This study expands upon earlier research using direction observation and coding systems to take a snapshot of how classrooms typically operate and to analyze how teacher behaviors predict student success rates. Over 1000 observations of elementary and high school classrooms were conducted during instructional contexts and the data for both teacher and student behavior summarized for analysis. Descriptive data on specific frequency and duration outcomes are presented for teachers and students and possible interactions are discussed.

Teacher Outreach to Families Across the Transition to School: An Examination of Teachers’ Practices and their Unique Contributions to Children’s Early Academic Outcomes

This descriptive study explored teachers’ outreach to families in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade, and its relations to children’s early growth in language, literacy, and mathematics. Teachers (n = 62) completed surveys reporting the frequency of outreach practices to families, and children’s (n = 210) early academic skills were assessed at the beginning and end of the school year. In addition, parents described their education, while teachers noted their education, experience, and number of minutes they devoted to various types of classroom instruction. Results revealed that the frequency of teacher outreach varied both across practices and across teachers. Positive associations emerged between teachers’ provision of workshops and children’s vocabulary learning, as well as between teachers’ invitations to volunteer in the classroom and children’s mathematics development, even after controlling for teacher, family, and child factors. In contrast, the frequency of teachers’ phone calls to families was inversely related to children’s vocabulary and mathematics learning. Results provide new information about the nature of teacher outreach during the school transition period and its distinct, selective contributions to important early skills.

The impact of a project‐based science curriculum on minority student achievement, attitudes, and careers: The effects of teacher content and pedagogical content knowledge and inquiry‐based practices

AbstractProject‐based science (PBS) curricula have project‐ and inquiry‐based aspects that leverage the strengths of urban students from ethnic and racial groups underrepresented in science careers, potentially impacting positively these students' science achievement and attitudes and thus their college and career plans. We aimed to determine the extent to which a PBS curriculum would show this. We provided professional development to bolster urban teachers' science content knowledge (CK) and science pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) to observe the maximal impact of the PBS curriculum. We found that students' science achievement improved with the PBS curriculum, but that their attitudes toward science and plans to pursue science did not. Increases in teachers' CK and PCK with the professional development correlated with the improvements in student science achievement but did not correlate with improvements in student science attitudes or plans. However, the frequency of teachers' use of specific inquiry‐based activities did correlate with improvements in students' science attitudes and plans. In sum, the extent of the success of a PBS curriculum with students from groups underrepresented in science careers appears to be dependent on elements of both teacher knowledge (CK and PCK) and teachers' frequency of use of inquiry‐based activities that are consistent with culturally relevant pedagogical practices. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 94:855–887, 2010

Leadership for Literacy Coaching: The Principal’s Role in Launching a New Coaching Program

Purpose: This study investigated the relationship between principal leadership and variation in teachers’ participation in a new literacy coaching program: Content-Focused Coaching® (CFC). Research design: Twenty-nine schools were randomly assigned to participate in the CFC program or to serve as a comparison. Interviews were conducted with elementary school principals and coaches, and teachers completed surveys describing their experiences with their new coach. Correlation analyses investigated the relationship between the categories of principal support and the frequency of teachers’ participation in individual coaching activities. Principals’ actions and beliefs were also compared across schools, with teachers’ relatively high and low participation in coaching, to identify patterns in principal leadership. Findings: Principal leadership was significantly associated with the frequency with which teachers conferred with their new CFC coach and were observed by their new coach as teaching reading comprehension lessons. Principal behaviors associated with teachers’ increased engagement with coaches included actively participating in the CFC program and publicly endorsing the coach as a source of literacy expertise to teachers. Principal beliefs regarding a literacy coach’s role and responsibilities were associated with the frequency with which teachers opened their classrooms to the new coaches. Implications: This study provides insight into the features of principal leadership that may support coaches in engaging with teachers and gaining access to their classrooms. Observing teachers’ lessons is a critical dimension of effective coaching and a difficult task for coaches to accomplish. Learning how principals can positively contribute to this process could help schools and districts make more effective use of their literacy coaching resources.

Contextualising the Foreign Language. An Investigation of the Extent of Teachers' Sociocultural Background Knowledge

In foreign language education, a shift has been noticeable, first, from teaching the foreign language as a linguistic code to teaching that code against the sociocultural background of, primarily, one country in which the foreign language is spoken as a national language, and more recently, to teaching the foreign language with a view to preparing learners to use it in intercultural contact situations. The study's aim was to inquire into the extent of foreign language teachers' familiarity with the foreign countries and cultures that tend to be associated with the foreign language they teach. The operationalisation of this research question resulted in a study being focused on Spanish and Belgian teachers of English. Our findings suggest that foreign language teachers can be said to be sufficiently familiar with some cultural topics, but not with others, and that a positive significant relationship exists between the frequency of teachers' direct and indirect travels and the level of their familiarity in Belgium, but that the picture in Spain is less clear in this respect.

A Grounded Approach to Social and Ethical Concerns about Technology and Education

This is an inquiry into the problem of how practicing educators can build the conviction to act in response to social and ethical concerns they hold about technology and education. The inquiry is essentially philosophical in that it consists of a close examination of the language, concepts, and meanings people employ in thinking and talking about these matters. It is not an empirical study of the nature, extent, or frequency of teachers' concerns about computers nor of the ways they actually do respond to their concerns. Rather, it is an effort to show by example how educators who are concerned about one issue—dehumanization—could examine their concern and reach a responsible, informed judgment about its validity and seriousness. The method we use to examine these concerns combines the conceptual analysis characteristic of analytic philosophy with the review and interpretation of social science research on important empirical questions. We refer to this as a grounded approach. The goal of the inquiry is to use the grounded approach to examine and evaluate one particular set of concerns and to show how it can offer responsible educators a justifiable basis for acting (or refraining from action) on their concerns.

Physical education teachers' behaviors as related to pupils' psychosocial development in curricular and extracurricular settings.

The purpose of this study was to examine whether teachers' behaviors related to pupils' psychosocial development would differ when physical education teachers taught curricular physical education lessons and when they coached extracurricular school teams. Subjects were 22 physical education teachers who taught and coached basketball in northeastern Colorado and southeastern Wyoming. One physical education lesson on basketball and one basketball practice were videotaped for each subject. These tapes were then coded for frequency of teachers' reactive and spontaneous behaviors with the Coaching Behavior Assessment System. A one-way analysis of variance test indicated that there was no statistically significant difference between the rates teachers used all behaviors during lessons and practices. Hotelling-Lawley trace tests and subsequent repeated-measures multivariate analysis of variance indicated that teachers provided significantly higher rates of punitive mistake-contingent technical instruction, general technical instruction, and general encouragement during extracurricular practices and used a significantly higher rate of behaviors aimed at keeping control during curricular lessons. Unlike previous research on skill-related behaviors, the results did not indicate that teachers' performance suffered dramatically during curricular lessons when compared with performance in extracurricular practices.

Collaborative interaction for improvement of teaching

Relationships are explored between teachers' collaborative interactions and implementation of a complex, innovative instructional approach. The theoretical framework, drawn from organizational theory, leads to the prediction that teachers' use of collaboration will help them use non-routine teaching strategies. Thirteen elementary teachers were observed as they attempted to implement a complex science/mathematics program during one academic year. Findings revealed an association between the frequency of teachers' collaboration and the quality of their implementation only when collaborative meetings were structured. New directions are indicated for future research of structured collaboration.

Logical Reasoning Ability and Teacher Verbal Behavior within the Mathematics Classroom

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the frequency of seventh-grade mathematics teachers' use of the language of conditional logic and their students' growth in conditional reasoning ability. Children of twenty classrooms were tested in September and again at the end of January using the Cornell Conditional Reasoning Test-Form X. Frequency of teacher use of conditional logic language was determined by analyzing the transcriptions of five 42-minute lessons for each teacher. Adjusted posttest performance on the conditional reasoning test was correlated significantly with these frequencies exhibited by the teachers.