In-service Courses For Teachers Research Articles

Current Developments in Scotland in Inservice Courses for Teachers of Pupils with Special Educational Needs

Summary Principles affecting inservice training of teachers are influenced by national technological and demographic developments as well as the economic and political climate. Effects of these different factors are discussed briefly and illustrated by the experience of one College's inservice course for teachers of pupils with special educational needs.

Technology for Teachers: a report on an in-service course for teachers of Design and Technology

SUMMARY The in-service degree course in Design and Technology at Loughborough University of Technology known as ISBA (In-service B.A.) was designed 5 years ago to meet two main needs. First, there were teachers who wished to undertake a full–time retraining course to update their knowledge and skills for the teaching of Technology in secondary schools (11-18 age group). Secondly, most teachers of Craft, Design and Technology who were trained prior to about 1970 followed a 3-year certificate course in Handicraft. Many of these teachers now wish to obtain a first degree as well as updating in order to enhance their promotion prospects. This paper looks at the design of the course with particular reference to the technological content and some of the reactions from the teachers who have attended it.

Tourism teaching into the 1990s

The Department of Management Studies for Tourism and Hotel Industries, University of Surrey, UK, in association with the University of Calgary, Canada, organized the first international conference for tourism educators ‘Tourism Teaching into the 1990s’ in July 1988. The conference was a logical extension of the Surrey department's in-service courses for teachers of tourism and its wider role in tourism education. Described by Ritchie as a milestone in the maturing of tourism education and conceived and organized at the broadest possible and international scale the conference was a clear signal that the study of tourism has become legitimate.

Teacher training: A time for perspective taking

Integration of the microcomputer into the curriculum is dependent upon its acceptance by classroom teachers. Therefore careful consideration should be given to the way in which teachers are introduced to the microcomputer as a teaching/learning tool. Research findings on teacher concerns regarding innovations can assist in designing introductory courses. This paper presents a multiple perspective model for designing computer education courses based on a developmental pattern of teacher concern. Two implementations of the model are described, an introductory course for preservice teachers and a graduate course for inservice teachers.

Talking Shop: Intercontinental perspectives on communicative language teaching

In July 1984 a British Council course on the development and production of ELT materials was held at St Mary's College, London, under the directorship of Dr Rod Ellis, then Senior Lecturer at the College. From among the thirty-seven participants, four from different continents were invited to take part in an ad hoc recorded discussion on the meaning and implications of the communicative movement in ELT for them in their various different teaching situations. Their discussion is, as one might expect, inconclusive (partly due to time constraints), but is nevertheless an apt reflection of current debate about the principles of communicative language teaching. We are grateful for the time they so generously gave, insufficient as it was, in a hectic two-week course that many participants found offered unique opportunities for comparison and exchange. The participants in the recorded discussion were: Alice M. Da F. Freire, teacher of English at the Catholic University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Apart from her language-teaching duties, Alice is a member of a research group working on materials production. Christine Kiganda, senior specialist at the National Curriculum Development Centre, Kampala, Uganda. Christine is in charge of the Ugandan Secondary School Curriculum in English, and runs in-service courses for teachers. Ivana Mikuli6, teacher at the School for Foreign Languages, Zagreb, Yugoslavia, and author/co-author of textbooks in English for Yugoslavian students. Shihong Yang, lecturer at the English Department, Guangzhou (Canton) Foreign Languages Institute, People's Republic of China. In addition to his teaching, Yang has worked on the CECL (Communicative English for Chinese Learners) materials being produced and piloted at the Institute (see Li Xiao-ju's article ‘In defence of the Communicative Approach’ in ELT Journal 3811:2-13). The following extracts, it is hoped, will serve to indicate the range and main focuses of their brief conversation, one of very many dealing with similar topics which took place among those attending the course.

The development of a nutrition inservice course for teachers of young children

Evaluation of a 45-hour nutrition education course for K-6 teachers revealed that the technical content was too complex to be useful for preschool and elementary school teachers. We revised the course to include more practical lesson plans and activities and less basic nutrition content. We then trained 110 individuals to coordinate and facilitate course offerings and measure the nutrition knowledge gains of classroom teachers who completed the course as taught by persons who had taken the training session. Nutrition knowledge increased significantly but course leaders and participants suggested even further increases in nutrition education activities and decreases in basic nutrition. Findings suggest that nutrition courses for elementary teachers should emphasize short, practical classroom exercises and concept translation in order to achieve maximum usefulness and effectiveness for teachers of young children.

The evaluation of advanced inservice courses for teachers: the challenge to providers1

Financial and political pressures may well combine with increasing professional criticism to force providers of advanced inservice courses ‐ primarily diplomas and masters degrees ‐ to evaluate their work in order to respond to the currently dominant demands for clear professional relevance and in some cases even to survive. Evaluation of a systematic kind of these courses demands response to three levels of challenge: the challenge of notions of professional relevance implicit in new styles of INSET; the conceptual and organizational challenge of course evaluation; and the challenge of the climate and structure of the providing institutions ‐ universities, polytechnics and colleges. A consideration of each of these suggests difficulties and dangers as well as opportunities and priorities for the evaluation process. 1This paper is based on one presented at the 1979 conference of the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers. My thanks to Douglas Barnes and Gordon Whalley for their comments on an ...

An answer to the teaching of ecology

The reasons why ecology is often not taught in a practical and meaningful way in schools are discussed. The authors describe an approach to ecology teaching which they have developed in Kenya, based on a workbook of structured integrated exercises and in-service courses for teachers. Using a grassland-woodland transect the teachers investigate hypotheses on: the distribution of plants and animals, climatic features, soil and litter, and adaptations of organisms to their habitats. In each investigation simple quantitative measurements are made using inexpensive apparatus. The data collected are translated into diagrams and charts for easier interpretation. The original hypotheses are then examined. The investigations and the method of study have been successful in Kenya and are recommended to teachers in other countries.

The Graylands Teachers’ College Study

At an In-Service Course for Teachers of Aboriginal children held in Perth in February 1973, Mr. D. Ibbotson reported on the study being conducted by his College. In this study, teachers in the State were asked to provide information relating to their pupils, on(a) general difficulties and problems of language, behaviour, attendance, organization, parental support (or lack of it).(b) problems, interest and successful ways and means in curriculum areas of Spoken English, Written English, Mathematics.Teachers were also asked to comment on curriculum areas of greatest and least success.

Nassau Community College and the Drug Problem

This paper deals with the drug related programs being sponsored by the Departments of Health and Physical Education, Student Personnel Services, and Business at Nassau Community College. Information is presented on the required health course, recently developed drug videotapes, the writing of a booklet on “Drugs and the College Student,” in-service courses for teachers on drugs, parent classes, the Student Task Force, and the special vocational business training programs for addicts undergoing rehabilitation at Topic House, a residential-type rehabilitation center.

Teacher Preparation and the College Department

IN ONE OF OUR LARGEST graduate departments of English, located in a major American city, twenty-eight professors struggle valiantly to educate nearly 750 graduate students, of whom two-thirds are working on the Master's degree, many riding for an hour to reach the university campus after a day spent teaching English in city and suburban schools. The research-oriented graduate program successfully produces the sixth largest annual supply of Ph.D.'s in the United States, but it also reflects the weaknesses in graduate education in English pinpointed by Don Cameron Allen in his brilliant and witty The Ph.D. in English and American Literature: large classes, an almost total devotion to literature at the expense of language and rhetoric, little or no supervised teaching or discussion of college teaching, and the implied assumption that research which leads to publication offers the only road to preferment within the profession. Although the graduate faculty, like that on a dozen other campuses this year, has undertaken a study of current graduate requirements, no professor offers in-service courses for teachers in the schools or

A Mathematics-Physics Course for In-Service Teachers

A Mathematics-Physics Course for In-Service Teachers