Support Teacher Learning Research Articles

Teachers' Orientations toward Mathematics Curriculum Materials: Implications for Teacher Learning

This study was prompted by the current availability of newly designed mathematics curriculum materials for elementary teachers. Seeking to understand the role that reform-oriented curricula might play in supporting teacher learning, we studied the ways in which 8 teachers in the same school used one such curriculum, Investigations in Number, Data, and Space (TERC, 1998). Findings revealed that teachers had orientations toward using curriculum materials that influenced the way they used them regardless of whether they agree with the mathematical vision within the materials. As a result, different uses of the curriculum led to different opportunities for student and teacher learning. Inexperienced teachers were most likely to take a piloting stance toward the curriculum and engage all of its resources fully. Findings suggest that reform efforts might include assisting teachers in examining unfamiliar curriculum resources and developing new approaches to using these materials.

From Barriers to Breakthroughs: Principals’ Strategies for Overcoming Challenges to Teachers’ Transformational Learning

This nationwide qualitative study investigated how 25 school leaders serving in schools with varying resources, perceive the practices they use to support teacher learning. The study discusses how these leaders understand the human resource challenges they face in supporting teacher learning and highlights their creative responses to these challenges across school contexts. Although the principals experience similar challenges, the challenges manifest themselves differently, and the strategies devised to overcome them are tied to the specific contexts of the leaders’ schools.

Supporting Teacher Learning: Mathematical Thinking: Helping Prospective and Practicing Teachers Focus

How did Misha solve the problems in figure 1, and what mathematical understandings do her strategies reflect? Misha's written work provides a rich context in which prospective and practicing teachers can discuss issues of mathematics, teaching, and learning. These discussions might include conversations about the similarities and differences between Misha's two strategies, what she must have understood about place value to generate these strategies, and what type of instruction likely preceded and should follow this problem-solving effort.

Supporting Teacher Learning: Making the Complexities of Teaching Visible for Prospective Teachers

Most of the prospective teachers who enter my methods courses assume that teaching mathematics to elementary students will be easy. For example, Jenny wrote, “I thought, ‘I can teach math. How can it be so hard? It's elementary math!’ But I have been proven wrong.” Based on comments such as Jenny's, I realized the importance of giving prospective teachers opportunities to understand that effectively teaching mathematics to elementary students is complex and challenging. I recognized that field experience in my mathematics methods courses had to make the complexities of teaching more visible for prospective teachers. In other words, prospective teachers must study teaching practices. Such study would not only require viewing, analyzing, and discussing practices but also include the opportunity for prospective teachers to practice and analyze their own teaching.

Supporting Teacher Learning: Focusing Conversations to Promote Teacher Thinking

Tamara, a preservice teacher, taught a lesson on fractions to a class of fourth-grade students in her field-experience practicum. The instructor of her mathematics methods course observed the lesson. As they met in the hallway to debrief the teaching experience, the instructor began by asking, “How do you think your lesson went?” Tamara replied, “Great. I got through my entire lesson plan.” Tamara's comment and the subsequent discussion revealed that she was focused on her actions as the teacher but not on the dynamics of instruction (Cohen and Ball 2001).

Answering Teachers’ Questions at the Esl (English as a Second Language) Conference, Badu Island, 15-18 May 2000

Abstract In 2000 a program of English as a Second Language inservice provision was initiated by the Thursday Island State High School in response to teacher and community concerns about low literacy rates in Torres Strait, as measured by the National Languages and Literacy Institute of Australia Bandscales and other related difficulties. In mid-May of that year an English as a Second Language conference was held on Badu Island and was attended by teachers from throughout Torres Strait. During the conference, Susan Shepherd (Education Adviser English Language Acquisition at Thursday Island State High School) conducted a question-and-answer session dealing with some of the most commonly asked questions: What is English as a Second Language teaching? What is an English as a Second Language learner? What is an English as a Second Language school? Why is the students’ English not improving in my school? Can we have learning support teachers? Why shouldn’t the children’s home language be banned from the school so that the students will learn English more quickly? Why can’t the children understand more about what they read? Why, if the local Creole is so much like English, do we need special programs in English?

Exploring the Use of New Representations as a Resource for Teacher Learning

An important goal of mathematics education reform is to support teacher learning. Toward this end, researchers and teacher educators have investigated ways in which teachers learn about mathematical content, pedagogical strategies, and student thinking as they implement reform. This study extends such work by examining how one elementary school and one high school teacher learned from students' interpretations of new conceptually based representations contained in instructional materials aligned with the Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2000). Results indicated that teaching with new representations provided a rich context for teacher learning at both the elementary and high school level, and three dimensions were identified along which such learning occurred. The results suggest that pedagogical content knowledge with respect to representations is an important facet of teacher cognition that should be studied in greater depth.

The potential benefits of teacher efficacy doubts for educational reform

This paper analyzes the benefits that specific teacher efficacy doubts can have for educational reforms, especially for progressive, meaning-centered reforms. Teachers’ efficacy doubts may support reform in several ways, perhaps most significantly by supporting teacher learning. Similar benefits can be expected for specific teacher doubts regarding collective teacher efficacy. The important role of efficacy doubts in progressive, meaning-centered teaching is highlighted. These conclusions challenge the common assumption that teachers’ doubts about their efficacy are inherently problematic for reforms. Connections are made to research on learning, teacher efficacy, and teacher education. Implications for research, teacher education and educational policy are described.

ADHD, LD and support teachers: Towards an integrated support model

There is growing community interest in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and quite a lot of misinformation that needs to be corrected. There is also a pressing need for Learning Support Teachers to understand and work with parents of students with ADHD. With a clear overlap between ADHD and Learning Disabilities, it is essential that Support Teachers involve themselves in assessment and programming for students with ADHD. There are no extant models for Support Teacher intervention in educational assistance to students with ADHD. This article provides useful information and perspectives on ADHD, LD, parental coping and support, support teaching, and instructional matters. An integrated model to assist Support Teachers in planning and evaluating their support for students with ADHD is proposed.

Authentic assessment of teaching in context

The demands of teaching more challenging content to more diverse learners suggest a need for teacher education that enables teachers to become more sophisticated in their understanding of the effects of context and learner variability on teaching and learning. Instead of implementing set routines, teachers need to become ever more skillful in their ability to evaluate teaching situations and develop teaching responses that can be effective under different circumstances. This article examines how a growing number of teacher education programs are using authentic assessments of teaching – cases, exhibitions, portfolios, and problem-based inquiries (or action research) – as tools to support teacher learning for these new challenges of practice. Using specific teacher education programs as examples, the article examines how and why these strategies appear to provide support for teacher learning and avenues for more valid assessment of teaching. The authors also discuss circumstances in which these strategies may be less effective and suggest features of the assessments and programmatic contexts that are associated with more and less successful use.

Teachers and the Very Able: case studies of four Scottish schools

High ability in children is a contentious issue in the Scottish educational system, which promotes equity through equality of opportunity in a non‐selective system. The aim of this research was to establish an understanding of the extent of available provision for very able children in a limited number of schools, and to chart teachers’ perceptions of high ability. Four Scottish schools were studied: one comprehensive high school and three primary schools, involving 17 teachers (primary principal and head teachers), one learning support teacher and three educational psychologists. Semi‐structured interviews, supported by open‐ended questionnaires, were the means of data collection. The data were submitted to a straightforward and qualitative content analysis. Results show tentatively that recognition of high ability is generally scarce in Scotland, that highly able pupils are often subjected to several decategorisations and that there is no consensus amongst teachers of how to understand high ability. A subgroup of able pupils was identified also, termed fast finishers’ by the participants.

New technologies for teacher professional development

This article describes the potential of new technologies for teacher professional development. The article examines literature on teacher knowledge and professional development and discusses how this literature can inform the design of three types of technology to support teacher learning: multimedia, productivity tools, and telecommunication information systems. We consider how these technologies can contribute to innovation, identify questions to address, and speculate on possibilities for technology that are likely to arise in the near future.

The Stanley Segal Award: ‘Do You Want to be in My Gang?’: A Study of the Existence and Effects of Bullying in a Primary School Class

The winner of the 1997 Stanley Segal Award, Deirdre A. Torrance, a learning support teacher in a special school for secondary pupils with identified social, emotional and behavioural difficulties, considers the existence and effects of bullying in an Edinburgh mainstream primary school.

In‐class support: A successful way of meeting individual student need?

From the point of view of a learning support teacher (LST), Julia Welding takes issue with the arguments of Alan Dyson, published in earlier issues of this journal, that the speical educational needs co‐oridinator may disappear in favour of an ‘effective learning consultant’. Welding's own investigation suggests otherwise. In her situation there appears to be considerable support for in‐class assistance and such help is not only appreciated but extremely effective. The demise of the LST may well have to be postponed.

The professional development needs of learning support coordinators in Singapore primary schools May Ling Quah and Kevin Jones

ABSTRACT ‘Support for learning’ can be conceptualized in many different ways. This paper examines the role of the learning support coordinator in relation to the breadth of factors which cause pupils to experience learning difficulties in primary classrooms. It is against this background that the professional development needs of learning support coordinators is considered. The paper focuses, in particular, upon the needs of learning support teachers who work in primary schools in Singapore. The shortcomings of traditional inservice courses which focus upon curriculum development and pedagogy are discussed in relation to the wide ranging roles which learning support coordinators are expected to fulfil. The assumption that pupil achievement can be enhanced when teachers are ‘trained’ to employ certain teaching methods is questioned and the relevance of an ecological or interpretive model of staff development is discussed. Finally, the particular professional development needs of learning support coordinato...

The post‐Warnock learning support teacher: Where do specific learning difficulties fit in?

Research into policy, practice and provision for children with specific learning difficulties for the Scottish Office Education Department included a survey of how learning support teachers viewed specific learning difficulties within their general role. The findings presented by Jill Duffield, Sally Brown and Sheila Riddell suggest that the difficulty is regarded as a discrete area within their overall task and poses a number of unresolved conflicts of demand upon them.