Instructional Practices Research Articles

The relevance of governance, external monitoring, and instructional quality to public-private school differences in student achievement in the Western Chitwan Valley of Nepal: An exploratory analysis

This study uses a theoretical perspective known as organizational institutionalism to explain the higher test scores observed among private school students in Nepal. We argue that the differing “institutional charters” of public and private schools in Nepal result in different forms of school governance, external monitoring, and instructional practice in public and private schools and that these organizational features of schooling affect students’ learning outcomes. Empirical analyses presented in the paper show that public and private schools in Nepal do show expected differences in school governance, external monitoring, and instructional practice, but that only the instructional practice variable positively affects student achievement.

Conflictual language ideologies and mismatched language practices of Thai international students at a Chinese-medium instruction university

This study is situated against the backdrop of China’s emergence as a new player in the international higher education market and its initiative to promote the Chinese language through academic programmes. We interrupt the entrenched ‘Englishisation’ of higher education in non-Anglophone contexts and investigate Thai international students’ language ideologies and language practices in the Chinese-medium instruction (CMI) university context. The qualitative data reveals the dual functions of Chinese in Thai students’ day-to-day practices—a medium of instruction and a ‘default’ common language for communication both in and beyond formal settings. In spite of their native speakerism, we also found incongruence between language ideologies and practices in and beyond the classroom. This study carries important implications for teaching and learning in CMI universities and beyond, as we call for attention to multilingual awareness development, ‘respectability’ pedagogies and translanguaging practices in international universities with a linguistically diverse student population.

Novice Elementary Teachers’ Science Teaching: Instructional Planning and Discourse

ABSTRACT Teaching science to elementary school students is complex, and teacher preparation programs must support pre-service teachers’ learning to communicate science content and practices with children. Science teachers bring the experiences they have as students to their teacher preparation, and these experiences may support or conflict with what they are learning about effective teaching. In this study, we present stories of two first-year teachers who attended a STEM-focused teacher preparation program in the U.S. While effective science teaching requires a multitude of complex practices, we focus on the teachers’ science lesson planning and discourse. These two constructs were chosen as areas of foci because they are introduced in teacher preparation, preservice teachers are often evaluated on these constructs in preparation for licensure, and they are critical components of effective elementary instruction/ Data collection began during their teacher preparation and continued into their first year as teachers and include semi-structured interviews, observation field notes, and video recordings. While both teachers expressed similar intentions for incorporating instruction practices learned in their teacher preparation, we found differences in enactment. We discuss influences, such as school cultures and peers, on beginning teachers’ attempts to translate learning from teacher preparation into their first year as teachers of science and include recommendations for continued support of novice teacher learning.

Assessing the Utilization Level of Metaverse

The integration of metaverse technology within the educational domain is progressing swiftly, owing to its advanced technological features. This technology has the ability to captivate learners and empower teachers by offering unique learning opportunities and capabilities. Hence, the present study sought to identify the extent of Metaverse technology utilization in primary-level mathematics instruction, as perceived by both supervisors and teachers of Gifted Students. The study employed a descriptive survey method and utilized a questionnaire as the primary research tool. The study's results indicated that teachers of gifted students acknowledged and utilized Metaverse technology to a significant extent in the context of teaching mathematics at the primary level Perspectives of Supervisors and Teachers themselves. This suggests that Metaverse technology has been effectively integrated into their instructional practices, enabling them to provide enhanced learning experiences for their students.

The Regularity of High-Frequency Words (Sight Words): Teacher Phonetic Knowledge is Key

High frequency words, commonly referred to as sight words, are often a focus of emergent reading instruction. Instructional practices abound that require emergent readers to memorize the spelling and pronunciation of the words without drawing attention to grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) in the words. These approaches ignore a critical aspect of Ehri’s theory of orthographic mapping. This article reviews the literature on storing words in memory, in general, and the research on learning high frequency words, more specifically. Analyses of high frequency words on the widely used, Dolch list, are included that show the overwhelming regularity of the GPCs in these words. The analyses provide insight into the most common GPCs in these high frequency words, and they provide examples of GPCs that if taught, unlock the regularity of several other high frequency words. Discussion focuses practitioners gaining more advanced phonetic knowledge in order to better understand the orthographic regularity of high frequency words. Recommendations include supplementing traditional phonics programs for students with at least some advanced phonetic knowledge, ensuring practitioners have this level of knowledge in order to capitalize on teachable moments with high frequency words, and/or organizing classroom lists of high frequency more strategically.

Pedagogical Strategies for Guitar Teachers: Addressing Challenges and Enhancing Instructional Practices

Pedagogical Strategies for Guitar Teachers: Addressing Challenges and Enhancing Instructional Practices

Helping EFL teachers build capacity for effective curriculum implementation: A case study

The study presents the outcomes of capacity-building training that aims to facilitate and enhance Turkish EFL teachers’ curriculum fidelity in the state school context and provides in-depth insights into the issue in this context. After the training, all the participants developed positive perceptions about the curriculum. Five participants’ stages of concern evolved to concerned about and not resistant to the curriculum. One participant’s concerns altered to not resistant but unconcerned, whereas five participants’ concerns remained resistant. Only one participant showed ideal development, both in her stages of concern and instructional practices. As well as the insufficiency of curriculum-specific formal training, school-level institutional support, and individual and collective sense-making out of the curriculum were found to lack in the context. Whereas explicit grammar teaching and assessment were revealed to form a comfort zone, teaching and assessing language skills, especially speaking and writing, to present a challenge for the teachers. The ineffectiveness of train-the -trainers, and the need for curriculum maps and mentors were also asserted in the study

A Multidisciplinary Curriculum to Standardize Chest Procedures Training for Trainees in General Surgery, Emergency Medicine, and Critical Care.

Critical care, emergency medicine, and surgical trainees frequently perform surgical and Seldinger-technique tube thoracostomy, thoracentesis, and thoracic ultrasound. However, approaches to teaching these skills are highly heterogeneous. Over 10 years, we have developed a standardized, multidisciplinary curriculum to teach these procedures. Emergency medicine residents, surgical residents, and critical care fellows, all in the first year of their respective programs, underwent training in surgical and Seldinger chest tube placement and securement, thoracentesis, and thoracic ultrasound. The curriculum included preworkshop instructional videos and 45-minute in-person practice stations (3.5 hours total). Sessions were co-led by faculty from emergency medicine, thoracic surgery, and pulmonary/critical care who performed real-time formative assessment with standardized procedural steps. Postcourse surveys assessed learners' confidence before versus after the workshop in each procedure, learners' evaluations of faculty by station and specialty, and the workshop overall. One hundred twenty-three trainees completed course evaluations, demonstrating stable and positive responses from learners of different backgrounds taught by a multidisciplinary group of instructors, as well as statistically significant improvement in learner confidence in each procedure. Over time, we have made incremental changes to our curriculum based on feedback from instructors and learners. We have developed a unique curriculum designed, revised, and taught by a multidisciplinary faculty over many years to teach a unified approach to the performance of common chest procedures to surgical, emergency medicine, and critical care trainees. Our curriculum can be readily adapted to the needs of institutions that desire a standardized, multidisciplinary approach to thoracic procedural education.

When Learner-Centered Teaching and Learning Goes Online: Zooming into Linear Algebra Tutorials During the Pandemic

AbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic shifted higher education online, drawing attention to synchronous learning and instruction on digital communication platforms. Learner-centered teaching practices in the tertiary level, such as mathematical discussions, have been shown to benefit student learning. The interactions involved in online synchronous mathematical discussions have been studied less. Most research taps into these aspects drawing on students’ academic outcomes and reflective interviews. This study explores instructional practices as they unfold online, with a focus on student-instructor and student-student interactions. We zoom-in to online synchronous teaching and learning processes on a popular communication platform by analyzing Linear Algebra tutorials in the first pandemic year. Using the commognitive framework, we characterize instructional interactions with the construct of a learning-teaching agreement. The analysis resulted in three interactional patterns, where in all cases, the tutorial transformed at some point to the one dominated by the instructor.

The black box revelation of instructional practices: a mixed study of the transition to HE

ABSTRACT Instructional practices (IP) could be an important lever for student’s adjustment to the first year at the university. Yet, the role of teaching practices is overlooked in the literature about students’ transition to Higher Education (HE). To overcome this limitation, the current study proposes to analyse the link between teaching practices and student achievement controlling for individual variables. More precisely, multi-level analyses were carried out on 932 students scattered on 18 different courses from five universities. Instructional practices were measured through teachers’ self-reported questionnaires. The main results highlighted the significant link between instructional support or consideration for students’ perspectives and student academic achievement. Moreover, eight focus groups were carried out with students to understand more deeply the role of the teacher in their adjustment to HE. Five major themes emerged from the data: Non-verbal attitudes, Teacher’s flexibility and structure, interactive and entertaining lessons and clear and consistent expectations. These results provided several guidelines to improve IP to ease students’ transition process to HE.

Instructional Coaching Personnel and Program Scalability

Abstract Instructional coaching is an attractive alternative to one-size-fits-all teacher training and development in part because it is purposefully differentiated: Programming is aligned to individual teachers’ needs and implemented by an individual coach. But, how much of the benefit of coaching as an instructional improvement model depends on the specific coach with whom a teacher works? Collaborating with a national teacher training and development organization, TNTP, we find substantial variability in effectiveness across coaches in terms of changes in preservice teachers’ instructional practice (roughly 0.25 to 0.3 standard deviation from our preferred sample and models). The magnitude of coach effectiveness heterogeneity is quite similar to average coaching program effects on teaching practice identified in other research. Through a set of alternative model specifications and permutation tests, we rule out the possibility that our estimates of coach effectiveness heterogeneity are driven by nonrandom sorting of coaches to teachers, at least on observable characteristics available in our data, as well as the possibility that these estimates are simply statistical noise. These findings suggest that identifying, recruiting, and supporting highly skilled coaches will be key to scaling instructional coaching programs.

Why Teachers Integrate YPAR in Their Teaching: Cultivating Youth Wellbeing, Student Voice, and Social Justice

In this article, the authors share what they learned from considering a collection of narrative reflections written by six high school educators, all co-authors, who have integrated youth participatory action research (YPAR) into their instructional practice. Taken together, the written reflections shed light on teachers’ reasons not only for pursuing YPAR but also for persisting with YPAR in their particular school context. The authors found that all teachers shared a commitment to social justice, yet their individual purposes for engaging with YPAR varied. Drawing on the teachers’ written reflections, the authors delve into teachers’ motivations for integrating YPAR into their teaching practice in order to conceptualize teachers’ reasons for facilitating YPAR in school.

Science career expectation and science-related motivation: a latent profile analysis using PISA 2015 data

ABSTRACT In response to growing concerns about students’ low aspiration for science-related careers, more understanding on how student science motivation is related to science career aspiration is needed. This study utilised a person-centred approach to investigating the association between students’ science-related motivation profiles and their science career expectation using the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data set. Analysing responses from 9841 15-year-old students in China through Latent Profile Analysis (LPA), the study found that: (1) five distinct students’ motivation profiles were identified based on science-related motivation factors; (2) significant variations were observed in science career expectations across students’ motivation profiles, and different profiles predicted science career expectations differently; and (3) the perceived instructional practices and science learning engagement, social and economic status, and students’ gender significantly predicted students’ motivation profiles differently. These research findings contribute to new insight on the non-linear relationships between science-related motivation and science career expectation, and how student motivation profiles are impacted by demographic and context factors such as instructional practices, learning engagement, students’ social and economic status, and gender.

Justice-oriented assessment in immigrant serving schools: a critical ethnographic case study of the elements of performance assessment

This critical ethnographic case study explores the impact of Performance-Based Assessment Tasks (PBATs) on high school dynamics and instructional practices, particularly in schools serving immigrant communities. PBATs, considered alternatives to standardized testing, have shown promise in enhancing student engagement, critical thinking, and college readiness. Drawing on interviews and fieldwork at four International High Schools, the study investigates how PBAT adoption influences day-to-day operations, teacher-student interactions, and school culture. Results reveal that PBAT implementation requires early investment in skill development and mentorship, transforming educators into facilitators and students into active learners. Moreover, the oral presentation aspect fosters multilingual proficiency. Despite challenges, PBATs offer a pathway to equitable assessment practices and educational transformation. Framed within a justice-oriented framework, this research highlights the potential of PBATs to create inclusive and empowering learning environments for immigrant and marginalized students.

Writing in Elementary Students With Language-Based Learning Disabilities: A Pilot Study to Examine Feasibility and Promise.

Although children with language-based learning disabilities (LLD) demonstrate significant difficulties with writing, empirical evidence to support interventions is sparse. Therefore, the purpose of this pilot study was to examine the feasibility and promise of a writing intervention for fourth- and fifth-grade students with LLD (WILLD: writing in students with LLD). The intervention components included word-, sentence-, and discourse-level writing processes and instructional practices using self-regulation strategies. Participants for this study were 15 students with LLD, recruited from three different schools. Students' writing was assessed using a sentence probe task and obtaining an informative paragraph writing sample as a measure of proximal writing outcomes. Trained speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and special educators delivered the intervention in a small-group format over 12 weeks. Using a within-group pre-post design, we examined changes in writing outcomes before and after the intervention. Results indicated that the intervention helped students improve their informative writing skills; students' writing quality showed a statistically significant increase, and grammatical errors showed a significant decrease. Evidence from this pilot effort indicates that WILLD was feasible and appears to show promise for improving writing outcomes for fourth- and fifth-grade students with LLD when delivered by SLPs and special educators in a small-group format. Implications of the results and directions for future research are discussed. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.26053132.

Navigating Master Teachers’ Instructional Supervision Practices and Teaching Competence of Teachers: Implication for Professional Development Program

Navigating Master Teachers’ Instructional Supervision Practices and Teaching Competence of Teachers: Implication for Professional Development Program

Quantitative Reasoning: What’s Math Got To Do With It?

This keynote address explores the history and role of college math requirements with a focus on ensuring math courses serve to expand students’ horizons, rather than serve as gatekeepers. It discusses the advent of general education math courses, which brought more students into math departments, which ultimately contributed to broadening the scope of the courses to align with more students’ interests and majors, since their purpose was to advance quantitative reasoning, not mathematics skill per se. It also examines several practices to address calculus’ gatekeeping role: revising placement practices and prerequisites, redesigning courses, and updating instruction and assessment practices. Lastly, it considers the role of college admission requirements in perpetuating an overemphasis on calculus coursetaking.

Physics Education in EU High Schools: Knowledge, Curriculum, and Student Understanding

This study examines the status of physics education in EU high schools, focusing on student understanding, curriculum organization, and knowledge transmission. The research aims to uncover potential gaps or opportunities for improvement in physics education in the European Union by looking at five important characteristics. Enhancing the overall educational experience and preparing students for future academic and professional pursuits requires an understanding of the quality of knowledge imparted to students, the efficacy of the curriculum in reaching educational goals, and the level of student comprehension. By offering insightful information, this study can guide instructional practices and policy in secondary schools across the European Union, potentially leading to significant improvements in physics education. A more thorough investigation of pedagogical strategies and their effects on student learning outcomes may benefit future studies in this field. Furthermore, examining any variations in physics education among the different EU member states may provide insightful comparative analysis.

Professional Learning Communities as Determinant of Instructional Practices of Public Secondary Teachers in Davao Del Norte Division

Professional Learning Communities as Determinant of Instructional Practices of Public Secondary Teachers in Davao Del Norte Division

REFLECTING ON A COMPREHENSIVE TEACHER TRAINING EXPERIENCE

This article aims to analyze the impact of the training experience of university lecturers focusing on its effectiveness for their personal and professional development. Applying mixed-methods research, it examines the experiences and overall performance of university lecturers in the role of teacher trainers based on instructional scaffolding approach. Data collection for the analyses involves the questionnaire survey including open-ended and close-ended questions that provide statistical insights into their instructional practices as trainers. The analysis of the survey held among the participants of the project show the high level of satisfaction with the training experience. The data of the survey help to understand better the challenges of university lecturers who were assigned the role of teacher trainers and experienced professional transformation. Based on the research, the authors identify possible implications and opportunities of meaningful professional development of university lecturers through the experience of training secondary school teachers.