Representations Of Teachers Research Articles

An “autonomous reframing” tool for teachers as a model for reusability in Web‐based educational materials

Proposes a conceptual model for understanding the various “front” and “back” regions involved in Web‐based educational practices. In the process, a framework emerges for thinking about the relationship between reusability as a goal and the pedagogical representations involved in effective teaching and learning. It is proposed that a digraph‐based representational tool may be a useful way forward and a recent US patent is referred to as an example. The “autonomous reframing model” described is then related to other issues in contemporary debates about educational technology – in particular, the theory of affordance, the decision cycle model of interactivity and the need for “calm” technology.

Representations of teaching and standards-based reform: are we closing the debate about teacher education?

Since the mid-eighties, national organizations have been working together in an effort to reform schools and, more specifically, to reform teaching. Paralleling the movement toward developing curriculum standards for students, professional standards for teachers have also been developed for the purpose of teacher education program accreditation. The objective of this national coalition is to strengthen the teaching profession and raise its standards—eventually enhancing the quality of student learning—by redesigning teacher licensing and accountability requirements for teacher education programs, and engaging teachers in on-going professional development. In this study we address three specific questions: (1) what representations of teaching and teachers are portrayed in the professional teaching standards, their related policies and assessment? (2) how are standards-based reform policies affecting teacher education programs? (3) what representations or conceptions of teaching and teachers are currently reflected in teacher education programs in the context of this reform? To address these questions two states were selected as test cases. Reform documents, policies and practices, as well as interviews with key participants in the reform (e.g., teacher educators, state-level administrators) are described and analyzed, and constitute the evidential basis for this study. The patterns emerging from the data indicate that teacher educators’ degrees of resistance or cooperation with externally imposed frameworks is influenced by their conception of teaching, education and its purpose. Further, as teacher educators uncritically participate in the standards-based movement it becomes impossible for them to entertain alternative perspectives on teaching and education outside of the framework provided to them by the standards.

My soul is a witness: Affirming pedagogies of the spirit

Utilizing a cultural ideology and an explicit discourse of spirituality, this paper seeks to answer three questions. First, what does spirituality mean for the ways in which African-American women educate and research? Second, how does the enactment and embodiment of a spiritually centered paradigm impact the learning of both teacher and student in the context of the classroom? Finally, what might such work imply in terms of theory and praxis, particularly in teacher education? Arising from a case study of an exemplar African-American female professor at a large Midwestern university, three narrative tales are shared which explicate the power and influence of a spiritual pedagogy in the lives of three African-American scholar/teachers and that challenge taken-for-granted assumptions of singularity in epistemology and representation in teaching and research.

Information enforcement and learning with interactive graphical systems

This article describes two studies which assess the benefit of using the specificity principle as a criterion for choosing between alternative graphical representations in teaching and learning. The specificity principle was interpreted as a metric called the information enforcement metric. This is simply a ratio between the total number of states a representational system can support and the number of states or referents in the material being presented. The value of the metric is tested by comparing ratios for several representational teaching systems, with the learning outcomes achieved by subjects using interactive software based on those systems. Counting the states in a representational system is complex, however it is made more simple for some systems by using an intermediate representation. Results show that while the specificity principle is able to predict learning outcomes at a course grain of analysis, that is between systems which are highly expressive and those which are far more specific, between systems of similar specificity the principle interpreted in this way is not validated. A second study shows that students' difficulties in understanding lexical conventions are more pronounced in the least specific of the systems evaluated. This casts further doubt on the value of the specificity principle as a guideline for designing interactive graphical systems for teaching and learning. Several suggestions are offered for developments of this work.

Religious education's representation of ‘religions’ and ‘cultures‘1

Abstract Multicultural education (of which ‘multifaith’ RE in England and Wales is sometimes regarded as a subset) was attacked by antiracists in Britain in the 1980s. Although it is arguable that not all of the criticisms were valid, the debate raises questions about the efficacy of religious education in countering racism. The paper argues that a lack of analysis of the concepts ‘religions’ and ‘cultures’ in British RE has led to a representation of religious traditions which essentialises them, playing down their internal diversity, and which assumes a ‘closed’ view of cultures. A more flexible approach is suggested, drawing on work in ethnography and other social science disciplines, which might better combine with antiracist stances than earlier approaches. The work of the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit is introduced briefly as an example of an attempt to address some of the above issues in terms of an integrated approach to theory, the study of religions in the community and the devel...

Religious Education's Representation of 'Religions' and 'Cultures'

Religious Education's Representation of 'Religions' and 'Cultures'

Visible Minority Ethnic Representation in Teaching and Teacher Education in Britain and the Netherlands: Some Observations

Les AA. reprennent les resultats d'une precedente etude portant sur la representation des minorites ethniques dans l'enseignement en Angleterre (1992) et les comparent avec une etude identique realisee aux Pays-Bas

Jacques Le Bourva's theory of endogenous credit-money

About 30 years ago, Jacques Le Bourva published two little-known articles that clearly set out the present post-Keynesian theory of endogenous money developed by Kaldor and Moore. The main features of these two articles are presented, in particular Le Bourva's belief that reverse causation, rather than the instability of the velocity function, is the key objection to the quantity theory of money and the mainstream theory of inflation. Other features include a graphical and an algebraic pedagogical representation of the theory of endogenous money, the use of the Banking school's efflux/reflux mechanism, the dismissal of the money multiplier, and the impossibility of an excess supply of money. Le Bourva's theory of inflation also resembles that adopted by many post-Keynesians, in which price increases due to excessive wage demands and attempts by firms to raise their profit margins to finance investment.

Professional Practices Boards for Teachers

Shive describes and analyzes the cur rent status of professional practices boards for teaching. The questions of assessment for entry into the profes sion, interdependence of certification and teacher preparation programs, and national versus state professional prac tices boards are examined. Implications of such boards forthe state of the profes sion including improving minority rep resentation in teaching, establishing high standards for practice, and improv ing public confidence in teachers are also considered.

An innovative approach to computer programming in schools

The authors are encouraged by the outcome of classroom tests of a new approach to teaching programming to beginners in schools. This approach is based on structured programming and emphasizes general problem‐solving strategies while considerations related to coding and syntax are deferred until solutions are found. The new method employs a pedagogical representation of the interplay between problem analysis, algorithm design and implementation language. This representation was specially devised to facilitate the teaching and learning of programming skills. The authors have found the method to be effective with students in the classroom and with teachers on in‐service courses.