Teaching Routines Research Articles

Kompetenzorientierter Unterricht im Kontext nationaler Bildungsstandards

Summary Accelerated by the publication of the first PISA results in 2001, the term competence found its way into the educational system in Germany. The paper depicts important stages on the way to competence-oriented teaching practices. For this purpose we start with a brief elaboration of relevant findings from the Programme of International Student Assessment and outline the development of national educational standards. Subsequently we look closely on tasks as connecting link between outcome-oriented reform programs and everyday teaching routines in classroom situations. Within the context of psychometric models of competencies, tasks describe different levels of difficulty and exemplify the overarching framework. Based on empirical findings from the SINUS-Programme we show that well-constructed tasks are useful not only for performance diagnostics but also for the development of competence-oriented teaching activities.

The impact of a systematic and explicit vocabulary intervention in Spanish with Spanish-speaking English learners in first grade

This study examined the impact of a 15-min daily explicit vocabulary intervention in Spanish on expressive and receptive vocabulary knowledge and oral reading fluency in Spanish, and on language proficiency in English. Fifty Spanish-speaking English learners who received 90 min of Spanish reading instruction in an early transition model were randomly assigned to a treatment group (Vocabulary Enhanced Systematic and Explicit Teaching Routines [VE-SETR]) or a comparison group that received general vocabulary instruction using the standard reading curriculum with general strategies designed to increase the explicitness of instruction (General Systematic and Explicit Teaching Routines). Results indicated a statistically significant difference in depth of student Spanish vocabulary knowledge favoring the VE-SETR group. Differences on language proficiency in English, general vocabulary knowledge in Spanish, and oral reading fluency in Spanish were not statistically significant. Implications for future research are discussed.

Exploring the use of critical incident analysis and the professional learning conversation in an initial teacher education programme

This study focuses on critical incident analysis in initial teacher education and the part played by the professional learning conversation. A reflection framework was used to identify changes in levels of reflective practice. Conversational skills of the supervising teacher in recognising the ‘person’ in the student teacher, and their management of the student's emotions, appear central to unlocking and increasing critical reflective practice. Dialogues that focused only on training standards, using evidence from practice to ‘sign off’ particular standards, were concerned more with the routines of teaching and less with increased and considered analysis of practice and change.

Chapter 21 ‘Retirement’ with continued output

At the meeting of the University Court on 13 June 1929, Gregory intimated his intention to retire from the Chair of Geology on 30 September 1929 ( Glasgow Herald , 14 June), thus giving very short notice to appoint a successor without an interregnum. This suggests that he had made the decision only shortly before 13 June. The official retirement age for Professors in Glasgow was then 70; at 65, he was standing down five years early. He had visibly aged (Figs 21.1 & 21.2 compared with Frontispiece when c. 50). He did not intend to stop working, but planned to concentrate on writing, particularly books, undisturbed by the academic routines of teaching, field classes, attendance at Senate and other committees, and running the Department of Geology and the geological section of the Hunterian Museum. He still had part of his two year spell as President of the GSL and a second presidential address to deliver; both London-based duties. Since he produced no fewer than four books (two joint) and about 30 papers in 1930 and 1931 following his retirement, there is no doubt that he continued relentlessly in his work ethic. His publication output actually increased as other duties fell away. The topics were mostly, but not entirely, the familiar ones already described. Fig. 21.1. Gregory on one of his last Glasgow day geological excursions. By permission of the University of Glasgow Archive Services. Fig. 21.2. Gregory about the time of his retirement, aged 65. By permission of the University of Glasgow Archive Services. It seems likely that the trigger that precipitated Gregory's early retirement was the fact that Audrey, at some time in the later 1920s had decided to move back to Little Baddow in Essex (Fig. 21.3). There are several possible reasons; because her lungs could take no more of the polluted …

3D virtual worlds as environments for literacy learning

Background: Although much has been written about the ways in which new technology might transform educational practice, particularly in the area of literacy learning, there is relatively little empirical work that explores the possibilities and problems – or even what such a transformation might look like in the classroom. 3D virtual worlds offer a range of opportunities for children to use digital literacies in school, and suggest one way in which we might explore changing literacy practices in a playful, yet meaningful context. Purpose: This paper identifies some of the key issues that emerged in designing and implementing virtual world work in a small number of primary schools in the UK. It examines the tensions between different discourses about literacy and literacy learning and shows how these were played out by teachers and pupils in classroom settings. Sources of evidence: Case study data are used as a basis for exploring and illustrating key aspects of design and implementation. The case study material includes views from a number of perspectives including classroom observations, chatlogs, in-world avatar interviews with teachers and also pupils, as well as the author's field notes of the planning process with accompanying minutes and meeting documents. Main argument: From a Foucauldian perspective, the article suggests that social control of pedagogical practice through the regulation of curriculum time, the normalisation of teaching routines and the regimes of individual assessment restricts teachers' and pupils' conceptions of what constitutes literacy. The counternarrative, found in recent work in new literacies provides an attractive alternative, but a movement in this direction requires a fundamental shift of emphasis and a re-conceptualisation of what counts as learning. Conclusions: This work on 3D virtual worlds questions the notion of how transformative practice can be achieved with the use of new technologies. It suggests that changes in teacher preparation, continuing professional development as well as wider educational reform may be needed.

Facilitating blended learning by means of vidcasting

ICT becoming ever more pervasive at universities, it is a challenge for educators to identify uses of technology that may enhance the learning experience rather than just remediate conventional teaching. Podcasting is a much acclaimed new technology. Although there is little hard evidence that the academic benefits of podcasts justifies the investment of resources, there are indications that podcasting 1) is being adopted by students as a supplementary study tool; 2) is considered by students to help improve the study environment; and 3) challenges faculty to reflect on and reconsider their teaching routines. This poster deals with A) experiences, from the point of view of the practitioner, with faculty use of the new technology, and B) the institutional and technical framework developed to support the use of podcasts in teaching. A) As to faculty use, we have observed that simply trying out the technology seems to foster creative ideas. One recent example involves replacing a long lecture on research methods with a series of short, thematic vidcasts. Small groups of students were assigned to watch and discuss the vidcasts constituting the lecture, and later each group was requested to present to the entire class the key points of their particular vidcast. In another course, a professor replaced in-class presentations of student group project proposals with short vidcasts recorded by each group. Thus valuable time was freed for more crucial teaching activities. It also turned out that the student presentations were better structured, more to the point, and more reflected than typical in-class presentations. B) Given that anyone with a minimum of technical skills can produce podcasts, and that faculty in general may be lacking skills to handle the technology and to make good presentations in the new medium, it is a challenge for university administrators to make available easy-to-use, efficient and cost-effective ICT-tools. Making sure that needs and not technology will be the driving force in this innovative process is an act of balance. At Roskilde University, policies and practices have been developed for augmenting academic activities on to the net by means of video podcasts. The principles underlying this development are: 1. Teaching and research communication in general are being viewed as two closely related aspects of audio-visual communication. 2. Adoption of net based audio-visual communication should be voluntary. 3. Production of vidcasts should be inexpensive and readily available.

Pequenos grupos informais nas instituições: exercício da cidadania e da dimensão instituinte

Este relatório de pesquisa apresenta um estudo desenvolvido na rede de grupos informais realizados no campus central da PUCRS. São considerados grupos informais os constituídos pelas necessidades, pelos desejos e/ou motivação de seus membros e não demandados pelas rotinas administrativas, de pesquisa ou do ensino da universidade. A pesquisa teve um delineamento misto. Participaram alguns coordenadores e componentes dos grupos. Os resultados indicam que são reconhecidos os grupos pela comunidade interna e externa à PUCRS como um método/caminho que acolhe, viabiliza e potencializa desejos, necessidades e metas dos participantes. Estes instituem uma organização que se articula com os organizadores formais da PUCRS, viabilizando a continuidade da vida coletiva. Os grupos são coordenados por líderes que o fazem com eficácia, sem um conhecimento teórico específico para tanto, e o significado do grupo é dar sentido à vida das pessoas que fazem parte dele.

Instructional Activities as a Tool for Teachers' and Teacher Educators' Learning

Abstract To understand how teacher education might build the knowledge it needs, the editors of this issue investigate how organizations outside of education create and maintain “self‐improving” systems that enable them to learn how to get better at what they do. To learn about knowledge building in teacher education, the research reported here also looks outside—outside of mathematics teacher education and outside the structure of professional preparation for teaching as it occurs in universities and colleges. This article explores features of a system of collective knowledge building in and for teaching and teacher education that are in place in an international, school‐based program for teachers of Italian as a foreign language. We use our study of this unusual teacher education program to investigate how a carefully chosen set of instructional activities, built out of the essential social and intellectual routines of ambitious teaching, can make it possible for novices to teach ambitiously and for tea...

Bank of human encephala: an important tool for the study of brain aging

For a better understanding of processes related to senescence and to brain senility, the study of brain tissue is mandatory,regarding both the microscopic and the macroscopic aspects, over all when data found in anatomopathological analysis may be correlatedto clinical-functional conditions of individuals. In order to make available tools for the study of brain aging, the Bank of HumanEncephala of the Group of Studies in Brain Aging of FMUSP was created (BEHGEEC) in 2003. The present study aims to describe theexperience of GEEC in the creation and implementation of a bank of human encephala with purposes of teaching and research and forthis it narrates the experience of GEEC since its creation until its functioning, pointing to procedures of collection and processing ofcases and its routines of study, teaching and research.

Sky observation and mythology: paths to an astronomical culture

AbstractThe teaching and the popularization of Astronomy, nowadays, suffers from the absence of attractiveness. It's, somehow, consensual that the most efficient approach to attract the general public or even an uninterested student to the Astronomy is the sky observation. With the help of instruments like telescopes or binoculars, the observation of aesthetical impressive objects such as galactic clusters, approaching planets and many others may have a great impact upon those people. We have been executing an efficient and attractive didactic method which has been evaluated permanently for more than two years and has shown great efficiency that consists in the utilization of legends and myths from different cultures (including Brazilian Indians myths, in an etnoastronomical approach) about the constellations and their dispositions in the sky. The objective of this panel is to show the efficiency of the method and some of its teaching routines always beginning with myths or legends involving a great number of constellations (using, preferentially, most of the watchable sky in a certain time of year), using asterisms for identification and then following to a certain constellation from which it is possible to extract the information required for the studied subject.

Supporting Teacher Learning: Lesson-Study Groups with Prospective and Practicing Teachers

Supporters of the current reform efforts in mathematics envision ways of teaching that engage students in meaningful tasks and create communities where students can discuss and reflect on their learning. Becoming such a teacher requires learning new pedagogical strategies, knowing how children learn, and reflecting on one's own understanding of mathematical knowledge and practice. As both prospective and practicing teachers participate in a variety of learning experiences, they revise their conceptions of mathematics instruction and develop new forms of practice. Two predominant contexts for teacher learning are preservice teacher education programs and in-service professional development opportunities. However, research demonstrates that both contexts face distinct problems for developing reform-oriented practices (Borko and Putnam 1996). Prospective teachers exposed to reform-oriented pedagogy by university faculty in teacher education programs often discover that teaching practices in student field placements remain extremely traditional and authoritarian (Borko et al. 1992). This failure to provide field experiences that model standards-based practices often encourages traditional teaching routines (Eisenhart et al. 1993; McNamara 1995).

IN BECOMING EFL WRITING TEACHER: A DIARY STUDY

To improve teaching quality, teachers need a tool to help them reflect and evaluate their teaching decisions and actions. Teachers can always rely on schools to do such a job, but they can also use a personal and professional teaching diary as a means to do a self-analysis and evaluation. This article reports the practice of my using the teaching diary as a writing teacher as a means to help me look beyond and reflect on my teaching routines

Today's Practitioner is Both Qualitative and Quantitative Researcher

Today's Practitioner is Both Qualitative and Quantitative Researcher Vince Rinaldo Although the use of action research has made its way into various faculties of education as a means of applying theory to practice, there remains a disconnect between the teacher as an educator and the teacher as a researcher. Research must be empirically based; therefore, it has traditionally been seen to reside in the domain of the theorist or expert. Action research however, has by traditionalists been regarded as a misnomer, it is at best a case study which has little if any validity beyond the classroom from which the data was collected. From the perspective of the students who undertake a course in research as part of their program of studies whether it is delivered from the traditional model or based on action research the question of relevance remains to them one of primary concern. In speaking with recent graduates from various institutions, I have found that their evaluations do not differ from my own findings that the research course I had undertaken as part of my initial certification had minimal connection to my life as a classroom practitioner. Although my research course had introduced me to a variety of educational journals and taught me to read with a more critical eye, I did not take from the course an understanding of how, if at all, this information was pertinent to what I expected to encounter in the daily routines of teaching. I recalled that as a new teacher, little of my time went into reading educational research and even less time went into reflecting on how research on teaching could assist me in my classroom practice. In fact, most if not all of my time went into planning, preparation and student evaluation. What little professional time I had left was taken up by my involvement with extra-curricular activities. Including a formal course in research as part of my studies seemed to me, at the time, a waste of time; time that could have been better spent providing me with the practical knowledge that I could directly apply to my classroom and to my career. It was not until I reviewed the textbook and outline and reflected upon the course intent and its purpose as a whole, that what I had missed seemed now, quite obvious. Today's practitioner is both a qualitative and a quantitative researcher but like so many students entering [End Page 72] the profession, I was not able at that time, to make the connection between theory and practice. It was not until years later that I was able to understand how seeing myself as a researcher was critical to my performance as an educator. What we as educators need to assist students with is the ability to distinguish between training and education. From kindergarten to the completion of their undergraduate degree, students are trained, not educated. They learn (in the behavioral sense) that academic success is predicated on replication and not imagination. Receiving a grade of an "A" signifies that one has been successful in finding the "right" answer which often consists of little more than the reorganization of information that has emanated from one's teachers and professors. Schools train students to seek answers, not to formulate questions. Historically, there "is a certain amount – a fixed quantity – of ready-made results and accomplishments to be acquired by all children alike in a given time. It is in response to this demand that the curriculum has been developed from the elementary school up through the college." (Dewey, 1900/1990, p.33) As I came to find years later, elementary education focuses on conveying "facts" or "truths" from the teacher to the student. It clearly indicates to the student that this is the way things are. While still in this mode secondary education presents these "facts" and "truths" as the way things usually are. By the time I reached college, the focus had shifted to one which saw "facts" or "truths" as the way we think things are. However, by graduate school we were expected, indeed required, to think for ourselves. "Facts" and "truths", at least in the contexts in which they were...

Inside Teacher Community: Representations of Classroom Practice

Researchers posit that conditions for improving teaching and learning are strengthened when teachers collectively question ineffective teaching routines, examine new conceptions of teaching and learning, find generative means to acknowledge and respond to difference and conflict, and engage actively in supporting one another's professional growth. Yet relatively little research examines the specific interactions and dynamics by which professional community constitutes a resource for teacher learning and innovations in teaching practice. In particular, few studies go “inside teacher community” to focus closely on the teacher development opportunities and possibilities that reside within ordinary daily work. This paper draws on intensive case studies of teacher knowledge, practice, and learning among teachers of mathematics and English in two high schools to take up the problem of how classroom teaching practice comes to be known, shared, and developed among teachers through their out-of-classroom interactions.

Inside Teacher Community: Representations of Classroom Practice

Researchers posit that conditions for improving teaching and learning are strengthened when teachers collectively question ineffective teaching routines, examine new conceptions of teaching and learning, find generative means to acknowledge and respond to difference and conflict, and engage actively in supporting one another's professional growth. Yet relatively little research examines the specific interactions and dynamics by which professional community constitutes a resource for teacher learning and innovations in teaching practice. In particular, few studies go “inside teacher community” to focus closely on the teacher development opportunities and possibilities that reside within ordinary daily work. This paper draws on intensive case studies of teacher knowledge, practice, and learning among teachers of mathematics and English in two high schools to take up the problem of how classroom teaching practice comes to be known, shared, and developed among teachers through their out-of-classroom interactions.

What Large-Scale, Survey Research Tells Us about Teacher Effects on Student Achievement: Insights from the Prospects Study of Elementary Schools

This paper discusses conceptual and methodological issues that arise when educational researchers use data from large-scale, survey research to examine the effects of teachers and teaching on student achievement. Using data from Prospects: The Congressionally Mandated Study of Educational Growth and Opportunity 1991–1994, we show that researchers’ use of different statistical models has led to widely varying interpretations about the overall magnitude of teacher effects on student achievement. However, we conclude that in well-specified models of academic growth, teacher effects on elementary school students’ growth in reading and mathematics achievement are substantial (with d-type effect sizes ranging from .72 to .85). We also conclude that various characteristics of teachers and their teaching account for these effects, including variation among teachers in professional preparation and content knowledge, use of teaching routines, and patterns of content coverage, with effect sizes for variables measuring these characteristics of teachers and their teaching showing d-type effect sizes in the range of .10. The paper concludes with an assessment of the current state of the art in large-scale, survey research on teaching. Here, we conclude that survey researchers must simultaneously improve their measures of instruction while paying careful attention to issues of causal inference.

What Large-Scale, Survey Research Tells Us about Teacher Effects on Student Achievement: Insights from the Prospects Study of Elementary Schools

This paper discusses conceptual and methodological issues that arise when educational researchers use data from large-scale, survey research to examine the effects of teachers and teaching on student achievement. Using data from Prospects: The Congressionally Mandated Study of Educational Growth and Opportunity 1991–1994, we show that researchers’ use of different statistical models has led to widely varying interpretations about the overall magnitude of teacher effects on student achievement. However, we conclude that in well-specified models of academic growth, teacher effects on elementary school students’ growth in reading and mathematics achievement are substantial (with d-type effect sizes ranging from .72 to .85). We also conclude that various characteristics of teachers and their teaching account for these effects, including variation among teachers in professional preparation and content knowledge, use of teaching routines, and patterns of content coverage, with effect sizes for variables measuring these characteristics of teachers and their teaching showing d-type effect sizes in the range of .10. The paper concludes with an assessment of the current state of the art in large-scale, survey research on teaching. Here, we conclude that survey researchers must simultaneously improve their measures of instruction while paying careful attention to issues of causal inference.

The use of analogies in language teaching: Representing the content of teachers' practical knowledge

This study sought to determine how experienced language teachers use analogies to help students comprehend a text on the course of their regular teaching routines. It is assumed that analogies constitute one important component of the content of teachers' practical knowledge in the context of reading-comprehension instruction. The framework of the study drew from Shulman's notion of 'pedagogical content knowledge'; the perspective was the analogy-provider (e.g. teacher or textbook author). Eight lessons taught by eight different teachers were observed and analysed for the presence of analogies. The frequent use of analogies, continuously under discussion in the literature about science education, seems at least open to question. The research suggests that teacher education programmes for language teaching should include information about developing and evaluating instructional analogies.

Change and Invariance in the Traditional Performing Arts

This article draws upon evidence from four areas of the traditional performing arts in Scotland oral balladry, popular printed song, the light music (ceol beag) of the Highland bagpipe, and piobaireachd to examine the mechanisms of change and consider whether these may be in some way inimical to 'tradition'. 1 The traditional performing arts are closely related. Singers borrow tunes and re­ create words; musicians develop ideas from their own and adjacent musical fields; the instrumental tradition is in turn inseparable from the dance culture which it serves. Words are linked to all these activities through 'genealogies of learning,' (the process by which performers trace their descent through a succession of distinguished schools or master teachers), 2 verbal teaching routines and performance directions, and tales of every sort concerning the famous players and composers, ranging from anecdotes about people like Niel Gow, to folk tales about doomed MacCrimmons grappling with nameless horrors in the Cave of Gold. 3 All of these strands may be present in a single individual: for example, the Highland piper is an instrumentalist sometimes a multiinstrumentalist, adept also at the small-pipe, fiddle, or accordion; he will also be a singer, using chanted vocables to convey tunes and interpretations of them; many of his piobaireachds have song versions; he may also be a dancer; and he will certainly be steeped in the rich verbal lore that surrounds the pipe and its culture. Some scholars are responsive to this cultural breadth. For example, David Johnson's Music and Society in Lowland Scotland in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1972), takes the whole musical culture of the Lowlands and the institutions which supported it under review, from the most serious of 'serious' music to the most 'folksy' of folk, and traces their links with Scotland's richly varied song tradition. More recently, John Purser's comprehensive general survey, Scotland's Music. A History of the Traditional and Classical Music of Scotland from Early Times to the Present Day (Edinburgh, 1992), likewise shows a keen awareness of the creative links between the various different forms. The general tendency, however, has been to treat each strand of the traditional performing arts as an autonomous field of study. Ballad scholarship has displayed this feature particularly markedly during the last hundred years, often treating songs simply as poems which happened to possess an accompanying air which could be safely ignored in analysis. 4 A wider perspective is necessary before we can begin to generalise safely about 'tradition' and how it works. The concept of tradition is itself problematic and theories invoking it are many and various. 5 One of the most important to appear in recent years directs our attention to a phenomenon called 'invented tradition.' This springs from the perception of neoMachiavellian theorists of the right that society is dominated by elites manipulating a

Teaching referential and social-regulative words to toddlers: mothers' use of metalingual language

Research showing that young children use language for both referential and social purposes raises questions concerning how parents promote toddlers' acquisition and discrimination of different language functions. Analyses of mothers' input to twenty-nine 20-month-old children revealed that mothers supported the acquisition of different types of language through differential use of language teaching strategies. When focusing on referential language, mothers predominantly employed labelling, thus emphasizing naming skills. When focusing on social- regulative language, mothers used strategies such as assuming the child's role, thus emphasizing turn-taking and other social skills. Mothers also used more language teaching routines when they were in the presence of an observer than when they were alone with their children.