Teacher Enactment Research Articles

Promoting Culturally Relevant Educational Practices: Leveraging Locally Designed Instructional Artifacts as Change Agents

This qualitative multiple case study assesses two locally designed instructional artifacts created to support teacher enactment of culturally relevant educational (CRE) practices. Attention is paid to artifact’s ability to support collective teacher use of CRE and the ways that artifacts acted as proxies for instructional leadership. Findings demonstrate that for artifacts to be successful tools in leading building-wide instructional change, they need to nurture teacher collaboration on supporting youth of color and position professional practice as needing to change. Finally, I analyze the differences between the two instructional artifacts to demonstrate how one was more successful at shifting collective practice.

Preaching and practicing multicultural education: Predicting students' outgroup attitudes from perceived teacher norms and perceived teacher–classmate relations

Research on the role of teachers in bringing about positive interethnic attitudes among their students has largely focused on the norms teachers express about cultural diversity in the classroom without considering teacher's enactment of these norms in their relationships with students. The current study assessed to what extent students' ethnic outgroup attitudes are affected by perceived positive teacher norms about cultural diversity, together with perceived positive teacher-classmate interactions that may serve as an example to students. We investigated whether and how teacher norms and practices interact to affect students' attitudes, and whether these effects may differ for minority and majority students. Data was gathered in two waves among 186 native (majority) Dutch students, and 129 students with a Turkish-Dutch, or Moroccan-Dutch (minority) background in 29 4th–6th grade classrooms. Results showed that both majority and minority students expressed more positive attitudes towards ethnic outgroups when they perceived their teacher to have a positive relationship with their majority classmates, but only when supported by positive teacher norms. Ethnic majority students had more favorable outgroup attitudes when perceiving positive teacher relationships with minority classmates, but only in the absence of positive teacher norms. These results indicate that students in culturally diverse classrooms consider their teachers' interpersonal relationships with classmates to inform their own attitudes about ethnic outgroups.

The role of intuition in pedagogical tact: Educator views

Pedagogical tact concerns a teacher's ability to adequately handle complex classroom situations that require immediate action. As such, pedagogical tact can be viewed as an enactment of teachers’ intuition. While most teachers, teacher educators, educational leaders and scholars readily recognise the importance of pedagogical tact (and by extension, intuition), few pre‐service or in‐service programmes devote explicit attention to developing this important teacher quality. This study set out to understand why. Specifically, data were collected to investigate how educators perceive intuition, and its role in teacher pedagogical tact. Ten focus group discussions were held with school board members, teacher educators, school principals, in‐service teachers and pre‐service teachers. Participants recognised two types of intuition commonly described in the literature (local and nonlocal), and affirmed the importance of intuition for teacher pedagogical tact. These educators also noted that teachers are rarely if ever encouraged to make conscious use of their intuition, let alone develop it. There was consensus that teachers differ in how well they are able to tune into their intuition. Though the scale of the study is small, the findings suggest that more attention should be given to developing teacher intuition and pedagogical tact than is currently the case.

Effects of Principals’ Leadership Styles on Teachers’ Performance at Secondary Schools in Dera Ismail Khan

This learning was directed acts discover the effect of Principals leadership strategies on teachers act of secondary school in D.I.Khan. The research was cross sectional and parametric in nature. The record was collected by both from principals and teachers of secondary school located in the district. The outcomes were fascinatingly opposing to the assumed statements i.e in this broadsheet the impact of transactional and transformational guidance style has been found contrary on teachers enactment. The reason for such phenomena has been deliberated in this broadsheet. The study concluded that both leadership styles i.e transformational and transactional styles of principles of the school understudy have been found not supporting in improvement in teachers performance

The Arc of Learning framework: An ergonomic resource for design and enactment of problem-based curriculum

This article explores students’ development of deep, connected mathematical understanding through the lens of curriculum design and teacher enactment of problem-based curriculum materials. Rather than emphasizing student learning as passively watching and imitating a set of isolated skills, the Arc of Learning framework highlights ways that student learning can evolve from informal knowledge to more sophisticated reasoning over time. It is an ergonomic resource for curriculum design and use that makes explicit the intentions of the curriculum designers about how students engage in the learning of mathematics over time. Using examples from a problem-centered curriculum, we report on the student learning opportunities provided by connected sequences of problems. We also discuss how it can be used by various stakeholders.

The role of university-based induction in beginning elementary teacher enactment of effective mathematics teaching

The purpose of this paper is to describe the school-based contextual constraints perceived by beginning elementary teachers as they attempted to enact their visions of effective mathematics teaching and the components of a mathematics-specific, university-based induction program designed to support elementary teachers in their teaching of mathematics. A significant number of beginning teachers in the program indicated that curriculum pacing guides and grade level teachers often discouraged their enactment of effective mathematics teaching. We describe the components of the induction program in general and then discuss the specific ways that program mentors, who were elementary teachers with expertise in mathematics teaching, supported beginning teachers in navigating the constraints identified. Data suggest that supporting teachers’ pedagogical agency to navigate local school contexts should be an additional consideration in teacher preparation and induction programs.

Speaking their language: The role of cultural content integration and heritage language for academic achievement among Latino children

Asset-based pedagogy (ABP) reflects teacher instructional choices that affirm students’ ethnicity and culture in the classroom and curriculum. The current study examines two key enactments of ABPs for Latino children, namely cultural content integration and heritage language (Spanish). Utilizing an explanatory sequential mixed methods design, we assess mediation and moderation effects between teacher beliefs (n = 33), their ABPs, and the mathematics achievement of 568 Latino children in grades three through five. Next, we use qualitative interviews to probe teachers’ understanding and value of cultural content integration, heritage language, and how these work together in their own instructional practice. The quantitative results reveal that honoring students’ heritage language (Spanish) is the mediating element through which cultural content integration predicts mathematics achievement for Latino children. Further, the moderated mediation analysis, cross-validated by the teacher interviews, showed evidence that high teacher expectations alone may not be enough to predict teacher enactment of ABPs. Instead, critical awareness along with high expectations work together to predict enactment of culturally responsive teaching and growth in Latino students’ learning. Implications and limitations are discussed.

The Enactment of Mathematics Content Knowledge and Mathematics Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Teaching Practice of Ratio and Proportion: A Case of Two Primary

This study draws upon a research in investigating the enactment of primary teachers’ mathematics Content Knowledge (MCK) and Mathematics Pedagogical Content Knowledge (MPCK) in practice. The teaching on ratio and proportion of two teachers with different level MCK and MPCK were observed within video observation framework which involves qualitative research through case study. The result indicated thatall factors were presented by Good MCK and MPCK teacher (GG) teacher appropriately but not for Low MCK and MPCK teacher(LL) teacher. LL ignored Figural representation factor and showed some errors in her teaching. MCK and MPCK are very essential for mathematics teaching. The evidence leads to the opportunity to learn for in-service primary teachers.

Professional development design considerations in climate change education: teacher enactment and student learning

ABSTRACTClimate change is one of the most pressing challenges facing society, and climate change educational models are emerging in response. This study investigates the implementation and enactment of a climate change professional development (PD) model for science educators and its impact on student learning. Using an intrinsic case study methodology, we focused analytic attention on how one teacher made particular pedagogical and content decisions, and the implications for student’s conceptual learning. Using anthropological theories of conceptual travel, we traced salient ideas through instructional delivery and into student reasoning. Analysis showed that students gained an increased understanding of the enhanced greenhouse effect and the implications of human activity on this enhanced effect at statistically significant levels and with moderate effect sizes. However, students demonstrated a limited, though non-significant gain on the likely effects of climate change. Student reasoning on the tangible actions to deal with these problems also remained underdeveloped, reflecting omissions in both PD and teacher enactment. We discuss implications for the emerging field of climate change education.

Integration PCK: Modeling the Knowledge(s) Underlying a World Language Teacher's Implementation of CBI

AbstractThis case study enabled researchers to understand the knowledge embedded in a world language teacher's enactment of content‐based instruction (CBI) through the lens of a theoretical model inspired by Shulman's (1987) construct of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). The model, called integration pedagogical content knowledge (I–PCK), represents an adaptation of PCK that explicitly addresses the expanded set of content knowledge that is necessary for teachers to effectively implement CBI. Through descriptions of the participant's knowledge and experiences, the case study documents the I–PCK model in action, highlighting her strengths when integrating both academic content and world language learning and allowing specific areas that were in need of further development to be pinpointed. Findings suggest that the model can inform the work of language teacher education and professional development focused on CBI.

Contributions of educative document-based curricular materials to quality of historical instruction

This case study explores whether and to what extent a history curriculum with educative features can contribute to the quality of historical instruction. Analyses focus on one teacher’s implementation of three lessons from a document-based history curriculum with educative features explicitly designed to support teacher enactment. We found that the teacher’s limited subject matter and pedagogical content knowledge constrained the quality of historical instruction. At the same time, we observed instances of the teacher supporting historical reading, and of unprompted student participation in historical thinking and questioning. Our findings suggest promising directions for the design of educative document-based history lessons.

Physical education teachers’ perceptions of factors that inhibit and facilitate the enactment of curriculum change in a high-stakes exam climate

ABSTRACTPolicy enactment is a dynamic process, which invites agents to uniquely create and recreate policy as an ongoing process. Few policies arrive in school fully formed and the process of policy enactment involves teachers navigating policy frameworks in a way that provides success for each individual pupil. This research examines the complexities involved in teacher enactment of new policy in schools with the added caveat of investigating the impact that high-stakes exams place on teachers to act as agents of change. The primary objective was to ascertain whether inhibitors and facilitators identified in literature were recurring during the period of change in physical education (PE). The secondary objective was to investigate how PE teachers enact curriculum change utilising a flexible curriculum framework to achieve success at examination level. The research reflects a journey from the broad realms of curriculum studies towards a more in-depth analysis of the realist theory of analytical dualism. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with five full time PE teachers working within one secondary school in Scotland. The results indicated that revolutionary change was somewhat stagnated by potent inhibitors such as a lack of collaboration with policy-makers and vague course documentation. These were compounded by an inherent desire for pupils to succeed that induced feelings of wariness and indecision amongst teachers. The flexible curriculum and guidance offered by policy-makers was insufficient for teachers to confidently pose as curriculum decision-makers, resulting in a call for a more explicitly structured course. It became clear that teachers acting as agents of change who help devise and develop policy require support, collaboration and direction to empower and buttress their decision-making, particularly when faced with the high-stakes nature of the examination climate.

What Writing Teachers Say and What They Actually Do: The Mismatch between Theory and Practice

Investigating the correspondece between beliefs and actual practices can help understand the nature of many success or failure stories in education. This study aimed at investigating the compatibility between what English language writing teachers theoretically assert and what they practically practice in teaching language. It also intended to find out factors that constrain the enactment of teachers’ stated beliefs in the actual classroom context. The participants in this study were six university teachers as well as 32 students from whom 1150 writing samples were obtained. Juxtaposing teachers’ actual classroom practices (obtained from university students’ write-ups) beside their theoretical beliefs, elicited through the use of a survey questionnaire, instances of mismatch were conspicuous. It was revealed that contextual factors, contrary to what teachers asserted, played no significant part in this incompatibility and other factors such as experience were at work. Further findings and implications are discussed in the paper.

Prospects: An increasing focus on curriculum, learning, and assessment

I am pleased to introduce our first non-thematic collection of peer-reviewed articles in 2015. As we move toward making the International Bureau of Education (IBE) a global Center of Excellence, we continue to gradually shift the focus of Prospects, so it can more effectively address IBE’s mandate and strategic goals. The heart of our work is strengthening the capacity of education systems to equitably provide high-quality education and effective learning opportunities—thus contributing to quality Education for All. Likewise, Prospects increasingly focuses on issues central to our broad efforts to produce, compile, and disseminate up-to-date information and analyses in the areas of curriculum, learning, and assessment. In this issue we include articles that bear directly on these three areas, with topics ranging from curriculum reform and inclusive education to active learning, vocational training, and formal, nonformal, and informal learning. Specifically, the articles examine research-based early-grade reading programmes; teacher enactment of active-learning pedagogy; disability-inclusive indicators that are local and contextually applicable; instruction in local language as one aspect of the right to education; engagement of higher education institutions in disaster prevention and mitigation; access to different types of learning and training in rural areas; and the duality principle (the integration of theory and practice in the context of vocational education and training). Besides adding substantive arguments to ongoing scholarly debates, all the articles also develop valuable recommendations for policymakers. John P. Comings proposes a research-based model for design of early-grade reading programmes. The model has three components: (1) schools should provide instruction in a language their students speak and understand; (2) teachers should employ instruction that is consistent with the current evidence-based theory of how children acquire and improve reading skills; and (3) to make meaningful progress, students should spend sufficient time

Teacher agency and professional learning: Rethinking fidelity of implementation as multiplicities of enactment

In this paper we use practice theory, with its focus on the interplay of structure and agency, to theorize about teacher engagement in professional learning and teacher enactment of pedagogical practices as an alternative to framing implementation research in terms of program adherence and fidelity of implementation. Practice theory allowed us to reconsider assumptions about characteristics of effective teacher professional learning, and to rethink our own notions of agency. Using data from our three-year middle school science teacher professional learning project, Language-rich Inquiry Science with English Language Learners (LISELL), we discuss how individual teachers negotiated power structures of schooling and exerted their agency in ways that were influenced by their project participation. Framing our work in terms of engagement and enactment, we theorize about how a structure-agency dialectic challenging assumptions about effective teacher professional learning can support new ways of thinking about implementation research in education. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 52: 489–502, 2015

Theorizing the implementation of the HIV/AIDS curriculum in Zimbabwe

A growing need for utilizing school-based HIV/AIDS interventions the world over has been acknowledged as the most cost-effective means for arresting the spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic among the vulnerable youth. However, the question on how teachers as educational change agents and cognitive sense-makers of HIV/AIDS curricula situated in a complex web of systemic social interactions are faring in mediating these interventions has not received much attention in curriculum theorization. There seems to be an underrepresentation in the literature, of post-modernistic approaches to the problematizing and explanation of teacher enactment of such complicated yet important curricula. This article sought to highlight the Adaptation Approach to education and Honig’s model and teacher cognition as an example of a post-modernistic approach to analysing teachers’ enactment of school HIV/AIDS curricula. It sought to enhance our understanding of the interplay of a myriad of factors endogenous and exogenous to teachers in shaping and framing teachers’ individual responses to the HIV/AIDS curriculum policy. We thus contend that one of the major reasons why teachers’ efforts to effectuate purposive mediations are so elusive is the failure by theoreticians and policy-makers alike, to consider the myriad of human-generated antecedents in different venues and how these impact teachers’ adaptation of HIV/AIDS interventions.

Examining the Effect of Enactment of a Geospatial Curriculum on Students’ Geospatial Thinking and Reasoning

A potential method for teaching geospatial thinking and reasoning (GTR) is through geospatially enabled learning technologies. We developed an energy resources geospatial curriculum that included learning activities with geographic information systems and virtual globes. This study investigated how 13 urban middle school teachers implemented and varied the enactment of the curriculum with their students and investigated which teacher- and student-level factors accounted for students’ GTR posttest achievement. Data included biweekly implementation surveys from teachers and energy resources content and GTR pre- and posttest achievement measures from 1,049 students. Students significantly increased both their energy resources content knowledge and their GTR skills related to energy resources at the end of the curriculum enactment. Both multiple regression and hierarchical linear modeling found that students’ initial GTR abilities and gain in energy content knowledge were significantly explanatory variables for their geospatial achievement at the end of curriculum enactment, p < .001. Teacher enactment factors, including adherence to implementing the critical components of the curriculum or the number of years the teachers had taught the curriculum, did not have significant effects on students’ geospatial posttest achievement. The findings from this study provide support that learning with geospatially enabled learning technologies can support GTR with urban middle-level learners.

Teacher Enactment Patterns: How Can We Help Move All Teachers to Reform-Based Inquiry Practice Through Professional Development?

The purpose of this study was to investigate high school teachers’ beliefs about inquiry instruction and determine how their beliefs influenced their use of inquiry after a professional development program. Thirty-six high school science teachers participated in this study. The professional development program consisted of a 2-week summer institute as well as academic year support. The summer program included discipline-specific content lessons that utilized inquiry-based instruction, pedagogical practice involving the use of a summer high school enrichment program, and reflection on this practice-teaching in content area groups. Both in-depth qualitative interview and written reflection data were collected as well as data from the teachers’ classroom implementation of inquiry. Based on the analysis of the teachers’ interviews and classroom enactments, the teachers were placed into four enactment categories: Integrated, Emerging, Laboratory-based, and Activity-focused. We used Windschitl’s (Rev Educ Res 72(2):131–175, 2002) four constructivist dilemmas as a framework to understand the teachers’ enactments. We describe the teachers’ beliefs and practices in each enactment category as well as the components of the professional development model that were important to making changes in the teachers’ practices. In the conclusion, we connect the enactment levels to the professional development experience and suggest future directions for professional developers to move teachers toward more integrated inquiry practices.

Enacting a technology-based science curriculum across a grade level: The journey of teachers' appropriation

Studying teacher enactment of an innovation helps us understand the process of effective spread of a curricular innovation to teachers who have differing levels of content readiness, pedagogical orientations, teaching competency, different student profiles, and professional development experiences. Towards this, we explore how different teachers in the same grade level appropriated a common science curriculum enabled by mobile technologies in their classrooms. The innovative science curriculum: Mobilized 5E (Engage–Explore–Explain–Elaborate–Evaluate) Science Curriculum was developed through an iterative cycle of design-based research. As curriculum designs were not self-sufficient by themselves, the enactments of the teachers differed in how they leveraged on students' artifacts, how they integrated the technology into the class, the ways in which they interacted with the students, and how they scaffolded students' activities in a mobile learning setting. In this study, the teachers' enactments of mobilized 5E lessons were observed, analyzed and compared, with the aim of exploring the differences of lesson enactment amongst them. The results showed that teachers' different pedagogical orientations affected their instructions, especially their ways of technology integration in the class, and their patterns of interactions with the students. Based on the exploration of the teacher enactment of the mobilized 5E curriculum, implications are drawn concerning the implementation of innovative curricula implementation and the supports for teacher professional development of such innovation with the ultimate purpose of sustaining and scaling.

The Impact of High School Science Teachers’ Beliefs, Curricular Enactments and Experience on Student Learning During an Inquiry-based Urban Ecology Curriculum

Inquiry-based curricula are an essential tool for reforming science education yet the role of the teacher is often overlooked in terms of the impact of the curriculum on student achievement. Our research focuses on 22 teachers’ use of a year-long high school urban ecology curriculum and how teachers’ self-efficacy, instructional practices, curricular enactments and previous experience impacted student learning. Data sources included teacher belief surveys, teacher enactment surveys, a student multiple-choice assessment focused on defining and identifying science concepts and a student open-ended assessment focused on scientific inquiry. Results from the two hierarchical linear models indicate that there was significant variation between teachers in terms of student achievement. For the multiple-choice assessment, teachers who spent a larger percentage of time on group work and a smaller percentage of time lecturing had greater student learning. For the open-ended assessment, teachers who reported a higher frequency of students engaging in argument and sharing ideas had greater student learning while teachers who adapted the curriculum more had lower student learning. These results suggest the importance of supporting the active role of students in instruction, emphasising argumentation, and considering the types of adaptations teachers make to curriculum.