Ontario Teachers Research Articles

Ethically Speaking: Teachers and the Politics of Eduational Reform

The Ontario College of Teachers is in the process of revising its statement of Ethical Standards. The proposed guidelines ("Revised Ethical Standard s") reflect a new way at looking at the role and responsibilities of teachers in Ontario. Rather than focusing on behaviors or rules to be followed in particular sets of circumstances, the proposed revisions focus on four key values or virtues that can guide ethical judgment and decision making in the day to day practice of teaching. This shift emphasizes the importance of informed professional judgment and views the teacher as a responsible moral agent. With autonomy comes accountability and as a member of a professional college, teachers exercise their autonomy in communication with their colleagues .

Teacher’s Interpretation of Sustainable Development

This paper describes an exploratory research project conducted with forty-five technological studies teachers in Ontario concerning their understanding and perceptions of the concept of sustainable development. The results indicate that pre-service teacher education programs need to spend more.

Developing authentic assessment: Case studies of secondary school mathematics teachers’ experiences

Abstract Authentic assessment techniques in mathematics raise issues that merit the attention of practitioners, educators, and researchers. Teacher training in assessment, the reliability and validity of authentic assessment, the variety of methods employed in such assessment, and the ways assessment is employed are all concerns that emerge as new assessment techniques other than the expected paper‐and‐pencil tests are implemented. At the secondary school level, new assessment techniques are emerging in mathematics classrooms and little is known about these experiences. This article specifically addresses the issues associated with authentic assessment by describing and exploring mathematics teachers’ experiences as they implement these assessment techniques in their secondary school mathematics program. It summarizes the findings of a qualitative study of five secondary school mathematics teachers in Ontario, Canada, and offers suggestions as to how to support teachers through such a change project. How ...

Tories, teachers and the media politics of education reform: news discourse and the 1997 Ontario teachers' strike

Governments are normally granted a privileged definitional role in news reporting of political issues and events. Although a number of empirical studies in a variety of policy areas support this premise, the ability of government sources to dominate and determine the tenor and tone of news coverage is particularly salient in the case of issues and events with contentious and uncertain causes and solutions. This paper offers an empirical analysis of mainstream press coverage of the 1997 Ontario teachers' strike, the largest collective action ever undertaken by teachers in North American history. Situated within the conceptual and empirical debates around the “primary definition” thesis, the study revisits the literature on strike news and draws some comparative and contrasting remarks on the role of media discourse in covering private and public sector strikes. While the study's empirical findings offer some support for the primary definer thesis, there appeared to be a disconnect between the media's critical framing and narrativization of the strike and public support for the government's position.

Enhancing Mathematics Programs for Future Teachers

Innovative mathematics courses and programs for future teachers at all school levels are presented. These include a course for future elementary school teachers who have no confidence in their ability to do mathematics, specially designed mathematics minor and major programs for future teachers in consecutive education programs, and concurrent education programs that integrate the undergraduate and education components. An initiative to address the shortage of mathematics teachers in Ontario is also described.

Teachers' perspective on barriers to implementing physical activity curriculum guidelines for school children in Toronto.

Teachers in Ontario are expected to implement the physical activity guidelines in the health and physical education (HPE) curriculum document that was introduced in 1998. This study examined Toronto teachers' perspective on barriers to implementing these guidelines. Forty-five teachers from five Toronto elementary schools in which generalist classroom teachers provide physical education classes participated in focus groups. An experienced moderator facilitated each session. Themes were inductively generated from the data. Participants reported that children were not engaged in moderate or vigorous physical activity daily and for the expected duration. Participants identified three categories of barriers to implementing the curriculum guidelines: lower priority for HPE, lack of performance measures for physical activity, and lack of sufficient infrastructure. First, they reported that the new curriculum expectations for other subjects were demanding, which left little time to focus on physical education. They felt that resource support for the HPE curriculum was not sufficient and that physical education specialists were necessary but unavailable to implement the curriculum. Second, participants felt accountable to both government and parents for high student performance on standardized tests in subjects deemed to be of higher priority. Third, participants reported inadequate facilities and equipment, use of portables for classrooms, cancelling physical education to have events in the gymnasium, and unavailability of teachers to supervise off-school physical activity. The study suggests that participating teachers perceive physical education to be a low priority in the educational system, making it difficult for them to meet the HPE curriculum expectations.

Teachers’ Perspective on Barriers to Implementing Physical Activity Curriculum Guidelines for School Children in Toronto

Teachers in Ontario are expected to implement the physical activity guidelines in the health and physical education (HPE) curriculum document that was introduced in 1998. This study examined Toronto teachers' perspective on barriers to implementing these guidelines.Forty-five teachers from five Toronto elementary schools in which generalist classroom teachers provide physical education classes participated in focus groups. An experienced moderator facilitated each session. Themes were inductively generated from the data.Participants reported that children were not engaged in moderate or vigorous physical activity daily and for the expected duration. Participants identified three categories of barriers to implementing the curriculum guidelines: lower priority for HPE, lack of performance measures for physical activity, and lack of sufficient infrastructure. First, they reported that the new curriculum expectations for other subjects were demanding, which left little time to focus on physical education. They felt that resource support for the HPE curriculum was not sufficient and that physical education specialists were necessary but unavailable to implement the curriculum. Second, participants felt accountable to both government and parents for high student performance on standardized tests in subjects deemed to be of higher priority. Third, participants reported inadequate facilities and equipment, use of portables for classrooms, cancelling physical education to have events in the gymnasium, and unavailability of teachers to supervise off-school physical activity.The study suggests that participating teachers perceive physical education to be a low priority in the educational system, making it difficult for them to meet the HPE curriculum expectations.

An Examination of English Teachers' Opinions About the Ontario Grade 9 Reading and Writing Test

Interest in the use of large-scale achievement testing for accountability purposes and to drive instructional reform has been increasing in Canada. In the 1995 publications in Interchange, several researchers debated the merits and demerits of standardized achievement testing, including among the latter a tendency to reduce the curriculum and overemphasize routine learning (i.e., "teaching to the test"). Almost no studies have found empirical evidence for such testing's purported benefits. We set out to investigate these issues in Ontario: We present findings from a mail survey designed to find out, from Grade 9 and Grade 10 English teachers in Ontario, their perception of the quality of the Ontario Grade 9 literacy testing program and the effects it has had on the teaching and learning processes. Based on the responses of 107 teachers, our results paint a negative picture of teachers' opinions of the Grade 9 test in terms of its quality and its impact on teaching and learning. Three years after the Grade 9 test was first introduced, Grade 9 and 10 English teachers are still not convinced of its value. Our findings (and those from two other similar surveys) appear to suggest, at least based on teachers' self-reporting, that the purposes of the test — improving the quality of education and learning — as envisioned by the Ontario Ministry of Education and Training have not been met. These findings support those of other assessment impact studies in Canada, namely British Columbia and Alberta, regarding the adverse consequences of large-scale standardized testing (either multiple-choice test or performance-based assessment), and the lack of evidence for its purported positive educational influences. We recommend future research to investigate further the validity and the educational impact of the provincial tests and the reasons responsible for the observed impact or lack of it, and to determine resources, such as teacher training and materials, that are necessary to supplement the provincial testing program's effort to improve teaching and learning.

Formula for Success According to TIMSS or the Subliminal Decay of Jurisdictional Educultural Integrity?

The results of international testing such as those found in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) are often used to develop curriculum policy in a jurisdiction without questioning the significance of the scores and without realizing the connotative influences contained in these tests. This article compares the teaching practices of science teachers in Ontario, a modest-scoring jurisdiction, with the teaching practices of teachers in Alberta and Singapore, both high-scoring jurisdictions. An implicit "formula for success" for scoring high in TIMSS is identified. However, the main message of the article is that when developing curriculum policy, jurisdictions should instead first consider the desired local image of the educated person rather than allowing international test results to redefine an educational system that may be dysfunctional in the long term. The subliminal decay of jurisdictional educultural integrity may be a by-product of using international test results to determine local curricular policy.

Class War: Ontario Teachers and the Courts

Class War: Ontario Teachers and the Courts

Teachers’ strategies for implementation of de-streaming in secondary mathematics classes

Moves toward the adoption of a middle school philosophy and to outcomes-focused education, both of which are apparent in Australia, are likely to be accompanied by a move away from streaming or tracking students into ability groups. It is claimed that successful teaching of students in unstreamed classes requires an enriched program that caters for the needs of the wide range of students, new approaches to instruction, and the adoption of a variety of assessment strategies. This study reports on the strategies adopted by a group of teachers in Ontario, Canada, as they implemented de-streaming with Grade 9 classes. Teachers were found to be making special provision for both low- and high-achieving students and employing a wide range of techniques for assessing student progress. However, they did not embrace cooperative learning techniques as one of their teaching strategies, nor was problem solving found to be a prominent feature of their lessons.

Effects of Collaborative Action Research on the Knowledge of Five Canadian Teacher-Researchers

5 experienced teachers in Ontario, Canada, joined a school-university partnership to study the student evaluation practices of 13 "exemplary" teachers selected for their expertise in using cooperative learning (Phase 1). Data were collected in 2 semistructured interviews. Participation in Phase 1 of the action research left the teacher-researchers in a state of positive dissonance: dissatisfied with their evaluation methods, aware of attractive new strategies, and confident of their ability change their practice. In Phase 2 the teacher-researchers conducted inquiries in which they developed and enacted strategies for teaching students how to self-evaluate. Data sources included student surveys of attitudes toward evaluation, student focus-group interviews, individual interviews with teacher-researchers, observations of team deliberations, action research reports, and story-boards created by the teacher-researchers. Each teacher-researcher used the Phase 1 findings in different ways, with every teacher ignoring some results, modestly adapting others, and most frequently reconstructing the intent of the exemplary teachers without adopting their specific methods. The 2-phase approach to action research contributed to the knowledge base of teaching (creation of a framework for teaching self-evaluation) and to the personal practical knowledge of the teacher-researchers (how to enact the framework in their classroom) and enhanced teachers' expectations about their ability to bring about learning. These benefits might not accrue in action research projects without the involvement of teachers with average or high efficacy beliefs, collaboration in the design and analysis of the projects, or supportive university professors sharing research skills.

Ontario School Teachers: A Gendered View of the 1930s

This particular article arises out of a longitudinal empirical study on teacher socialization with specific regard to relations of gender, ethnicity, and race. It focuses on a number of observations about Ontario teachers in the 1930s:1. The overall percentage of men in teaching rose, but much more so in rural areas than in the cities. 2. Salaries of teachers dropped considerably during this time. 3. There was a significant change in teacher certification procedures, within which gender played a large role. Salaries were also affected by these certification changes.4. Average ages of teachers increased significantly during this decade. 5. In general, teachers had more years of teaching experience than their colleagues did in the previous decade. However, there were significant gender differences in these figures. 6. Both formal and informal policies against the employment of married women as teachers were enforced. This article details these observations, and then discusses what significance they may have had, in the context of overall 'gender relations' among teachers in Ontario. A number of relevant sources for the 1930s were examined: annual reports of the Ontario Department of Education; annual reports, minutes, and handbooks of the Toronto Board of Education; and contemporary newspapers. In addition, reprinted transcripts of two groups of interviews have been drawn on—six men and women who taught (and later became principals) in Toronto in the 1930s, and a number of women teachers from the 1930s who were inter viewed for a 1980s study on women's experiences during the Depression.

Support for beginning teachers in Ontario: the ebb and flow of practice and policy

Over the past few years, Ontario educators have looked for ways to ease new teachers’ transition into teaching and to facilitate professional growth. As an influx of new teachers moved into Ontario schools, and as calls for educational reform became part of the government rhetoric, new teacher induction became a topic which received considerable attention. In this article we provide an overview of current induction practices in Ontario, and consider the relationship between programmes at the school system level and broad‐scale government policy. Using a policy analysis framework we consider the level of interest and activity relating to induction from 1988 through 1991, culminating in the study on which this article is based, and discuss this in relation to the 1993 policy context.

Teacher Acceptance of Reading Comprehension Strategy Instruction

Ontario teachers rated the acceptability of 7 basic reading comprehension strategies, reciprocal instruction, and 6 sets of published materials aimed at promoting use of comprehension strategies. They did so in response to a questionnaire consisting of 21 numerically rated items. In addition, open-ended follow-up comments were solicited for 11 of these items. There were clear differences in the acceptability of the various interventions. Among the basic strategies, prior-knowledge activation, representational imagery, and question generation were favored over other procedures. All basic strategies were rated well within the acceptable range, however. That one reading series received a very high acceptability rating makes obvious that publishers can create acceptable products, and 4 of the 6 publications studied were rated in the acceptable range. Qualitative analyses of the open-ended responses were especially revealing about teachers' reservations concerning the published materials. This investigation ma...

Ontario Teachers' Deprofessionalization and Proletarianization

professionals and those who consider them mental laboring proletarians, this split is not neatly coterminous with the boundaries of the four major theoretical perspectives in the sociology of occupations and professions. While most recent attempts to identify teachers' class location are essentially Marxist or Weberian, most status-gradational and postindustrialist approaches agree with the former group of theorists who consider that teachers' income, status, and autonomy separates them from the proletariat. Status-gradational accounts of occupations, such as Pineo and Porter's, conceptualize class predominantly in socioeconomic status (SES) terms based on such criteria as prestige, education, and income, invariably concluding that teachers are middle class.' Such approaches, however, fail to account either for domination or appropriation relations between and among social classes. Exploitation, the appropriation of the results of surplus labor, is oppressive but not all domination or oppression is exploitative. Exploitation entails the appropriation of surplus labor, whereas oppression does not necessarily involve surplus appropriation.2 Postindustrialist theorists such as Bell and Lenski are cognizant of exploitation,3 though they see it as attenuating as we move to postindustrial job sharing and leisure activities. Yet postindustrialists fail to acknowledge the alienation and domination that also characterize advanced capitalist societies. And Weberians like Giddens make domination relations within

Power Patterns among Michigan and Ontario Teachers' Lobbies

A comparative study of teacher organizations and political cultures in Michigan and Ontario clarifies how they do or do not influence policy.

Teaching Problem Solving: An Instructional Design Strategy

This article provides an outline of an instructional design strategy for improving problemsolving performance in a variety of domains. The strategy emerges from a series of instructional improvement projects undertaken collaboratively by a small team of academics and groups of practicing teachers in eastern Ontario. These projects were stimulated by recent developments in cognitive psychology. The strategy entails the selection of an appropriate domain of problem-solving tasks, the construction of learning hierarchies, the design of teaching methods, the assembly of learning materials, the design of teacher training and the evaluation of instructional interventions. Obstacles to be overcome and directions for future research are identified.

Factors Related to Enlarged Perspectives among the Students of an Ontario Teachers' College

L'ouverture d'esprit plus ou moins grande de l'enseignant joue un r6le important dans l'apprentissage des 6lMves puisqu'ils sont ouvertement ou plus discretement influenc6s par les vues de leur enseignant. Cette 6tude cherche i cerner les variables qui sont associfes i l'ouverture d'esprit des 6lehves-maitres d'une 6cole normale de l'Ontario. On a constitu6 un 6chantillon important et on a isolh un certain nombre de variables ind6pendantes: l'age, le sexe, le milieu socio-6conomique, l'instruction et la pratique religieuse. Les r6sultats font ressortir que l'ouverture d'esprit se rencontre davantage chez les enseignants plus Ag6s dont le niveau d'instruction est plus elev6 et qui ont pris leur distance vis-a-vis de l'orthodoxe religieuse.

Teacher Militancy: A Comparative Study of Ontario, Quebec and New York Teachers

Teacher Militancy: A Comparative Study of Ontario, Quebec and New York Teachers