Dec. 13, 2009
Dear subscriber, 
MOFET ITEC Portal Newsletter

We are delighted to be sending you the new edition of the MOFET ITEC Portal update.

This issue, the last for 2009, is larger and richer than usual, and contains over 70 new abstracts and reviews of recent articles on teacher education.

To all those readers and subscribers, who are currently celebrating a holiday, we would like to wish a happy holiday season.

The Portal's next newsletter will include new articles and will be sent to you at the beginning of 2010.

The MOFET ITEC Portal Team

December 13, 2009 International Portal of Teacher Education
December 2009
Featured Items
First-Year Teacher Knowledge of Phonemic Awareness and Its Instruction
This study examines the knowledge of PA instruction of 223 first-year teachers initially certified in special education, early childhood education, and elementary education. Results indicate that significant numbers of beginning special and general education teachers in this sample appear to be inadequately prepared with respect to PA instruction. They have limited knowledge of PA, confuse PA with phonics, are generally unable to select task-appropriate materials or activities, and lack skill in analyzing written words into phonemes.
The Development and Testing of a Time-Limited Mentoring Model for Experienced School Leaders
Three significant impediments to mentoring success have been identified in the literature: insufficient time; mentors' lack of professional expertise; and personality mismatches. To address these issues, a skills training program was developed in Victoria. This program utilized the principles of adult attachment theory and time-limited therapy. The model was introduced to principals across grade levels. The results indicated significant improvement in the skills set and confidence levels of mentors (i.e. experienced school principals).
Developing Teacher Epistemological Sophistication About Multicultural Curriculum: A Case Study
The article presents a case study of a 2nd-year teacher who was in a graduate-level Multicultural Curriculum Design course, which was designed to develop the complexity with which teachers understand and plan curriculum. Data included (1) several student papers, (2) a reflective journal, (3) classroom observation of the teacher, and (4) an interview . The case study reinforced the importance of creating contexts in which teachers can examine their own backgrounds and beliefs, interact with one another, and interact with ideas that stretch them intellectually.
Beyond Recollection: Reexamining Preservice Teacher Practices Using Structured Evidence, Analysis, and Reflection
Six preservice social studies teachers examined techniques believed to promote active student engagement during a 12-week field experience. They used electronic portfolio development supported by evidential reasoning methods and reflective question prompts. These methods helped preservice teachers to re-examine and modify teaching conclusions based on classroom evidence, and formulate improvement plans for future implementations.
Special Education Teaching as a Profession: Lessons Learned From Occupations That Have Achieved Full Professional Standing
This article discusses issues surrounding the status of special education teaching as a profession. First, the authors consider what makes an occupation a profession and examine the range of views of professions in American society. Second, the authors describe the evolution and developmental history of three established professions: medicine, law, and engineering. The authors then consider the developmental status of special education in relation to the histories of these three established professions. They conclude with a discussion of actions that will be necessary if special education teaching is to achieve the status of a profession.
Action Research as a Practice-Based Practice
Action research changes people's practices, their understandings of their practices, and the conditions under which they practice. Action research is also a practice, composed of sayings, doing and relating. It is a meta-practice: a practice that changes other practices.Different kinds of action research - technical, practical and critical - are composed in different patterns of saying, doing and relating, as different ways of life.
Distinctive Qualities of Expert Teachers
This article attempts to identify the distinctive qualities of successful veteran teachers, referred to as “expert teachers”, which separates them not only from novice teachers but more importantly from experienced non-expert teachers. Based on earlier case studies, this article maintains that the critical differences between expert and non-expert teachers are manifested in three dimensions: their ability to integrate aspects of teacher knowledge in relation to the teaching act; their response to their contexts of work, and their ability to engage in reflection and conscious deliberation. The data drawn on in this article consist of case studies, spanning 18 months, of four ESL teachers in Hong Kong.
Meaningful Social Studies for Elementary Students
This article begins with an overview of elementary social studies, considering its purposes and goals. The article then considers different approaches and focusing on the approach recommended by the authors. This approach features units on cultural universals, organized around powerful ideas developed with emphasis on their connections and applications. Then, the article describes how an exemplary elementary teacher implements these units in her classroom. The authors conclude that it is important to include social studies as a basic curriculum strand right from the beginning of schooling.
Improving the Mathematics Preparation of Elementary Teachers, One Lesson at a Time
In this paper, the authors describe a model for systematically improving the mathematics preparation of elementary teachers, one lesson at a time. They begin by identifying a serious obstacle for teacher educators: the absence of mechanisms for developing a shareable knowledge base for teacher preparation. They propose their model as a way to address this challenge. The authors conclude by presenting data indicating that the model is effective in generating and vetting knowledge that helps to improve the mathematics program over time.
Assessment Orientation in Formative Assessment of Learning to Teach
The purpose of this study is to determine whether 'following recommendations' as a result of an AfL (to teach) is influenced differentially by a performance perspective as compared to a learning perspective on assessment by the assessor. The study was conducted in The Netherlands within one large institute of primary teacher education with 163 student teachers in the first year of their four-year programme of practice teaching. Findings of this study show that both assessment orientations are ill-related to acceptance of feedback and a subsequent following of recommendations.
Game-Based Teaching: What Educators Can Learn from Videogames
This investigation examines the success, pitfalls, and lessons learned from incorporating videogame-like components into an educational technology class. The students in this class chose various levels at which to complete assignments but had to earn a certain number of points before being able to move on to the next assignment. Findings reveal parallels between the students' cognitive, motivational, and affective processes and those of gamers.
Embedding Evidence-Based Practice in Pre-Service Teacher Preparation
In this study, the authors sought to establish the differential effects on achievement of embedding evidence-based practice in the design of an inclusive education teacher preparation course. Embedded design involves creating self-repeating patterns in the instructional design of a course by expressing essential design features at multiple levels in the teaching and learning experience. The authors found a statistically significant difference in student achievement as a function of the teaching approach (cooperative learning, peer-assisted learning, or self-study) employed as part of the embedded design process.
December 2009
All Recent Items
Multiculturalism & Diversity
Responding to Student Diversity amidst Tested Traditions and Testing Standards
The ABCs for Pre-service Teacher Cultural Competency Development
Developing Teacher Epistemological Sophistication About Multicultural Curriculum: A Case Study

Professional Development

Delivering Online Professional Development in Mathematics to Rural Educators
Special Education Teaching as a Profession: Lessons Learned From Occupations That Have Achieved Full Professional Standing
The Role of 'Accomplished Teachers' in Professional Learning Communities: Uncovering Practice and Enabling Leadership
The Challenge of Repositioning: Teacher Learning in the Company of Others
Connecting Religion and Teacher Identity: The Unexplored Relationship between Teachers and Religion in Public Schools
The Hierarchy of Strengths: Their Relationships with Subjective Well-Being among Chinese Teachers in Hong Kong
Teachers' Social Class, Professional Dispositions and Pedagogic Practice

TE & Instruction

The Challenge of Change: Digital Video-Analysis and Constructivist Teaching Approaches on A One Year Preservice Teacher Education Program in Ireland
Enhancing Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Elementary Science
Making Blended Instruction Better: Integrating the Principles of Universal Design for Instruction into Course Design and Delivery
The Use of Self-Assessment to Foster Students' Learning in Teacher Education: An Experience in Teaching Practice
Incorporating a Video-Editing Activity in a Reflective Teaching Course for Preservice Teachers
Student Teaching and Teacher Attrition in Special Education
An Exploration of the Use of Disruption as a Pedagogic Intervention
Mathematics Instruction for Students With Learning Disabilities: A Meta-Analysis of Instructional Components
A Meta-Analysis of Three Types of Interaction Treatments in Distance Education
Using Video Editing to Cultivate Novice Teachers' Practice
Meaningful Social Studies for Elementary Students
Working toward A Third Space in the Teaching of Elementary Mathematics
Teaching Leadership as Exploring Sacred Space
Elementary Teachers' Use and Perception of Rewards in the Classroom

Research Methods

How Engagement with Research Changes the Professional Practice of Teacher-Educators: A Case Study from the Welsh Education Research Network
Building Capacity through Teacher Enquiry: The Scottish Schools of Ambition
Scallops, Schools and Scholars: Reflections on the Emergence of A Research-Oriented Learning Project
Engaging in Action Research: A Personal and Professional Journey towards an Inquiry into Teacher Morale in a Senior Secondary College
Teacher-Student Negotiation in an Action Research Project
When Does the Action Start and Finish? Making the Case for an Ethnographic Action Research in Educational Research
Changing Directions: Participatory Action Research As A Parent Involvement Strategy
Assessing Action-Research Projects within Formal Academic Programmes: Using Elliott's Context-Related Criteria to Resolve the Rigour Versus Flexibility Dilemma
Problem-Based Learning and Action Research in Postgraduate Teaching: The Interdisciplinary Core
Change at Big School and Little School: Institutionalization and Contestation in Participatory Action Research
Action Research In Physical Education: Focusing Beyond Myself Through Cooperative Learning
Action Research as a Practice-Based Practice
Development of A User-Friendly Instrument for Identifying the Learning Strategy Preferences of Adults

Mentoring & Supervision

Re-Envisioning Mentorship: Pre-service Teachers and Associate Teachers as Co-Learners
The Development and Testing of a Time-Limited Mentoring Model for Experienced School Leaders
Situating Pre-service Reading Teachers as Tutors: Implications of Teacher Self-efficacy on Tutoring Elementary Students
Strength-Based Mentoring in Pre-service Teacher Education: A Literature Review

TE Programs

Capacity = Expertise x Motivation x Opportunities: Factors in Capacity Building in Teacher Education in England
Providing Qualified Teachers for Urban Schools: The Effectiveness of the Accelerated Collaborative Teacher Preparation Program in Recruiting, Preparing, and Retaining Teachers
A Data-Driven Dispositions Model for Teacher Candidates and Program Review
Improving the Mathematics Preparation of Elementary Teachers, One Lesson at a Time
The Place of the Personal: Exploring the Affective Domain through Reflection in Teacher Preparation
Establishing Professional Relationships in Practicum Settings
Field-Based Preservice Teacher Research: Facilitating Reflective Professional Practice

Preservice Students

The Views of Preservice Teachers About the Strengths and Limitations of the Use of Graphing Calculators in Mathematics Instruction
Beyond Recollection: Reexamining Preservice Teacher Practices Using Structured Evidence, Analysis, and Reflection
Connecting Preservice Teachers With Children Using Blogs
Moral Spaces in MySpace: Preservice Teachers' Perspectives about Ethical Issues in Social Networking

Beginning Teachers

Supporting Induction Teachers’ Development Using Performance-Based Video Evidence
First-Year Teacher Knowledge of Phonemic Awareness and Its Instruction
A Study of Novice Teachers: Challenges and Supports in the First Years
Novice in Secondary School – The Coin Has Two Sides

Teaching Assessment

Assessment Orientation in Formative Assessment of Learning to Teach
New Regimes of Truth: The Impact of Performative School Self Evaluation Systems on Teachers' Professional Identities

Technology & Computers

Student Teachers’ Use of Technology-Generated Representations: Exemplars and Rationales
Studying Classroom Practice: Case Development for Professional Learning in Technology Integration
The Benefits and Limitations of Online Group Work in a Teacher Education Program
Supporting Learner-Centered ICT Integration: The Influence of Collaborative and Needs-Based Professional Development
Preparing Preservice Teachers for 21st Century Classrooms: Transforming Attitudes and Behaviors About Innovative Technology
Game-Based Teaching: What Educators Can Learn from Videogames
Wiki as a Collaborative Learning Tool in a Language Arts Methods Class

Theories & Approaches

Embedding Evidence-Based Practice in Pre-Service Teacher Preparation

TE - General Trends

The Arts and Elementary Education: Shifting the Paradigm
Distinctive Qualities of Expert Teachers
Veteran Teachers: Commitment, Resilience and Quality Retention
The Secrets of Successful Veteran Biology Teachers: Metaphors of Evolution, Regeneration, and Adaptation
The Game Veteran Theatre Teachers Are Playing: Anatomy of Musings
School Governance and Teachers' Attitudes to Parents' Involvement in Schools
December 2009
 
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