Nov. 30, 2008
Dear subscriber, 
MOFET ITEC Portal Newsletter

Dear Subscriber,

We are delighted to send you the latest issue of The MOFET ITEC Portal resource list.

The current bulletin represents the latest articles and some significant trends published in academic journals that focus on teacher education, pedagogy and instruction.

Please feel free to use the response system at the end of each item, we welcome your comments and insights.

Wishing you interesting and enjoyable reading,

The MOFET ITEC Portal Team

November 30, 2008 International Portal of Teacher Education
November 2008
Featured Items
Peer Mentoring for First-year Teacher Education Students: The Mentors' Experience
Peer mentoring programs are developed to assist first-year students as they make the transition into university life. The qualitative study appraises a mentoring programme for first-year undergraduate students from the mentors' perspective. Understanding the mentors' experiences can contribute to the success of the program and, more importantly, can lead to strong self efficacy for the mentors.
Mathematics Anxiety and Mathematics Teacher Efficacy in Elementary Pre-service Teachers
The article explores mathematics anxieties and mathematics teacher efficacy among 156 elementary pre-service teachers from a university in the southeastern United States. Data included tests and interviews. Findings revealed a significant, negative relationship between mathematics anxiety and mathematics teachers' efficacy (r = -.475, p<.05 specifically="" the="" pre-service="" teachers="" with="" lowest="" degree="" of="" mathematics="" anxiety="" had="" highest="" levels="" teacher="" efficacy.="">
Teacher Professional Growth in an Authentic Learning Environment
This article reports on a study that closely followed and documented the journeys of professional growth for a group of teachers from their points of view, over a period of six months. Action research was conducted in conjunction with participation in a project centered on the creation of Web sites as culminating performance tasks.Analysis of the data collected led to the conclusion that one possibility could be to facilitate professional development in such a way that it is authentic, based in the classroom and focused on tasks meaningful to and specifically chosen by the teacher.
Understanding Teachers with Extreme Individual Learning Differences: Developing More Effective Teachers
A professional development course was learned by three teachers, with the purpose of sensitizing teachers about learning difference. The case study focuses on their extreme learning preferences and discusses the impact of these preferences on their language, beliefs and practice, both before and after the course. Finding indicate that teachers tend to teach the way they prefer to learn; over-generalize and project their own learning needs onto students; and hold initial “blame the learner” beliefs about students mismatched to them.
Fostering Higher-order Thinking in Science Class: Teachers' Reflections
The article examine what teachers know and do regarding higher order thinking skills in teaching science. Semi structured interviews were collected with 11 experienced physics science teachers. The findings highlighted a diversity among the teachers in four areas: meta-strategic knowledge of the concept of higher-order thinking; practical utilization of instructional strategies related to fostering higher-order thinking in the classroom; beliefs about students' abilities to acquire higher-order thinking skills; and self-perception regarding teaching towards higher-order thinking.
A MUVE Towards PBL Writing: Effects of a Digital Learning Environment Designed To Improve Elementary Student Writing
This study examined whether game elements could be used along with Problem Based Learning (PBL) in a digital learning environment to improve student writing. Results from this study included statistically significant decreases in teacher time spent answering procedural and directional questions, increased voluntary student writing, and improved standardized achievement scores on writing tasks.
A Human-Computer Partnership: The Tutor/Child/Computer Triangle Promoting the Acquisition of Early Literacy Skills
This study involved the analysis of the complex interactions that take place between tutors and preschool children using a computer during early literacy tutoring sessions. Eight five-year-old pre- and early-readers (four boys and four girls) attending a childcare centre participated in daily 20-minute tutoring sessions for two weeks. The literacy software (a beta version) was especially designed to guide tutors while working one-on-one with elementary school students falling into the lower 30% of reading achievement (i.e., at-risk). Rigorous grounded theory analyses generated three comprehensive themes: rapport, motivation, and scaffolding. The first focused on interpersonal issues, the latter two on teaching/learning.
Walk the Talk: Connecting Critical Pedagogy and Practice in Teacher Education
This article explores of critical pedagogy, and the process and experiences of 22 preservice teachers enrolled in a required teacher education course, Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice, who collaboratively developed and taught the course syllabus to one another. Results indicated that students preferred deeper, richer dialogues on the social issues they chose to study.
November 2008
All Recent Items
Multiculturalism & Diversity

Bilingual Teachers' Performances of Power and Conflict
Fostering Multiliteracies Pedagogy through Preservice Teacher Education
Shaping One Traditional Special Educator Preparation Program Toward More Cultural Competence

Professional Development

Teaching Experiments and Professional Development
The Impact of a NCLB-EETT Funded Professional Development Program on Teacher Self-Efficacy and Resultant Implementation
Teachers Reflecting on their Work: Articulating What is Said About What is Done
'That's not Treating you as a Professional': Teachers Constructing Complex Professional Identities through Talk
Teacher Professional Growth in an Authentic Learning Environment
Putting the “Development” in Professional Development: Understanding and Overturning Educational Leaders’ Immunities to Change

TE & Instruction

Real-world Connections in Secondary Mathematics Teaching
Learning to Observe: Using Video to Improve Preservice Mathematics Teachers’ Ability to Notice
Understanding and Describing Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching: Knowledge about Proof for Engaging Students in the Activity of Proving
Identifying and Promoting Self-regulated Learning in Higher Education: Roles and Responsibilities of Student Tutors
Group Work as a Learning Situation: A Qualitative Study in a University Classroom
Peer-mediated Instruction: Assisted Performance in the Primary Classroom
Fostering Higher-order Thinking in Science Class: Teachers' Reflections
Critical Elements for the Science Teacher to Adopt a Student-centered Approach: The Case of a Teacher in Transition
Professional Identity of a Reading Teacher: Responding to High-stakes Testing Pressures
'Yes, but if we have Students Think All Day When Will We Get Anything Done?': Two Conceptual Resources to Engage Students in Democratically Dangerous Teaching
The Impact of International Programs on |Pedagogical Practices of their Participants: a Russian Experience
Reflective Practice: A Student-oriented Pedagogy for Veteran Teachers
Troubling Teacher Identity: Preparing Mathematics Teachers to Teach for Diversity
Learning to Teach With Technology Through an Apprenticeship Model
Capturing Authenticity, Transforming Perception: One Teacher's Efforts to Improve Her Students' Performance by Challenging Their Impressions of Self and Community

Research Methods

A Preliminary Investigation of Prospective Teachers' Reasoning About Case Studies with Expert Commentary

Mentoring & Supervision

Alternative Mentoring of Street Girls in Bangladesh: New Identities and Non-traditional Opportunities
Improved Mentor Satisfaction: Emphasising Protégé Training for Adult-age Mentoring Dyads
Mentoring At-risk Adolescent Girls: Listening to 'Little Sisters'
Mentoring Expectations and Realities: An Analysis of Metaphorical Thinking Among Female Undergraduate Protégés and their Mentors in a University Mentoring Programme
Mentoring Partnerships in a Community Technology Centre: A Constructionist Approach for Fostering Equitable Service Learning
Peer Mentoring for First-year Teacher Education Students: The Mentors' Experience
Sources of Support for Pre-service Teachers During School Experience

Teacher Educators

Teachers and Teacher Educators |Learning from new Literacies and New Technologies

TE Programs

“Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching”: Adapting U.S. Measures for use in Ireland
A MUVE Towards PBL Writing: Effects of a Digital Learning Environment Designed To Improve Elementary Student Writing

Preservice Students

Positive Experiences as Input for Reflection by Student Teachers
Preservice Teachers' Conceptions about Computers: An Ongoing Search for Transformative Appropriations of Modern Technologies
A Culturally Relevant Teaching Course: Reflecting Pre-service Teachers' Thinking
Mathematics Anxiety and Mathematics Teacher Efficacy in Elementary Pre-service Teachers

Technology & Computers

Hybrid Online Education: Identifying Integration Models Using Adventure Learning
A Human-Computer Partnership: The Tutor/Child/Computer Triangle Promoting the Acquisition of Early Literacy Skills
Reflective Practices Among Language Arts Teachers: The Use of Weblogs
Teacher Perspectives on Online Collaborative Learning: Factors Perceived as Facilitating and Impeding Successful Online Group Work
Digital Booktalk: Digital Media for Reluctant Readers

Theories & Approaches

Teacher-writer Memoirs as Lens for Writing Emotionally in a Primary Teacher Education Programme
Walk the Talk: Connecting Critical Pedagogy and Practice in Teacher Education
When Figured Worlds Collide: Improvisation in an Inquiry Classroom
A Theory of Online Learning as Online Participation

TE - General Trends

Investigating Changes in ProspectiveTeachers’ Views of a ‘Good teacher’ While Engaging in Computerized Project-based Learning
Investigating Teachers’ images of Mathematics
Recruiting and Retaining Secondary Mathematics Teachers: Lessons Learned from an Innovative Four-year Undergraduate Program
Using Video-based Curriculum to Develop a Reflective Stance in Prospective Mathematics Teachers
The Logic of Convergence and Uniformity in Teacher Production
Understanding Teachers with Extreme Individual Learning Differences: Developing More Effective Teachers

November 2008
 
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