International Portal of Teacher Education
The online resource of academic content on teacher training and teacher education
Section archive - Professional Development
Page 28/39
384 items
271
In this study, the author examines how a model of self was cultivated through the social practices of a transformative professional development program for urban public school leaders. She combines insights from ethnography and discourse analysis. 17 administrators and building leaders participated in the study. The author identified three practices that were used at the retreats to facilitate participants’ access to an essential and true inner self: (a) Modeling of multiple ways of talking about an inner self; (b) ritual experience of the self in relation to others; and (c) the connection of the self to a natural order.
Published: 2009
Updated: Sep. 22, 2009
272
This article explores the nature and varying forms of professional learning communities in rural Gansu, one of China’s poorest provinces, in northwest China. The authors use qualitative and quantitative data. They draw on survey data collected in primary schools serving 71 villages in rural Gansu Province as well as transcripts from in-depth interviews with 30 teachers. The findings suggest that engagement in professional learning communities is associated with strong leadership of the principal, policy reforms and the initiative of teachers themselves.
Published: 2009
Updated: Sep. 21, 2009
273
The article illustrates the aspects of powerful professional learning through three pedagogical tools that emerged from a content analysis of a large data set of the Numeracy Development Project. Since 2000, more than 25,000 teachers and 690,000 students in English-medium and Māori-medium (indigenous) settings have participated in the project. The content analysis identified three pedagogical tools that participants describe as improving their mathematics knowledge and practice: the number framework; the diagnostic interview and the strategy teaching model.
Published: 2009
Updated: Sep. 16, 2009
274
This study explores the preservice teacher learning in the context of conversations about their field-based challenges. First, a review of the literature investigates studies that highlight the role of evidence-based conversation as a mechanism to approach the inevitable problems faced by teachers in the classroom. The subsequent case study provides an analysis of how a group of preservice teachers approached a colleague's challenge through a structured conversation and used digital videotapes and artifacts to add specificity to their analysis.
Published: 2009
Updated: Jul. 21, 2009
275
The author critiques the current professional development (PD) literature through a review of recent literature across professions. She proposes an alternative conceptualization, based on philosophical assumptions congruent with evidence about professional learning from seminal educational research of the past two decades. She concludes by considering implications for practice and future research possibilities extending from reconceptualizing PD and understanding more about authentic professional learning.
Published: 2009
Updated: Jul. 02, 2009
276
This qualitative study explored aspects of the inclusive program in an elementary school in a rural section of the upper Midwest of the United States. The paper describes a university and elementary school research partnership to study collaboration among the general education teachers and the special education staff (teachers and assistants) in the inclusive elementary school.
Published: 2009
Updated: Jun. 17, 2009
277
This study presents a model of Transformative Professional Development (TPD) for use in sustained, collaborative, professional development of teachers in urban middle school science.
In this study, TPD was used to meet the needs of individual teachers and the collective needs of schools in reform efforts.
The article focuses in the experiences of 8 teachers engaged in this process of professional growth, including their changes in practices and beliefs.
Published: 2009
Updated: Jun. 15, 2009
278
Mathematics is a natural part of daily life for young children as they explore the world around them. To begin establishing a mathematical foundation, early childhood educators must be knowledgeable about mathematical concepts. Furthermore, they must also be aware of the most developmentally appropriate ways in which to teach these concepts to young children. After participation in an ongoing professional development program, specifically targeting teachers of prekindergarten children in public school, teachers reported positive changes in math practices.
Published: 2009
Updated: Jun. 11, 2009
279
Teacher burnout is recognized as a serious problem. In research it has been related to many person-specific variables; one of these, the variable of existential fulfilment, has received very little attention thus far. The present study focuses on the relationship between existential fulfilment and burnout among 504 secondary school teachers in the Netherlands. The inquiry demonstrated the importance of existential fulfilment for the prevalence and prevention of burnout among teachers.
Published: 2009
Updated: Jun. 10, 2009
280
This paper examines the commitment of Hong Kong teachers in the decade after the political transition in 1997, when large-scale education reforms were launched. The life history method was employed to explore teachers’ self-appraisal of their commitment levels in their career course and factors contributing to such trends.
Published: 2009
Updated: Jun. 10, 2009