Developing pre-service teachers’ confidence: real-time coaching in teacher education

Teacher quality continues to be of major concern in the Western world, and identifying the most effective approach to teacher training remains a contested area. It has been argued that teachers resist change because they lack motivation, have inadequate knowledge and expertise to modify their practices, and are reluctant to take risks for fear of having their confidence damaged. While remaining skeptical of such a deficit view, our interest is in pedagogic approaches which seek to better prepare teachers for teaching in contemporary society and, thus, to enhance their ‘effectiveness.’ This article discusses the use of a Real-Time Coaching (RTC) model designed to enhance pre-service teachers’ practical skills for contemporary classroom teaching. The model focuses upon pre-service teachers micro-teaching while simultaneously gaining feedback via a headset in real time; this is then combined with multiple collaborative feedback cycles within a learning community in order to foster reflective practice. To collect information about participants’ experiences with the RTC process, two rounds of semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants. Our findings indicate the RTC model has the capacity to foster a sense of confidence and ownership of learning by developing practical skills alongside affective attributes such as resilience, efficacy, and a disposition toward continual improvement.     

Feedback on reflection: comparing rating-scale and forced-choice formats for measuring and facilitating teacher team reflective practice

This study focused on elements of measurement and feedback for teacher reflective practice. The measurement component examined the use of the Survey of Reflective Practice: A Tool for Assessing Development as a Reflective Practitioner to measure reflective practice and promote reflection, and compared educator responses using rating-scale and forced-choice item formats. The feedback component observed teachers and mentors collaborating to set goals that facilitate growth as a reflective practitioner. Results suggest the instrument can be used to measure and facilitate a teacher team’s level of reflection with one important caveat: our results indicate that there may be a threshold level of reflection necessary before teachers can benefit from the examined collaborative process. In addition, results suggest that the forced-choice item format might help mentors move away from a judging and evaluating mindset to a mindset of thoughtful analysis of the conditions and qualities that most accurately describe the team’s reflective behavior.     

Pedagogical imagination and practical wisdom: the role of success-narratives in teacher education and professional development

There is an increasing awareness that teaching is a practice where moral action is inseparable from pedagogical action, and where wise deliberation or reflection on what course of action to take as an educator is an important part of being a good teacher. This article focuses on rethinking the role of narratives as an articulation of such practical knowledge and the enrichment they might bring to a teacher’s pedagogical imagination. Working within a conceptual framework drawing on Schön and Aristotle, the study presents a group of narratives describing successful conflict resolution told by students at a newly launched teacher education program. These are discussed as part of a teachers practice repertoire and the argument is made that the local and personal repertoires of practitioners need to be complemented with elements from the repertoire of others, something systematic research into narratives of teaching in action can be part of.     

幼儿园教师的心理健康:对基于SCL-90量表研究的元分析

症状自评量表(SCL-90)在过去15年里广泛用于幼儿园教师心理健康状况调查,然而调查结论却很不一致。为了综合这些相互矛盾的调查结果,分析其原因,37项原始研究(含42个独立样本)进入了元分析。结果显示:(1)幼儿园教师的SCL-90得分与常模没有显著差别,明显低于中小学教师;(2)城镇教师和农村教师、公办教师与民办教师的得分可能有差异;(3)离婚率、教育经费投入,以及出生死亡率与幼儿园教师的SCL-90得分有显著相关。幼儿园教师在心理健康积极端的表现,以及压力–资源–心理健康之间的因果关系在未来研究中需要更多关注。     

Teacher Job Stress and Satisfaction in Urban Schools: Disentangling Individual-, Classroom-, and Organizational-Level Influences

Schools remain among the most frequent providers of children’s mental health services, particularly in low-income urban settings. Several decades of research have focused on training teachers to implement evidence-based interventions for minimizing disruptive behavior. Studies consistently demonstrate robust improvements in student behavior and learning; however, the impact on teachers’ work-related stress or satisfaction is not well understood. Six urban, high-poverty elementary schools were randomly assigned to a school mental health services model (Links to Learning; L2L) for referred, disruptive students or to services and professional development as usual (SAU). Teachers (n = 71, K-4 general education teachers) in L2L schools participated in professional development and consultation in two universal and two targeted interventions to reduce disruptive behaviors and promote learning. Teachers (n = 65) in SAU schools participated in professional development as usual. Multiple regression models examined teacher reports of individual-level self-efficacy, classroom-level student functioning, and school-level organizational health as predictors of stress and satisfaction. Findings revealed no significant difference between conditions on teacher work-related stress or satisfaction. Organizational health was the strongest predictor of stress and satisfaction. Training on and implementation of evidence-based classroom interventions did not appear to significantly impact teachers’ work-related stress or satisfaction. Instead, findings point to organizational climate and teacher connectedness as potential levers for change, supporting prior work on teacher stress and satisfaction in schools. The significance of targeting organizational factors may be particularly significant in urban school districts.     

Classroom ethnic diversity,teacher support,and peer victimization: Evidence from four European countries

We investigated how classroom ethnic diversity is associated with peer victimization, effects of ethnic minority/majority status, and if individual teacher support can buffer potentially negative effects of ethnic diversity. Using two theoretical perspectives (balance of power, ethnic competition), we hypothesized that (1) victimization is more prevalent at intermediate ethnic diversity and less prevalent at lower and higher ethnic diversity, (2) this curvilinear link is stronger for ethnic majority than minority students, and (3) peer victimization at intermediate levels of ethnic diversity is lower when teacher support is high. We conducted multilevel analyses based on the first wave of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries (CILS4EU). The analytical sample included 17,882 students, nested in 882 classrooms. Although our hypotheses received no support, the findings showed that diversity was linked to less victimization for ethnic minority student. Teacher support was linked to less victimization for ethnic minority students at every level of classroom diversity but especially when diversity was low and to less victimization for ethnic majority students in classrooms with intermediate to high ethnic diversity. We discuss our findings in light the theoretical approaches and underscore the role of teachers as a protective resource.     

教师变量对小学生数学学习观影响的多层线性分析

32名小学数学教师与这些教师所教班级的1691名学生参与了本研究.两个测量工具评价了教师的数学学科知识与学科教学知识,对教师的55节数学课进行了录像;并按照学习任务的认知水平与课堂对话的特点进行了编码,采用问卷法测查了学生对数学学习的看法与态度.多水平分析表明:教师的学科教学知识、课堂学习任务的认知水平、课堂师生对话的权威来源与教师运用学生想法的程度对学生数学学习观具有显著预测作用;教师的学科知识对学生数学学习观的预测未达到显著性水平.     

国外教师职业倦怠影响因素研究新进展

职业倦怠是服务于助人行业的人们因工作时间过长、工作量过大、工作强度过高所经历的一种疲惫不堪的状态,包括情绪衰竭、去个性化、个人成就感降低三个方面。教师是职业倦怠的高发人群之一,对教师产生许多消极影响,要想缓解教师职业倦怠,就必须研究影响职业倦怠的因素,国外对于教师职业倦怠影响因素的研究得出许多结果,新进的主要有社会比较方式、集体自尊、应付方式、创造性和组织支持等。     

幼儿园组织氛围与教师专业发展结构模型研究

通过对317名教师的问卷调查,建立了幼儿园组织氛围与教师专业发展的结构模型。结果表明：（1）反思是幼儿园组织氛围作用于教师专业发展的重要中介变量;（2）幼儿园组织氛围对教师专业发展有直接或问接的影响,幼儿园支持氛围对教师职业倦怠的影响作用最大,研究氛围对教师专业认同的影响最大,支持氛围对教师教育效能感的影响最大;（3）幼儿园的支持氛围、研究氛围对教师专业发展的影响作用大于赋权氛围的影响。