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1 – 10 of over 10000Robert Detmering, Anna Marie Johnson, Claudene Sproles, Samantha McClellan and Rosalinda Hernandez Linares
This paper aims to provide an introductory overview and selected annotated bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy across all library…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide an introductory overview and selected annotated bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy across all library types.
Design/methodology/approach
It introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2014.
Findings
It provides information about each source, discusses the characteristics of current scholarship and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.
Originality/value
The information may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.
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Latisha Reynolds, Samantha McClellan, Susan Finley, George Martinez and Rosalinda Hernandez Linares
This paper aims to highlight recent resources on information literacy (IL) and library instruction, providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to highlight recent resources on information literacy (IL) and library instruction, providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering all library types.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations and other materials on library instruction and IL published in 2015.
Findings
This paper provides information about each source, describes the characteristics of current scholarship and highlights sources that contain either unique or significant scholarly contributions.
Originality/value
The information may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and IL.
Details
Keywords
Patricia Mannix McNamara, Sharon Moynihan, Didier Jourdan and Raymond Lynch
National policy in Ireland states that all teachers are teachers of Social Personal and Health Education (SPHE). However national evaluations identify that all teachers do not…
Abstract
Purpose
National policy in Ireland states that all teachers are teachers of Social Personal and Health Education (SPHE). However national evaluations identify that all teachers do not subscribe to this view. This research aimed to examine the experiences and attitudes of undergraduate students towards teaching SPHE.
Design/methodology/approach
An on‐line questionnaire including closed and open questions was distributed to all undergraduate post primary teacher education students (N=1105) in the University of Limerick which is the largest provider of teacher education in Ireland. None of the respondents had exposure to third level education in SPHE or more generally in health education.
Findings
A response rate of 44.7 per cent was achieved (N=494). Only 24.5 per cent indicated that they plan to teach SPHE on graduation. There were significant gender differences in relation to students' intention to teach SPHE on graduation. Incentives to teach were less altruistic for males (money and job security) than females (personal interest in the subject).
Research limitations/implications
The convenience sampling approach was useful in illuminating the attitudes of the undergraduate students sampled, however replication across teacher education programmes nationally is warranted. Inclusion of teacher educators' perspectives would also be valuable.
Practical implications
There is a clear need for health promotion to be placed on the pre‐service teacher education curriculum. In addition, it is necessary to take into account pre‐service teacher attitude towards SPHE and gender differences in the design of the post primary teacher education curriculum.
Originality/value
This paper offers insight into how pre‐service teachers perceive their role in SPHE. It illuminates some challenges facing teacher educators in this field.
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The decade of the 1980s was unique for the sheer quantity of education reform reports and legislation. Virtually every state enacted education reform legislation, including…
Abstract
The decade of the 1980s was unique for the sheer quantity of education reform reports and legislation. Virtually every state enacted education reform legislation, including reforms of teacher education, licensing, and comprehension. According to Darling‐Hammond and Berry, over 1,000 pieces of legislation related to teachers have been drafted since 1980, and “a substantial fraction have been implemented.” As I discussed in my 1989 RSR article, “Five Years after A Nation at Risk: An Annotated Bibliography,” two waves of 1980s reform reports were identified in the enormous body of primary and secondary literature dealing with education reform. The reform publications of the early 1980s stressed improvements in curricular standards, student performance outcomes, and changes to the education programs, such as salary increases, teacher testing, and stricter certification requirements. The second‐wave reform publications emphasized more complex issues centered around the concepts of restructuring the schools and teacher education programs, as well as empowering teachers to become more involved in curriculum and governance issues.
Ping Man Wong, Alan Cheung and Wai Wa Yuen
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of the international mobility of mainland students in special administrative regions of China and in places…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of the international mobility of mainland students in special administrative regions of China and in places outside China.
Design/methodology/approach
There have been studies using the framework of push–pull and reverse push–pull factors to explore the movement of mainland students to North America, Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong. This study follows up by exploring such research directions in Macau, which is another special administrative region of China. Different from previous studies, the sample of this study came specifically from 130 students enrolling in teacher education undergraduate programs in Macau.
Findings
In this study, using data collected from questionnaires and interviews, the factors affecting mainland student teachers’ choice of Macau as a place for their undergraduate studies are examined. Other related issues such as the challenges these students face and their intentions after their graduation are also studied.
Originality/value
The data collected for this study were primary and original, drawing specifically from students enrolling teacher education programs. Following the various studies on the global movement of mainland students, this study aimed at understanding mainland students’ mobility pattern in one of China’s special administration regions, Macau. In this regard, cultural identity and cultural factors were considered on top of other factors.
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Karyn A. Allee-Herndon, Annemarie B. Kaczmarczyk and Rebecca Buchanan
The purpose of this paper is to examine undergraduate elementary education teacher candidates’ abilities to successfully integrate social justice teaching into their…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine undergraduate elementary education teacher candidates’ abilities to successfully integrate social justice teaching into their interdisciplinary ELA and social studies thematic units. The projects were analyzed to determine the extent to which, if any, social justice education has been addressed.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used purposive sampling of two sections of an elementary writing methods course. Students were grouped into Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) to design an integrated thematic English Language Arts (ELA), Social Studies and Social Justice unit. At the conclusion of their project, components of their units were analyzed using the Social Justice Continuum of Teacher Development.
Findings
Overall, the results indicate that candidates were likely to plan for inclusive practices in their instructional units. There was significant attention across units to inclusive materials and content, but there was very little attention to critical or transformative practices in planning. This likely indicates candidates’ awareness about the need for diverse content but tells us little about their ability to critically analyze the power structures themselves that contribute to the need for inclusive practices.
Originality/value
Before classroom teachers can be expected to engage in critical conversations in their own classrooms, the experiences they have within their preparation programs need to be considered. These findings indicate more explicit work must be done to support candidates in their ability to critically analyze hegemonic power structures and to engage their students in learning experiences that move beyond using diverse resources into teaching advocacy strategies to students.
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Clarisse Halpern and Hasan Aydin
The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions of graduate students about the need for a multicultural education course at doctoral level in a mid-sized higher…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions of graduate students about the need for a multicultural education course at doctoral level in a mid-sized higher education public institution in Southwest Florida.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative case study method was applied with multiple sources of data collected, including semi-structured interviews, observations and students’ written papers, online discussions and assignments that aimed to prepare educators to teach culturally diverse students and challenge their own perceptions about culture, race and other multicultural education-related topics.
Findings
The findings indicate that, even though the multicultural education course promoted an eye-opening transformational experience for students through their interactions and learning from each other, the students still need further training in multicultural education because of their limited culturally responsive teaching skills.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations of the study are that both the researchers were deeply involved with the material and the class, as the class professor and one of the students, which might have affected the authors’ perception about the students’ journey in learning about multicultural education. The researchers’ dual-role (as researchers and course professor and graduate assistant) might have influenced the participants’ responses, as they knew they were part of a research project. Thus, the participants’ spontaneity in sharing their opinions and beliefs about multicultural education may have been hampered, perhaps responding what the researchers expected rather than with their authentic perspectives on the topics.
Practical implications
The implications of this study to teachers, educators and practitioners are that it invites the readers to reflect on their academic preparedness to work with culturally diverse students. For policymakers, the study indicates the need for creating standards that aim to examine in-service graduate student teachers about their self-efficacy, readiness and dispositions to work with culturally diverse students.
Originality/value
Because of the limited publications on doctoral students learning multicultural education, the authors’ study offers an important insight into the transformational experience of doctoral students learning multicultural education and the implications for improving graduate courses in multicultural education.
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Cara Djonko-Moore, Shan Jiang and Katherine Gibson
Multicultural teacher education (MTE), self-efficacy and satisfaction are all important for teachers, especially as they relate to their engagement in practices that are…
Abstract
Purpose
Multicultural teacher education (MTE), self-efficacy and satisfaction are all important for teachers, especially as they relate to their engagement in practices that are beneficial for culturally and linguistically diverse children. Yet it remains to be seen how these important constructs work together to predict teaching practices once teachers enter the field. The purpose of this paper is to explore how MTE, teacher efficacy, teacher satisfaction and culturally responsive teaching (CRT) practices are related among early childhood teachers.
Design/methodology/approach
Specifically, the paper will address the connections between these variables via a path analysis. Previously collected data from 105 public early childhood teachers (PreK-2) in a single county in the Southeast United States was analyzed for the study.
Findings
Results suggest that CRT in early childhood is a three-faceted construct with teacher efficacy having a direct effect on all dimensions of CRT and teacher satisfaction having a direct effect on two dimensions of CRT. MTE did not have any direct effect on teacher efficacy, teacher satisfaction or CRT.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the literature in that it is especially necessary to examine how teacher education influences teachers’ efficacy and practices with culturally and linguistically diverse students. There is limited research on how these variables work together in the early childhood setting.
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Sarah Anne Eckert and Melodie Miller
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of using structured reflection via the critical incident analysis method to develop multicultural awareness and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of using structured reflection via the critical incident analysis method to develop multicultural awareness and intercultural empathy in undergraduate-level pre-service teachers. This research is important, given the striking demographic mismatch between students and teachers in US schools.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopts a convergent parallel mixed methods research design that combines both qualitative analysis of completed written critical incident analysis assignments and quantitative analysis of responses from a brief survey.
Findings
In most cases, engaging with the critical incident analysis method did lead participants reexamine their own experiences and develop a better understanding of their own biases and actions. While students followed different pathways with the assignment, participants were able to better understand the crucial role that teachers play in creating a space that values and welcomes diversity for the benefit of all students.
Originality/value
This study diverges from future research on the critical incident analysis method by asking students to examine specific moments from their past in the process of deep, targeted self-reflection.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore the suggestive possibilities of an approach to undergraduate English teacher education that the author has called the 3D Approach – Develop…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the suggestive possibilities of an approach to undergraduate English teacher education that the author has called the 3D Approach – Develop professional knowledge, Display professional knowledge, Disseminate professional knowledge – in relation to a number of groups of first year pre‐service teachers (PSTs) engaging the teaching and learning materials of their English education course.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper examines ways in which this approach has been assessed by the PSTs themselves, constructing this as an expression of their lived experience as PSTs. The author draws on Vygotsky's concept of the Zone of Proximal Development, initiates a systematic and orchestrated program of explicit scaffolding of first year PST learning and draws on University‐generated student assessment of their courses, focus groups and individual interviews to investigate ways in which the 3D approach may be considered as enhancing first year PST learning.
Findings
PSTs' own informed evaluations of their own developing knowledge have made visible the teaching and learning that they have engaged and articulated. What the author outlines in this paper is not a “Eureka” moment for first year PSTs, but it is the result of careful scholarly considerations of what careful scholarly considerations by first years in Education courses may engage. For this cohort of PSTs, and for the author, it is a particular form of engagement with pedagogy. It is a pedagogy for teachers, part of active engagement on the part of the teacher and the learner, producing knowledge together.
Research limitations/implications
Lack of generalisability from case study research may be considered as a limitation, but the author would argue that it is the details thrown up for careful examination in a case study which may serve to inform professional discussion and debate.
Practical implications
Negative press of inadequate teachers emerging from universities, with their specious claims will not progress reasoned discussion; research on how the PSTs are themselves taught and how they develop as professionals will. PSTs' own informed evaluations of their own developing knowledge will go some way towards enabling this to happen. This sort of research opens up possibilities for starting with the right sort of questions, a shift from asking the wrong sort of questions, which the author would argue is that sort on which the media are basing their opinion pieces.
Social implications
Continuing public discussions, usually conducted in and by the media, about teacher quality, particularly as this tends to be tied to notions of teacher pay, indicates a wider social concern about the need for quality teachers. This sort of social concern is also a major concern for teacher educators, and is to be addressed as such. This paper addresses some of those concerns.
Originality/value
The paper engages issues about teacher education raised publicly in the media and ties these to the more private domain of university practice in a given teacher education course.
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