Search results

The paper discusses the influence of instructional leadership on effective teacher teaching practices and learning outcomes. In particular, the paper examines one of the instructional leadership practices, namely teaching evaluation, and seeks to investigate the influence on the effective teacher practices and on the achievement of 6th grade primary school students studying mathematics in the Cyprus educational system.

A quantitative research approach was deemed appropriate and employed for the purpose of the research subject, and in particular for the type of questions studied. Data were collected from 81 principals, 139 6th grade teachers and 1,553 students in the Cyprus educational system. In addition, data analysis was performed using structural equation models (SEM).

The instructional leadership approach assumes that principal evaluations influence high learning outcomes. Findings demonstrated that the principal evaluation has a positive and statistically significant impact on effective teaching practices and student achievement.

It is important to acknowledge that in the Cyprus educational leadership field the corellation among the instructional leadership, the effective teaching practices of teachers and the students achievements were not examined through the above parameters. Furthermore, the survey provided important insights into the principals, teachers, pupils and, more generally, on Cyprus's educational policy.

Over nearly two decades the Supporting Effective Teaching project examined the characteristics of teachers that result in successful inclusion of students with disabilities in Canadian regular education classrooms. These studies revealed that teachers who rate high in adapting and calibrating instruction for students who have special needs are the most successful overall with all their students. In this chapter, we present an adaptation of the observation scale that we used to rate effective inclusive instructional practices. The adapted scale can be used both as a self-rating and as a third-party measurement scale of effective teaching practices. We link each element of the scale to the Universal Design for Learning framework. We discuss how challenges to effective practices are affected by teacher beliefs about ability and disability, collegial differences in beliefs and practices, and the focus set by the leadership in the school.

The focus of this chapter is on the effective and inclusive classroom practices for the teaching and learning of mathematics at the primary and early secondary levels. The research literature and major national and international reports on effective and inclusive mathematics teaching at the primary and secondary levels of schooling are examined. Some of the challenges to inclusive mathematics teaching are explored. Based in Florian’s (2014) inclusive pedagogical approach in action framework, a research-based exemplar of effective and inclusive primary mathematics teaching is described. The elements of effective and inclusive practices at the secondary level are outlined and a sample lesson presented. Potential impediments to inclusivity are examined.

Research over the last decade or so has made it clear that quality teachers matter to student achievement. What is less clear is the ways in which they matter and how we can prepare such high-quality teachers. Nowhere is this lack of clarity more evident than in special education, where we have few studies on teacher quality and even fewer studies on the type of preparation opportunities that would lead to high quality. Thus, it is difficult to make evidence-based decisions about how quality special education teachers should be defined and prepared. As a field, we have to turn to research in general education to provide a sense of some of the dimensions of teacher quality and effective teacher education. In this chapter, we provide a summary of the research on characteristics of highly qualified teachers and what we know from the research on teacher education and professional development that might foster these qualities, both in general and in special education. Part of our discussion centers on the concerns surrounding this body of research and the challenges of applying the findings to the field of special education. Although these challenges pose considerable problems, we are optimistic that potential solutions exist and can be reached through an alignment of initial teacher education and induction.

This paper aims to present recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering all library types.

This paper introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, reports and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2018.

The paper provides a brief description of all 422 sources, and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians and anyone interested as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

This paper aims to present recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy, providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering various library types, study populations and research contexts.

This paper introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, reports and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2019.

The paper provides a brief description of all 370 sources and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians, researchers and anyone interested as a quick and comprehensive reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

More than ever before, globalization has linked the socioeconomic development of nations to the performance of their educational systems. One of the consequences of this new focus on improving the quality of teachers is the acknowledgment of the importance of engaging more directly with what is at the center of action, that is, pedagogy (Alexander, 2008). In this perspective, we conduct research aimed at describing, analyzing, and establishing a critical portrait of the scientific bases of the pedagogical choices made by three major international organizations (OECD, UNESCO, and World Bank) with respect to teacher education and development. In terms of methodology, we conducted a fine-grained analysis of the documents produced in the framework of TALIS and semi-structured individuals interviews with five staff members of OECD. The idea of pedagogical pluralism constitutes a rhetorical artefact through which constructivist teaching approaches are favored.

This chapter investigates the impact of a teacher preparation program that includes specific attention to the needs of bilingual learners on participants’ subsequent teaching practices. Specifically, this mixed methods retrospective study examines graduates’ reports of their current teaching practices as well as their perceptions of the Teaching English Language Learners (TELL) program’s impact on these practices. Multiple-choice survey data were analyzed quantitatively to identify trends among reported practices and perceptions. Open-ended survey and interview data were analyzed qualitatively to identify interrelated themes within teachers’ detailed, first-hand accounts of their pre-service and in-service experiences. The results showed that there was variety with respect to whether particular linguistically responsive practices were routine, used occasionally, or rarely. There was also a difference with respect to whether such practices were perceived to be the result of having participated in the program. Notably, the most frequently used practices attributed to the TELL program involved teaching language (TL) to facilitate content learning. Other aspects of the teacher preparation program supported effective practices for academic content learning, but only TELL coursework and experiences facilitated practices that emphasized academic language development. These results suggest that programs created to improve the preparation of teachers to work with bilingual learners in mainstream classroom contexts must make a special effort to develop teachers’ skills in regard to language teaching, especially practices that focus on language beyond the word-level. There are limitations to the study because of the small number of participants and the fact that they were self-selected as program participants.

This paper presents recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy. It provides an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering various library types, study populations and research contexts. The selected bibliography is useful to efficiently keep up with trends in library instruction for busy practitioners, library science students and those wishing to learn about information literacy in other contexts.

This article annotates 424 English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, theses and reports on library instruction and information literacy published in 2021. The sources were selected from the EBSCO platform for Library, Information Science, and Technology Abstracts (LISTA), Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), Scopus, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, and WorldCat, published in 2021 that included the terms “information literacy,” “library instruction,” or “information fluency” in the title, abstract or keywords. The sources were organized in Zotero. Annotations summarize the source, focusing on the findings or implications. Each source was categorized into one of seven pre-determined categories: K-12 Education, Children and Adolescents; Academic and Professional Programs; Everyday Life, Community, and the Workplace; Libraries and Health Information Literacy; Multiple Library Types; and Other Information Literacy Research and Theory.

The paper provides a brief description of 424 sources and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians, researchers and anyone interested as a quick and comprehensive reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy within 2021.

This study aims to understand the extent to which a faculty development program that includes a week-long course design experience followed by sustained support changes new faculty's perceptions, beliefs and teaching practices. The authors employed the teacher professional knowledge and skill (TPK&S) framework and characteristics of effective educational development interventions to drive the program development, implementation and assessment.

This study utilized a mixed methods approach. Data sources include pre-/mid-/post-program responses to a validated survey, pre-/post-program course syllabi analyzed using a validated rubric and pre-/post-classroom observations collected using the Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM (COPUS) instrument.

Findings indicate transformative effects for participants' beliefs about their teaching and changes to their instructional practices. Significant and practical effects were observed across different portions of the program for increases in participants' self-efficacy, endorsement of a conceptual change approach toward teaching and perceptions of institutional support. Participants produced more learning-focused syllabi and many moved toward more student-centered instructional approaches in their teaching practices.

Due to the voluntary nature of the new faculty development program, this study may have been limited by participant self-selection bias and differential sample sizes for the study's individual measures. Future research should consider designs which maximize faculty participation in measurement across all data sources.

This study addresses shortcomings in prior studies which utilized limited data sources to measure intervention impact and answers the call for more rigorous research to obtain a more complete picture of instructional development in higher education.