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tandfonline.com – Preschool/Kindergarten teachers’ conceptions of standardised testing

tandfonline.com har udgivet en rapport under søgningen “Teacher Education Mathematics”: ABSTRACT ABSTRACT Standardised tests play an important role in early childhood (EC) education in many countries. Although teachers’ conceptions largely determine whether and how these instruments are used, research on this topic is scarce. As a result, factors that influence conceptions of standardised testing have remained largely unexplored. To examine teachers’ conceptions of standardised testing and aspects that may influence these conceptions, Brown’s CoA-III-A questionnaire was distributed to 97 EC educators. Based on their responses, a selection of six preschool/kindergarten teachers participated in a series of semi-structured interviews. Analyses of the questionnaire and the interviews indicated that the teachers did not see these tests solely as instruments for accountability or improvement. While some perceived the test as pleasant confirmation, others… Continue Reading

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tandfonline.com – Iterative Design and Pilot Testing of the Developing Talkers Tiered Academic Language Curriculum for Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten

tandfonline.com har udgivet en rapport under søgningen “Teacher Education Mathematics”: Abstract Abstract Curricula are one of the most widely used educational inputs, yet few are developed and evaluated scientifically with a dearth of programs targeting academic language. This manuscript describes an iterative approach to the development of a tiered academic language curriculum supplement for prekindergarten (pre-K) and kindergarten (K) students. A series of four studies were conducted to iteratively design the curriculum following a framework for developing research-based curriculum; however, we modified the framework to focus on efficiently preparing a curriculum for large-scale use by teachers with diverse competency levels. Findings from the first three iterative design studies include the benefit of overdevelopment to retain only the strongest content and the need to consider both beginner and more advanced teachers… Continue Reading

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tandfonline.com – “If It Lived Here, It Would Die.” Children’s Use of Materials as Semiotic Resources in Group Discussions About Evolution

tandfonline.com har udgivet en rapport under søgningen “Teacher Education Mathematics”: ABSTRACT ABSTRACT With the aim of exploring how children discuss underlying reasons for evolution and how materials function in children’s meaning making processes, this article provides insight into how evolution theory can be introduced in preschool and in the early years of primary school. Video data from eight group discussions (N = 27) were analyzed using a multimodal perspective. Despite not having had any formal instruction about evolution theory, the 6-year-old children in this study made use of their previous experiences and the materials to make meaning and argue for different reasons for animal diversity. The results show that the children’s discussions concerned four conceptual themes: animals are different because of kinship and heredity, environmental effects, the need for adaptation, and the… Continue Reading