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tandfonline.com – Teacher-researchers’ quality concerns for practice-oriented educational research

tandfonline.com har udgivet en rapport under søgningen “Teacher Education Mathematics”: ABSTRACT ABSTRACT Practice-oriented educational research is increasingly gaining traction in educational research due to its intention to contribute to both educational research and educational practice. Educational researchers have established quality concerns that practice-oriented educational research should meet in order to realise this intention. We argue that teachers’ quality concerns probably differ from researchers’ concerns. This may explain why practice-oriented educational research faces challenges concerning its contribution to educational practice. The aim of this study is to identify teacher-researchers’ perspectives on the quality of practice-oriented educational research and to analyse how these differ from the research perspective. In a qualitative empirical study, individual reflections, small-group discussions and semi-structured interviews of ten purposefully selected teacher-researchers are analysed following a so-called informed grounded… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Boosting the Quality and Efficiency of Special Education

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: It’s a woeful fact: Few students with special needs achieve a high (or even modest) level of academic proficiency. The latest (2011) National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results show, for example, that 62 percent of eighth graders with disabilities fell below the “basic” level in reading, as did 64 percent in math. This study is intended to open some windows and encourage some fresh breezes by examining three key questions: (1) How much variation in special education spending exists among districts?; (2) What can we learn from school districts that spend less on special education, yet achieve the same or better outcomes than demographically similar but higher-spending counterparts?; and (3) What savings might be realized if the special education field focused on outcomes rather than inputs?… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Certification Requirements and Teacher Quality: A Comparison of Alternative Routes to Teaching. Working Paper 64

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Traditionally, states have required individuals complete a program of study in a university-based teacher preparation program in order to be licensed to teach. In recent years, however, various “alternative certification” programs have been developed and the number of teachers obtaining teaching certificates through routes other than completing a traditional teacher preparation program has skyrocketed. In this paper I use a rich longitudinal data base from Florida to compare the characteristics of alternatively certified teachers with their traditionally prepared colleagues. I then analyze the relative effectiveness of teachers who enter the profession through different pathways by estimating “value-added” models of student achievement. In general, alternatively certified teachers have stronger pre-service qualifications than do traditionally prepared teachers, with the least restrictive alternative attracting the most qualified perspective teachers. These… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – The Economic Value of Higher Teacher Quality. Working Paper 56

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Most analyses of teacher quality end without any assessment of the economic value of altered teacher quality. This paper combines information about teacher effectiveness with the economic impact of higher achievement. It begins with an overview of what is known about the relationship between teacher quality and student achievement, which provides the basis for consideration of the derived demand for teachers which comes from their impact on economic outcomes. Alternative valuation methods are based on the impact of increased achievement on individual earnings and on the impact of low teacher effectiveness on economic growth through aggregate achievement. A teacher one standard deviation above the mean effectiveness annually generates marginal gains of over $400,000 in present value of student future earnings with a class size of 20 and… Continue Reading

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tandfonline.com – The role of teacher characteristics for student achievement in mathematics and student perceptions of instructional quality

tandfonline.com har udgivet en rapport under søgningen “Teacher Education Mathematics”: ABSTRACT ABSTRACT This study explores how aspects of teacher quality are related to student achievement and students’ perceptions of instructional quality on the basis of eighth grade TIMSS 2011 data for Sweden. Indicators of teacher quality are coursework in mathematics as measured by the number of semesters of studying mathematics, years of teaching experience and teacher self-efficacy beliefs. The study employs confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling as primary methods. Results indicate that teachers with higher self-efficacy beliefs were rated by students as delivering higher instructional quality. However, this was not reflected in student achievement levels. Instead, with student socio-economic and immigrant background under control, there was a significant positive relationship between coursework in mathematics and student mathematic achievement… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Update on the Improving Teacher Quality Program. Report 09-05

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The Improving Teacher Quality (ITQ) State Grants Program is currently operating professional development grants for California teachers at 40 sites statewide. This is as large a cadre of projects as the California Postsecondary Education Commission has operated since the ITQ Program began with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The projects are: (1) Academic Literacy in Secondary Education (seven projects); (2) Science and Math Teacher Retention Master Grant Initiative (19 sites); (3) K-2 Education (eight projects); and (4) Elementary Education (six projects). This paper reports updates on the Improving Teacher Quality Program. Link til kilde

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Eric.ed.gov – Teacher Training, Teacher Quality, and Student Achievement. Working Paper 3

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: We study the effects of various types of education and training on the ability of teachers to promote student achievement. Previous studies on the subject have been hampered by inadequate measures of teacher training and difficulties addressing the non-random selection of teachers to students and of teachers to training. We address these issues by estimating models that include detailed measures of pre-service and in-service training, a rich set of time-varying covariates, and student, teacher, and school fixed effects. Our results suggest that only two of the forms of teacher training we study influence productivity. First, content-focused teacher professional development is positively associated with productivity in middle and high school math. Second, more experienced teachers appear more effective in teaching elementary math and reading and middle school math.… Continue Reading

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tandfonline.com – The Influence of Lecturers’ Expectations of Students’ Role in Meaning Making on the Nature of their Powerpoint slides and the Quality of Students’ Note-making: A First-year Biology Class Context

tandfonline.com har udgivet en rapport under søgningen “Teacher Education Mathematics”: Abstract Learning within first-year biology is about inquiry, but in this content-heavy science students can easily fall into the trap of parrot-fashion learning. This study investigates the influence of lecturers’ expectation of students in meaning making on the nature of their slides and the quality of students’ note-making. Data were collected by classroom observations, video-recordings, a questionnaire for students and interviews with lecturers and students. The quantity and quality of students’ notes were analysed for four lectures. The analysis of data resulted in three categories of lecturers: ‘student-centred’, ‘student-directed’ and ‘teacher-centred’. The student-centred lecturers provided key points on their slides, anticipated that students would build on their class notes and focused on the development of the students’ critical-thinking ability. The… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – A Survey: Quality Practices. NCEDL Spotlights, No. 10.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This report summarizes findings from a national survey of 1,902 teachers of preschoolers regarding the extent to which they are able to engage in the educational practices they endorse. Teachers were given a list of 21 practices and asked to rate the extent to which each practice happened in their classroom and the extent to which they would want the practice to occur in a “perfect world.” Findings indicate few discrepancies between reported practices and beliefs. There were significant differences in the extent to which teachers from various types of programs endorsed group-centered beliefs, that is, those that encourage all children to engage in the same activities at the same time and at the same pace. Teachers in public schools, Head Start centers, and other non-profit centers… Continue Reading