ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Supporting Elementary Teachers at the "Chalk Face": A Model for In-School Professional Development
Author: Kervin, Lisa
Date: 2007-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Professional Development,Models,Learning Experience,Elementary School Teachers,Research Projects,Literature Reviews,Program Descriptions,Program Content,Educational Practices,Inservice Teacher Education,Literacy,Training Methods,Training Objectives

The voluminous literature on teacher professional development presents varied components of what constitutes meaningful professional development experiences for elementary teachers. The research reported here first identifies these components through an analysis of the literature, and then describes a research project in which those components were actualized to support elementary teachers who explored their literacy teaching in their school and classrooms. The elements of the professional development experience that contributed to success include a professional culture, investment of time, collaborative relationships, the location for professional development, the acknowledgement of external influences, and purposeful interactions. (Contains 1 figure and 2 tables.)
Mexican Parents' and Teachers' Views of Effective Elementary Schools
Author: Slate, John R.
Date: 2007-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Educational Quality,Basic Skills,Foreign Countries,Teacher Salaries,Student Development,School Effectiveness,Elementary Schools,Teacher Attitudes,Parent Attitudes,Parent Participation,Learner Engagement,Socioeconomic Status,Educational Environment,Administrator Role,Institutional Characteristics,Teacher Role,Parent Role,Teaching Conditions,Curriculum

We surveyed 374 parents and 82 teachers in the Juarez, Mexico schools regarding their views of what makes an effective elementary school. The survey was a Spanish translation of an instrument used by Johnson (1998). Although both parents and teachers supported most of the factors associated with effective schools, they emphasized different aspects of a quality education. Parents stressed involvement in the schools and students engagement in learning basic skills. Parents also rejected socioeconomic status as a causal factor in school success. Teachers stressed the personal development of students as well as involvement in learning basic skills, and placed much greater emphasis on teacher salaries. (Contains 2 tables.)
Engaging Staff in Change--Experiences in Schools in England
Author: Hammersley-Fletcher, Linda
Date: 2007-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Evidence,Foreign Countries,Educational Change,Semi Structured Interviews,Teacher Aides,Teacher Empowerment,Power Structure,School Restructuring,Educational Legislation,Questionnaires,Administrator Role,Teacher Role,Teacher Attitudes,Administrator Attitudes,Principals,School Districts,Participative Decision Making,Teacher Administrator Relationship,Teacher Participation

Workforce remodeling in England has been presented as a means to empower school staff through a restructuring process which has possibilities to dramatically shift the ways in which they operate. This initiative has also included a number of legislative requirements intended to help embed the more technocratic aspects of the remodeling process. Data collected from 14 schools and 2 Local Authorities in England provides an evidence base for this article. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 100 staff including Headteachers, Chairs of Governors, teachers, teaching assistants, and administrators. Further, 666 questionnaire returns were collected from a range of schools and staff across these Authorities. This article explores the extent to which the remodeling initiative has resulted in a change of understandings rather than simply adopting the legislative elements of change and examines whether remodeling has enabled or enhanced schools in their ability to engage in change that is self-directed and rooted in an agreed educational ethos. (Contains 3 figures.)
Staff Well-Being: Negotiating New Organizational Realities in Schools Facing Challenging Circumstances
Author: Rumsby, Ray
Date: 2007-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Stress Management,Organizational Effectiveness,Unions,Instructional Leadership,Informal Education,Stress Variables,Well Being,Workplace Learning,Teacher Attitudes,Interdisciplinary Approach,Qualitative Research,Ethnography,Semi Structured Interviews,Foreign Countries,Secondary School Teachers

The extensive literature on workplace stress, its causes, and the consequences for human health and organizational effectiveness, is being complemented by a growing, alternative emphasis on employees' well-being. However, in education (where well-being is particularly at risk) sustained examples of positive organizational approaches, rather than individuals' stress management, are rare. This article seeks to demonstrate the importance of well-being as a tough-minded concept. Secondly, it presents new findings from research in two schools facing challenging circumstances, which are committed to long-term Well-Being Programmes. The findings accord with inter-disciplinary well-being theory, and offer new commentary on the association between well-being, the management of feeling, and informal learning in the workplace. The research indicates the importance of cognitive attitudes such as non-judgmental openness in schools facing challenging circumstances. Some implications are suggested for educational leadership, for the role of unions, and for further research.
Teacher Unions, School Districts, Universities, Governments: Time to Tango and Promote Convergence?
Author: Naylor, Charlie
Date: 2007-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Interests,Unions,Foreign Countries,Educational Change,School Districts,Teacher Associations,College Administration,College Faculty,Convergent Thinking,Collegiality,Organizational Climate,Organizational Culture,Partnerships in Education,Cooperative Planning,Concept Formation,Political Power,Competition,Governance,Government Role,Change Strategies,Universities

This paper considers &quot;convergence&quot; as deliberate acts of will to achieve common goals within the context of the education service in general and school sector industrial relations in particular. Such language is unusual in the field of industrial relations, where assumptions are often based on notions of conflictual relationships. However, this paper argues that educational organizations, including ones where relationships might be considered adversarial, can move beyond occasional partnerships and collaboration towards a more systematic approach to joint working-convergence. This paper draws on the author's experience as a teacher union researcher in British Columbia involved in a number of innovative projects involving the teachers' union, school districts, and universities, to consider where common interests might occur and how such forms of working can be developed. A number of challenges to convergent working are identified, including notions of vested interests, issues of power and control, and system fragmentation resulting from site-based management. However, convergence is suggested as one way to reduce fragmentation in educational systems and as a way to build trust between governments, school districts, and teacher unions; providing essential building blocks to sustainable system improvement.
Restructuring Vocational Education and Training Provision in Australia: Exploring the Impact on Teachers' Work
Author: Forward, Pat
Date: 2007-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Vocational Education,Foreign Countries,Human Capital,Public Sector,Educational Policy,Labor Needs,Labor Force,Government Role,Commercialization,Vocational Education Teachers

The vocational education and training (VET) sector in Australia has undergone a prolonged period of substantial and significant restructuring. Reforms have been driven by a pressure to increase market forces within the system, and to gear &quot;outputs&quot; ever more closely to economic considerations and the needs of industry. This paper outlines the key elements of VET reform and links these developments to the ideological dominance of market based policy in the public sector, and the influence of human capital theory on education policy. The paper explores the impact of these reforms on teachers' labor process, and some implications for the Australian Education Union. (Contains 1 endnote.)
New Zealand's Education Reforms: Engendering Changes in the Teacher Unions
Author: Jesson, Joce
Date: 2007-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Educational Policy,Unions,Foreign Countries,Educational Change,Government School Relationship,Teacher Associations,Professional Identity,Faculty Workload,Collective Bargaining

The shifts in the New Zealand state formation have changed the environment within which teacher unions operate. The entire state has been reorganized into a market based model. From a position established in the 19th century as the voice of the profession in a relationship with the state, after 1989 the teacher associations were structurally shifted to a much more solidly industrial-only role as unions. Teaching itself was shaped to more outcomes based models, while teachers' workloads have increased enormously. This paper considers these changes in the legal structures, the industrial environment, and wider educational policy and their effects on the unions. It argues that a merger of the teacher unions is a logical response to the new political environment in order to provide unity for the development of an enhanced and deepened professionalism. However the particular professional identities of the members of both unions and their own separate histories are actively stopping the investigation of these opportunities.
The Korean Teachers and Educational Workers Union: Collective Rights as the Agency of Social Change
Author: Synott, John
Date: 2007-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Teacher Role,Unions,Foreign Countries,Social Change,History,Culture,Cultural Influences,Conflict,Educational Change,Development,Teacher Rights,Labor Relations,Military Training,Educational Philosophy,Peace,Teacher Evaluation,Disabilities

This article presents a discussion of the development of Jeongyojo or the Korean Teachers and Educational Workers Union from its emergence as a social movement in the late 1980s to its current status and prominent campaigns. The article identifies certain aspects of South Korean history and culture that have shaped the distinctive identity of this teachers union. The article recognizes that, despite legalization some years ago, the Korean Teachers Union continues to engage in controversial campaigns that frequently cause conflicts with the Ministry of Education in South Korea. The article points towards the set of principles of True Education (Chamgyoyook) that provide the guiding framework for the union's activities at home and internationally. (Contains 1 endnote.)
Neo-Liberalism in British Columbia Education and Teachers' Union Resistance
Author: Poole, Wendy
Date: 2007-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Political Attitudes,Conflict,Foreign Countries,Educational Change,Ideology,Public Education,Elementary Secondary Education,Public Sector,State Government,Public Schools,Government School Relationship,Unions,Professional Identity,Educational Objectives,Neoliberalism,Teachers,Educational Policy,Teaching (Occupation),Educational Finance,Privatization,Accountability,Collective Bargaining,Goal Orientation

Since the election of the Campbell government in 2001, teachers have experienced heightened conflict with the provincial government. An analysis of the discourse and power relations between the BC Teachers' Federation (BCTF) and government reveals a neo-liberal agenda on the part of government and anti-neo-liberalism on the part of the BCTF. However, this is more than an intense disagreement about political ideology; the conflict is about the vision and purpose of K-12 public education and the meaning of professionalism. Neo-liberalism is a political ideology grounded in an unshakeable belief in unbridled markets as the source of all benefits for a society and its citizens. Neo-liberals believe the application of market principles to the public sector will result in greater efficiency and contribute to overall economic prosperity.
Remodeling Headteachers in England: Is It the End of Educational Leadership?
Author: Gunter, Helen M.
Date: 2007-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Accountability,Evidence,Ethics,Foreign Countries,Educational Change,Instructional Leadership,Public Education,Principals,Participative Decision Making,Professional Identity,Context Effect

We examine the contemporary relationship between headship and leadership in England. This speaks to the current globalizing agenda promoting generic leadership within a modernizing agenda of restructuring and reculturing in public education. Thinking based on several research studies is used to stimulate perspectives on a range of complex tensions between: first, labeling and the realities of work; second, training/credentialing as a leader; third, public accountability and the professional ethic of distributed leadership; and, fourth, centralized reforms and the realities of context. We construct an argument that the labeling of Headteachers as managing directors, chief executives, and more recently as school leaders, combined with training and a requirement to implement reforms, is central to a form of modernization that is reworking professionality as generic and business orientated. This current phase of reform is revealed as a centralized remodeling drive toward de-regulating qualified teacher status as a credential for school leaders. An educative ethic is identified as a counter-weight value-system providing evidence of lost stories and testimony to the relationship between professionality, leadership as a pedagogic process, and learning.
The State of Education in Alabama's K-12 Rural Public Schools
Author: Lindahl, Ronald A.
Date: 2011-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Minority Groups,Minority Group Students,School Districts,Elementary Secondary Education,Rural Schools,Effect Size,Dropout Rate,Comparative Analysis,Public Schools,Educational Finance,Financial Support,Budgets,Expenditure per Student,Student Transportation,Standardized Tests,Test Results,Socioeconomic Background,Academic Achievement

The purpose of this study was to compare Alabama's rural school districts with its city, suburban, and town districts. Descriptive statistics were used for this population study, with effect sizes calculated using Cohen's d. Findings indicated Alabama's rural school districts serve slightly less affluent student populations, with a lower percentage of minority students, than their counterparts. They are funded at slightly lower levels than their counterparts in other categories, yet spend approximately the same percentage of their budgets on administration and on instruction. They spend a considerably higher percentage on transportation. Although rural district dropout rates are similar to those of their counterparts, from the third to the eleventh grade, student performance on standardized examinations falls gradually behind that of the students in other locale categories. (Contains 9 tables.)
Wyoming's Instructional Facilitator Program: Teachers' Beliefs about the Impact of Coaching on Practice
Author: Rush, Leslie S.
Date: 2011-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Program Effectiveness,Teachers,State Government,Public Schools,Coaching (Performance),Facilitators (Individuals),Teacher Surveys,Online Surveys,Measures (Individuals),Teacher Attitudes,Rural Schools

In 2006, the Wyoming state government allocated monies for the Department of Education to fund the work of Instructional Facilitators, or coaches, in schools across the state (Wyoming Department of Education, 2008). In Spring 2009, after the program had been in place for two years, an ex-post facto study was designed to examine the impact of the program on teacher practice. An online survey was used to collect data from classroom teachers throughout Wyoming's public schools. Teachers answered questions about the extent of their work with Instructional Facilitators, the activities that they worked on with Instructional Facilitators, and the impact of their work with Instructional Facilitators on their practice. Results indicate that while a large number of teachers reported spending a small amount of time working with Instructional Facilitators, a small number of teachers reported spending a great deal of time working with Instructional Facilitators. Although differences by teaching level were apparent, the majority of respondents indicated they wished to continue working with an Instructional Facilitator and that Wyoming is spending its money wisely on the program. Discussion of these findings includes implications for Instructional Facilitator workloads and the need to focus their work on specific outcomes. (Contains 6 tables.)
The Four-Day School Week: Impact on Student Academic Performance
Author: Hewitt, Paul M.
Date: 2011-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Academic Achievement,Program Effectiveness,Achievement Tests,Elementary Secondary Education,School Schedules,Educational History,Scores,Comparative Analysis,Reading Achievement,Mathematics Achievement,Writing Skills,Educational Finance,Attendance Patterns,Teacher Attitudes,School Districts

Although the four-day school week originated in 1936, it was not widely implemented until 1973 when there was a need to conserve energy and reduce operating costs. This study investigated how achievement tests scores of schools with a four-day school week compared with schools with a traditional five-day school week. The study focused on student performance in Colorado where 62 school districts operated a four-day school week. The results of the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) were utilized to examine student performance in reading, writing, and mathematics in grades 3 through 10. While the mean test scores for five-day week schools exceeded those of four-day week schools in 11 of the 12 test comparisons, the differences were slight, with only one area revealing a statistically significant difference. This study concludes that decisions to change to the four-day week should be for reasons other than student academic performance. (Contains 1 table.)
A Synthesis of International Rural Education Issues and Responses
Author: Stelmach, Bonnie L.
Date: 2011-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Rural Education,Educational Research,Epistemology,Guidelines,Cooperation,Organizations (Groups),Elementary Schools,Secondary Schools,Educational Strategies,Theories

This article synthesizes problems impacting rural primary and secondary schools and describes how schools and relevant organizations have responded to the challenges. Given the context of a globally-compressed world, the focus of the literature review is on international rural education research and strategies. The exploration took the path of topical rather than regional or methodological investigation of rural education for the purpose of thematic understanding of issues. The paper opens with a discussion of the ambiguity of the definition of "rural" to reinforce an epistemological challenge with rural education research. An adaptation of Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory is used as a framework for the literature review; rural education challenges are synthesized into macro-, mezzo-, and micro-systemic level issues. The paper culminates by positing that rural education issues require inter-sectoral and collaborative responses.
Teaching in Rural Saskatchewan: First Year Teachers Identify Challenges and Make Recommendations
Author: Hellsten, Laurie-ann M.
Date: 2011-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Employment,Rural Education,Foreign Countries,Beginning Teachers,Rural Schools,Preservice Teacher Education,Interviews,Professional Isolation,Social Isolation,Faculty Workload,Mentors,Teacher Attitudes

Despite the existing research on rural education, rural teaching, and pre-service rural practicum placements, there is little research on the experiences of beginning teachers in rural schools. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of Saskatchewan beginning teachers who obtain employment in rural or northern schools. Eight beginning teachers voluntarily participated in a telephone interview during their first year in the teaching profession. Their interviews highlighted shared themes related to the challenges of working in rural and northern communities, including: acceptance; understanding the community; isolation; overlap between personal and professional lives; and impact of rural context on workload. In addition, participants made recommendations for teachers considering employment in these environments, including: preparing to obtain a rural teaching position; seeking out mentorship relationships; and making connections within and outside of the community. These shared themes are discussed within the context of existing literature, and recommendations are made relating to future directions for research in this area. (Contains 1 table.)
The Power of the Symposium: Impacts from Students' Perspectives
Author: Vanek, Diana
Date: 2011-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Pollution,Feedback (Response),Science Process Skills,Learning Experience,Conferences (Gatherings),Rural Schools,Student Attitudes,Outreach Programs,Health,Research Projects,Student Research,Science Education,High School Students,Program Descriptions,Science Programs

The Air Toxics under the Big Sky program developed at the University of Montana is a regional outreach and education initiative that offers a yearlong exploration of air quality and its relation to respiratory health. The program was designed to connect university staff and resources with rural schools enabling students to learn and apply science process skills through self-designed research projects conducted within their communities. As part of the program, students develop and conduct independent projects, then share their findings at the conclusion of the school year in some type of interactive capstone experience, the most prominent being a high school symposium held at The University of Montana campus. Student feedback collected through a carefully controlled evaluation program suggest that the annual symposium as the culminating event is a critical component of the Air Toxics Under the Big Sky program, and a valuable learning experience as many of the students go on to post-secondary education. (Contains 1 table.)
Toward a Transdisciplinary Rural Education Research Agenda
Author: Stapel, Christopher J.
Date: 2011-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Rural Sociology,Social Scientists,Rural Education,Content Analysis,Educational Research,Interdisciplinary Approach,Teachers

This paper examines the representation of rural education research orientations--defined in terms of methodological approach, academic focus and place-consciousness--within the literature and across academic disciplines. A content analysis of 155 abstracts from articles published in the Journal of Research in Rural Education and Rural Sociology between 1997 and 2008 reveals that most rural education research is not quantitative, not academically-oriented and not place-conscious. Furthermore, the abstracts show that Rural Educators are underrepresented in academically-oriented research while Rural Social Scientists are overrepresented in that dimension. The implications of these findings for collaboration are discussed and a policy-relevant, innovative, transdisciplinary research agenda is outlined. (Contains 1 table and 2 figures.)