Educational Robotics for Creating Effective Computer Science Learning for All

President Obama's initiative, “computer science for all,” has been a rallying slogan for promoting computer science in K-12 education. Although the participation of people of color in computer science (CS) has increased in the past several years, it is still drastically low and does not reflect the real picture of our society. This chapter explores how educational robotics as a learning tool can inspire underrepresented minorities including females and students of color to become interested in CS. Supported by Papert's constructionism theory, educational robotics effectively facilitates students' learning of various concepts in CS and STEM. Educational robotics is a learning tool which inspires students' interest in learning. It provides a learning environment that promotes students' learning of various CS concepts and computational thinking skills. Although robots naturally spark students' interests, to make it most effective, teachers are required effortfully to create learning opportunities that are authentic and meaningful for individual students.

Challenging Education's Inflexible Model

Structural conditions in schools limit diverse exceptional learners' academic and social-emotional development and inhibit the professional growth of their teachers. Teachers and students are restricted by the current instructional model, which suggests that effective teachers lead all students through a uniform set of instructional experiences in service of objective mastery. This model assumes that diverse exceptional learners' success depends on access to the teacher-designed, one-right-way approach to the learning objective. This inflexible model prevents both the teacher and the student from co-constructing learning experiences that leverage their mutual strengths and support their mutual development. In this chapter, the authors argue that the Universal Design for Learning framework challenges the one-right-way approach, empowering teachers and students to leverage their strengths in the learning process. The authors recommend training teachers to use the Universal Design for Learning framework to design flexible instruction for diverse exceptional learners.

Evaluating Pangasinan State University Faculty Performance Using Associative Rule Analysis

Evaluating faculty members' performance is a very complex area to study. In addition, predicting the performance of these faculty members is a very difficult and challenging task. However, the core of education is teaching and learning, and teaching-learning works to its fullest when there are effective teachers. Measuring the effectiveness of faculty members is done based on the student evaluation of faculty. This research aims to develop a model to predict the performance of the faculty members using associative rule based on the existing evaluation form used by PSU to evaluate faculty members. The model is designed to utilize the knowledge of text analytics rule capabilities that will provide great support for the decision-making of Pangasinan State University in the Philippines. The result reveals that the term good is still the top one terms occurred for all campuses followed by teaching. The results indicated that teacher/faculty members on all campuses are good teachers. Associating words reveal that "teaching good subject/topic," "explains simply" and other meaningful associated words can be utilized to evaluate the performance of the teacher. The results exposed not only the quantitative values of faculty evaluation it also exposed the qualitative opinion of the students in the performance of their faculty members. This study reveals important aspects of the faculty member's teaching performance in terms of words/association of words that will describe their teaching performance. The results can be utilized in coaching and mentoring faculty members to cope with their weaknesses. The proposed model can be utilized by Pangasinan State University to evaluate the faculty members in terms of their teaching performance by utilizing the comments/opinions of the students.

Challenges of EFL Teacher in Conducting Online Learning at SMA Candimas Pancasari

The purpose of this study was to determine the teachers' challenge in conducting online learning at SMA Candimas Pancasari The design of this research is descriptive qualitative. In this study, the challenges of teachers in online teaching were analyzed and described descriptively. The findings in this study are about the challenges of teachers in conducting online learning at SMA Candimas Pancasari and how to overcome the challenges. Internet connection is one of the main challenges in online teaching. Internet connection is influential in online learning because some teachers and students live in difficult signal areas. This poor internet connection makes online learning unable to be 100% effective. Teachers have ways of overcoming these challenges by way of offline (LURING) for some students who have problems and provide a schedule to come to school. Teachers can overcome these challenges with various strategies during online learning.

AUGMENTING THE TEACHER EFFECTIVENESS CONSTRUCT: VOICES OF THE EFFECTIVE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHERS FROM UNIVERSITIES IN PAKISTAN

Educational standards around the globe and most specifically in Pakistan are put to contest with challenging standards. There is an amounting pressure on the administrators and the policymakers to furnish the educational institutes with effective teachers. This leads to rekindle probe into the ongoing debate on the qualities that contribute to teacher effectiveness. Therefore, the present research utilized mixed methods approach with an aim to explore the effective English language teachers’ (ELTs) conception about the qualities of effective ELTs. In the first quantitative phase, the survey method was used to identify effective ELTs through Self-Assessment Test (SAT) at both public and private sector higher education institutes (HEIs) of Pakistan through convenience sampling (N = 243). Based on the results of phase one, eight ELTs were selected purposefully for semi-structured interviews which were then analyzed thematically using ATLAS.ti 9.0 software. Thematic analysis of the semistructured interviews revealed nine main categories emerging under the a priori theme of perceived effective teachers. The study adds to the inconclusive definition of teacher effectiveness and bears implications for various stakeholders of the teacher education system to provide opportunities to the ELTs in order to develop such qualities as identified through this study

The Conceptual and Methodological Construction of a ‘Global’ Teacher Identity through TALIS

The present article investigates the construction of a ‘global’ teacher identity by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) since the introduction of the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) in 2008. We critically examine TALIS-related conceptual frameworks, survey questionnaires and statistically driven scales of teachers’ professional attitudes internationally. A theoretical, education-based framing of didaktik and curriculum pedagogical traditions is used to discuss conceptual bias in TALIS conceptual frameworks as well as the sociologically based idea of TALIS as a pedagogic device used as a technology to gain symbolic power for making the teachers of tomorrow. Methodologically relying on document analysis, we examine TALIS 2008, 2013 and 2018 background documents to highlight the ideologically driven construction of a certain model of effective teachers, and refer to associated TALIS technical reports to examine validity issues in scales that are methodologically and statistically driven in order to increase the robustness of the results. The article identifies biases in the OECD’s construction of a ‘global’ teacher identity that are reflected in TALIS conceptual frameworks and survey questions and statistically justified through associated scales.

Supporting Faculty as Writers and Teachers An Integrative Approach to Educational Development

In this article, we explore how supporting faculty writers can also help them to become more effective teachers of writing in their disciplines. Based on over ten years of facilitating and studying faculty at our writing retreats, we demonstrate how understanding and improving their own writing experiences can spark insight into their students as writers. Furthermore, we suggest that helping faculty make this “turn to teaching” exemplifies the potential for an integrative model of educational development, one that leverages connections across faculty roles and responsibilities.

Do Low-Income Students Have Equal Access to Effective Teachers?

We examine access to effective teachers for low-income students in 26 geographically dispersed school districts over a 5-year period. We measure teacher effectiveness using a value-added model that accounts for measurement error in prior test scores and peer effects. Differences between the average value added of teachers of high- and low-income students are 0.005 standard deviations in English/language arts and 0.004 standard deviations in math. Differences between teachers of Black, Hispanic, and White students are also small. Rearranging teachers to obtain perfect equity would do little to narrow the sizable student achievement gap between low- and high-income students. We also show that a higher proportion of novice teachers in high-poverty schools contributes negligibly to differences in access to effective teachers.

Impact of Pharmacist Education on Incoming Medical Residents

Introduction: The graduating medical student transitioning to the role of a first-year medical resident is expected to know the proper medications and dosages for routine patient conditions. Pharmacists on an interdisciplinary health care team can be effective teachers of medical residents. Given the small amount of pharmacy-based education included in medical school curricula, it is important that medical residents have a basic foundation of pharmacotherapeutic knowledge. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a pharmacist-led education session in improving medical resident pharmacotherapy knowledge. Methods: During orientation in 2016 to 2019, first-year medical residents completed an 8-item pre-test assessing their choices of medications and dosages on 8 patient conditions. A post-test assessing these same items was taken after a 50-minute lecture from a pharmacist experienced in resident education. First-year medical residents at a separate institution within the university system completed the pre-test only. Results: Overall, 243 medical residents received the lecture and took both tests and 170 medical residents at the other institution completed the pre-test only (100% response rate). Using descriptive statistics, the 2 groups of medical residents were comparable in age, gender, and scores on the pre-test. Medical residents receiving the lecture showed an average 32% point change improvement in performance on the post-test. The pharmacist-led lecture consistently received the highest ratings (4.7 ± 0.5 out of 5) from residents of all the orientation topics presented. Conclusions: A pharmacist-led education session increased the pharmacotherapy knowledge of first-year medical residents at their resident orientation. Medical residents value reinforcement of basic pharmacotherapy knowledge to start their training.

The Effectiveness of Early Childhood Teachers

The complexity of teaching and the intricacies of the varied early childhood education systems contribute to the multiple considerations regarding development, method of delivery, intended and needed outcomes, and issues and next steps for professional development in early childhood education. There are several promising practices and directions currently underway for professional development and learning. Recommendations from professional organizations as well as emerging research are providing guidance for next steps. They are calling attention to professional learning and effective teachers and their essential role in the children’s high-quality experiences in early care and education settings and in developing early childhood education as a profession.