The Multi-Tier Instrument in the Area of Chemistry and Science

Knowledge of students’ unscientific understanding before learning a new topic known as students’ preconception or prior knowledge is vital for helping the teacher design a proper teaching strategy. Meanwhile, knowledge of students’ understanding after teaching will provide a way for a teacher to evaluate the effectiveness of his/her teaching. For these reasons, science educators should investigate students’ understanding over time. Studying students’ understanding requires a proper and powerful tool/instrument such as a multi-tier instrument. This paper describes the history of multi-tier instruments initiated by the two-tier and recently became a five-tier instrument, the procedure to develop the instrument, and how to utilize the instrument to identify students’ unscientific understanding. Our recent study describing the development of a four-tier instrument of electrolyte and non-electrolyte solution (FTI-ENES) is presented.

Collaborative Curriculum Design in the Context of Financial Literacy Education

Financial literacy education is being integrated into school curricula at an increasing frequency. However, the majority of teachers lack the required competencies and teacher self-efficacy to effectively teach financial topics. In this study, we evaluated whether participation in teacher design teams (TDTs) results in high-quality educational materials, encouragement of professional learning, and ultimately, enhanced teacher self-efficacy in the face of pending curriculum reform. We conducted an exploratory multiple-case study in Flanders, Belgium. Data were collected from two TDTs that developed materials aligning with the financial literacy learning standards. We observed the team meetings and conducted interviews with the participating teachers and the team coach. Our results suggest that participation in TDTs supports the three outcome variables that we examined. However, they also revealed that each outcome shows room for improvement. Furthermore, the data provided additional evidence for the importance of meeting several input and process factors that had been previously shown to be essential for effective TDT function.

Realistic Perspectives to the Implementation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Education System of Bangladesh

In only a few years, information and communication technology (ICT) has become an important education technology that can underpin some big changes in the teaching process. Technology makes students more effective than ever, but the position of teachers in high-tech classrooms is more challenging than ever before. ICT has the power to change the essence of education (Improving teacher design, enhancing the role of learners and involving them in the teaching process and attempting to develop a collaborative culture, etc.) While information and communication technology has the great potential to improve the system of education, due to certain impediments, emerging economies are indeed a long way from reaping such advantages. The aim of this study is to have a coherent approach to worldwide issues pertaining to barriers encountered in the implementation of ICT in the classroom setting. The study-room assessment and documents evaluation make the study realistic, which were used as methodological approaches for building effective analysis and reaching reasonable conclusion. It is found that the analysis must assist to find factors affecting the decision of teachers to integrate ICT in teaching. Links to existing literature will be developed to explore various challenges to the implementation of ICT.

Islamic Teacher Development: Constructing Islamic Professional Teachers Based on The Khalifah Concept

Islamic professional teachers have been researched by educational researchers, but placing the concept of Khalifah as part of teacher professionalism has not been found in more detail. This research is a conceptual-literature type and is analyzed using a content analysis approach. An explored Islamic professional teacher design based on the concept of the Khalifah is illustrated; first, implementing the paradigm that the teacher is the personification of the Khalifah as the representative of Allah SWT on earth to teach humans to manage the universe, serve Allah SWT, and teach morals. Second, the teacher develops the aspect of siyadah that is mastering the knowledge related to the learning process by maximizing the power of the potential of the mind, senses and heart that is bestowed by Allah SWT. Besides that, it is worship with actual moral application in carrying out the teaching profession to provide a brilliant civilization. The learning activities carried out by the teacher are to mobilize all potential students to worship Allah SWT by internalizing Islamic behavior, namely; hikmah (wisdom), syaja'ah (brave), hilmi(polite), iffa (simple), jud (generous), ‘adalah (fair) and mahabbah (love). This research has implications for the theory of " professional Islamic teacher development" in the world of the madrasa and general education.

Formation Of A Design Teacher Culture: Methodological Aspect

This article highlights social science, the level of teacher training in globalization, its professional and personal qualities, values, attitudes and interests, professional development of one's thinking, emotional development, skills and competence, methodological aspects of teacher design culture.

Understanding teacher design practices for digital inquiry–based science learning: the case of Go-Lab

Designing and implementing online or digital learning material is a demanding task for teachers. This is even more the case when this material is used for more engaged forms of learning, such as inquiry learning. In this article, we give an informed account of Go-Lab, an ecosystem that supports teachers in creating Inquiry Learning Spaces (ILSs). These ILSs are built around STEM–related online laboratories. Within the Go-Lab ecosystem, teachers can combine these online laboratories with multimedia material and learning apps, which are small applications that support learners in their inquiry learning process. The Go-Lab ecosystem offers teachers ready–made structures, such as a standard inquiry cycle, alternative scenarios or complete ILSs that can be used as they are, but it also allows teachers to configure these structures to create personalized ILSs. For this article, we analyzed data on the design process and structure of 2414 ILSs that were (co)created by teachers and that our usage data suggest have been used in classrooms. Our data show that teachers prefer to start their design from empty templates instead of more domain–related elements, that the makeup of the design team (a single teacher, a group of collaborating teachers, or a mix of teachers and project members) influences key design process characteristics such as time spent designing the ILS and number of actions involved, that the characteristics of the resulting ILSs also depend on the type of design team and that ILSs that are openly shared (i.e., published in a public repository) have different characteristics than those that are kept private.

Teachers' Professional Learning Focused on Designs for Early Learners and Technology

In this chapter, the authors present and discuss findings from a two-year case study on teachers' professional learning. This investigation built upon existing research on early learning and technology to study teachers' professional learning in a community of practice, and the development of classroom-based learning designs and the ongoing inquiry of teachers from four school jurisdictions in the province of Alberta in Canada. Focus was on investigating ongoing continuous improvement of teacher design and assessment practices, to identify and share promising practices from the classroom, to capture teacher learning and engagement, to document the appropriate use of technology for learning and to identify and to understand system affordances and constraints for using technology with young learners.

The Role of External and Internal Team Coaches in Teacher Design Teams. A Mixed Methods Study

Teacher design teams (TDTs) are increasingly used as a means for teacher professional development. It has been posited that for teacher learning to occur, TDTs need support from team coaches. These coaches are either external experts or peer teachers that guide the team from within. The current literature is in debate on whether external or internal coaches are most effective in supporting TDTs. In this study, we, therefore, examine whether these coach types differ in how they fulfil their role. We additionally evaluate how coaching interacts with the team learning process and the TDT trajectory’s outcomes. We used a mixed methods design in the context of a large-scale TDT trajectory in Flanders (Belgium). We administered questionnaires among 63 teachers of 18 TDTs, and conducted interviews with the coaches of 14 TDTs. Our results indicate that coaching activities correlate with the majority of team learning beliefs and behaviours (TLBB) examined, as well as with perceived team effectiveness and the quality of material developed. Whereas teachers in TDTs with an internal coach seem to evaluate the coaching activities and the TLBB more positively than teachers in TDTs with an external coach, the opposite holds for perceptions of the trajectory’s outcomes.

Pre-service teachers as designers in the context of advertising literacy education

The present study describes how teacher design teams (TDTs) in pre-service education were set up to create in-school programs about advertising. A multiple case-study design was employed to reveal what kinds of input-, process-, and output-related factors facilitate or hinder the collaboration of three voluntarily participating teams of pre-service teachers. By combining pre-TDT questionnaire data with an analysis of audiorecorded team design discussions and reflective data collected after the design process, we found that the participating student teachers (1) were unfamiliar with design assignments at the start of the project, but were all intrinsically motivated to take part; (2) especially express practical concerns when designing learning materials, and (3) argue that TDTs positively contribute to their professional development. As this study revealed both facilitating and hindering factors, recommendations for future organization of and research on TDTs in pre-service education are offered.