We don't have the liberty of being brainless: exploring pre-service teachers' use of weblogs for informal reflection

Pre-service teachers enter teacher education programs with a working practical theory formed from personal experience, knowledge and values. By engaging in reflective thinking, pre-service teachers reaffirm, reassess and recreate the practical theory that guides their actions and beliefs on teaching and learning. Weblogs, an emerging technology in teacher education, offer a new medium for reflective practice. This dissertation explores the tripartite elements of practical theory, reflective practice and weblogs as explored through a qualitative research study conducted in a secondary MAT program at a large southeastern university. Through the qualitative content analysis of weblog postings, focus group interviews and individual interviews, a grounded theory emerged to support weblogs as a forum for informal reflection. The research undertaken in this qualitative study reveals the positive potential of weblogs in pre-service teachers' reflective practice. The informality of weblogs, their accessibility through the Internet and their ability to support communal interactions on-line are positive features of weblogs. These features, in turn, support informal reflection, a component of reflective practice produced by the interaction of practical theory, flexible structure, personal expression and communal interaction. Informal reflection is not a substitute for the formal, hierarchical (and necessary) reflection frequently found in teacher education but a facet of the reflective process that, with further study, may prove to be a valuable component of reflective practice for pre-service and practicing teachers

A Unit on Relationship Termination for the Basic Course

Basic interpersonal communication courses stress relationship development but seldom address the concept of relationship termination. If addressed, termination is often viewed from a negative perspective. Yet in today\u27s mobile society, the concept that a person will continue to develop new relationships throughout their life without terminating any of their previous relationships is ludicrous at best. The purpose of this article is to suggest units on relationship termination which are appropriate for the basic communication course

Relational Leadership, DevOps, and The Post-PC Era: Toward a Practical Theory for 21st Century Technology Leaders

This theoretically oriented scholarly personal narrative (SPN) explored how the constructionist view of relational leadership might be applied in a post-PC technological era marked by fast-paced innovation and an always on technology organization and infrastructure. Through reflecting on my personal and professional experience, I hope to offer the reflective scholar-practitioner new ways of thinking, present relational practices and suggest ways of being a leader participating in the fast-paced technology driven world. This new way of being combined both relational leadership and new DevOps practices that reduce organizational friction, break down departmental silos, and increase employee engagement in technology operations. Through this inquiry, I uncovered several practices and ways of being that are grounded in philosophical, theoretical, and social domains. In challenging the taken-for-granted reality of managing technology, I am attempting to produce practices for higher performance, humane, sustainable, and inspiring corporate information technology (IT) departments. The electronic version of this Dissertation is at AURA, http://aura.antioch.edu/etds/ and OhioLink ETD Center, www.ohiolink.edu/et

Relational Leadership, DevOps, and The Post-PC Era: Toward a Practical Theory for 21st Century Technology Leaders

This theoretically oriented scholarly personal narrative (SPN) explored how the constructionist view of relational leadership might be applied in a post-PC technological era marked by fast-paced innovation and an always ontechnology organization and infrastructure. Through reflecting on my personal and professional experience, I hope to offer the reflective scholar-practitioner new ways of thinking, present relational practices and suggest ways of being a leader participating in the fast-paced technology driven world. This new way of being combined both relational leadership and new DevOps practices that reduce organizational friction, break down departmental silos, and increase employee engagement in technology operations. Through this inquiry, I uncovered several practices and ways of being that are grounded in philosophical, theoretical, and social domains. In challenging the taken-for-granted reality of managing technology, I am attempting to produce practices for higher performance, humane, sustainable, and inspiring corporate information technology (IT) departments. For information regarding full-text access, please contact the author at: [email protected]

Everyday Democracy: A Study of Two Teachers\u27 Perspectives on Social Education

As a nation, we are concerned about the values our children learn in school. Opinions regarding the appropriate educational content and strategies to sustain and improve our democratic country span the political spectrum. The social studies, a field dedicated to the development of good citizens, is especially concerned with values issues in education. Research on citizenship education has primarily focused its interest in the development and assessment of appropriate content and teaching strategies. An important, though often neglected, aspect of social education research is the investigation of teacher perspectives. This study suggests that who a teacher is, what she knows, and how she facilitates relationships with her students has a notable impact on what passes for social education in her classroom. Through formal and informal interviews, classroom observations, and artifact analysis this study portrays the educational perspectives of two exemplary United States\u27 history teachers. By placing the experience based narratives of the participants at the center, I have attempted to describe and explain their epistemological perspectives as grounded within their everyday thoughts and actions; essentially their practical theories. My most significant findings are that teachers\u27 do theorize, and that their theories matter. Their theories matter because they influence the types of educational materials and experiences students will be exposed to, the types of learning skills they will develop, and the kinds of messages they will receive about our collective lives. Teacher perspectives also impact the understandings students will develop about democratic citizenship and the ways in which they interact with others to address social issues. Therefore, the nature of a teacher\u27s social education theory does have an bearing on life in a democratic society. Implications for teacher education include encouraging pre-service teachers to reflect upon who they are and want to be as professionals, providing opportunities for them to interview teachers about perspectives, and using field experiences to further explore practical theory building. Suggestions for the classroom teacher include connecting students to social issues by exposing them to multiple perspectives, examining bias in historical interpretation, and telling stories about the common persons\u27 role in history. Finally, this study provides additional support for the idea that building classroom environments, in which democratic interactions are modelled, allows students to discuss and practice participatory citizenship

Parent Study/Discussion Group Facilitator's Manual

PDF pages: 5

New Identities New Voices: Introducing The Choreographer-Notator

In this practitioner’s perspective paper, the author discusses an experience in which she notated a piece of her choreography using a combination of Labanotation and Motif Notation with the intent of setting the repertory from the score on a group of contemporary dancers, who had never read notation before. She explains her goals as a choreographer and notator proposing a fused creative identity, the Choreographer-Notator. This paper describes how the process of drafting the score and then teaching from the score provided new insights into her work and her identity as a dance artist. The paper concludes with the demands on the Choreographer-Notator and concluding observations made through this process

Leveraging the Dynamics of the Mixed Level Classroom: A Materials Collection

A number of studies have noted the rise in student demographic diversity and the heightened significance of the mixed-level classroom; however, a consensus on the appropriate methods and materials to address these developments remains to be reached. Educators are anticipated to address the needs of students with a variety of abilities, backgrounds, and interests in a singular class. Less proficient students face overstimulation whilst more proficient students face understimulation. How can the challenges of the mixed-level classroom be recast into strengths? The mixed-level classroom environment calls for student investment, real language, and familiar processes. Methods such as peer tutoring, cooperative learning, differentiated instruction, goal-setting, and scaffolding are utilized to engage all levels of students. This paper aims to examine the unique dynamics of the mixed level classroom and collect materials appropriate for a classroom that is engaging and relevant to all levels of students

Brown\u27s Useful Guide: Where Theory Becomes Applicable to Classroom Practice

3rd Georgia Editionhttps://csuepress.columbusstate.edu/textbooks/1002/thumbnail.jp

Learning to Flip the Framework: A Multigenre, Autoethnographic Account of One Student\u27s Experience with Gradual Release of Responsibility

For this Capstone project, the success of using gradual release of responsibility as an everyday instructional framework is examined, using one Syracuse University English Education major’s experience as evidence. This project acts as an explanation for the learning that has occurred surrounding gradual release of responsibility in this student’s college experience. Using an autoethnographic approach allows for this student’s personal experiences to be regarded as strong data in order to better understand the larger experience of all Education majors working with the gradual release of responsibility framework in the School of Education at Syracuse University. This project also uses multiple genres in order to include artifacts and excerpts from the student’s various classes and teaching experiences in order to encourage readers to construct the message along with the student as she learns over the course of her college career. This project concludes, after allowing the evidence and data to make the argument, with the student’s realization that gradual release of responsibility does not always work in the order that it was intended to. Sometimes, one must consider other teaching frameworks or simply rearrange the steps of the gradual release of responsibility instructional framework in order to create a lesson that will best work for the students and their learning needs. Simply put, one must learn to be flexible in their teaching and open to different approaches and manipulating instructional frameworks in order to best reach their students trying to learn a new skill