Realizing the Power of Professional Learning

Realizing the Power of Professional Learning

Author: Helen Timperley

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)

Published: 2011-06-16

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 033524405X

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Teacher professional development is often promoted as a panacea for improving schools but it rarely lives up to its promise. This book develops an approach to professional learning that has motivated teachers and resulted in impressive improvements in student learning, particularly for students who traditionally underachieve in school. As the underpinning research shows, the approach has proven successful in several countries with consistently positive outcomes. The book begins by identifying the shifts that need to happen for the power of professional learning to be realized in promoting student engagement, learning and well-being. Some shifts in thinking include: Moving from professional development to professional learning Putting student learning at the heart of professional learning Focusing on the knowledge and skills to be learned rather than the forms of delivery Focusing on the double-demand of being both immediately practical and developing underlying principles so that new problems can be solved in the future At the heart of the book is an inquiry and knowledge building cycle for teachers that is central to realizing the power of professional learning. The cycle is underpinned by research on how people learn and what it means to be a professional. Later chapters identify what leaders in schools and beyond can do to support teacher learning in ways that directly benefit students. Throughout the book there are case examples of real experiences of primary and secondary teachers and leaders across three countries (UK, Canada and New Zealand) that bring alive what it means to engage in professional learning in ways that excite teachers and benefit their students. This is essential reading for teachers who want to take control of their own professional learning in ways that make a difference to their students and school leaders with responsibility for promoting professional and student learning.


Professional Responsibility

Professional Responsibility

Author: Ciaran Sugrue

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-06-23

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1317577450

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What does professional responsibility entail in an increasingly insecure, unpredictable and de-regulated world? This is the core question addressed in this text. The point of departure for the various contributions is that professional responsibility is a way of being in the world that includes a particular mandate – to behave in a manner consistent with moral and societal obligations as a professional. Increasingly, however, there is a lack of consensus as to what such mandates imply, and even more dissensus as to what appropriate exercise of responsibility entails. One of the distinctive features of this book is the manner in which it combines normative and empirical dimensions. It moves beyond dualistic perspectives to create a more inclusive conversation on professional responsibility. In the face of increasing complexity of professional work, professional responsibility remains open to further development. The book signals direction for the development of professional responsibility, and while seeking to give direction to ongoing deliberations avoids the pitfalls of performativity. The chapters are grounded in a variety of disciplinary perspectives and traverse various professional boundaries in a self-reflexive manner to create more inclusive, transformative and generative narratives on professional responsibility. This is achieved by: Focusing on normative dimensions of professional work and combining these with a focus on empirical aspects of professional practice in a variety of setting, and Recognising the inevitable tensions between personal trust and responsibility, and largely depersonalised policies and strategies of quality control when normative and empirical aspects of professional responsibility are situated within their policy environments. The concluding narrative moves beyond deconstruction, complexity and critique of these considerations to a construction of new imagined horizons of professional responsibility from theoretical, conceptual and practical perspectives. This text sets out to transform professional responsibility through a re-configuration of its constituent elements in imaginative and creative ways and by indicating the ‘real world’ import of re-charting the field.


To Understand

To Understand

Author: Ellin Oliver Keene

Publisher: Heinemann Educational Books

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13:

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To Understand proposes a model that incorporates all aspects of literacy instruction and describes how teachers can focus on what matters most. Keene shows that when teachers target the most essential content, they can help every student engage more deeply with texts and discover a passion for reading and learning. You'll learn to draw out students' intellectual interests and spark improvements in their literacy learning and comprehension-even among students who struggle. You'll see that teaching the Outcomes and Dimensions of Understanding can help readers exceed expectations and also help broaden your vision of their capacity and energy for learning.


Addicted to Reform

Addicted to Reform

Author: John Merrow

Publisher: The New Press

Published: 2017-08-15

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 1620972433

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The prize-winning PBS correspondent's provocative antidote to America's misguided approaches to K-12 school reform During an illustrious four-decade career at NPR and PBS, John Merrow—winner of the George Polk Award, the Peabody Award, and the McGraw Prize—reported from every state in the union, as well as from dozens of countries, on everything from the rise of district-wide cheating scandals and the corporate greed driving an ADD epidemic to teacher-training controversies and America's obsession with standardized testing. Along the way, he taught in a high school, at a historically black college, and at a federal penitentiary. Now, the revered education correspondent of PBS NewsHour distills his best thinking on education into a twelve-step approach to fixing a K–12 system that Merrow describes as being "addicted to reform" but unwilling to address the real issue: American public schools are ill-equipped to prepare young people for the challenges of the twenty-first century. This insightful book looks at how to turn digital natives into digital citizens and why it should be harder to become a teacher but easier to be one. Merrow offers smart, essential chapters—including "Measure What Matters," and "Embrace Teachers"—that reflect his countless hours spent covering classrooms as well as corridors of power. His signature candid style of reportage comes to life as he shares lively anecdotes, schoolyard tales, and memories that are at once instructive and endearing. Addicted to Reform is written with the kind of passionate concern that could come only from a lifetime devoted to the people and places that constitute the foundation of our nation. It is a "big book" that forms an astute and urgent blueprint for providing a quality education to every American child.


Innovating with Augmented Reality

Innovating with Augmented Reality

Author: P Kaliraj

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2021-12-15

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1000504239

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Augmented Reality (AR) has many advantages that include increased engagement and interaction as well as enhanced innovation and responsiveness. AR technology has applications in almost all domains such as medical training, retail, repair and maintenance of complex equipment, interior design in architecture and construction, business logistics, tourism, and classroom education. Innovating with Augmented Reality: Applications in Education and Industry explains the concepts behind AR, explores some of its application areas, and gives an in-depth look at how this technology aligns with Education 4.0. Due to the rapid advancements in technology, future education systems must prepare students to work with the latest technologies by enabling them to learn virtually in augmented ways in varied platforms. By providing an illusion of physical objects, which takes the students to a new world of imagination, AR and Virtual Reality (VR) create virtual and interactive environments for better learning and understanding. AR applications in education are covered in four chapters of this book, including a chapter on how gamification can be made use of in the teaching and learning process. The book also covers other application areas of AR and VR. One such application area is the food and beverage industry with case studies on virtual 3D food, employee training, product–customer interaction, restaurant entertainment, restaurant tours, and product packaging. The application of AR in the healthcare sector, medical education, and related devices and software are examined in the book’s final chapter. The book also provides an overview of the game development software, Unity, a real-time development platform for 2D and 3D AR and VR, as well as the software tools and techniques used in developing AR-based apps.


Visions for Teacher Educators

Visions for Teacher Educators

Author: Cari L. Klecka

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 1607091275

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This book seeks to not only articulate a vision for the profession through Standards for Teacher Educators but also provide a historical perspective of and explore the issues surrounding these standards. To accomplish this, the book establishes the history of teacher education as a discipline, defines who is a teacher educator, and provides a historical foundation for these standards. The reader is then presented with a set of mini-chapters designed to conceptualize a vision for teacher educators through each of the nine standards. Featuring voices of eductors in diverse fields, the third section expands thinking about the standards and how they may or may not apply to others. The final section provides viewpoints on Standards for Teacher Educators and the potential impact of such standards on the profession.


A Brief History of Standards in Teacher Education

A Brief History of Standards in Teacher Education

Author: Roy A. Edelfelt

Publisher: R&L Education

Published: 2004-11-10

Total Pages: 36

ISBN-13: 1461663482

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With the current emphasis on standards in the schools, one may think that this is a new phenomenon. However, as this pamphlet clearly demonstrates, while standards in American schools have a long history dating back to Reconstruction, the recommendations for what is needed to improve teacher education are remarkably similar—brighter students, more realistic classes, rigorous general education, serious evaluation, and so on. The reports and guidelines share a zeal for the standards they are promulgating, but are thin on research to support their recommendations. The irony is that the 'profession's power is so fragmented, and its prestige so ailing,' that adequate support for teacher education and professional practice remain elusive. The report concludes that only a concerted effort by a coalition of organizations could generate the support needed to achieve a major breakthrough in the quality of schooling and teacher education.