Ideas from philosophy, developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, and teacher education are molded into a description of exceptional teaching. Especially important for establishing a model of exceptional teaching is Habermas's (1970) theory of knowledge-constitutive interests. Specifically, Habermas's three knowledgeconstitutive interests (technical, practical, and emancipatory) are expected to define wisdom in teaching. By adopting technical, practical, and emancipatory knowledge as the basis for a model of exceptional teaching this study will extend some current descriptions of exceptional teaching (i.e., Berliner, 1986) that define exceptional teaching as expertise. Evidence for this conclusion stems from the results of a principal components analysis on respondents' ratings of descriptors of "wise" teaching, as compared to the results from a principal components analysis on respondents' ratings of descriptors of "expert" teaching. Wise teaching seems to involve all three of Habermas's ways of knowing, whereas, "expert" teaching involves practical and especially technical ways of knowing. Therefore, the difference between "wise" and "expert" teaching seems to be in what Habermas has called emancipatory knowing. A second set of findings supports the above findings by showing that teachers hypothesized to be closer to the prototype of a wise teacher (department heads) utilize their "wisdom" in response to two general questions about education; whereas, a sample of teachers who were not department heads and a sample of student teachers do not utilize these three ways of knowing to the same extent. The difference between the three samples of teachers was primarily in the use of emancipatory knowledge by the department heads. In a third set of findings a teacher hypothesized to be "wise" was observed to determine whether or not Habermas's three ways of knowing were evident in her teaching practice. This was found to be the case. The general conclusion from the present study is that a comprehensive description of exceptional teaching seems to be possible based upon people's everyday conceptions of what it means to be a "wise" teacher. Thus, an empirical model is provided for future research on exceptional teaching. This empirical model seems to best fit into a developmental framework based on constructivism because the essence of constructivist descriptions of exceptional teachers (e.g., Arlin, 1993; Lee, 1993; Prawat 1992) correspond closely with the present description of exceptional teachers.

Numerous changes in education in Ontario in the past few decades have lead to much discussion regarding the professionalism of teaching in Ontario. Some theorists suggest the changes are deprofessionalizing, leading to an intensification of work that detracts from the professional status of teaching by causing work overload and breaking larger tasks into smaller ones requiring less thought or decision-making by the teachers themselves. Others consider the changes reprofessionalizing, in that they are simply changing what it means to be in the profession of teaching, mostly by moving towards a system of collaboration. At the same time, the Ontario College of Teachers (2009) has declared teaching an official profession by allowing for the acronym OCT (Ontario Certified Teachers) to be added to the signature of teachers to denote their status. While others have certainly had their say, teachers themselves were the missing voice in this controversy. The purpose of this study was to examine the views of some female elementary teachers towards professionalism. This qualitative study consisted of interviews with seven female elementary teachers from one Ontario public school board to describe and examine their perceptions of professions in general, and what enhances or detracts from their sense of professionalism as teachers. Data analysis showed the emergence of themes regarding responsibilities, relationships, board and Ministry policies, job compensation, professional organization, job learning, and personal privileges. Within these themes a great deal of variance existed regarding what ii enhanced and what detracted from the sense of professionalism for the teachers interviewed. Of the many themes discussed, some teachers found them professionalizing, and other teachers found them deprofessionalizing. The teachers’ own personal standards and beliefs about professions and the standards and attitudes towards teachers held by their administrator seemed to be the deciding factor in what they found professionalizing and deprofessionalizing. While the theorists suggest deprofessionalization or reprofessionalization is based on the specifics of the changes themselves, this study suggests that a teacher’s sense of professionalism is constructed in a much more complex and personal manner, making it difficult to categorize certain changes or initiatives in education the way the theorists have. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2011-04-29 14:46:15.745

No description available.

This thesis is an exploratory qualitative study whereby 21 randomly selected participants made meaning of their experiences while engaged in Seven Traditional Indigenous Teaching Practices (STITP). The particular seven practices used were the Smudge, Oral Knowledge Transmission, Teaching and Sharing Circles, Storytelling, an Oracle and Sweat Lodge. I incorporated the STITP into Summer Institutes on Aboriginal education (1994-2007) as an integrated approach for providing the link between the practise of our ancestors and the andragogical theory of adult learning. I conducted 3 Sharing Circles and 13 interviews (of the 21 participants) resulting in the voices and stories that revealed how the participants made meaning of their experiences as the focus of this research. They described their relationships and their responses to the educational transactions that took place for them while in the learning circle of the institute. They described what they learned, what was important to them, and how they are using STITP today. The participants’ stories build upon an earlier study where Elder/Knowledge Keepers, as participants and witnesses to the STITP, were interviewed for their perspectives and experiences. The Elder/Knowledge Keepers’ voices emerged with four learning themes that provided a link between Indigenous pedagogies and adult learning theory and supported the importance of these in pedagogies in teacher education. The student participants also discussed the importance of these four major themes. The viability for the use of STITP in teacher education have proven positive and important for shifting paradigms, changes in perceptions, and learning growth as reflected in the participants’ narratives. Serious consideration to the use of Indigenous practices like STITP in future teacher education, preparation for certification and postgraduate study is suggested. This study resulted in a development of a concept of ‘seven footprints’ connecting the Indigenous learning lodges to the academic classroom a model for teacher education that further emerged as an ‘eighth footprint’ reflecting an a Prophecy of the ‘Eight Fires’ as outlined in this thesis. Since this model referred to as Mekiniiwak Kayas Itutooskewin Kiskinomakewin: Indigenous Life-Long Learning Model is in its early stages of exploration and development, further research is feasible and necessary.

There is no abstract available for this thesis.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

This thesis is an exploratory qualitative study whereby 21 randomly selected participants made meaning of their experiences while engaged in Seven Traditional Indigenous Teaching Practices (STITP). The particular seven practices used were the Smudge, Oral Knowledge Transmission, Teaching and Sharing Circles, Storytelling, an Oracle and Sweat Lodge. I incorporated the STITP into Summer Institutes on Aboriginal education (1994-2007) as an integrated approach for providing the link between the practise of our ancestors and the andragogical theory of adult learning. I conducted 3 Sharing Circles and 13 interviews (of the 21 participants) resulting in the voices and stories that revealed how the participants made meaning of their experiences as the focus of this research. They described their relationships and their responses to the educational transactions that took place for them while in the learning circle of the institute. They described what they learned, what was important to them, and how they are using STITP today. The participants’ stories build upon an earlier study where Elder/Knowledge Keepers, as participants and witnesses to the STITP, were interviewed for their perspectives and experiences. The Elder/Knowledge Keepers’ voices emerged with four learning themes that provided a link between Indigenous pedagogies and adult learning theory and supported the importance of these in pedagogies in teacher education. The student participants also discussed the importance of these four major themes. The viability for the use of STITP in teacher education have proven positive and important for shifting paradigms, changes in perceptions, and learning growth as reflected in the participants’ narratives. Serious consideration to the use of Indigenous practices like STITP in future teacher education, preparation for certification and postgraduate study is suggested. This study resulted in a development of a concept of ‘seven footprints’ connecting the Indigenous learning lodges to the academic classroom a model for teacher education that further emerged as an ‘eighth footprint’ reflecting an a Prophecy of the ‘Eight Fires’ as outlined in this thesis. Since this model referred to as Mekiniiwak Kayas Itutooskewin Kiskinomakewin: Indigenous Life-Long Learning Model is in its early stages of exploration and development, further research is feasible and necessary.

The relevance of decision-making to classroom teaching and to questions concerning teacher effectivenesst teacher training and curricular innovation has been noted by several researchers. However, teachers' classroom decision-making has frequently been conceptualised as a stage-wise, problem-solving task, involving the evaluation of alternative courses of action, and this would appear to be incompatible with the severe time restrictions experienced by teachers in real classrooms. Exploratory studies, investigating classroom interaction and teachers' and pupils' perceptions of it, involving observation, structured interview, repertory grid and rating methods, simulation, stimulated recall and sociometric methods, suggested in fact, that rather than making decisions, teachers tended to respond spontaneouslyt in a seemingly rule-governed manner, to configurations of cues in which pupil attributes ranked high in importance. A model of teachers' classroom decision-making was derived from the exploratory studies and previous researcht and it was suggested that the difficulties encountered by beginning teachers in making classroom decisions could be accounted for in terms of their lack of a cognitive framework of rules for action and their appropriate pupil distinctions. A main study involving six first-year probationer teachers and six experienced teachers was carried out to examine seven hypotheses concerning the inter-relationships of teachers' assessments of their pupilsp classroom interaction, teachers' reasons for their classroom interaction and pupilso self-perceptions and the difference between experienced teachers and probationers on these variables: hypothesis 1) Experienced teachers assess their pupils more quickly than probationer teachers (i. e. attribute more qualities to more childreng early in the term); 2) Experienced teachers' assessments of their pupils are more stable over time; 3) There are associations between the ways in which teachers perceive their pupils and the ways in which they interact with them; 4) These associations are stronger amongst experienced teachers than probationers; 5) Some of the unequal distribution of teacher-pupil interactions can be accounted for by the reasons which teachers give for their behaviour; 6) The reasonsp given by experienced teachers, which account for their classroom interactions are different from thosel given by probationer teachers, which account for their classroom interactions; 7) There is a relationship between a teacher's assessments of his/her pupils and the pupils' perceptions of themselves and their friendship choices. Hypothesis 7, which was intended to illuminate the extent to which pupils may influence the learning of beginning teachers, was further subdivided into five more specific hypotheses, after the finding that the probationer teachers in the sample were more reactive in their classroom behaviour, whereas experienced teachers tended to be more proactive; hence it was anticipated that probationers' assessments of their pupils would be more influenced by the pupils' assessments of themselves, whereas the experienced teachers may be more effective in communicating their assessments to the pupils and thus influencing their pupils' self-perceptions. Teachers' verbal descriptions of pupils, teachers' ratings of pupilso classroom interaction data, and pupils' self-ratings and sociometric data were collected at the beginnings of both the first and second terms of the school year. In addition, teachers each gave a commentary stimulated by a tape recording of a lesson taken in the second term. It was found that experienced teachers made more attributions concerning their pupils than did probationer teachers, although their ratings of pupils were no more stable between terms. A cluster analysis of teachers' ratings resulted in some common clusters which tended to engage in characteristic patterns of interaction, but the differences in interaction amongst clusters were not statistically significant. Teachers who had given particular reasons for their behaviour, which differentiated amongst pupils were found to be better represented amongst groups of teachers associated with particular cluster/interaction patterns. Although the reasons given by experienced teachers differed to some extent from those of probationers, the occurrence of patterns of interaction with particular clusters was neither more common amongst experienced teachers nor more significant. Consequently, analysis of the data indicated some support for hypotheses l, 3, 5, and 6, and although support was found for the hypotheses that probationers are more influenced by pupils' self-perceptions whereas experienced teachers have a stronger influence upon pupils' self-perceptions, it was noted that pupil self-perceptions were not very stable between terms and could have a tendency to 'drift'. possibly drifting in the direction of teachers' assessments where the teacher is proactive, regularly providing cues regarding her assessments of pupils. It also appeared that clusters derived from each teacher's ratings bore little resemblance to the clusters derived from pupils' friendship choices thus bringing into question the popularly conceived notion of teachers influencing pupil friendship groups. In additiong the data analysis revealed several consistent individual differences amongst the teachers, in particular between the probationers and the older teachers in the sample, which could be interpreted within the proposed model of classroom decision-making. In generalv the nature of teachers' classroom decision making which is suggested by the results supports the proposed model, and the issues arising from the study, concerning research methodology, data analysisp possible future research studies and their relevance to practical classroom teaching, and in particular the issue of diagnostic assessments of pupils and their relationship to teaching practice were noted and discussed.

This thesis explores the issues surrounding the teaching of English to high school students in the province of Alberta. Its central premise is that high school students studying academic English are increasingly skeptical about the value of literature, and subsequently lack engagement with the subject area. In support of this contention is a review of the forces that have shaped canon formation and curriculum development since the mid-twentieth century, an interrogation of the documents, policies and precedents that guide the selection of texts in the classroom as well as instructional practices, and an examination of the limitations of continuing to employ the interpretive strategies of New Criticism as a primary method of explication. A selection of some of the most commonly taught texts in the province demonstrates the importance of disrupting the literal, common sense readings that often arise within the impartiality of New Criticism.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of Tulsa, 1974. / Bibliography: leaves 86-90.