[pt] O objetivo do estudo consiste em analisar posicionamentos identitários e percepções de professores e alunos de ensino médio em um CIEP, uma escola pública estadual da região metropolitana do Rio de Janeiro, sobre o contexto de mudanças em que a instituição está inserida e as práticas relacionadas à dinâmica do cotidiano escolar. Professores e alunos de ensino médio são os principais atores sociais capazes de identificar posicionamentos e padrões estruturais no contexto cotidiano escolar, de interpretar os significados das rotinas e das práticas que estão assentadas. A pesquisa combina a metodologia qualitativa, de base interpretativista, a partir de entrevistas de pesquisa individual e de grupo focal, com a metodologia quantitativa, mediante aplicação de questionários, como um diálogo interno entre resultados obtidos nas duas perspectivas. O posicionamento teórico articula as abordagens da Teoria da Evidencialidade e dos Posicionamentos de Self, como procedimentos analíticos, junto à análise de percepções e atitudes dos participantes, em um trabalho ancorado na concepção da figura do professor pesquisador, cuja visão parte do princípio da autorreflexão do profissional de linguagem e educação na procura de compreender de dentro o próprio contexto de que participa. A análise de dados é feita, inicialmente, com os dados qualitativos das entrevistas, permitindo observar formas de posicionamentos quanto à importância do ensino médio para educandos e educadores. A análise dos dados quantitativos permite compreender a correlação significativa ou não-significativa entre respostas linguísticas e percepções nos questionários, levando em consideração as posturas de identidade na avaliação do ensino médio na perspectiva dos pesquisados. / [en] The purpose of this study is to examine identity positioning and perceptions of high school teachers and students at a CIEP, a state public school in Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area, upon the changing context where the institution is inserted and the practices related to the dynamics of the school routine. High school teachers and students are the main social actors who are able to identify positioning and structural patterns in the everyday school life context, and interpret the meanings of the settled routines and practices. The research combines interpretative qualitative methodology, from individual research interviews and focal group, with quantitative methodology, through questionnaires, as an internal dialogue among the results from both perspectives. The theoretical approach articulates the Evidentiality and Self Positioning theories as analytical procedures, along with the analysis of participants’ attitudes and perceptions, in a work grounded in the teacher as a researcher conception, whose view arises from the principle of the language and educational professional’s self-reflection in the search for understanding from within the very context in which he/she participates. Data analysis initially works with the qualitative interview data, which allow to observe positioning forms in relation to the importance of high school for the students and teachers. The quantitative data analysis enables to understand the significant or non-significant correlations among linguistics responses and perceptions in the questionnaires, considering the identity postures in the evaluation of high school education in the participants perspectives.

The Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL) emerged to provide more relevant curriculum programs that would cater for increasing retention rates of post-compulsory students. It is also an example of the ‘new’ learning arising from contemporary debates and reforms that highlight inadequacies of the more traditional modes of learning. This thesis focuses on the pedagogical and sociological issues emerging from the VCAL being introduced as an ‘alternative’ learning pathways for ‘at-risk’ students within a traditional secondary school culture. Through the eyes of an insider-researcher, the thesis argues for a deeper understanding of applied learning as a ‘re-engaging’ pedagogy by studying the schooling experience of VCAL students and teachers. The thesis concludes that traditional academic modes of teaching contribute to the social construction of ‘at-risk’ students and argues that secondary school pedagogy needs to be redefined as a cultural phenomenon requiring teachers to be reflexively aware of their role in bridging the gap between students’ life experiences and the curriculum.

With the changing age profile of teachers in Australian schools, considerable numbers of experienced teachers need to feature as educational leaders, before their workplace knowledge and expertise will be lost to schools with retirement. Stereotypes of veteran teachers depict individuals, wearied by decades of work experiences, entering professional decline when educational systems need these experienced practitioners to remain connected, communicative and motivated in their work. This thesis explores the careers and contemporary professional lives of experienced practitioners — predominantly classroom teachers — currently working in a school with a long standing commitment to student-centred education. The research identified the factors that influenced their career pathways and affected their engagement with their work. Critical incidents in the teachers’ careers and professional lives are discussed in relation to the theories of motivation and the nature of Professional Learning Communities. The study showed that necessary factors for engagement were: mutual alignment with a well-articulated and practised ethos; supportive leadership; experiencing professional influence; opportunities for learning; and variety in work. Disillusion resulted if school actions were contrary to the espoused ethos. Severely negative experiences of performance management were survived by withdrawing, and enduring management tenures but these remain very poignant memories. The teachers had few career regrets yet reflection revealed the arbitrary nature of their career progression. The research identified a need to recognise the global and societal factors influencing the nature of teachers’ work. It is argued that schools and systems need to have a greater alignment between these external forces and their internal goals whilst recapturing the moral purpose of education. Furthermore, it is asserted that educational systems need to provide better human resource management for the teaching workforce through emphasising life-balance and well-being. Additionally, professional appraisal and staff management would benefit from strong recognition and deployment of the workplace knowledge and expertise of experienced teachers. A serendipitous outcome of the research was the benefit participants gained from reflecting on their careers which proved extremely affirming, and contributed to enhanced professional identities and changed career plans.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 433-449).

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Education / Master / Master of Science in Information Technology in Education

This study explores the ways in which teachers' interventions interact with and occasion the growth of students' mathematical understanding. Two 'cases' were documented, and these form the two strands of my research. The first strand concerns data collected in my own high school classroom at a time when I was a full-time teacher of mathematics in a small, rural secondary school in the United Kingdom. The second strand concerns data collected in a mathematics classroom in a large, urban high school in Vancouver, British Columbia. The data consist of videotaped lessons in each of the two classrooms, videotaped interviews with students from both strands of the data, copies of students' work from both strands, videotaped interviews with the Vancouver teacher, and my own journal entries. Analysis of the data, which is described in six stages, resulted in the generation of fifteen themes to describe the teachers' actions-in-the-moment. Three of these themes are distinguished from the others as teaching styles, as contrasted with the remaining twelve teaching strategies, and a number of the teaching strategies are clustered within the three teaching styles. The notion of a 'continuum of telling' is developed, upon which the three teaching styles lie, and this continuum is explored in order to probe the ways in which teachers' interventions interact with the growth of students' mathematical understanding. The ways in which teachers' interventions occasion the growth of students' mathematical understanding is probed through an integration of detailed traces of the students' growth of understanding with contemporaneous considerations of the teachers' strategies and styles. Implications to be drawn from these analyses, both for the research community and for teaching and learning, are discussed. I also share my reflections on my own growth as a teacher and as a researcher that I have experienced as a result of participating in, and conducting, this study.

This study sought to investigate factors that enable high pass rates at Cambridge Overseas School Certificate (C.O.S.C.) level at Botha-Bothe High School in Lesotho. The focus of the study has been on three broad possible factors, namely the nature of leadership within the institution, the relationships between administration and teachers, amongst the teachers and between the teachers and learners, as well as resources available in the school. The study used a triangulation of three instruments: interviewing, observation and document analysis to collect data. These three instruments helped the researcher to collect proof-checked information and arrive at concretized conclusions. The Principal, Deputy-Principal, HODs and teachers who participated in interviews, handed to the researcher the necessary documents and took the researcher around to different teaching centres. Having investigated and correlated all the results, the researcher concluded that the following are possible factors that could improve pass rates. The first factor is a sound leadership that allows interaction, that manages time, that motivates other stakeholders, and that includes its subordinates in decision-making. The second factor is warm relationships between management and staff, amongst the academic staff and between teachers and students. The third factor is the availability and good management of resources (human and material). / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2004.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Includes tables. Sponsor: Arno A. Bellack. Dissertation Committee: Harry Lee Brown. Investigates in fifteen secondary school classrooms the soliciting function as defined in The language of the classroom by Arno A. Bellack and Joel R. Davitz. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1999. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 86-92). Also available on the Internet.