Zeitschriftenartikel zum Thema „Professional Development of Teachers not elsewhere classified“

Language Assessment Literacy (LAL) research has focused on defining the knowledge, skills, and principles that the stakeholders involved in language assessment activities are required to master. However, there is scarce research on the relationship between LAL and the professional development of language teachers. Therefore, this exploratory action research study examined the impact of a language assessment course on pre-service teachers in a Colombian language teaching programme. Data were collected through questionnaires, interviews, teacher and researcher journals and class observations. The findings show that the course promoted theoretical, technical and operational dimensions in the language assessment design practices of the participants. In addition, it enhanced their LAL and professional development. Consequently, this study contends that the LAL course changed language assessment perceptions radically and encouraged pre-service teachers to design assessments conscientiously, a feature not explicitly stated in LAL research involving this group of stakeholders elsewhere.

Implementing effective professional development (PD) programs can help teachers in developing their knowledge and skills to enhance students learning in the classroom. However, professional development (PD) programs conducted been seen as less helpful for teachers in developing their potential in teaching mathematics. Therefore, a systematic literature review was undertaken to report on the programs of professional development (PD) for mathematics teachers. This review aimed to explore the professional development (PD) programs for mathematics teacher and teacher components of an effective professional development (PD) in the empirical studies. This systematic review utilized 40 research articles from 2015 to 2020 as data from which such data were obtained from databases such as Google Scholar, ERIC, and Springer. The findings show that the mathematics teacher professional development (PD) programs been used to give an impact on teacher attitudes and practices in terms of classroom teaching practices, student learning outcomes, and teacher knowledge and skills. In addition, teachers' factors for an effective professional development (PD) program can be classified into several parts: 1) motivation, 2) attitude, 3) commitment, and 4) self-efficacy. This study is essential to strengthening the competencies of mathematics teachers based on the best model of professional development in line with current educational needs.

Continuing professional development (CPD) plays an important role in maintaining professional competency of the accounting academics. The main aim of undertaking CPD is to acquire new technical knowledge pertaining to a certain profession. This study intends to investigate the existing literature on CPD of accounting academics. In reviewing the relevant literature, we have particularly concentrated on these journals: 1) Accounting Education; 2) Journal of Accounting Education; 3) Teachers and Teaching; and 4) Teaching and Teacher Education. The available studies have been classified into three categories and recommendations for the future research work are provided.

A three-stage professional development (TSPD) model for training experienced teachers to become teachers’ leaders is presented here, along with a study assessing its value. The three stages of the model are:  a “basic training” stage, a “master-teacher” stage, and an “independent implementation” stage. This qualitative study included open questionnaires and interviews of participants and course leader after the various stages. Statements were classified accordingly to three main themes: ‘teachers as pedagogues’, ‘teachers’ involvement in environmental science (ES) community’, and ‘teachers’ as leaders’. Results show that participating in the TSPD course enabled teachers to unify into one coherent community with similar goals, increased their self-confidence, empowered them as teachers by improving classroom function, and intensified their abilities to act as teachers’ leaders. This model, although tested on environmental science teachers, is applicable to any teacher community.

Purpose – Dialogic peer coaching as leadership can enable teachers to influence each other's professional learning. The purpose of this paper is to shift the emphasis from the role associated with the designated title of leader to the purpose and relevance of teacher leadership in the context of dialogic peer coaching. Design/methodology/approach – The research was undertaken as a small qualitative case study embedded in a school-based, teacher professional development project. Nine groups of peer coaches from five unrelated schools engaged in a formal process of collaborative inquiry over two years. Interview data from 13 volunteer teacher participants were analysed using the constant comparison method and themes determined. Findings – The study revealed that there was growth in teacher leadership capabilities as they become dialogic peer coaches to each other. Practical implications – Through their collaborative peer coaching dialogue teachers have the transformative space to articulate their thinking. They can engage in dialogic feedback where they are positioned as experts in their own practice. Social implications – The teachers in this study are positioned within communities of practice as co-constructers of knowledge and co-learners. On the basis of the findings the authors suggest that this can support the development of high capacity leadership in schools. This stance contrasts with a technicist approach to teacher professional learning in which teachers are situated as absorbers or recipients of knowledge constructed elsewhere. Originality/value – The research reported in this paper addresses three key elements of leadership: individual development; collaboration or team development; and organisational development. It outlines a means by which teacher leadership can be strengthened to address these elements in schools.

A fundamental concern in mathematics education is to understand the connection between the mathematics and the students who are trying to learn the mathematics. Even under ordinary conditions, it may be difficult for teachers to completely understand the challenges that students face. This can be especially true for teachers of English language learners (ELL). Given the steadily increasing population of U.S. students who are classified as limited in English proficiency, it is imperative that teachers understand the perspective of an ELL student in an English-speaking classroom. Meaningful professional development can further this type of understanding. In this article, we describe a professional development experience in which twenty-two teachers from schools with large Latino student populations participated in two mathematics lessons taught in Chinese. The goal for the activity was to allow the teachers to experience challenges similar to those that many students face. Thus, in addition to describing the mathematics lessons, we examine some of the participating teachers' reflections and insights.

The central purpose of this article is to highlight nature, place and role of the adult education teacher professional training in Ireland as well as the school teacher professional training. In order to do so, a general overview of Irish teachers’ education is presented. The specific in the adult education tutors’ activities is also discussed. The nature of the teachers’ training is fully examined. The various contemporary ways and innovative forms of modern teachers’ training in Ireland are mentioned. The main professional requirements that the adult education tutor has are also highlighted and analyzed. The process and different periods of teachers’ training are classified and described. The article shows the main stages in teachers’ training in Ireland with detailed characteristics of every level with key elements emphasizing. The practice training organization for future teachers in Ireland is examined. The survey results showed that adult education teachers’ training sector in Ireland is a very flexible way of learning in modern society. It can be suitable for everyone who needs to get not only professional knowledge and skills, development, life experience, but also socialization, communication, collective consciousness and community support. Adult education teachers’ training is an effective, contemporary educational service that has many beneficial outcomes. The article presents the adult education teachers’ peculiarities in the modern knowledge society. Finally, the author makes the conclusion about the adult education teachers’ training specifics in Ireland.

Background. The current social situation in Ukraine demands the researches of objective and subjective conditions that determine the professional development of teachers in general and the development of their professional reflection in particular, which are related to the real system of professional training of students at higher school. Objective – to analyze the reflection as one of the psychological mechanisms of self-control, which, in turn, ensures the personal growth of a future teacher. Materials and methods. There were analyzed the results which had been obtained for the component «experience of reflection» of teachers (128 teachers of Rivne State University of the Humanities were participated in the empirical part of the research. The research lasted during 2017). Methods of the research – analytical, empirical, statistical. Results. The authors of the article identified four levels of professional self-determination of the first-year students who studied at higher school: 1) a high level of professional self-determination is the manifestation of a multi-component professional motive; the presence of a clear idea of the image of a teacher with a lot of professionally relevant qualities; the development of objective self-esteem, active and positive attitude to the profession and the purpose of studying at a higher school – at last to become a professional teacher. Students with a high level of professional self-determination formed a group of «well-professionally oriented» students: 2) middle (potential) level of professional self-determination – the manifestation of two-component professional motive (stable desire to become a teacher, the ability to work with people); the development of active and positive attitude towards the profession and the purpose of studying at a higher educational institution to become a teacher of a foreign language. Students with a potential level of self-determination were classified as «professionally oriented»; 3) low level of professional self-determination – the manifestation of one-component professional motive (the desire to become a teacher), which in its content – amorphous, unstable, because in its basis – only the emotional attitude to the profession («like – do not like»); the perception of the pedagogical profession is superficial, fragmented, and, as a result, passive-positive attitude to the profession and objectives of studying at a higher educational establishment. Students with a low level of self-determination made up a group of «weakly professionally oriented»; 4) very low level of professional self-determination – manifestation of uncertain attitude to the profession, self-restraint from it; motives and goals of entering higher educational institutions can be regarded as emotionally cognitive-orientated («just interesting», «may be like», «try»). These students formed a group of «professionally non-oriented» ones. Conclusions. Subjective conditions that influence the development of professional reflection of future teachers of a foreign language were such as: professional orientation of the person in his/her future activity; the development of intellectual abilities; students’ activity in their professional development and mastering of professional reflection.

Purpose This study aims to examine teachers’ perceptions of teacher evaluation (also known as teacher appraisal). In Israel and elsewhere, teacher evaluation is a cornerstone of teaching quality assurance measures; however, detailed knowledge is lacking regarding how teachers themselves perceive it in that context. Design/methodology/approach Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 state primary school teachers. The data were analyzed thematically. Findings Four themes emerged from the interviews: how teachers conceive of teacher evaluation; teachers’ perceptions of how the teacher evaluation process should proceed; the advantages and disadvantages of the teacher evaluation process; and ways to increase the effectiveness of teacher evaluation. A further four themes emerged regarding the purposes of evaluation from the teachers’ perspective: judgment and control, dialogue, promotion and professional improvement. Overall, the teachers interviewed perceived that their evaluation serves summative control purposes far more than the formative professional improvement purposes for which the evaluation policy was explicitly developed. On the basis of these and previous findings, a theoretical model of teacher evaluation and career development is proposed. Research limitations/implications This qualitative study interviewed a relatively small number of teachers. The findings suggest that teacher evaluation conducted to assure quality teaching should be more comprehensive and should take place throughout the school year. Originality/value This study is one of only very few to examine teachers’ perceptions of teacher evaluation in detail.

Fractions are difficult to teach and to learn, but they should not be viewed as a lost cause. Important research in Australia and elsewhere can help us focus on the big ideas in ways that can help students in the middle years make sense of fractions. We share insights from our research, advice on what is important and less important, and practical classroom approaches and activities that our experience in a variety of professional development settings indicates can make fractions come alive for middle-grades teachers and students.

Purpose: A comprehensive school physical activity program (CSPAP) is designed to help school-aged youth meet physical activity guidelines as well as develop the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that foster meaningful lifelong physical activity participation. In this study, we employed a “diffusion of innovations theory” perspective to examine the adoption of CSPAPs in relation to physical education teachers’ domain-specific innovativeness, educational background, demographics, and perceived school support. Methods: Physical education teachers (N = 407) responded to an electronic survey with validated measures for each of the above-mentioned variables. Results: Latent profile analysis classified teachers into three domain-specific innovativeness levels (high, average, and low). CSPAP-related professional training, knowledge, and perceived school support were found to be significant factors in domain-specific innovativeness and CSPAP adoption. Discussion/Conclusion: This study provides novel evidence to inform professional development initiatives so that they can be tailored to physical education teachers who may be less likely to adopt a CSPAP.

Introduction. Nowadays, digital education is one of the priorities of state policy in modern Russia. The Federal Institute for the Development of Education has developed a draft didactic concept of digital education to maximise the potential of digital technology (DT) in vocational training. Nevertheless, while policymakers and education managers are aware of the need to move to a new level of digital technology implementation, there are challenges to this process. The technological resources of educational environment have been increasing intensively in the past decade, and their intensive scientific and pedagogical development is observed. However, little attention is given to the willingness of teachers to work with continuously evolving technological tools.The aim of the research is to identify the barriers, which hinder the professional development of teachers in mastering information and communications technologies (ICT) and digital technologies, as well as some mental attitudes circulating in the society and slowing down the process of digitalisation of vocational education.Methodology and research methods. The present research is based on personal-context and personal-development approaches. In the course of experimental research and two pilot studies, teachers and specialists of professional educational organisations were interviewed (n = 187 people). The methods of questionnaire-based survey, sociological analysis, statistical data-processing tools and Google Forms tools were used.Results and scientific novelty. On the basis of the outcomes of the conducted surveys, the following aspects were analysed: the degree of teachers’ skills formation declared in the professional standard; willingness to implement e-learning, expand the range of ICT and GT included in teaching practice; respondents’ attitudes towards the digitalisation of education and their self-recognition in this process. Clear and invisible obstacles to the process under discussion are identified and sistematised. The found barriers are classified into risk, image and didactic barriers. The recommendations to overcome the barriers are proposed. According to the authors of the present article, it is advisable to introduce a new specialty “digital engineer-teacher” due to the obvious integration of pedagogical and engineering functions into the activities of teachers. Working in one team consisted of a specialist, who designs an effective teaching environment, and a teacher-didactist, will reduce a part of unjustified functional workload of the latter.Practical significance. The materials of the undertaken research have significant implications for further development of perceptions of the essence and content of digital didactics; justification and formation of optimal conditions for digitalisation of vocational education, including psychological and pedagogical adjustment of the system of training and retraining of pedagogical and managerial personnel for the digital economy.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficiency of professional development programs based on social constructivism in improving the teaching practices of mathematics teachers. The research team developed a training program based on social constructivism in teacher education. The participants of this program included nine mathematics teachers from the Um Al-Basateen school district located in the south of the capital city, Amman. Data was collected before and after the program and certain tools of qualitative research were employed in the study. These tools included observation, interviews, and documentation. Moreover, the research team developed a measurement to evaluate the participants’ teaching practices. The measurement consisted of five levels (novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient and expert) indicating the improvement in teaching practices. The teaching practices under evaluation were composed of six areas: teaching, learning, evaluation, classroom dialogue, knowledge resources, and mathematical content. Research findings indicated that there was a noticeable improvement in the participants’ teaching practices during the two stages of the study. Prior to the program, the teaching practices in the areas of classroom dialogue and knowledge resources were classified at the first level (novice) and in the remaining four areas, the teaching practices were classified at level two (advanced beginner). However, in the post-program stage, teaching practices in the areas of teaching, learning and classroom dialogue reached level five (expert) whereas mathematical content achieved level four (proficient). Furthermore, teaching practices in the areas of evaluation and resources reached level three (competent).

This paper looks at the first steps taken by a group of Maltese teachers participating in the EU funded FP7 project aimed at promoting inquiry-based learning (IBL) in Mathematics and Science classrooms across Europe, PRIMAS, by providing long-term professional development (PD) to teachers during the introduction and implementation of IBL in an examination-oriented culture. Data were obtained through teachers’ reflective journals and interviews. Difficulties encountered and ways of overcoming challenges are presented. The main difficulties encountered may be classified as systemic difficulties; barriers due to teachers’ personal beliefs and attitudes; and student-related difficulties. Peer support, support of school authorities, and long-term continued PD are needed to help teachers move away from traditional teaching and implement IBL strategies.

This research explores current teaching interventions in the development of school food education in urban schools of northern Taiwan, focusing on the relationship between teachers’ teaching attitudes, teaching knowledge, and teaching commitments. As the urban schools of northern Taiwan (Taipei, New Taipei City, and Taoyuan City) are all classified as metropolitan areas, schools in these areas place a greater emphasis on students’ dietary habits. This study therefore selected urban middle schools of these three connected municipalities as the research area. It adopted stratified random methods for sampling and designed questionnaires to collect data. A total of 748 urban middle school teachers were selected as research participants. A total of 652 valid questionnaires were recovered, which generated an effective recovery rate of 87.17% among 59 urban middle schools. The results for teaching attitudes, environmental awareness, and food awareness are important. For teaching knowledge, teachers’ professional knowledge, class management knowledge, and academic research knowledge are significant. They will facilitate the development of school food education. Despite the limitations, the study can provide teachers with multiple technologies to fulfill food education through teaching interventions.

The article presents the results of participation of the Tula State Lev Tolstoy Pedagogical University in the second and third stages of approbation of the basic professional educational program in terms of education bachelor degree with the direction: 44.03.05 "Pedagogical education (with two profiles of preparation)", profiles of preparation: Primary education, Foreign language; Primary education, Informatics. This project was implemented on the basis of an agreement on network interaction concluded with MSUPE. Approbation was attended by students 4 and 5 courses. The content, the course of implementation and the main results that were achieved by the students in the course of approbation and the formation of their professional subjectness were analyzed. The results of the pilot approbation of the toolkit of independent evaluation of the formation of the general professional competencies of students are also considered. The difficulties that were discovered during the practice process were classified. The project was tested within the framework of the Federal target program of education development for 2016–2020.

The teaching profession in England and Wales has been experiencing a steady decline in its workforce, with a significant number of teachers making the decision to move abroad and teach in international schools. Teachers cite working conditions, institutional pressures and pay and conditions at home as reasons to seek employment elsewhere. Meanwhile, exploring teachers’ experiences of teaching abroad is a relatively new area of research. The growth of international schools from 1964, when there were only around 50 such schools, to 2017, with over 8,000 international schools and some 420,000 teachers, indicates a need to understand teachers’ personal and professional experiences as they navigate these different contexts. This research presents a small case study of how autoethnography can be used as a methodological tool to support international teachers in revealing changes in their teacher identity, as well as promoting the development of their sense of self-efficacy within different sociocultural school contexts. Through Julia Sahling’s autoethnographic study, this paper explores how teachers may be able to actively engage in critical reflective practice in order better to understand these dynamic transitions, as well as the implications of teaching in multiple international contexts.

Despite the fact that they are all unique, rural school districts/divisions (in Canada and elsewhere) face similar challenges when it comes to providing effective professional development (PD) for teachers. Issues related to funding, geography, staffing, and contextual differences impact the availability of PD opportunities for educators in rural contexts; however, rural school divisions possess many strengths from which solutions to these challenges might be fashioned. The question of how rural divisions might construct local teacher PD models that draw on local strengths, mitigate local challenges, and support teacher professional growth is critical to the provision of quality education for rural students. Through a single-case study design, this study examined the effectiveness of a rural initiative, the Numeracy Cohort, that was locally constructed to mitigate challenges and improve mathematics instruction and student numeracy outcomes in a school division in Manitoba, Canada. Findings from the study suggest that (a) the Numeracy Cohort model was effective in accommodating contextual differences and mitigating challenges related to funding, geography and staffing through several promising practices; (b) the PD provided to teachers was effective in supporting teacher professional growth in several ways; (c) attention to the multiple nested and dynamic contexts in which teachers worked was an important and effective element of the model; (d) fostering social interaction (among teachers and with more competent others) was important for teacher learning; and (e) finding ways to foster human engagement through mediating tools for learning (e.g., dialogue, reflection, and action research) was critical to the model’s success.

Distance education is essentially the basis for the development of educational institutions that provide innovative services, which cannot be obtained elsewhere. It is believed that distance education is a substitute for the traditional as part of simplifying and cheapening the learning process. At the same time, the leading global trends suggest the need for the development of elements of self-education and the expansion of the geographical nature of educational offers. The relevance of the study is that it is necessary to distinguish between the use of distance education methods in the traditional sphere and the sphere of training professionals. The paper presents the concept of the need to integrate elements of distance education in the process of preparing university teachers. The authors believe that teachers in drawing up courses and applying learning technologies use the same techniques as in distance learning. Therefore, the use of distance learning technologies can be shown as the basis for the development of advanced training programs and additional professional education. The authors proposed a study on the need and sufficiency of the use of distance education technologies and the possibilities for their integration into the process of postgraduate education. The practical significance of the work is determined by the fact that the possibilities of self-development of teachers are fully disclosed, not only as subjects of the educational process but also as subjects of training.

In the United States, the population of students classified as English Language Learners (ELLs) in K-12 education has increased in recent decades. As a result, teachers outside of specialized linguistic courses have needed to adapt their instruction to better meet the needs of these students. This exploratory study investigates potential indicators of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) teachers’ preparedness to work with ELLs, in comparison with the rates of ELLs in STEM courses. Data for this study were obtained from the national restricted-access datasets of the 2007-2008 and 2011-2012 School and Staffing Survey (SASS) Teacher Questionnaire (TQ). STEM teachers’ participation in ELL-focused professional development activities, credentialing related to ELLs, and ELL populations in STEM teachers’ courses were analyzed to quantify changes in these measures over time and among the STEM disciplines. Regional analysis of STEM teacher populations and ELL populations in STEM classes was also conducted to examine how these factors differed across the United States. Analyses of these data indicated increases in the percentage of STEM teachers who have ELLs in their service loads and in the average number of ELLs in teacher service loads; these trends were present in all U.S. regions and in all STEM disciplines. However, the total number of STEM teachers who participated in ELL-focused professional development activities increased only slightly over the four-year span. To effectively teach the growing ELL student population, STEM teachers must develop the skills and approaches necessary to educate and engage these students.

School peer reviews are increasingly part of the evaluation and school improvement landscape for school leaders and teachers in a number of countries. This article describes the growth of peer review, particularly in England, and its emergence elsewhere (for example, Australia, across Europe and in Chile). While these approaches provide a useful form of professional and moral accountability, this article identifies ways in which they could go further to empower practitioners through the use of an enquiry approach, combining formal academic knowledge with practitioner knowledge and school-based data. The term collaborative peer enquiry (CPE) is suggested as a way to explore this potential. The article sets out a typology of action research as a form of professional learning (type 1), practical philosophy (type 2) or as a form of critical social science (type 3). Four examples are given of different peer review models, two of them CPE approaches, and these are analysed using the above typology. A distinction is made between some peer review models that mimic external inspections and err towards self-policing, and others that encourage open enquiry and learning. In particular, the CPE models show the potential as forms of type 2 and type 3 action research. The role of peer review and CPE in the accountability system, in leadership development, and challenges for these models are explored in the discussion.

Purpose Namibian principals are usually placed in leadership positions without orientation and are found to lack skills to supervise teachers in delivering instruction using the English language. Studies conducted elsewhere in the world found that effective school leadership is needed for the success of professional development programmes. The purpose of this paper is to explore principals’ lived experiences with regard to their roles in the implementation of the English Language Proficiency Programme (ELPP). Design/methodology/approach This paper followed a qualitative inquiry with multiple case study designs to explore principals’ lived experiences during the implementation of the ELPP. Ten schools were selected for the analysis, two from each of the five regions. The schools were selected on the basis of remoteness, the total number of teachers who participated in the ELPP, school phases (i.e. primary and combined) and pre-test scores. Principals were interviewed using exploratory open-ended questions, and data analysis produced five categories under which the results were presented. Findings The findings indicate that principals applied their individual logic to accommodate and implement the programme. They applied their individual productive leadership habitus to contextualise ELPP activities to ease their workload and appear corporative. Principals had significant influence on teacher learning and ensured successful implementation of a ministerial programme. Moreover, their leadership skills influenced the ways in which teachers received instruction and created a conducive learning environment. Owing to principals’ administrative, instructional and transformational leadership, many teachers participated and transcended upward and some were declared proficient in English. Research limitations/implications This study research the effectiveness of leadership regarding English professional development programmes in achieving goals, explore power relations between school principals and education officials when developing and implementing professional development programmes and establish more efficient ways of providing a better leadership model for professional development programmes to achieve goals. Practical implications This paper was limited to a few principals at rural schools in selected regions, therefore findings could not be generalised. Social implications There is a need for creating opportunities for interactions among all stakeholders who are involved in the development and implementation of English proficiency programmes and to build power relations and work as a team to benefit schools. In order to enhance programme implementation and improve learning outcomes, there is also a need to provide feedback at intervals and find solutions to challenges as a team. Originality/value Placing principals in situations without orientation triggered the need for specific leadership logic and particularities to be applied in a context for the success of the programme, which resulted in participation of more teachers in the ELPP. They applied their particularities and productive habitus through administrative, instructional and transformational leadership to enhance learning. Principals appointed English language teachers to instruct and mentor others, and consequently enabled some principals and teachers to exit the programme. Principals achieved these short wins upon realising that one has to cooperate with the authority to ensure achieving desired outcomes.

Combining secondary data from the National Center for Education Statistics National Teacher Principal Survey (NTPS) and Common Core of Data (CCD), this exploratory study examined the distribution of teacher race/ethnicity across the race/ethnicity of the schools in which they work and the extent that teacher and school race/ethnicity was associated with occupational stress. Findings indicate that teachers are more likely to work in schools with higher concentrations of students who match their own race/ethnicity. Both teacher and school race/ethnicity were unique predictors of a teacher being classified as at-risk for stress. Additional analyses suggested that teachers’ reported race/ethnicity significantly moderated the school effect association with stress risk. These findings have policy implications for how school workplace surveys are used as well as staffing and professional development considerations.

English learners are entitled to participate meaningfully and equally in educational programs. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) includes provisions to ensure success for all students, including English learners. However, the federal government does not prescribe specifically how states should meet these provisions; instead, it is the responsibility of states to develop respective plans of action. This decentralization means that states play a primary role in setting policy for teacher credentialing. In this paper, we address the following question: Do state education agencies effectively prepare teachers of ELs? We reviewed the teacher credentialing requirements to teach classified English learners in bilingual education, English language development, and sheltered English immersion settings, as well as the professional teaching standards for reference to culturally and linguistically diverse learners across the 50 states and the District of Columbia. We found inconsistencies across the US with regard to the education of classified English learners and document wide variation in teacher certification for working with English learners. We highlight implications for policy and teacher preparation.

The study highlights one of the main aspects of pedagogical research on the development of assessment competence of primary school teachers. To train teachers in the system of postgraduate pedagogical education, it is necessary to build a modern model as a holistic pedagogical process, which would be based on the leading traditions of pedagogy and modern pedagogical innovations and help teachers develop readiness to evaluate the results of primary school students in professional activities. The purpose of this study is to build a conceptual model for the development of assessment competence of primary school teachers in the system of postgraduate education. Methodological approaches used by the author for the study: systemic, activity, andragogical, competencebased, acmeological, communicative, and synergetic. The theoretical aspect of the development of teachers' assessment competence is analysed, the existing views of scientists on the outlined problem are classified. The essence of the concept of modelling as a process of construction and research of models is determined. The purpose, tasks, functions, principles, components of modelling are identified. The essence and content of the assessment competence of a primary school teacher are considered, its main components, criteria, indicators, and levels of development are singled out. The characteristic of the model of development of assessing competence of primary school teachers in the system of postgraduate education developed by the author is presented, its conceptual and methodological bases are identified. The methodological basis for building the model is presented in the form of an analysis of the leading provisions – the principles formulated based on previous results of the study conducted by the author. The principles and forms of education, pedagogical conditions are described, the main functional and structural components of the model are identified. The creation of the model has become an effective means of testing the effectiveness of pedagogical conditions, through the implementation of which a high or medium level of assessment competence of primary school teachers has been achieved. The proposed method is adapted for use in institutions of postgraduate pedagogical education

This article describes one aspect of Dr N. R. Madhava Menon’s lifelong commitment to bringing ‘socially relevant legal education’ to India and around the world, whereby lawyers would be trained not just in the rules of law but also in the social and ethical responsibilities of lawyers to the society at large. Over the course of more than 25 years, the author collaborated with Dr Menon in training of law teachers in clinical methods and, in particular, in the incorporation of social justice into law school clinical and legal aid programs. A key element of their collaboration was the development of the concept of a clinical method for training clinical law teachers that could be used in training-of-trainers (TOT) workshops throughout the world, including those run by national, regional, and international clinical organizations. The result was a model for the training of clinical law teachers based on what the author and Dr Menon described elsewhere as three defining qualities of the global clinical movement: Its professional educational mission, its methodology, and its commitment to reforming legal education by reorienting it toward educating lawyers for social justice. The article concludes with a description of their model that emphasizes the setting for the training, preparing the trainee teachers for the training, the use of training by doing, and the importance of reflection and critique in the successful generalization of students’ clinical learning.

Recently, there has been much talk about how the humanities and social sciences are losing their importance and are not necessary for the state. There is no doubt that under current globalization conditions there are more opportunities for technological, physical and biomedical sciences to establish themselves in Europe and elsewhere than the humanities. However, one should not forget that the development of a humanitarian culture has been and will be one of the most important state objectives when it comes to education. When formulating the objectives of the education reform, one of the most important objectives was to make students realize that they are not only the users, but also the creators of their native culture and that they are responsible for the development and preservation of culture. Meilė Lukšienė, the main proponent of the education reform, emphasized cultural integrity and was against a mosaic culture, where a person who receives a lot of information is unable to cope with it and build the overall picture. It is no coincidence that the National School Concept states that “the primary and essential condition for the development of human spiritual life is the native language. It is the major attribute of national and cultural identity and the expression of the national culture”. In her works, M. Lukšienė, one of the authors of the National School Concept, maintained that the object of education in the national school is “the person in the cultural context. It is impossible to educate a person in isolation, without regard to the needs of the specific nation and its culture”. When we educate a young person at general education schools, we build a foundation for the formation of his self-esteem and develop his respect for the nation, state, language, history and culture. One of the most important subjects with which to develop and educate this is the native language and literature. This subject shapes the values of a young person and confers humanism on the entire educational process. Humanization of the educational content and particularly the native language have a significant effect on a person’s development. Therefore the approach and attitudes of future native language teachers are certainly important. The paradigm of liberal education is entering general education schools in Lithuania, so the change of the teacher training paradigm is extremely important. The current teacher training paradigm still focuses on the training of subject teachers. Teacher training, very much like all education, is more conservative than innovative. Subject-oriented teacher training is still (or even) preferred by general education schools, so change in the higher education system is even slower. However, it is likely that Lithuanian language teachers could be the ones closer to the liberal education paradigm. This article provides a survey of the approach of future teachers towards their professional activity, premises of pedagogical activities that they consider important and the expectations of current Lithuanian language teachers from students/future teachers. The aim of this article is to analyze the approach of future Lithuanian language and literature teachers towards their professional activity and to discuss the teachers’ pedagogical expectations within the context of the liberal education paradigm. The following are the objectives of the research: 1) to discuss the most important premises of pedagogical activities which are important for future Lithuanian language and literature teachers; 2) to clarify essential aspects of the approach of future Lithuanian language and literature teachers towards their professional activity; and 3) to present the expectations of current Lithuanian language and literature teachers within the context of the liberal education paradigm. The research problem of the article is whether students and working teachers prefer the provisions of the liberal education paradigm. Research methods: analysis of research literature, analytical descriptive survey of students using a questionnaire, questionnaire data analysis, and teacher survey.

Drawing on case study evidence, this article explores the development of compulsory courses in a China’s high-level comprehensive university, which has achieved good results in the procedure of Quality Assessment of Undergraduate Education (QAUE) and China Discipline Ranking (CDR) issued by Ministry of Education (MOE). The general undergraduate majors of this university are classified into 5 categories, namely, journalism and communication, economics and management, science and engineering, foreign language and literature, humanities and social science. The research scope is from grade 2007 to 2017, 2007 fall to 2018 spring semester, respectively. According to the requirements of MOE, the compulsory courses are divided into two parts: public and professional. The public part mainly refers to the courses of physical education, ideological and political and elementary computer science, while the professional part is mostly relevant to the courses associate with the major. The laws of two parts are studied by utilizing the features of course name, course ID, credits and appropriate semester. The conditions of characteristic development, the workload of teachers and students and the interdisciplinary platform, which are universal in Chinese Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), are mentioned.

The combination of innovation and entrepreneurship education with administrative management can improve professional innovation ability and development thinking of students, and improve the quality of talent training. Based on the empirical analysis of six colleges in Conghua, Guangzhou, this paper analyzed the current problems in the integration of innovation and entrepreneurship education and administrative management in universities. Combined with survey and interview data and materials, this paper studied the relationship between innovation and entrepreneurship education and administrative management from the perspectives of students and teachers, summarized and classified the integrated characteristics of the surveyed colleges. It also proposed a four-in-one “1+4” integration circle of “teacher-company-university-society”, which centered on students, so as to escort the practice and guarantee of the two systems, and promote the high integration of innovation and entrepreneurship education and management majors in colleges.

Aim/Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore language teachers’ online engagement during the Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia. Four questions guided the inquiry in this study: 1) To what extent did teachers engage in online learning during the Covid-19 pandemic? 2) What challenges did teachers encounter while engaging in online learning during the Covid-19 crisis? 3) How has the suspension of face-to-face classroom meetings changed teachers’ practices? and 4) What were their hopes for the future of education in their respective regions?v Background: The sudden learn-from-home mode enacted since 24 March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic has forced all schools to shift into online learning with no or little preparation in terms of internet access, teacher capacity, and student-parent readiness. All in all, the pandemic disruption has shed light on the widening digital divide that has serious implications for the human capital development in Indonesia Methodology: This case study involved 18 teachers from four regions in Indonesia. Data were collected through an online survey, weekly reflections, and interviews with the teachers. A group interview with five students for each of the 18 teachers was used as triangulation. To probe more deeply into a representative sample for a variety of attributes, the researchers then focused on four teachers for a more in-depth analysis. Contribution: Knowledge of the impacting factors on online learning engagement can aid in resolving the issues and providing equal opportunities for all students. This study highlighted that teachers in remote regions would need a more top-down intervention from education authorities and offered two recommendations to the government to overcome the widening digital divide as amplified by the current school suspension. This study presents interesting results pertaining to online learning engagement during the Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia. Insights gained in this study would contribute to the perspective on the challenges and dilemmas faced by educators and students elsewhere while engaging in online learning. Findings: This study found an interplay of five related factors of online learning processes against five levels of engagement. Those five factors are learners, teachers’ prior exposure to online learning, technological knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and the support system. Teachers in this study were still struggling to enhance the quality of online learning engagement. Nevertheless, given the rising awareness of the inadequacy of their online learning delivery and a renewed sense of commitment, these teachers had high hopes that they would be able to enhance their competence and improve their professional practices. Recommendations for Practitioners: This study found most teacher participants have, within a short period, enhanced their technological knowledge (TK) regardless of their prior exposure to technology. Teachers can be encouraged to integrate their technological knowledge with pedagogical and content knowledge to develop their technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) by participating in the government program for teacher professional development. Recommendation for Researchers: This study involves only language teachers; therefore, future researchers are invited to involve non-language teachers so that more conclusive findings can be obtained. Impact on Society: Knowledge of the impacting factors on online learning engagement can aid in resolving the issues and providing equal opportunities for all students. More importantly, the lessons learned should enlighten educators that technology integration into sound pedagogy would transform current practices into quality learning. Future Research: Issues related to technology integration in education can still be unearthed especially because the budding insights of online learning will steadily be developing in post-pandemic realm, particularly in Indonesia.

Introduction. The article analyzes the role of a particular teacher in the formation of professional identity for future teachers - students of a pedagogical university. Recent scientific studies showed that the idea of a “perfect teacher” formed at school is often stable and has negative impact on the professional development and separation of experience from the prospects of professional growth. However, most studies analyze the image of the abstract "ideal teacher" without reference to a particular person, who influenced the choice of profession and general professional guidelines of the future teacher.Materials and Methods. In the study, narratives of students of Mini University were decomposed. The narratives were completed over a questionnaire as a part of a professional competition "Best Teacher". The characteristics of the best teacher from the narratives were classified according to the system proposed in the monograph “Portrait of a teacher”.Results. The data obtained showed that for the most students important characteristics are personality characteristics that influence communication with students: emotional (43%) and communicative (23%). In second place is a group of teacher’s abilities related to the depth of his knowledge, the need to expand his knowledge and practical application in solving pedagogical problems (cognitive (12%) and practical (14%) abilities), and in the third - axiological abilities of a teacher (8% ) related to values and civic position. Summarizing all the characteristics of the best teachers identified in narratives, we can conclude that for students participating in the survey, an important role is played by emotional informal contact with the teacher: responsiveness and openness, willingness to help and answer questions, creating motivation for learning, self-education and finding solutions as well as dedication to their work, love for the subject and for children, enthusiasm and creativity in work, achievement by students of high results in final exams and various competitions, work experience.Discussion and Conclusions. The data from the narratives about the best teacher reflect a certain image of the ideal teacher, intuitively formed during school education when observing the situation “from the inside”. It is curious that these ideas fully correspond to the characteristics of successful teachers defined by J. Hattie in his meta-study. In the scientific work of the learning situation “from the outside”, J. Hattie found that the maximum success is achieved by teachers who differ in communicative, emotional and active abilities in the structure of pedagogical intelligence, first of all: 1) using a variety of methods and technologies in the classroom; 2) making high demands on students; 3) building a positive relationship between teacher and student. This allows us to determine the role of the school teacher in identifying the pedagogical giftedness of future teachers and in choosing of the teaching profession.

Mathematical tasks can be classified in a number of ways. While Galbraith & Haines (2001), for example, distinguish among mechanical, interpretative and constructive tasks, Smith et at. (1996) divide tasks into the following three categories: (A) factual knowledge, comprehension and routine use of procedures; (B) information transfer and application in new situations; and (C) identifying and interpreting; implications, conjectures and comparisons and evaluation. Having briefly summarized these and some other mathematical tasks classifications, this paper presents and critically examines the TIMSS 2003 mathematics cognitive domains. As a part of the TIMSS 2003 project these cognitive domains - knowing facts and roles, vising concepts, solving routine problems, and reasoning - were operationalized for the content domain of algebra in grade 8 and the paper gives a sample of the developed tasks that are fully available on the Internet (see www.matf.bg.ac.yu/cdjk/drafl2.pdfanA www.matf.bg.ac.yn/cdjk/yu20item.pdf). Through the examination and operationalization of the TIMSS assessment framework several implications for research and professional development of mathematics teachers have been realized. The article presents three of them dealing with an elaborated item classification, its empirical validation and a didactical preparation of teachers including operationalizations of the chosen task classification/taxonomy.

The article highlights the models of inclusive education of Italy, Germany, Sweden, Norway, and Great Britain. Inclusion models can be classified into three basic ones, according to the ratio of the number of primary school-aged children at general and specialized schools, namely: full inclusion, partial inclusion with a predominance of pupils at general schools, partial inclusion with a predominance of pupils at specialized schools. Full inclusion is present in Italy and Norway, partial inclusion with a predominance of students at specialized schools is observed in Sweden (88.40%), partial inclusion with a predominance of students at general schools is present in Germany and the UK.Models of inclusion differ on the following aspects: legal regulation, funding and amounts of financing for teachers’ trainings, initial and ongoing teachers’ training, an approach to the organization of inclusive education (partnership, peer-to-peer approach, centralized, decentralized), the practice of exchanging experiences of inclusion’s organization within the country, the ratio of the number of primary school-aged children at general and specialized schools. The factors specified determine the role of teachers in the organization of inclusive education of primary school pupils. In countries, support and assistance of teachers is provided at different institutional levels: in Germany – through the center for psychological and pedagogical support, inclusion support services; in Great Britain – by assistants; in Italy – by consultants, healthcare service professionals; in Sweden – through resource centers; in Norway – through state centers. Support of teachers’ professional development throughout life and teachers’ financial motivation have been introduced in the countries; thus, these measures have a positive effect on the integration of primary school pupils in the society.

It is no secret that most health professionals, after postgraduation, aim to secure an academic position in a teaching institute due to various personal and/or professional preferences. Personal interest in teaching, inspirational figure/ role model-driven career selection, fixed working hours, financial rewarding, societal respect, and relatively easier career path are some of the prominent motives for health professionals to join academia (Huda & Yousuf, 2006). Indeed, it is a personal choice of a health professional should he/she opt for an academic career path. However, a serious question to ask oneself is: Am I prepared and ready for this challenging role? As Adam Urbanski once said, “Anybody who believes that all you have to do to be a good teacher is to love to teach also has to believe that all you have to do to become a good surgeon is to love to cut.” (1946 - American Federation of Teachers) Unfortunately, most (if not all) postgraduate programs in Pakistan are designed in such a way that they focus more on the core specialty and tend not to provide dedicated training on how to conduct evidence-based teaching practices. Evidence-based teaching refers to a process in which teachers use findings of empirical and concrete research evidence to inform their teaching practices (Thomas & Bussières, 2021). This process of applying research to practice is not haphazard but systematic, and it typically follows five essential steps: ask, acquire, appraise, apply, assess. Ask refers to asking a question related to a teaching problem; acquire refers to searching and retrieving the literature evidence; appraise refers to critically appraising the quality of the acquired evidence; apply refers to extracting valid and reliable findings from the literature and applying to own teaching setting; and assess refers to assessing whether or not the application of evidence to one’s teaching helped solve the problem (Thomas et al., 2011). As most novice teachers in our education system lack an understanding of educational theory or pedagogical practices, they learn on the job and use the hit and trial method to improve their teaching practices (Iqbal et al., 2020). Consequently, these health professionals cum teachers often use those teaching strategies that are not supported by evidence to positively influence student learning. Some of the known ill-informed teaching strategies include didactic lectures, teacher-dominated small group learning, borrowed teaching strategies from foreign education systems, and misuse of learning styles in instruction. These teaching malpractices result in wastage of limited educational resources, student demotivation, failure to achieve curricular goals, and a poor reflection on the personal and institutional portfolio. More importantly, it affects the overall healthcare system as these teachers are responsible for producing safe and high-quality healthcare providers for tomorrow. As of Ernest Leroy, “A poor surgeon hurts 1 person at a time, but a poor teacher hurts 130 (students) and consequently hundreds of patients”. What are the Potential Solutions? Here one wonders that what could be the possible solutions to this gruesome problem. Below, I describe some solutions that can be broadly classified into three domains. Responsibilities of Teachers: First of all, the health professionals assuming teaching roles should consume their time, efforts, and available resources to acquire pedagogical competence through formal and structured training so that they can practice evidence-based teaching. Moreover, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, many international Universities are now offering virtual professional development courses. The teachers could use these opportunities to develop their knowledge and skills in educational theory and practice. Second, they should regularly consult literature evidence to learn and incorporate teaching strategies in instruction that are known to support knowledge retention and schema formation. Some of these strategies are: assessing prior knowledge and linking new information to it, summarizing information at the end of educational event, providing cognitive or hands-on rehearsal opportunities, providing constructive feedback on learning, nurturing learners’ metacognition et cetera. Third, they should align instructional methods to the desired curricular outcomes. For instance, if a final year medical student is expected to skillfully examine, diagnose and manage a patient with diabetes then the teaching approaches should be focused more on developing their cognitive and psychomotor skills through clinical or simulation-based teaching instead of imparting cognitive knowledge through didactic lectures. Finally, they should motivate students to be independent and self-directed learners and advocate the use of evidence-based learning strategies that can help in their learning, such as, peer-assisted learning, near-peer tutoring, collaborative learning, cognitive rehearsals, et cetera. Responsibilities of Institutions: Next to teachers, the onus to ensure evidence-based teaching is insinuated onto the institutions. The health professional institutes should provide sufficient continuous professional development opportunities to their teaching staff. In fact, it should be mandatory for the faculty to attend these professional development activities to polish their teaching skillset. Moreover, the planners of faculty evelopment activities should not entirely rely upon the participants’ feedback or self-reported change. They should incorporate certain evaluation methods to observe whether or not these activities helped 10HPEJ 2020 VOL 3, ISSUE. 2 bring the desired improvement in teaching practices. Some of the best methods to observe the change include peer evaluation, student feedback, graded assignments et cetera. More recently, entrustable professional activities (EPAs) have been advocated as a reliable tool to observe, evaluate and certify teaching proficiency (Iqbal & Al-Eraky, 2019). Responsibilities of Institutions: Finally, the national regularity bodies, such as, Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) and the Higher Education Commission (HEC) should devise minimum standards for health professionals, in addition to their core specialty, who wish to choose an academic career. A postgraduate qualification in the respective specialty is certainly not sufficient to warrant the teaching proficiency of the aspirants. A basic qualification in education should be a prerequisite to secure a teaching position in health professional colleges. Additionally, it is also the responsibility of these regulatory bodies to standardize the professional development programs across Pakistan to maintain quality. Lastly, the regulatory bodies should also come up with a plan to regulate the certification of the faculty by legitimizing a continuous professional development framework. Sethi and Wajid (2020) have suggested a re-evaluation of professional growth through documentation of continuous professional development activities instead of renewing the registration by mere payment of the prescribed fee. Their recommendation is strongly supported by growing evidence which suggests that a decline in competence over time is very much possible if the skillset is not regularly practiced and polished through continuous professional development (Steinert et al., 2016). This editorial is an appeal to the teachers, educators, administrators, and policymakers to support evidence-based teaching practices in academia to ensure meaningful and effective education. It is about time that individuals, institutions, and regulatory bodies start paying attention to evidence-based teaching so that a resource strained education and healthcare system of Pakistan could be streamlined.

The main aim of this research was to determine the roles of interest and pressure groups in the development of sustainable educational policies in Turkey. To that end, the research was conducted with a qualitative research design. The data were gathered by using a semi-structured interview technique and analyzed with content analysis technique. For this purpose, seven teachers and six school principals determined with a maximum variation sampling technique were interviewed. Results of this research reveal that, in general, interest and pressure groups were classified into three categories as: business and self-interest groups, professional groups and identity groups. When the development of educational policy in Turkey is concerned, it was indicated that especially self-interest groups have some political agendas, and they provide support and work with the government closely in order to realize their political agendas and their own memebers’ interests. It was also remarked that these groups are necessary and have influences on the development of sustainable educational policies and leadership. It can be recommended that although interest and pressure groups are essential in the current system, the effects of these groups should be limited for the sake of educational and scientific principles.

Secondary or high school (HS) educational professionals expressed concerns about dealing with environmental and occupational health and safety protocols due to COVID-19. Concerns related to fall 2020 school re-opening and getting back into in-person teaching—whether full-time, part-time or some other approved hybrid model—plus ongoing uncertainty with how the state and federal government will be handling matters about mandates for virtual learning, rapid testing, vaccine distribution, etc. These concerns were related to both their experience as educational professionals and genuine interest in personal and student well-being. This study was a cross-sectional online survey in early fall from mid-September–early October 2020. Of a possible maximum participation of 740 New Jersey (NJ) supervisory-level HS teachers and administrators (e.g., department chairs, district and school principals), 100 confirmed unique respondents (13.5%) consented and completed the survey. Of 100 experienced (mean 18 years teaching) participants, 70% responded to the gender identity question (overall, 61% female, 39% male; by NJ region, gender ratios were similar). There were statistically significant differences (using Fischer’s exact test) between NJ regions regarding provision of online counseling and support services for teachers (p < 0.001); for resources and equipment for teachers to mediate online learning (p = 0.02); for assistive video technology tools (p = 0.03) and accessibility to structured online learning and professional development (p = 0.002); concerning learning aids to engage students in online instruction, online counseling, and support services for students and their families (p = 0.006); appropriate protocol is clean and disinfect areas used by a person with COVID-19 (p = 0.002); and, immediately separate staff and students who screen positive for COVID-19 (p = 0.03). There were few statistical differences by gender. This study reported what participants wanted regarding the development of future policies then implemented as reopening practices. Data can inform recommendations in NJ and elsewhere at federal, state, and local levels. Data provide new insights and valuable information to inform the consideration of acceptability of various policy measures among HS education professionals.

ResumoCom o intuito de identificar aproximações com a pesquisa intitulada que está sendo desenvolvida por uma aluna no Doutorado em Ensino, foi realizado um levantamento bibliográfico para conhecer que tipos de estudos estão sendo efetivados com temas relacionados a esta investigação. Com o objetivo realizar uma revisão sistemática em pesquisas que descrevem intervenções com o foco na “formação de professores”, “desenvolvimento profissional”, de modo a identificar como essa associação tem sido tratada na literatura Realizou-se uma busca nas revistas classificadas com A1 no Portal de periódicos da Capes no período de 2013 a 2018, selecionando os títulos que se aproximavam com os temas discutidos nesta pesquisa: “formação de professores” e “desenvolvimento profissional”. Com a análise dos artigos, percebeu-se a necessidade de pesquisas com período maior de formação, buscando formar um professor reflexivo, preocupado em aprimorar sua prática pedagógica, a importância da participação do grupo de professores, a troca e compartilhamento de ideias e atividades, além de alguns apontamentos como em relação a durante dos momentos de formação que podem ser importantes para a constituição de uma formação continuada que busca o desenvolvimento dos professores participantes. Palavras-chave: Desenvolvimento Profissional. Formação de Professores. Prática Pedagógica. Estudo Bibliográfico. Abstract: In order to identify similarities with the research entitled that is being developed by a student in the Doctorate in Teaching, a bibliographic survey was carried out to find out what types of studies are being carried out with themes related to this investigation. In order to carry out a systematic review of research that describes interventions with a focus on "teacher training", "professional development", in order to identify how this association has been treated in the literature. A search was made in journals classified with A1 in the Capes journals portal from 2013 to 2018, selecting the titles that approached the topics discussed in this research: “teacher training” and “professional development”. With the analysis of the articles, there was a need for research with a longer period of training, seeking to train a reflective teacher, concerned with improving his pedagogical practice, the importance of the participation of the group of teachers, the exchange and sharing of ideas and activities, in addition to some notes such as in relation to during the training moments that may be important for the constitution of a continuing education that seeks the development of the participating teachers. Keywords: Professional Development. Teacher Training. Pedagogical Practice. Bibliographic Study.

Polytechnic graduates are required to have applied skills as well as communication skills in English. In most of the polytechnics in Indonesia, English courses are served as compulsory courses for students and in some institutions language laboratories are established in order to support their students. To run an effective language laboratory there are, at least four aspects that need to be considered, namely lab facilities, standard operating rules, students, and lab coordinators. Of all the agents, lab coordinators are classified as internal factors that can easily be empowered by the institutions in the management of the language lab. This paper aims to discuss leadership and management roles in improving an English Language Laboratory. The discussions are based on literature reviews, personal experiences and observations gained by the author whilst working at Politeknik Negeri Lhokseumawe for the last decade plus perceptions of teachers and administrators who have worked in the lab. Regarding the leadership and management in the language laboratory there are four items that should be improved: management of leadership, professional development, rewards, and the concept of educational management.

We raise the problem of preventing deviant behavior of students in secondary professional educational organizations. The relevance of the research topic is due to the need to resolve the contradiction between the society’s need for training healthy specialists in physical, mental and moral aspects and the high level of deviant prevalence among adolescents and students, as well as insufficient study of the potential of physical and recreational activities as a way to prevent students’ deviant behavior. The purpose of the study is the justification of the prevention system of deviant behavior of students in secondary professional educational institutions using means of physical recreation. We use theoretical and empirical research methods, the leading place among which is occupied by the analysis of the state of the problem in pedagogical theory and practice, as well as a pedagogical experiment. It is established that the proposed system should include tar-geted, substantive, operational, criteria and evaluative, resultative components and be implemented with the inclusion of the main participants in the educational process. All forms of motor activity of students in the educational process, contributing to the constructive development of their personality, were classified as means of physical recreation. A significant place in the developed system is reserved for training complexes, differentially used depending on the level of manifestation of students’ deviation. It is proved that the effectiveness of the prevention system of deviant behavior of students in secondary vocational educational institutions using means of physical recreation is achieved by implementing a set of pedagogical conditions: organizational, stimulating, methodic and the conditions of the theoretical, psychological and technological preparedness of teachers for this kind of activity.

At the University of Maine, middle and high school science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers observed 51 STEM courses across 13 different departments and collected information on the active-engagement nature of instruction. The results of these observations show that faculty members teaching STEM courses cannot simply be classified into two groups, traditional lecturers or instructors who teach in a highly interactive manner, but instead exhibit a continuum of instructional behaviors between these two classifications. In addition, the observation data reveal that student behavior differs greatly in classes with varied levels of lecture. Although faculty members who teach large-enrollment courses are more likely to lecture, we also identified instructors of several large courses using interactive teaching methods. Observed faculty members were also asked to complete a survey about how often they use specific teaching practices, and we find that faculty members are generally self-aware of their own practices. Taken together, these findings provide comprehensive information about the range of STEM teaching practices at a campus-wide level and how such information can be used to design targeted professional development for faculty.

The traditional basketball teaching mode cannot meet the needs of students for the basic cooperation of basketball tactics. Therefore, a basic cooperation teaching system of basketball tactics based on artificial neural network is studied and designed. The system has a professional basketball game video tactical learning module. The events in the basketball game video are classified through a convolutional neural network and combined with the explanation of teachers to make the students have an intuitive understanding of the basic cooperation of basketball tactics and then design the basketball game module based on a BP neural network to provide students with an online basketball tactics training platform. Finally, the teacher scores the performance of the actual on-site training students in the basic cooperation of basketball tactics through the tactical scoring module on the system. The results show that after the introduction of global and collective motion patterns, the classification accuracy of the convolutional neural network is improved by 22.48%, which has significant optimization. The average accuracy of basketball game video event classification is 62.35%, and the accuracy of snatch event classification is improved to 95.28%. The recognition rate of the BP neural network combined with momentum gradient descent method is 75%, the number of weight adjustment is less, and the memory is small while ensuring fast running speed. Students who accept the basic basketball tactics cooperation teaching system based on the artificial neural network for basketball teaching have an overall score of 27.99 ± 2.11 points The overall score of exchange defense cooperation was 24.12 ± 2.03, which was higher than that of the control group. The above results show that the basketball tactical basic cooperation teaching system based on the artificial neural network has a good teaching effect in improving students’ basketball tactical basic cooperation ability.

This research aims to develop teaching practice program model for mechanical engineering education teacher trainees of State University of Surabaya. This research applied research and development (R & D) design by Borg & Gall in ten steps which are classified into two stages: research and data collection and product development. The research and data collection were conducted by applying qualitative approach through observation, interview, documentation on seven State ‘LPTK’, education office, teacher profession association, teaching practice student, teaching practice supervising lecturer, headmaster, and teacher tutor. The data analysis in this stage was conducted based on the technique developed by Miles and Huberman. Data validity was tested with data triangulation using double sources as comparison. The product development stage included model pre-design making, introductory test, model revision, model test, model revision, field test, and final model revision. First stage model test was conducted in mechanical engineering department with three vocational schools. The second stage model test was conducted in mechanical engineering department with six vocational schools. The last is dissemination stage in the form of spreading the model yielded from the product development to professionals, authorities, and policy makers. The result at this research is a teaching practice model called “KPrIP2” which consists of four main product components. “K” means partnership between Mechanical Engineering Department of State University of Surabaya and the education office of province/ regency/city in continuous planning, action, and evaluation. “Pr” means pre-teaching practice in which the students do introductory activities in vocational schools to observe and coordinate with the school’s department to determine who will be the teacher tutor and what material/subject to be used in the teaching practice II. “I” means that all pre-teaching practice activities, starting from classroom peer-teaching, laboratory peer-teaching, microteaching, and real teaching in vocational school, are conducted individually and independently. “P2” means that teaching service activities must be supervised by competent/professional advisors, i.e. who have the same pedagogical and major background with the students who do the teaching practice and play role as the supervising lecturer of teaching practice I which is continued to be the advisor in teaching practice II. Teaching practice model “KPrIP2” is claimed to be effective to reach the teaching practice objectives but inefficient in budgeting.

Purpose: The purpose of the article is to study groups of civil patriotism and to highlight the features of their civil-Patriotic practices in local communities in the South of Russia. Methodology: The sociological investigation utilized quantitative and subjective strategies, just as techniques for hypothetical understanding of the acquired experimental information. The basis of the scientific study of common nationalism bunches in Russia in the South of Russia was a lot of wellsprings of experimental data, including the aftereffects of a sociological report directed by an individual poll "up close and personal" in five subjects of the Russian Federation in the South of Russia. Result: The results of the sociological study made it possible to distinguish two social groups in regional communities – youth and the "over 60" generation, which are currently the social basis for the development of civic patriotism, whose representatives are characterized by a desire for active social action for the good of the fatherland and its people, participation in civil practices aimed at protecting social interests, civil rights and freedoms, as well as readiness for civil liability for their deeds and actions both in the field of professional activity and in everyday life. Applications: This research can be used for universities, teachers, and students. Novelty/Originality: The results of a sociological study show that in local communities in the South of Russia, no more than 10% of the population can be classified as civil patriotism groups.

The problem of research. The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a sudden transition to distance learning and an intensive development of the university's digital environment, and therefore it is important to assess how successful the rapid digital transformation has been from the point of view of students as one of the stakeholders. The study raises the question of students' understanding of the digital university phenomenon and assessment of interaction with teachers and administration. Materials and research methods. The aim of the study was to identify students' attitudes towards digital transformation at the university and assess the digital environment of their university. Anonymous survey was conducted among 2-3 year students of bachelor's degree in pedagogical areas of training of Moscow State Pedagogical University and Udmurt State University on November 2-14, 2020. 126 respondents took part in the survey. Results and discussion. The study showed that students interpret the concept of “digital university” differently. Comprehension can be classified into four blocks: learning format; digital environment; digital resources; web portal (digital platform). To the question "Can you say about yourself that you are studying at a digital university?" 40% –answered negatively, 33% – positively and 27% – gave their own answer. The survey revealed an generally acceptable level of student satisfaction with the experience of force majeure transition to distance learning during a pandemic. Among the most frequently used digital technologies in the learning process, students noted: Zoom, the information and analytical system of the university, Google Classroom, Moodle, online educational resources of third-party platforms, etc. Students believe that universities need to strengthen technological equipment to improve the quality of educational interaction in the digital environment educational process – 60%; to ensure the continuity of the digital qualification improvement of teachers – 60%; to create an accessible digital educational environment – 49%. 85% of respondents in the future associate their professional activities with the active use of digital technologies. Findings. The results of the study allow us to formulate a number of conclusions. First, students have different understanding of what a “digital university” is, which leads to discrepancies. Secondly, the attitude of students to the digital environment of the university is at a satisfactory level, since only a third of the respondents answered that they can state that they are studying at a digital university. Third, students rate the digital skills of teachers more highly than university administrators. Fourthly, among the most important difficulties faced by students during the period of pandemic distance learning, there were reasons related specifically to the educational process: an increase in the volume of independent work; the unpreparedness of teachers for the transition to full-fledged digital technologies; insufficient educational and personal self-realization in the context of digital learning; decrease in team-group work skills.

The paper deals with the effects of prescriptivism on the Lithuanian language. The research includes one domain of language use – radio and television, and one aspect of language – lexicon, in the period between 1960 and 2010. The investigation is corpus-based and focuses on the use of words that are classified as “incorrect” by the Lithuanian norm-setters. The study is important both as a discussion of the impact of prescriptivism on language change in general, as well as of the indirect influence of media on language, since media can affect the symbolic evaluation of specific language forms.The paper consists of five chapters. The first chapter “Review of the research” discusses the theoretical assumptions and concepts needed for further analysis: it gives an overview of studies on the effects of prescriptivism conducted in Lithuania and elsewhere, presents the concepts of second-level indexicality and style, and outlines the key characteristics of media change in Lithuania that are relevant to the study. Studies on the success of prescriptivism do not give a definite answer as to whether prescriptivism works. Institutionalisation and a high degree of stigmatisation of the corrected language forms can be listed among the factors that increase its success; prescriptivism is likely to be less successful when the “forbidden” language forms are too convenient to be given up, or when prescriptivist rules are too complicated for lay language users and the rules contradict each other. In the case of media, the effect of prescriptivism is said to be weakened by media commercialisation.When applied to the analysis of non-standard words, first-order indexicality refers to situations when the non-standard forms are used as value-free instances of ordinary speech, in already established meanings; in these cases, the speakers are not aware that they are using “incorrect” forms. Second-order indexicality refers to cases when non-standard words are used for additional function, e.g., to express a speaker’s particular identity or to construct a certain (informal, friendly) speech style. The concept of style, referring to the social differences between individual speakers, is used to analyse the use of words in concrete situations. The paper gives an overview of three sociolinguistic concepts of style that are relevant in this study: style as a degree of formality (e.g., when the speaker accommodates to the formal context of the media and uses less non-standard words); as audience and referee design (e.g., use of non-standard words in programmes for young audiences); and as a speaker design (e.g., play with language by the programme host in order to construct a fun persona).In the study of non-standard lexis, it is important to account for certain features of Lithuanian media development, such as the Soviet period, which was characterised by the use of newspeak, and the commercialisation of the media in the contemporary period. Accordingly, the paper analyses the uses of incorrect words as a part of newspeak and their use for the entertainment-related purposes such as language plays in present times. The paper also addresses the transitory period of radio and TV development, which has features from both the previous and the later periods, as well as some unique characteristics of language use.The second chapter “Radio and TV speech in the prescriptive discourse” presents an analysis of the metalinguistic discourse on media speech produced by Lithuanian prescriptivists from the pre-war period up to now. The analysis shows how this discourse preserved the same dominant idea about media’s role in language standardisation. On the one hand, during this whole time, radio and television were approached as responsible for teaching listeners and viewers the “correct language”; on the other hand, simultaneously, the language of radio and television was perceived as failing to conform to the prescriptive norms set by the norm-setters. The huge societal shifts that happened during this time did not make a major influence on this discourse. It remained very stable during different periods of time. The social, cultural and political changes in society and the media were taken into account only by adjusting the argumentation – by presenting patriotic, moral, ideological or legal motives that were meant to justify the language prescriptions.The third chapter “Research methods and data” presents the Corpus of Radio and TV speech, the concept of non-standard words, and the sources of prescriptivist corrections used in the analysis. The corpus of radio and TV speech includes data from 1960 to 2011 and is constructed in a balanced way to represent the periods of Lithuanian radio and TV development (Soviet, transitory, contemporary), as well as programme genres (talk programmes, information programmes, journals/features/documentaries). The speakers are coded into six types: news reader/voice-over, talk show host, expert, celebrity, hero and vox populi. For the analysis, the non-standard words that are classified as “incorrect” in the normative tradition of the Lithuanian language were coded. These include old (mainly, Slavic) and new (mainly, English) loans, the so-called hybrid words (that have a borrowed part), semantic loans, translations, as well as some lexicalised uses of words and some lexicalised syntactic constructions. Two types of words are analysed – individual lexical words and functional words. The latter include various fillers and discourse markers, as well as pronoun constructions with tai (e.g. kažkas tai ‘some(body)’). Non-standard words were identified from older and present style guides, including the database of language corrections created by the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language.The fourth chapter “Change in the number of non-standard words: a quantitative analysis” investigates development of the use of non-standard words on radio and TV, as well as the frequency of usage of the non-standard lexical forms. According to the corpus data, the average frequency of non-standard words by one speaker is 17 per thousand words, which makes up about 2–3 “incorrect” words per minute. Non-standard discourse markers and fillers (9.8/1000 words) are used most frequently, whereas individual lexical words (5.6/1000 words) are much less frequent, and pronoun constructions with tai (1.6/1000 words) are rarer still. Closer analysis revealed that the only statistically significant change between the analysed periods (Soviet, transitory and contemporary) was a decrease of the frequency of non-standard lexical words in the contemporary period compared to the previous ones. The frequency of discourse markers/fillers and pronoun constructions with tai did not change. Regarding the speaker types, the uses of non-standard words decreased in those groups that are within easier reach of prescriptivism – news readers/voice-overs and talk show hosts. Also, to a lesser extent, in the group of experts. Those groups of speakers that are less likely to be subjected to language correction practices (ordinary people) did not seem to change their behaviour: the number of non-standard words in their speech did not decrease, on the contrary, a slight increase has been noticed. These findings confirm the effects of institutionalised prescriptivism. Regarding genres, non-standard words are least frequent in information programmes, which are mostly based on the reading of written texts. Lists of the most frequent non-standard words during the three periods overlap to a great extent, which means that despite prescriptivist practices, the most frequent non-standard words do not disappear from the air.The fifth chapter “Change in the functions of non-standard words: a qualitative analysis” investigates specific communicative situations of the usage of non-standard words and takes into account the media-related and societal contexts, as well as the stylistic and social functions of the corrected lexis. A common trait of the use of non-standard words during all periods, interpreted as the first level of indexicality, is the use of common, everyday vocabulary, most likely without being aware of the “incorrect” status of the chosen forms. Also, non-standard words are used as a part of professional language, in this case the speaker might be aware that he or she is using an ‘incorrect’ word, but chooses to use it nevertheless for convenience or because of its indexical value for professional identity. During all the periods, non-standard words are also used as indices of informal and authentic communication between close acquaintances; this function is performed by all types of the studied non-standard words, particularly old borrowings and frequent fillers.The study identified a few style- and social meaning-related uses of non-standard lexis that explain the choice of the corrected forms instead of the required equivalents. In the Soviet period, some non-standard words were used as a part of Soviet newspeak; old borrowings were used in references to the ideological enemies of Soviet rule, mainly the ones from pre-war Lithuania. In certain cases, these words were employed due to their stylistic value in an intimate and authentic discourse. The late Soviet period saw the first use of non-standard words as markers of informal communication. The use of non-standard words in the transitory period shows some of the functions from the Soviet period, e.g., they are used as an element of newspeak, albeit without the Soviet ideological value, or as expressions of informality. A particular feature of this period is the use of non-standard words as an index of live and authentic speech, which was not allowed during Soviet times, as a means of authentic communication, and the criticism and violation of Soviet taboos. The contemporary period is marked by a huge variety of functions of non-standard words. It brings in a number of new style-related functions of non-standard words: construction of youth-oriented identity and youth-oriented referee design, reference to past times (e.g., by using non-standard words reflecting the Soviet reality), or quoting. Perhaps the most distinctive features of this period are the use of non-standard words in the speech of professional journalists, as well as their use for the purposes of humour and entertainment (for the construction of certain personas), e.g., in language plays and stylisations. These uses can be explained by commercial media requirements, increasing trends of the informalisation of public speech and conversationalisation.The study concluded that the effect of prescriptivism on the use of non-standard words in radio and TV in Lithuania is limited. Firstly, the frequency of non-standard words decreased mainly in those groups of speakers that are subject to the formal, institutionalised power of language gatekeepers (media professionals). Secondly, the data shows a decrease only of those non-standard words that are easier to control by the speakers themselves – lexical words. The frequency of various function words that are more difficult to be aware of when speaking did not decrease. Thirdly, the largest decrease in non-standard lexical forms occurred in those speech situations where a prepared written text is used; this means that prescriptivist requirements have a greater effect when the speakers and the language are controlled, and less effect in spontaneous communication situations. The above-mentioned difference between professional and non-professional speakers demonstrates that speakers are able to control the lexical forms they choose.Analysis of the most frequently used non-standard words during different periods also demonstrates the limits of prescriptivism. The lists of the most frequently used non-standard words during different periods overlap to a great extent, which means that despite prescriptivist efforts, they were not eliminated from being used on air.Finally, the limited success of prescriptivism is demonstrated by the discussed social values of non-standard words, when they are used for various social and stylistic functions not possessed by a ‘correct’ equivalent. The qualitative analysis revealed the particular strength of old borrowings, which are used to create a sincere, friendly speech style, as well as a ludic speaker identity. On the one hand, it can be interpreted as a sign of the ineffectiveness of prescriptivism – if the words are needed, it is likely that they will be further used despite their ‘illegal’ status. On the other hand, when the speakers purposefully (e.g., on account of a particular association, stylistic value) choose a particular language form and are at the same time aware about its “incorrectness”, it is an effect of prescriptivism, only with the opposite outcome.The study is based on the analysis of spoken language on radio and TV, therefore it cannot be used to draw conclusions about the Lithuanian language in general. It is likely that the effect of prescriptivism on written language (because of its more formal style and particularly because of language editing practices) would be stronger. Nevertheless, broadcast media speech constitutes a considerable and important part of language use, thus we can conclude that the impact of prescriptivism on the Lithuanian language does not have far-reaching effects.

There are different apprehensions regarding the contemporary assessment system. Often, I listen to my colleagues saying that multiple-choice questions are seen as easier to score. Why can’t all assessments be multiple-choice tests? Some others would say, whether the tests given reflect what students will need to know as competent professionals? What evidence can be collected to make sure that test content is relevant? Others come up with concerns that there is a perception amongst students that some examiners are harsher than others and some tasks are easier than others. What can be done to evaluate whether this is the case? Sometimes, the students come up with queries that they are concerned about being observed when interacting with patients. They are not sure why this is needed. What rationale is there for using workplace-based assessment? Some of the students worry if the pass marks for the assessments are ‘correct’, and what is the evidence for the cut-off scores? All these questions are important, and I would deliberate upon them with evidence from the literature. Deliberating on the first query of using multiple-choice questions for everything, we know that assessment of a medical student is a complex process as there are multiple domains of learning such as cognition, skills, and behaviors (Norcini and McKinley, 2007)(Boulet and Raymond, 2018). Each of the domains further has multiple levels from simple to complex tasks (Norcini and McKinley, 2007). For example, the cognition is further divided into six levels, starting from recall (Cognition level 1 or C1) up to creativity (Cognition level 6 or C6) (Norcini and McKinley, 2007). Similarly, the skills and behaviors also have levels starting from observation up to performance and practice (Norcini and McKinley, 2007). Moreover, there are different competencies within each domain that further complicates our task as an assessor to appropriately assess a student (Boulet and Raymond, 2018). For instance, within the cognitive domain, it is not just making the learning objectives based on Bloom’s Taxonomy that would simplify our task because the literature suggests that individuals have different thinking mechanisms, such as fast and slow thinking to perform a task (Kahneman, 2011). We as educationalists do not know what sort of cognitive mechanism have we triggered through our exam items (Swanson and Case, 1998). Multiple Choice Questions is one of the assessment instruments to measure competencies related to the cognitive domain. This means that we cannot use multiple-choice questions to measure the skills and behaviors domains, so clearly multiple-choice questions cannot assess all domains of learning (Vleuten et al, 2010). Within the cognitive domain, there are multiple levels and different ways of thinking mechanisms (Kahneman, 2011). Each assessment instrument has its strength and limitations. Multiple-choice questions may be able to assess a few of the competencies, also with some added benefits in terms of marking but there always are limitations. The multiple-choice question is no different when it comes to the strengths and limitations profile of an assessment instrument (Swanson and Case, 1998). There are certain competencies that can be easily assessed using multiple-choice questions (Swanson and Case, 1998). For example, content that requires recall, application, and analysis can be assessed with the help of multiple-choice questions. However, creativity or synthesis which is cognition level six (C6) as per Blooms’ Taxonomy, cannot be assessed with closed-ended questions such as a multiple-choice question. This means that we need some additional assessment instruments to measure the higher levels of cognition within the cognitive domain. For example, asking students to explore an open-ended question as a research project can assess the higher levels of cognition because the students would be gathering information from different sources of literature, and then synthesizing it to answer the question. It is reported that marking and reading the essay questions would be time-consuming for the teachers (McLean and Gale, 2018). Hence, the teacher to student’s ratio in assessing the higher levels of cognition needs to be monitored so that teachers or assessors can give appropriate time to assess the higher levels of cognition of their students. Hence, we have to use other forms of assessment instruments along with multiple-choice questions to assess the cognitive domain. This will help to assess the different levels of cognition and will also incite the different thinking mechanisms. Regarding the concerns, whether the tests given reflect what students will need to know as competent professionals? What evidence can be collected to make sure that test content is relevant? It is one of an important issue for medical education and assessment directors whether the tests that they are taking are reflective of the students being competent practitioners? It is also quite challenging as some of the competencies such as professionalism or professional identity formation are difficult to be measured quantitatively with the traditional assessment instruments (Cruess, Cruess, & Steinert, 2016). Moreover, there is also a question if all the competencies that are required for a medical graduate can be assessed with the assessment instruments presently available? Hence, we as educationalists have to provide evidence for the assessment of required competencies and relevant content. One of the ways that we can opt is to carefully align the required content with their relevant assessment instruments. This can be done with the help of assessment blueprints, or also known as the table of specifications in some of the literature (Norcini and McKinley, 2013). An assessment blueprint enables us to demonstrate our planned curriculum, that is, what are our planned objectives, and how are we going to teach and assess them (Boulet and Raymond, 2018). We can also use the validity construct in addition to the assessment blueprints to provide evidence for testing the relevant content. Validity means that the test is able to measure what it is supposed to measure (Boulet and Raymond, 2018). There are different types of validity but one of the validity that is required in this situation to establish the appropriateness of the content is the Content Validity. Content validity is established by a number of subject experts who comment on the appropriateness and relevance of the content (Lawshe, 1975). The third method by which the relevance of content can be established is through standard-setting. A standard is a single cut-off score to qualitatively declare a student competent or incompetent based on the judgment of subject experts (Norcini and McKinley, 2013). There are different ways of standard-setting for example Angoff, Ebel, Borderline method, etc. (Norcini and McKinley, 2013). Although the main purpose is the establishment and decides the cut-off score during the process, the experts also debate on the appropriateness and relevance of the content. This means that the standard-setting methods also have validity procedures that are in-built in their process of establishing the cut-off score. These are some of the methods by which we can provide evidence of the relevance of the content that is required to produce a competent practitioner. The next issue is the perception amongst students that some examiners are harsher than others and some tasks are easier than others. Both these observations have quite a lot of truth in them and can be evaluated following the contemporary medical education evaluation techniques. The first issue reported is that some examiners are harsher than others. In terms of assessment, it has been reported in the literature as ‘hawk dove effect’ (McManus et al, 2006, Murphy et al, 2009). There are different reasons identified in the literature for some of the examiners to be more stringent than others such as age, ethnic background, behavioral reasons, educational background, and experience in a number of years (McManus et al, 2006). Specifically, those examiners who are from ethnic minorities and have more experience show more stringency (McManus et al, 2006). Interestingly, it has been reported elsewhere how the glucose levels affect the decision making of the pass-fail judgments (Kahneman, 2011). There are psychometric methods reported in the literature, such as Rasch modeling that can help determine the ‘hawk dove effect’ of different examiners, and whether it is too extreme or within a zone of normal deviation (McManus et al, 2006, Murphy, et al, 2009). Moreover, the literature also suggests ways to minimize the hawk-dove effect by identifying and paring such examiners so the strictness of one can be compensated by the leniency of the other examiner (McManus et al, 2006). The other issue in this situation is that the students find some tasks easier than others. This is dependent on the complexity of tasks and also on the competence level of students. For example, a medical student may achieve independent measuring of blood pressure in his/her first year but even a consultant surgeon may not be able to perform complex surgery such as a Whipple procedure. This means that while developing tasks we as educationalists have to consider both the competence level of our students and the complexity of the tasks. One way to theoretically understand it is by taking help from the cognitive load theory (Merrienboer 2013). The cognitive load theory suggests that there are three types of cognitive loads; namely, the Intrinsic, Extraneous, and Germane loads (Merrienboer 2013). The intrinsic load is associated with the complexity of the task. The extraneous load is added to the working memory of students due to a teacher who does not plan his/her teaching session as per students' needs (Merrienboer 2013). The third load is the germane or the good load that helps the student to understand the task and is added by using teaching methods that helps students understand the task (Merrienboer 2013). The teachers can use different instructional designs such as the 4CID model to plan their teaching session of the complex tasks (Merrienboer 2013). One of the ways to understand the difficulty of the task can be to pilot test the task with few students or junior colleagues. Another way to determine the complexity of the task can be through standard-setting methods where a cut-off score is established after the experts discuss each task and determine its cut-off score based on their judgments (Norcini and McKinley, 2013). However, it is important that the experts who have been called for setting standards have relevant experience so as to make credible judgments (Norcini and McKinley, 2013). A third way to evaluate the complexity of tasks is by applying the post-exam item analysis techniques. The difficulty of the task is evaluated after the performance of students in the exam. Each item’s difficulty in the exam can be measured. The items can be placed from extremely easy (100% students correctly answered the item) to extremely difficult (100% students failed on that specific item). The item analysis enables the teachers to determine which tasks were easier in exams as compared to more difficult tasks. Another concern that comes from students is about their observation when interacting with patients. Health professions training programs require the interaction of students with patients. The student-patient interaction is not very often in initial years of student’s training due to the issues of patient safety, and due to the heavy workload on clinical faculty. However, with the passage of time in the training program, these student patient interactions increase. There is also a strong theoretical basis for better learning when the students are put in a context or a given situation (Wenger, 1998). For example, infection control can be taught through a lecture however the learning can be more effective if the students practically learn it in an operation theatre. Moreover, the undergraduate students or foundation year house job doctors are yet not competent enough to practice independently and require supervision for the obvious reasons of patient safety. Although, some of the students may not like being observed it is one of the requirements for their training. The examiners observing them can give them constructive feedback to further improve their performance (Etheridge and Boursicot, 2013). Feedback is one of the essential components of workplace-based assessments, and it is suggested in the literature that the time for feedback to the student should be almost equal to one-third of the procedure or task time (Etheridge and Boursicot, 2013), that is, for a fifteen minutes tasks, there should be at least five minutes for the feedback hence having a total of twenty minutes time on the whole. Further, it is important for the examiners and senior colleagues to establish trust in the competence of their students or trainees. The ‘trust’ is one of the behavioral constructs that also starts initially with an observation (Etheridge and Boursicot, 2013). Hence, observation of students or house officers by senior colleagues or teachers during clinical encounters is important to establish trust in student’s competence levels. Additionally, in the workplace, there are different skills that are required by the students to demonstrate, and each skill is quite different to others. There are different workplace-based assessment instruments and each of them assesses only certain aspects of student’s performance during clinical practice. For instance, the Mini Clinical Evaluation Exercise (Mini-CEX) can primarily assess the history taking and physical examination skills of students (Etheridge and Boursicot, 2013). Similarly, the Directly Observed Procedural Skills (DOPS) is required to assess the technical and procedural skills of students (Etheridge and Boursicot, 2013). More so, the Case-based Discussion (CBD) is required to assess clinical reasoning skills, decision-making skills, ethics, and professionalism (Etheridge and Boursicot, 2013). Further, multi-source feedback (MSF) or 360-degree assessment collects feedback about a student on their performance from multiple sources such as patients, senior and junior colleagues, nursing staff, and administrative staff (Etheridge and Boursicot, 2013). All these workplace-based assessments require observation of students so they can be given appropriate feedback on their technical and nontechnical skills (Etheridge and Boursicot, 2013). Hence, clinical encounters at the workplace are quite complex and require training of students from different aspects to fully train them that cannot be accomplished without observation. Some students also worry whether the pass marks for the assessments are ‘correct’, and what is the evidence for the cut-off score in their exams? A standard is a single cut-off score that determines the competence of a student in a particular exam (Norcini and McKinley, 2013). The cut-off score is decided by experts who make a qualitative judgment (Norcini and McKinley, 2013). The purpose is not to establish an absolute truth but to demonstrate the creditability of pass-fail decisions in an exam (Norcini and McKinley, 2013). There are certain variables related to standard setters that may affect the creditability of the standard-setting process; such as age, gender, ethnicity, their understanding of the learners, their educational qualification, and their place of work. Moreover, the definition of competence varies with time, place and person (Norcini and McKinley, 2013). Hence, it is important that the standard setters must know the learners and the competence level expected from them and the standard setters must be called from different places. This is one of the first requirements to have the profile of the standard setters to establish their credibility. Moreover, the selection of the method of standard setting is important, and how familiar are the standard setters with the method of standard-setting. There are many standard-setting methods for different assessment instruments and types of exams (Norcini and McKinley, 2013). It is essential to use the appropriate standard-setting method, and also to train the standard setters on that method of standard setting so they know the procedure. The training can be done by providing them certain data to solve it following the steps of the standard-setting procedure. The record of these exercises is important and can be required at later stages to show the experience of the standard setters. Further, every standard-setter writes a cut-off score for each item (Norcini and McKinley, 2013). The mean score of all the standard setters is calculated to determine the cut-off score for each item (Norcini and McKinley, 2013). The total cut-off score is calculated by adding the pass marks of each individual item (Norcini and McKinley, 2013). The cut-off scores for items would also help in differentiating the hawks from doves, that is, those examiners who are quite strict from those who are lenient (McManus et al, 2006). Hence, it is important to keep the record of these cut-off scores of each item for future records and to have a balanced standard-setting team for future exams (Norcini and McKinley, 2013). Additionally, the meeting minutes is an important document to keep the record for the decisions made during the meeting. Lastly, the exam results and post-exam item analysis is an important document to see the performance of students on each item and to make comparisons with the standard-setting meeting (Norcini and McKinley, 2013). It would be important to document the items that behaved as predicted by the standard setters and those items that would show unexpected responses; for example, the majority of the borderline students either secured quite high marks than the cut-off score or vice versa (Norcini and McKinley, 2013). All the documents mentioned above would ensure the creditability of the standard-setting process and would also improve the quality of exam items. There are many other aspects that could not be discussed in this debate on the contemporary assessment system in medical education. Another area that needs deliberations is the futuristic assessment system and how it would address the limitations of the current system? Disclaimer: This work is derived from one of the assignments of the author submitted for his certificate from Keele University. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- References Boulet, J. and Raymond, M. 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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of coaching for newly appointed school principals and head teachers as they establish themselves in their new role. Design/methodology/approach – To examine the use of coaching for newly appointed school principals and head teachers as they establish themselves in their new role. Findings – Teachers in a number of countries receive coaching to improve their effectiveness. It is also now being offered to newly appointed school administrators – the school principal in the USA, the head teacher elsewhere – to help them settle into their new role. Surprisingly, there has been little research assessing the effectiveness of executive coaches or find out what benefits – if any – result from coaching. It seems, then, to be a good time to look at new principal coaching and ask what does or doesn't work. And who better to ask than the coaches themselves. Practical implications – Distinguishes between the coaching needs of newly appointed teachers and those of school administrators. Suggests a requirement for more process-oriented training for new principal coaches. Social implications – Highlights the emphasis that these coaches place on process rather than content and discusses their use of real-life, real-time issues to promote reflective enquiry and professional development. Originality/value – Considers coaching from the perspective of the coach. Demonstrates how coaching can support recently appointed school principals as they adapt to their new work environment and develop the skills needed to take on complex tasks.

The professional development of online teachers is now commonplace in most universities. Alongside the relatively straightforward decision to provide professional learning support for novice and experienced online educators within universities, decisions about the nature and content of such support are not always as clear cut. The study aimed to gather evidence about the experiences and views of current students and staff which, in turn, informed a set of pedagogical guidelines that could be used as the basis of professional learning programs for novice online teachers. Using a mixed methods research design, data were gathered using questionnaires, reflective journals and focus groups to determine the threshold concepts about online teaching, and perceptions of ideal online learning contexts. As well as identifying threshold concepts about online teaching and perceptions of teachers’ and students’ ideal views of online learning contexts (reported elsewhere), the study produced curricular guidelines to inform the design of professional development outputs for online teachers in higher education contexts. This article reports on an example of how these professional development guidelines were implemented at one higher education institution to provide wide-scale implementation of a professional development program for academic staff engaged in online teaching.

The article focuses on problems with ethnocultural competence as a component of the professional and pedagogical training provided by the Pedagogical Institute at M.K. Ammosov North-Eastern Federal University in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). The article identifies the characteristics of ethnocultural competence development in future primary school teachers. The main research methods include an analysis of literary sources, a pedagogical experience summary, observations, a discussion, data recording, and ranking. Primary school teachers are key figures and spiritual heritage broadcasters in the educational process. The ethnocultural competence of an education professional is increasingly important due to the development of new forms of information transformation and an increasing demand in modern society. Moreover, ethnocultural competence is an integral professional and personal characteristic that determines the willingness and ability to pursue ethnocultural education, national culture introduction to primary school students, and the formation of respect for and a positive, tolerant attitude toward other nations’ cultures. The term ethnoculture consists of the words “ethnos” and “culture,” which are equally interdependent. Culture is a compound, historically developed system of material, spiritual, and social expressions of human activity. It reflects how humans understand reality through its content, morphology, and functions. One of the main objectives of culture is to promote a positive attitude toward the ethnocultural differences that influence human development and self-realization. Ethnocultural education contributes to interethnic relations, protection, and development. In addition, it reveals the characteristics and spiritual and moral values of ethnic groups and impacts interethnic and interfaith communication among students. In this research, an ethnocultural training model for future teachers and students’ ethnocultural competence was developed and tested. In addition, the pedagogical conditions for the formation of the ethnocultural competence of future primary school teachers were identified, and university students’ experiences with the formation of ethnocultural competence were classified and generalized