Journal articles on the topic 'First year teachers Work load'

Background. Each new generation of students brings with them its own themes and subjects, and the continuous flow of life opens up new artistic horizons. In addition, each team of teachers and students is unique, and the necessity to look repeatedly for ways to uncover the individualities of future actors arises. Therefore, the work on the etudes, being aimed at the development of the creative abilities of the young actors, occupies almost the main place in the learning process. For a student, an etude is a means to build up self-own effective scenic behavior in the conditions of zones of silence. Etude has its own principles of construction and embodiment. The concept of the etude, its themes and components are the subjects of research in this article. The etude method of the actor’s work on the role was rather thoroughly and deeply examined by such authors as M. O. Knebel [4], S. V. Gippius [2], N. M. Gorchakov [3]. K. S. Stanislavsky [6, 7] reveals the versatile properties of the elements of scenic well-being, the laws of creativity and psycho-techniques with exhaustive completeness. E. B. Vakhtangov considered theatrical training not only from the point of view of mastering acting prowess, but mainly as formation the artist’s worldview: the up-brining of desire to serve high ideals and devote his art to them, an acute sense of modernity, the ability to see life creatively, guess its requirements [1]. The purpose of this study is to describe the practical exercises used in the work on etudes with first-year students. We offer our-own methodical developments, give the examples of exercises and etudes for the development of memory of physical actions, fantasy and imagination, the ability to build a truthful line of stage behavior in specific proposed circumstances, according to the system of K. S. Stanislavsky [6, 7]. The main material of the research. Scenic etude is the initial and basic component in the organization of stage action, an exercise with a certain psychological load. This is acting training in a variety of scenic situations and proposed external circumstances. Each of the students, called on the scene for the first time, experiences excitement, which appears in one or another form. Therefore, we warn the students that they do not need “to play” anything, but to behave as in life, in a word, we try in every way to do everything so that the transition to the stage does not disrupt normal human well-being. For a group of students, we suggest listening to and remembering the sounds that were heard in the room from the moment the exercise began to its end. In fact, those students who are on the stage and those who look to them in the auditorium, participate in this exercise. Then all the students take turns talking about the sounds, which they heard, complementing their comrades. This exercise helps to instill in students an understanding that the mental work and the activity of the sense organs on the stage are the same as in real life. The attention of the student is focused on some subject, sound, thought or action of the partner. Such an object, action, thought, sound is perceived particularly clearly and is called the “object of attention”. These exercises make it possible: 1) to focus your attention on a given object; 2) to keep this attention for some time, that is, to make the proposed action exciting, important for yourself. After these exercises, we introduce students to the “circles of attention”. “Small circle of attention” – it is when attention is directed to the inner world, to my sensations and experiences; the “medium circle” – to all that surrounds me within this room, where I am at the moment (things, sounds, smells, etc.); the “big circle of attention” – to all that surrounds me outside the room (hall), where I am at the moment. The focused attention distracts the student from the auditorium, hence the action that he performs in his etude on stage become the most important for him. It is very important for us, the teachers who works with the first-year students, to attain that the student concentrates on the stage action. It is also important that the students at the initial period of their training during the performance of etudes would not experience muscle strain, which, for the most part, arises from their efforts to appear in public better and smarter, more nimble and graceful than they usually are. K. S. Stanislavsky found a way to get rid of the tightness and education of muscle freedom by the way of creating a “muscular controller” – the ability to quickly find out in which muscle group the tension and remove it, leading oneself to a state of muscle freedom. Exercises for relax of muscles we begin with the fourth or fifth lessons and apply in parallel with the exercises on attention, combining them in the future. Then we give students to touch some subjects and tell about the chain of associations they cause. These exercises, freeing the thought, lead students to the beginning of work on the development of imagination. The next cycle of exercises we devote to the development of the imagination to create “proposed circumstances” (“magic if”, following K. Stanislavsky). “Proposed circumstances” arise when we ask the students questions: “Who?”, “When?”, “Where?”, “Why?”, “How?”, which excite their imagination, enticing them to substantiate their actions in a logical and consistent manner. We offer the students also etudes developing the memory about physical actions: having no objects in their hands, feeling them only with the help of their imagination, the students do certain physical actions. It is very important to instill in the first year students a feeling of proper physical well-being in the exercises; it is that need in future work on a role. The next stage of the work is the etudes, in which there is already a plot. Etudes are structured in such a way that an event or a surprise takes place in them that changes the course of life in the etude and makes it necessary to evaluate a new state of affairs. The next stage in the work with first-year students is the plot etudes. They are built in such a way that an event takes place in them or a surprise happens, which changes the course of a character’s life and makes it necessary to evaluate a new state of affairs. The construction of an etude contains a small introduction, exposure, the event itself and the outcome. We try to choice the plot based on events that could happen in reality with students and that correlate with the area of their life experience. We remind of the need for action from myself: what would I do in real life if it happened to me? The next section is the relationship to the partners in the etude. When two or more students act on the stage, interaction and mutual interest between them occurs. We act on our partner with the power of our “I”, not only with words and appearance, but with our whole being. This influence of my “I” on the “I” of my partner and contrary is the essence of the process of “communication”. We cultivate in a student the ability to concern seriously his course mate, same as his brother, sister, bride and so on, depending on their relationship in the etude. Conclusions. In a result of the beginning exercises and etudes, the students of the first year of study should come to an understanding of what the “inner well-being” status constitutes in practice. That is, to find a natural state in the context of scenic playing on public; to master the stage attention that is, being on the stage learn to concentrate on any one impression. This state should be connected with the activity of the senses (hearing, sight, smell, touch, taste), but, at the same time, the student should not lose the ability to think and act. In the process of working on etudes, students should answer the questions: wherefore are we going to play this etude, what shall we say to those who will watch us in this etude? Answers to these questions help us, the teachers, to lead students to a clear comprehension of the tasks of their stage work and understanding the role of the collective as a creative unit, nurturing in them a feeling of partnership, “a feeling of elbow”, camaraderie, the ability to perceive criticism and self-criticism correctly, since the theater is the collective art; to develop the artistic taste of students; ultimately – to cultivate in them the love of their future profession.

What do university students understand about faculty work? Undergraduate (mostly first-year) students ( N = 317) at a research university gave definitions of tenure, estimated how much time faculty spend teaching, and rated fictional faculty members. Most students could define tenure but could not describe how it is earned or its role in academic freedom. Students overestimated the time faculty spend on teaching and underestimated time spent on research. Finally, students who assumed that fictional faculty taught more courses also assumed they had higher status. By comparison, faculty respondents ( N = 645) who read the same fictional descriptions assumed higher teaching loads went with lower status markers. As they acculturate to life at a research university, first-year students could benefit from learning about faculty research roles and the value of academic freedom.

Introduction. Among the leading risk factors affecting the teaching contingent in their labour activity, psychoemotional stress, load on the vocal apparatus, hypodynamia, and prolonged forced posture are distinguished. As a result of hypodynamia - there is a violation of blood circulation, deterioration of the venous and lymphatic systems and further development of arterial hypertension (AH), overweight, varicose veins (VV), a decrease in the body’s immune forces, leading to frequent colds and chronic pathology of ENT organs. Therefore, the study of the health status of teachers, the prevention of diseases is an urgent task today. The purpose of the study is to assess the health status of teachers in general education schools based on many clinical and ultrasound examinations. Materials and methods. The object of the research was 78 teachers of secondary schools. All subjects were females, with an average age of 53.4 ± 8.3 years, an average work experience of 32.1 ± 9.1 years. Clinical and ultrasound examinations were carried out. Results. During clinical examination by narrow specialists, the detection of ENT organ pathology in the study group per 100 examined patients was 52 cases (66.6 ± 6.5%), 89 (114.1 ± 4.3%) cases - therapeutic pathology (among which arterial hypertension prevailed), 56 (71.8 ± 6.1%) cases of the endocrine system and 72 (92.3 ± 3.2%) cases of diseases of the nervous system. The frequency of pathological changes in the abdominal cavity and urinary system during screening ultrasound was 86% of cases, the thyroid gland - 70.0 ± 1.0% of cases. Conclusion. A clinical examination of the health status of teachers with more than ten years of experience has established one of the first places to be occupied by therapeutic pathology, in the form of CVS diseases, in the second place are diseases of the nervous system (vertebral pathology), the third-place belongs to diseases of the ENT organs and the endocrine system.

S. A. Ljaskowski is a representative of the generation of Moscow University graduates of the early 20th century, whose formation as scientists and teachers fell on the years of the war and revolution. As a student of R. Yu. Vipper, he specialised in Ancient and Early Medieval periods. In the first years after revolution, he began teaching at provincial Russian universities, and from 1924 to 1927 he worked at the Belarusian State University. It was his work at this university that became a kind of watershed – when S. A. Ljaskowski had to re-profile from Ancient and Medieval history to the Modern and Contemporary history, both in teaching and in scientific interests. But he also failed to gain a foothold in the Belarusian State University – the courses he taught looked much more organic in the load of new teaching staff, who often did not have a university education, but were able to boast of a «correct» origin and revolutionary background. As a result, he did not manage to return to fullfledged scientific work in the field of his specialisation after his dismissal from Belarusian State University, having published in the 1930s. Only a few articles on the history of antiquity and gradually retraining for reviews of foreign and Soviet literature on the history of the ancient world and, subsequently, for bibliographic work.

From the standpoint of professional criticism, interested in obtaining the best result, the current state of the educational course in higher mathematics at the technical universities of Ukraine is analyzed. A discrepancy between the classical (analytical) methods for solving problems presented in it and the computer (numerical or numerical-analytical) methods that are used in the current practice of engineering calculations is noted. To eliminate this problem, it is proposed to introduce into the training course, along with lectures and practical classes, the third component of training - the cycles of laboratory practicums in higher mathematics using personal computers. Laboratory practicums are designed to demonstrate to junior students studying higher mathematics the ability to solve real problems from applications to technology and physics using its methods. In addition, in the form of laboratory practicums, individual sections of the engineering course of higher mathematics are studied, which, due to lack of time and other, often subjective, reasons, have recently been taken out for optional learning (differential geometry of a plane and spatial curve, surfaces of the second and higher orders, practical harmonic analysis, multi criteria optimization, and a number of others). To ensure this modernization, it is proposed to divide the general course of higher mathematics into two streams (vector analysis and scalar analysis) and to increase the number of classroom lessons to 32 – 36 hours per week, that is, to the level of the world's leading technical universities. In addition, the mathematics course is coordinated with the computer science course, where, in a priority order, first-year students are taught to work in the MathCAD interactive computer environment. And in order for the reform to take place without attracting additional funds for salaries, it is proposed to increase the teaching load of teachers of higher mathematics and computer science by 30 % (which is compensated by a decrease in the load on scientific work and other activities).

Background: Monitoring heart rate is one of the most common methods used to quantify internal training load (ITL) in athletes. The aim of this study was to determine whether subjective measurements can be used as a simple, non-invasive, and inexpensive method for assessing ITL in pre-professional contemporary dancers. <br/>Method: A total of 16 first-year contemporary dance students participated in this study. Students wore heart rate monitors during 56 training sessions. After each session, students completed the rate of perceived exertion (RPE) scale and teachers completed the rate of observed exertion (ROE) scale. For each session, we calculated the session-RPEs (sRPE), session-ROEs (sROE), and heart-rate-derived ITLs [i. e., Banister TRaining IMPulse method (TRIMP) and Edwards TRIMP]. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to determine the association between sRPE, sROE, Banister TRIMP, and Edwards TRIMP. <br/>Results: Between-individual correlation between Banister TRIMP and subjective dancers' (sRPE) and teachers' perceptions (sROE) were moderate (r = .49, p < 0.01) to large (r = .57, p < 0.01). Between-individual correlations between Edwards TRIMP and the subjective perceptions (sRPE and sROE) were very large (r = .74, p < 0.01; and r = .79, p < 0.01). There was a statistically significant large (r = 0.52, p < 0.01) to almost perfect (r = 0.93, p < 0.01) within-individual correlation between the sRPE and the two measured TRIMP methods. There was a statistically significant small (r = .29, p < 0.01) to almost perfect (r = .92, p < 0.01) within-individual correlation between the sROE and the two measured TRIMP methods. <br/>Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that the sRPE is a simple, non-invasive, inexpensive, and valid method for quantifying ITL in pre-professional dancers.

“Eye-opening,” “disheartening,” and “inspiring” are some of the words used by law students who met in 2008–2009 to discuss their mosaic of experience in the field doing public interest work. These students had returned from placements under the first mandatory public interest requirement to be introduced in a Canadian law school (the Osgoode Public Interest Requirement, OPIR). OPIR arose from questions about the relationship between what is learned in law school and what is required to be a professional. Academics have challenged each other to do more to instill an “ethos of professionalism” during law school. Others have suggested that law students who do not receive exposure to the world outside the walls of the law school carry an “idealized conception of the profession” and are often unaware of the many practice contexts available to them. Others have warned that if ethical and professional responsibilities are not modeled and articulated for students, that teaching only the “law of lawyering” does not prepare students for becoming ethical lawyers. Teacher-educator Lee Shulman has bluntly accused law schools of “failing miserably” at connecting its lessons in how to “think like a lawyer” with how to “act like a lawyer.” For years, there have been similar concerns raised about the decline of professionalism among lawyers, both in Canada and in the U.S. A survey of Osgoode graduates revealed that students wanted more opportunities to engage with the community and to experience non-traditional forms of law practice. Osgoode Hall Law School grappled with many of these questions, and in 2007 it approved changes to the curriculum, including a new first year Ethics course (Ethical Lawyering in a Global Community, ELGC) and OPIR. In addition to the more traditional first year mandatory course load, Osgoode Hall law students must also complete ELGC, a minimum of 40 hours of public interest work and then engage in a discussion or written exercise reflecting on their experiences. These reflections are a valuable lens for seeing the profession and the administration of justice through the eyes of first and second year law students. Their experiences remind us in the profession that learning can flow in both directions.

Introduction. The scale of the COVID-19 pandemic and the forced transition to distance learning in this regard, the need to restructure the forms and methods of teaching children with special educational needs in the digital environment, increased cognitive, emotional and communication loads, lack of time to prepare classes contribute to the occurrence of emotional burnout among teachers of individual educational organizations and actualize the problem of studying the influence of their socio-psychological competence on its overcoming. Materials and methods. Teachers (N = 50 females) of the Regional State General Educational Institution "Kursk Boarding School for Children with Disabilities", having professional experience of up to 1 year to 43 years, took part in the study. We used standardized methods for diagnosing emotional burnout, emotional and social intelligence, value orientations of the individual and stress-overcoming behavior, as well as mathematical and statistical methods of data processing: descriptive statistics and regression analysis. Results and discussion. It has been empirically proven that the overempathy of teachers (β = 0,763; p = 0,000), over-responsibility and loyalty (β = 0,465; p = 0,003), the desire for personal success (β = 0,723; p = 0,001), insufficiently developed ability to understand the logic of the development of situations interpersonal interaction and the significance of human behavior in these situations (β = 0,304; p = 0,003), manipulative (β = 1,287; p = 0,000) and aggressive (β = 0,620; p = 0,013) actions, contribute to the appearance of emotional burnout. The aspirations of teachers for social contacts (β = -0,365; p = 0,001), independence of thinking and choice of a method of action β = -0,874; p = 0,000), long-term deliberation and careful weighing of all possible solutions to the problem (β = -0,809; p = 0,000), respect for traditions and moderation (β = -0,882; p = 0,000), – counteract its occurrence ("Index of mental burnout"). Conclusion. It has been established for the first time that the socio-psychological competence of teachers can act not only as a factor in the occurrence, but also as a factor in overcoming emotional burnout, which determines the scientific novelty of the results obtained, as well as the strategy and tactics of corrective and preventive work from the standpoint of the resource approach.

In recent decades, more teachers are using question generators to provide students with online homework. Learning-to-rank (LTR) methods can partially rank questions to address the needs of individual students and reduce their study burden. Unfortunately, ranking questions for students is not trivial because of three main challenges: (1) discovering students’ latent knowledge and cognitive level is difficult, (2) the content of quizzes can be totally different but the knowledge points of these quizzes may be inherently related, and (3) ranking models based on supervised, semisupervised, or reinforcement learning focus on the current assignment without considering past performance. In this work, we propose KFRank, a knowledge-fusion ranking model based on reinforcement learning, which considers both a student’s assignment history and the relevance of quizzes with their knowledge points. First, we load students’ assignment history, reorganize it using knowledge points, and calculate the effective features for ranking in terms of the relation between a student’s knowledge cognitive and the question. Then, a similarity estimator is built to choose historical questions, and an attention neural network is used to calculate the attention value and update the current study state with knowledge fusion. Finally, a rank algorithm based on a Markov decision process is used to optimize the parameters. Extensive experiments were conducted on a real-life dataset spanning a year and we compared our model with the state-of-the-art ranking models (e.g., ListNET and LambdaMART) and reinforcement-learning methods (such as MDPRank). Based on top- k nDCG values, our model outperforms other methods for groups of average and weak students, whose study abilities are relatively poor and thus their behaviors are more difficult to predict.

Distance education in Ukraine has undergone significant growth over the past two years. It has provided opportunities for millions of undergraduate and graduate students to continue learning in a variety of forms and ways, including online learning, internships, competitions, research, dissertation defenses, field experience reports, seminars and forums in quarantine. In contrast to Ukraine, according to the results of a survey of some higher educational institutions during the epidemic period, the degree of student dissatisfaction with distance learning on the Internet is generally high. In contrast to Ukraine, according to the results of a survey of some higher educational institutions in the world during the epidemic period, the degree of student dissatisfaction with distance learning on the Internet is generally high. In the realities of our country, distance learning is much more popular with students, since there is no need to be in the lecture hall, and it is also impossible to determine who completed the homework: student or someone else. On the other hand, the workload for teachers has increased due to the need to create and administer distance courses, presentations, multimedia labs and others. These factors contribute to an increase in dissatisfaction with the distance education process among university teachers. The overall response of students and teachers to distance education is related to the challenges of transition and adaptation. First, opinions regarding the negative impact of long-term use of electronic products cannot be ignored. Secondly, there is a problem associated with the lack of technical support and personal space at home for students. Any pandemic causes high levels of stress in the population. It is associated with uncertainty and loss of control over the situation. The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the pre-existing mental health of both students and teachers. This is mainly due to the closure of educational institutions, the loss of work and study hours, limited social ties, and a heavy load of educational material. To ensure a sufficient level of quality of distance learning, it is necessary to use automated learning support systems. They provide an opportunity to objectively assess and maintain academic integrity for students. That is why the purpose of this work is to do overview of existing popular and most widely used automated learning support systems and to compare their functionality for design of a new system that will provide the required quality of learning. The overview made it possible to determine that a high-quality automated learning support system in a distance learning environment should contain at least the following parts: preparation of course elements by teachers, anonymous assessment of the course by students, attendance control, student recognition, exchange of teaching resources, exchange of professional knowledge and skills, conducting various types of control activities and homework, meetings and seminars, Web-based laboratories, Internet library and others. Also, the system must be cross-platform and supported on a computer, TV, mobile phone, tablet and other common gadgets based on the existing today operating systems.

Children’s perceptions of their experiences with their school work, and teacher and peer relationships were studied in 44 second-born children, participating with their mothers and siblings in a longitudinal investigation, who were interviewed in October and May of their first-grade year. Overall, the majority of children were very positive about their experiences in all three areas of school adjustment. Modest associations between children’s perceptions of their school work, teacher, and peer experiences suggest that although most children perceived their experiences as positive (or negative) across all three areas, some children reported difficulties in one or two individual areas. In addition, although many children’s reported school experiences remained stable over the year, some children’s perceptions changed. The majority of children whose perceived school experiences were marked by discontinuity over the year were positive at the beginning of the year but relatively negative at the end. Finally, the findings from this investigation draw attention to some of the antecedent variables related to children’s subsequent school experiences, in particular, their emotion understanding and earlier relationships with their older siblings.

This study provides a description of how 12 first-year physical education teachers perceived their workplace, how it affected their first year of work, and how their workplace shaped their induction into the context of the school. Interviews were conducted at the end of each participant’s first year of teaching. All participants reported that the following workplace factors shaped their first year of teaching: the facilities, the presence or absence of teaching colleagues, the scheduling of classes, the community environment, and the students. In addition several “unarticulated” (Schein, 1988) factors were identified that represent additional themes of influence: the status of physical education in the schools, the teachers’ sense of efficacy, the testing of values, and the realities of the school as a social institution. The results of this study, together with information from the literature, suggest that despite modest efforts, many schools provide inadequate support for beginning teachers.

A variety of behaviors such as cynicism, depression, and lack of interest in work are associated with a condition known as burnout. This condition is thought to be positively correlated with stress. The stress levels of first year male and female special education teachers working in urban and rural schools were measured. Results indicated that rural teachers were experiencing more stress than urban teachers and women reported higher levels of stress than men. Implications of these findings for those involved in the preservice and inservice training of teachers are discussed.

Down the Rabbit Hole is an ethnodrama based on interviews with novice teachers teaching in historically underperforming and underresourced school districts. Each of the teachers interviewed completed a specialized program in urban teacher preparation. The main character in the play represents all of the teachers in the study and her dialogue is taken from the body of interview data. The dialogue from the other characters is also taken from the interviews and adapted to show the interactions described by the teachers. The script highlights the challenges of navigating the myriad of realities facing new teachers in high-needs contexts. This work begins with the full script and then includes a discussion of what the author learned and how this knowledge is being used to reshape her practice.

The current study intends to investigate teachers’ beliefs about the issues encountered by writing teachers when they assess writing skills at the University of Algiers2. It also examines the factors which lie behind these challenges. Understanding the nature of the perceived challenges of assessing writing is very important to rethink the assessment practices of writing skills. Therefore, this study addresses the following research question: what are teachers’ beliefs about the issues encountered when assessing students’ writing skills? In this concern, the researcher adopted mixed method research to collect data by using a questionnaire and a semi-structured interview with ten teachers of writing selected randomly in the English department at the University of Algiers 2. Findings revealed that almost all teachers viewed the process of assessing writing as a very challenging task. Examples of the difficulties identified in this research include students’ language problems, teachers’ confusion between focusing on the content or the form, time pressure, overloaded classes, and lack of sufficient time to assess students’ writing skills. Regarding the reasons behind these perceived challenges, teachers believed that the abovementioned issues stemmed from the lack of participation in a professional development program, low teaching load, and students’ lack of intensive practice. This research provided a set of pedagogical implications to overcome these issues by calling for an emphasis on the importance of teachers’ participation in a professional development program, reinforcement of teachers’ training in the field of assessment, and the encouragement of students’ intensive practice, and a sufficient teaching load.

The fragment of the laboratory practical work for students of the first-second year of the direction 44.03.01 “Pedagogical education” is presented in the article. Practical lesson is conducted using the word processor Microsoft Word 2010. The material will also be useful to practicing teachers, class teachers, teachers of preschool and additional education, informatics teachers when studying the theme “Graphics in a word processor”.

Studies show beginning agriculture teachers have different experiences than their seasoned colleagues, but how are their experiences different? This phenomenological collective case study tells the story of traditionally certified beginning agriculture teachers throughout their first three years of teaching. The study began with eight teachers in their first year and concluded with six teachers completing three years of teaching. Data collection included an on-site visit with an observation of teaching, tour, and an in-person interview followed by monthly phone interviews throughout the three academic years. Each year concluded with the teachers completing a reflection guide and participating in a focus group. The collective strengths and challenges the teachers faced were presented and organized by each year of experience. The findings highlighted areas the profession should support beginning agriculture teachers by including increased feedback and mentoring for teachers, resources on student management, work/life balance, seeking funding, and community relations.

The necessity of making first-year students of higher educational institutions engaged in research work is highlighted. The views of researchers on this issue are analyzed and general provisions are highlighted. The necessity of such work for the future technology teachers studying in the first year is explained. The final qualification work as a system-forming component of engagement of first-year students in research work is highlighted. The advantages of this approach and organizational aspects are given.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the experiences and perceptions of 10 first-year teachers who had been trained to provide evidence-based practices, including integrated services and supports, and subsequently took jobs in self-contained, special education elementary and middle-school classrooms designated for students with “moderate/severe disabilities.” A collective case study design was used to follow the teachers over the course of their first year of teaching. The narrative and teacher-reported data demonstrated their accomplishments, the joys of their work with the children and families, and their growth in confidence levels. The data also revealed their frustrations with some of the systemic issues they faced. Many of the difficulties stemmed from the lack of a shared vision between the teachers and their school administrators and systems. Implications for policy and practice regarding the segregation of students with severe disabilities and their teachers are discussed, as well as issues related to the evaluation of special education teachers and the induction of new special education teachers.

New technologies have transformed teaching processes and enabled new ways of study and learning. In these activities, it is suspected that the students don't make good use of new available technologies or, in the best case, they are underused. The analysis of this issue with the design of strategies to correct any defects found is the motivation that supports the development of this work and the main purpose of it. Evaluate information search habits used by the student and analyse their deduct synthesis and processing capabilities of the results found. The researchers of this study are university teachers of first year subjects, which allows them to know the information search performances by students.

Scholarly investigations of the first year experience identify various difficulties for students, yet few studies investigate how those difficulties relate to each other or how students’ appraisals help to overcome them. We asked two cohorts of first-year students (109 in 2013, and 98 in 2014) about their experiences with 11 commonly-cited difficulties. They used concept maps to make comparative judgements about their difficulties, appraised their biggest difficulty, and rated how they engaged with that difficulty. The students experienced multiple difficulties at a time. Time management, work load and others’ expectations were the most prevalent and biggest difficulties. Students who appraised their difficulties as challenging or benign were happier with how they addressed their difficulty than those who appraised difficulties as harmful or threatening. Implications include the benefits of addressing more prevalent issues, understanding that students face multiple difficulties, and helping students change their perspectives of their difficulties.

The main objective of this study is to determine the college students' perspective on their teachers' work ethics. The researcher conducted this study at Notre Dame of Tacurong College towards 262 college students across all year levels and courses who were enrolled during the first semester of the academic year 2016-2017 as the respondents. The researcher uses convenient sampling to identify the individual respondents from each class and a researcher-made questionnaire to gather data for this study. The researcher uses different statistical tools such as frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and ranking to treat the data. Findings reveal that out of 262 respondents, most are female second-year students enrolled in Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. Results show further that college students' perspective on teachers' work ethics generally practices to a great extent are lecturers use technology when teaching; lecturers dress appropriately in school; lecturers abide by the school policies, and lecturers show positive relationship towards school administration. Also, lecturers manage students' misbehaviour with patience.

The current neoliberal policy regime that has dictated school reform policies such as standardized testing and performance accountability challenges the professional values of teachers. As a result, they become policy subjects who either accept or resist the neoliberal agenda. Given the high turnover of novice teachers in schools governed by neoliberal policies, this study sought to understand first-year teachers’ feelings of efficacy and career decisions. This paper applies Duncan-Andrade’s (2009) theoretical concepts of false and critical hope to the narrative experiences of three first-year teachers working in high-poverty schools. The findings indicate that teachers’ ideologies may match the false hope of equal opportunity and hard work that are embedded in the neoliberal policy regime. Additionally, first-year teachers may also develop some skepticism of the polices they are forced to implement. However, if they are unsure how to express their skepticism, they may experience hopelessness over time. This paper argues that critical hope presents an opportunity for teachers, administrators, and students to confront neoliberal policies that contradict their vision of schooling and provide a less prescriptive, more universal education. Additionally, it reveals insights into how policy regimes impact the experiences and identities of novice teachers.

The purpose of this paper is to illuminate the experiences of two recent graduates from an undergraduate initial certification educator preparation program (EPP) who began their first year working for a charter school in a large urban city. Their background in the constructivist-oriented EPP contrasts sharply with the philosophy and instructional practices of the charter school. The extreme nature of this particular context sheds light on the teacher induction process and raises questions about enhancing new teachers’ adaptive capacities and emotional resilience to work through professional dissonance in the first years. These stories suggest that new teachers may benefit from additional training in communication skills and emotion management in the navigation of school workplace dilemmas.

The concept of complex psychological adaptation of first-year students for student life is presented. Theories of adaptability of adolescents and adolescents and the concept of their adaptation to new minds of life and activity are generalized. The results of the empirical study of the individual-psychological qualities of the freshmen, the features of their social interaction and academic motivation are described. The experience of the psychological support of the process of adaptation of students who are internally displaced to study at a university is analyzed. Their true personal and character peculiarities, ways of adapting to the situation and responding to adverse influences from the external environment are determined. The perspective circle of researches in the field of psychological support and support of internally displaced students is outlined. Adaptation to learning has been found to be a complex process of learning the norms and rules of an educational institution, forging friendships with one-groupers, and for constructive relationships with teachers; development of strategies of educational activity and initial activity. The article determines that the adaptation of internally displaced first-year students to study should come as an active tertiary adaptation of students to the higher education institutions, in the process of developing students' skills and ability to organize their understanding, and life, the system of working with professional self-education and self-education of professionally significant qualities of personality. It has been found that the process of adaptation to university education is a complex system of transformations that occur with a person in accordance with changes in the minds of existence. The beginning of a student's life is connected with numerous social changes; replacement of existing attitudes and stereotypes; stressful situations. For some students, this can lead to the substitution of a real sense of adulthood by activities such as freedom to attend classes, unsystematic homework, and so on. All of this can, over time, be transformed into a reluctance to study, attend a school, and participate in one's social life.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine first-year principals’ sense-making about two potentially conflicting demands as they take over low-performing urban schools: the demand to exert control over their teachers’ practice, and the need to build their teachers’ trust, collegiality, and commitment. Design/methodology/approach – This study draws on a series of surveys and interviews with 12 first-year principals that took over some of the lowest-performing public schools in one large urban district. Findings – Some principals begin their first year seeing their work to build accountability and commitment as complementary, while others see these two areas as in tension. Principals remain relatively consistent in these approaches over their first year on the job, although some principals change their views, generally coming to see these two areas as increasingly separate over time. Research limitations/implications – Future work should examine principals’ work to balance the demands of accountability and commitment in a variety of organizational contexts. Practical implications – Principal preparation may benefit from training principals on the particular challenges they may face as they work with teachers in low-performing schools. Accountability systems may also seek to alter the demands placed on novice principals. Originality/value – Despite the centrality of principals to school improvement, the prevalence of high-stakes school accountability, and findings on the importance of commitment to school success, little empirical research has examined how principals make sense of the potentially conflicting demands of accountability and commitment in highly pressured circumstances.

This study discusses about English conversation teaching by pair-work technique for the firts year English majored students. This study uses Classroom Action Research. It can be used to know the improvement of teachers’ activity and students’ ability after a particular technique applied. The research findings denoted that pair-work technique can attract the students’ motivation to take part in language teaching and improve their ability at speaking, It can seen from the improvement of students’ activities from cycle one to cycle two (82,5 % of the students took part in the teaching -learning process or at level 3,3 ,good category to 91,25% or at the level 3,65, good category in cycle two, and the improvement of their scores was 7 students (21,9%) got score 70 up in pre cycle, 29 students (90,6 %) in cycle one and 32 students (100%) in cycle two. It can be stated that the pair-work technique is appropriate to apply in teaching speaking.

Background/Content Since a large gap exists between the rhetoric of reform-minded teacher education and what actually transpires in student teachers’ field experiences, this study sought to fill a gap in current scholarship which has yet to document how mentor teachers, conceptualized as school-based teacher educators, shape and conduct their own work with student teachers assuming the role of full-year undergraduate interns. Focus of Study The purpose of this study was to explore how two successful mentor teachers enact their work with interns in a newly created inquiry-oriented professional development school. Research Design This investigation uses case study methodology informed by both ethnographic and phenomenological perspectives. Using these lenses and data collected over an eighteen-month period, the stories of two mentor teachers are captured and analyzed. Conclusions Three themes emerged within each case that characterized the unique work of each mentor. The three themes that shape the work of the first mentor offer insight into a conceptual illustration represented by a gardening metaphor. The three themes of the second case suggest a mentor as co-inquirer's approach to mentoring. A look across the cases augments our understanding of mentoring prospective teachers.

This study is aimed at increasing teachers’ disciplines to start teaching on time at the first entry job in SMPN 8 Bontang East Kalimantan using individual conference techniques. The subject of the study is 14 teachers of SMPN 8 Bontang in the academic year 2012/2013. The study uses three circle conferences each of which involves conversation and setting to explore reasons and commitment. The study discovers that during three weeks with 36 first entry meeting at 07.30-08.40, of 14 teachers involved in the conversation achieved 80%; and 93.% committed to run on time in the first entry job. Classroom atmosphere is so conducive as teachers are present in the first entry work.

Small-Scale Chp Potential in Latvia and Estonia In the research the small-scale CHP potential of Latvia and Estonia has been defined. Factors, which influence the CHP development, were analyzed in this paper, including political, geographic, climatological, legislative and technological factors. For the small-scale CHP potential assessment the three alternatives were chosen. The first alternative is the case, when only the hot water is taken into account. In this case the CHP can work with full load during the whole year because the heat load will not change (k=0,13). For the second alternative the results of the previous research were used. In this case an optimal relative heat load has been found for a small-scale CHP. This optimum value is 0,3. According to this optimum value the CHP can produce more electricity working with full load than in the first case. However, the CHP does not work whole year round. The third alternative shows the situation for the small-scale CHP when a half of the maximum heat load will be covered by the CHP. The formulas and the results for each case were provided.

The purpose of this study was to determine the increase in elementary school teacher work commitments in Gugus 3 Kecamatan Blahbatuh Kabupaten Gianyar Semester II Academic Year 2018/2019 after attending clinical supervision activities. This research is a school action research. Subjects were elementary school teachers in Gugus 3 Kecamatan Blahbatuh Kabupaten Gianyar with a total of 58 teachers. Teacher work commitment data in this study were collected using a questionnaire. Data analysis techniques used descriptive analysis. Indicators of the success of this study are: if the minimum teacher work commitment is in the High category and classical completeness is 90%. Based on the research that has been done, it was concluded that the effective implementation of clinical supervision could increase the work commitments of elementary school teachers in Cluster 3 of Blahbatuh District, Gianyar Regency Semester II in 2018/2019 Academic Year. In the pre-cycle mean teacher work commitment is 128.74 in the medium category with the percentage of classical completeness is 67.24%. In the first cycle the mean work commitment of teachers was 145.98 in the high category with the percentage of classical completeness being 87.93%. Whereas, in cycle II it increased with a mean of 180.45 in the very high category with the percentage of classical completeness being 100%.

Policymakers have increasingly worked to combat teacher turnover by implementing induction programs for early-career teachers. Yet the existing evidence for the effects of induction on turnover is mixed. Drawing on data from the three most recent administrations of the Schools and Staffing and Teacher Follow-Up Surveys, as well as the Beginning Teacher Longitudinal Study, this study investigates whether different kinds of induction supports predict teacher turnover among nationally representative samples of first-year teachers. We find that receiving induction supports in the first year predicts less teacher migration and attrition, suggesting that using induction to reduce new teacher turnover is a promising policy trend. We also find that levels of induction support are fairly constant for different kinds of teachers and teachers in different kinds of schools. The exceptions are that teachers who are Black and who work in schools with more students who speak English as a second language report higher levels of induction supports.

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. (2018) ‘Blueprinting: Planning your tests. FAIMER-Keele Master’s in Health Professions Education: Accreditation and Assessment. Module 1, Unit 2.’, FAIMER Centre for Distance Learning, CenMEDIC. 6th edn. London, pp. 7–90. Cruess, R. L., Cruess, S. R., & Steinert, Y. (2016). ‘Amending Miller’s pyramid to include professional identity formation’. Acad Med, 91(2), pp. 180–185. Etheridge, L. and Boursicot, K. (2013) ‘Performance and workplace assessment’, in Dent, J. A. and Harden, R. M. (eds) A practical guide for medical teachers. 4th edn. London: Elsevier Limited. Kahneman, D. (2011) Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Lawshe, CH. (1975) A quantitative approach to content validity. Pers Psychol, 28(4), pp. 563–75. McLean, M. and Gale, R. (2018) Essays and short answer questions. FAIMER-Keele Master’s in Health Professions Education: Accreditation and Assessment. Module 1, Unit 5, 5th edition. FAIMER Centre for Distance Learning, CenMEDIC, London. McManus, IC. Thompson, M. and Mollon, J. (2006) ‘ Assessment of examiner leniency and stringency (‘hawk-dove effect’) in the MRCP(UK) clinical examination (PACES) using multi-facet Rasch modelling’ BMC Med Educ. 42(6) doi:10.1186/1472- 6920-6-42 Merrienboer, J.J.G. (2013) ‘Instructional Design’, in Dent, J. A. and Harden, R. M. (eds) A practical guide for medical teachers. 4th edn. London: Elsevier Limited. Murphy, JM. Seneviratne, R. Remers, O and Davis, M. (2009) ‘Hawks’ and ‘doves’: effect of feedback on grades awarded by supervisors of student selected components, Med Teach, 31(10), e484-e488, DOI: 10.3109/01421590903258670 Norcini, J. and McKinley, D. W. (2007) ‘Assessment methods in medical education’, Teaching and Teacher Education, 23(3), pp. 239–250. doi: 10.1016/j.tate.2006.12.021. Norcini, J. and Troncon, L. (2018) Foundations of assessment. FAIMER-Keele Master’s in Health Professions Education: Accreditation and Assessment. Module 1, Unit 1. 6th edn. London: FAIMER Centre for Distance Learning CenMEDIC. Norcini, J. and McKinley, D. W. (2013) ‘Standard Setting’, in Dent, J. A. and Harden, R. M. (eds) A practical guide for medical teachers. 4th edn. London: Elsevier Limited. Swanson, D. and Case, S. (1998) Constructing written test questions for the basic and clincial sciences. 3rd Ed. National Board of Medical Examiners. 3750 Market Street Philadelphia, PA 19104. Van Der Vleuten, C. Schuwirth, L. Scheele, F. Driessen, E. and Hodges, B. (2010) ‘The assessment of professional competence: building blocks for theory development’, Best Practice & Research Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology, pp. 1-17. doi:10.1016/j. bpobgyn.2010.04.001 Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge university press.

Background/Context New teachers must cope with various instructional, personal and organizational challenges, an experience that often leads to difficulties enacting innovative, student-centered instructional practices learned in their preservice programs and contributes to high rates of teacher attrition. Purpose Drawing on complexity theory, this review of empirical research takes an organizational or “systems” perspective on the experiences of first-year teachers as they transition from preservice education to the teaching profession. In so doing, we aim to shift away from constructions of the teacher as an autonomous actor and instead build a more complex, nuanced, and layered understanding of the multidimensional influences that work together to shape the practices of novice teachers. Research Design We conducted a metasynthesis of 46 studies that met the following criteria: (a) were focused on first-year teachers, (b) offered sufficient description of participants’ professional practices, (c) featured participants who attended a university-based preparation program, and (d) were conducted since 1990. We first recorded each study's methods, findings, and descriptions of first-year teacher practices. As a second level of analysis, we used a complexity lens to identify the systems comprising first-year teacher practices, noting how those systems and their component or elements interacted to shape first-year teaching. Findings/Results We found that common patterns of interactions between and among systems of first-year teaching—including the teacher herself, the classroom, the school, and the larger district, state, and federal environments—tend to reinforce traditional, teacher-centered practices. Yet, in some studies, conditions surfaced that enabled participants’ to enact student-centered and equity-minded teaching practices learned in their preservice programs. Conclusions/Recommendations Authors suggest that taking a complex systems view of beginning teaching, rather than singularly focusing on the teacher's actions out of context, can reveal opportunities for fostering more supportive, enabling conditions for new teachers to enact innovative practices that many preservice programs promote and experience a smoother transition into teaching.

Personal approach toward learning process and interest for learning during university education are underlined as one of the key factors for success during university studies. The aim of this paper is to determine the motivation of students – future physical education teachers for academic work. The study was conducted on a sample of 69 participants, students in the first year at Faculty of physical education, sport and health at University in Skopje, North Macedonia. Questioner comprised from 11 items, designed as 4 – point Likert scale was applied. Three groups of indicators for academic work were determined: active involvement in teaching process; inner self – discipline for learning; strive to supplement and extend personal knowledge. Study results suggest on positive attitude toward academic work and respectively high level of motivation, different approaches in achieving results in academic work. Achieving long – lasting knowledge is underlined as priority in academic work of students included in this study. Obtained results are valuable for university professors indicating the key points that should be consider in order to achieve highly motivated students and maximal learning result. Keywords: motivation, university students, learning, teaching process;

My experience has been that teachers will not become teachers of problem solving until they first become problem solvers themselves. From that perspective, those of us who are responsible for the preparation of teachers need to ensure they get appropriate problem-solving experiences. Like many other colleges and universities across the country, Austin Peay State University has a one-year mathematics requirement for prospective elementary school teachers. Problem solving is emphasized in the three required courses. The initial course begins with a unit on the problem-solving process. Various problem-solving strategies—such as look for a pattern, build a table, draw a picture, use trial and error, write an equation, work backward, and solve a simpler problem—are introduced and illustrated. Throughout the year, problem-solving situations are presented within the framework of the specific mathematics topic being studied. Students are encouraged to employ the strategies that were learned in the first unit.

Drawing on nationally representative data from the 1988 to 2018 school years, the authors provide an overview of some of the key changes in the characteristics of first-year teachers in the U.S., including racial/ethnic identity, education levels, subject area, and certification status. The data also show that new teachers have become increasingly more likely, compared to experienced teachers, to work in schools with a greater fraction of students of color, which has consequences for equitable teacher assignments and teacher attrition.

Nursing students’ ability to develop mature empathy requires emotional work, usually associated with caring experiences in relation with patients and next of kin. This article is based on qualitative in-depth interviews with 11 first-year students, and the research questions were: What characterizes situations in a nursing home that evoke strong emotional reactions in first-year students? What is the learning potential of these experiences? Findings show that facing emotionally challenging situations during their first clinical placement in nursing education aroused strong feelings and commitment among the students. The students tried, however, to find ways to handle emotionally challenging situations both with support in scientific literature, as well as from experience. Nurses were important role models, but could also exemplify characteristics of less empathic behaviour. Developing ‘mature empathy’ requires emotional work so that the students learn to adapt themselves to what will be demanded of them as professional nurses. The findings of this and other studies should alert nurses as well as teachers to the importance of helping students develop empathy as part of their learning trajectory in nursing education.

The purpose of this quantitative research is to examine the relationships among teachers’ work engagement, teamwork attitudes, and efficacy for classroom diversity within the scope of structural equation modeling. The sample of the study consists of 355 teachers involved in the Project Supporting the Integration of Syrian Children into the Turkish Education System (PIKTES) during the 2020-2021 academic year. The Teachers’ Teamwork Attitude Scale, Work Engagement Scale, and Teacher Efficacy Scale for Classroom Diversity have been used for collecting the data. Four hypotheses were developed based on the structural model created within the context of this study. Accordingly, (i) teachers’ work engagement is claimed to positively affects both teachers’ efficacy for classroom diversity as well as their (ii) teamwork attitude; and (iii) teachers’ efficacy for classroom diversity is claimed to positively affect their teamwork attitude, and (iv) teachers’ work engagement is also claimed to positively affect their teamwork attitude through their efficacy for classroom diversity. To verify these hypotheses, the relationships among the variables were determined first, and all the variables were seen to have moderately positive relationships. Based on these relations, the given structural model was then created and tested using path analysis. The findings showed all the hypotheses to have been proven confirmed.

Background/Context Despite the best intentions to close the achievement gap, the under-achievement of African American students in science is a persistent problem. It is surprising to note, however, that research on science education has often failed to consider students’ cultural diversity as it relates to science education. On the few occasions when efforts were made to link science disciplines and students’ cultural backgrounds, these studies were largely limited to classroom learning environments. Purpose/Research Question This study examines the perspectives of exemplary African American teachers toward science homework. Specifically, we address two research questions: What does science homework mean to exemplary African American science teachers? How do they approach science homework? Research Design A qualitative study was conducted, with data obtained from the following sources: (a) three open-ended, in-depth interviews with each exemplary teacher during the first year of the study, and (b) two focus group interviews with these teachers during the second year of the study. The participants were 8 exemplary African American science teachers in Grades 3–6 in the southeastern United States. Findings/Results Data revealed that these teachers shared a strong sense of urgency to use homework as an important vehicle in science learning. To help their students be successful with their homework, these teachers often provided additional provisions and used a variety of strategies to promote students’ interest in their homework. In addition, the teachers adapted an approach comparable to both Boykin's Afrocultural ethos (e.g., concerned with affect, expressive individualism, and verve) and “being a warm demander” (i.e., setting high expectations and insisting firmly yet respectfully that students meet those expectations). Conclusions These findings suggest that there is merit in integrating these two frameworks to better understand the perspectives of exemplary African American teachers toward science homework. These findings highlight the need to examine the perspectives of exemplary African American teachers toward secondary school science homework given that the poor achievement of African American students becomes more pronounced as they progress through school, and homework is found to be more strongly associated with secondary school students than elementary school students.

Essay on the history of social hygiene.On the history of the Department of Hygiene of Kazan University on the occasion of its 125th anniversary.We are poor in the history of our Russian universities in general. The three oldest medical universities (Moscow, Medical-Surgical Academy and Kazan) have only 100-year-old stories written, although the oldest of them, Moscow University, is approaching its 175th anniversary. Kazan University has a major beginning of its 100-year history, however, embracing only the first 25 years of its existence; the author of this major work in 4 voluminous volumes is Professor NP Zagoskin; under his editorship, the "Biographical Dictionary of Professors and Teachers of Kazan University" was published, covering the entire period of the 100th anniversary of Kazan University (1804-1904). Kazan University also has an interesting and valuable historical monograph in 2 volumes by N. Bulich "From the first years of Kazan University", but also embracing only a limited first 15-year period of the university (1805-1819).

The organization of medical curricula with a clear distinction between basic and clinical subjects makes it difficult for teachers to collaborate and teach students in an integrated way. We designed a new subject, Integrated Medicine, to overcome such limitations. Here, we describe the evaluation of the first three years of running the experience, as well as the opinion of the first group of students in their sixth year. Three cohorts of first-year medical students (n=158) and eight teachers, as well as a group of students of sixth year (n=41), participated in the experiment. Students worked following the problem-based learning approach. Their satisfaction, their subjective improvement of content knowledge in basic and clinical fields, and their belief about the accomplishment of educational objectives were evaluated. The results showed a high level of satisfaction, increased content knowledge, and improvement in solving problems, searching for relevant information, team working, and oral and written communication skills. Students of sixth year agreed that the subject helped them to better understand the clinical manifestations of disease, the diagnosis process, and therapeutic approaches. In conclusion, experiences such as Integrated Medicine may enhance the integration of knowledge by the joint work of basic and clinical teachers.

Today’s schools are more culturally and linguistically diverse than ever before, prompting the need for teachers with the requisite expertise for work with emergent bilingual learners. As students grow in numbers and fill seats in classrooms spanning grades and disciplines, teacher educators must consider ways to prepare an increasing number of teachers, including those spanning licensure areas. This research probed one university’s efforts to prepare all teacher candidates for this growing subgroup of students through a field-based undergraduate teacher education program in the urban Midwest. Using artifact data from 29 program completers and survey and interview data from five focal teachers spanning licensure areas, this study investigated how particular facets of the field-based program promoted or deterred candidates’ learning across the 4-year program and into teachers’ first year of teaching. Implications center on how universities can leverage field-based teacher education to prepare future teachers for diverse classrooms.

The head of the madrasa (school) is someone who is given the task by his subordinates to lead a madrasa where the teaching and learning process is held in the madrasa. One of the things that can help teachers to be disciplined in teaching is to repeat the law. No. 14 of 2005 concerning the intent and duties of teachers in carrying out the teaching and learning process in schools. The purpose of this madrasah action research is to seek to improve the work ethic for MTsS Darul Falah teachers, East Aceh Regency through the discipline of the madrasah principal in the odd semester of the 2019/2020 school year, totaling 16 teachers. The research method used is the madrasah action research method which is carried out in two cycles the first four times consisting of 1) planning 2) implementation 3) observation and 4) reflection. In collecting this data, the researcher used observation, interviews and documentation. In the interview technique, the researcher wanted to dig up data about the causes and effects of not carrying out the work ethic on teaching attendance. The results showed that there was an increase in the work ethic of teachers through the discipline of the madrasa principal, namely in the first cycle the level of teacher work ethic from 16 teachers was only 63%. In the second cycle reached 88%. From the results of the study, it can be concluded that through discipline the head of the madrasa can improve the work ethic of teachers in teaching attendance so as to increase the creativity of students

Introduction. The article for the first time structures the types of additional responsibilities of teachers, not underpinned by local regulations. The proposals for debureaucratization of the educational process in secondary schools are generalized. The aim of the study is to reveal the impact of bureaucratic burden on the social feeling of teachers of general secondary education facilities, the quality of their professional activities and to develop proposals for debureaucratization of teachers’ work. Materials and Methods. A survey of managers and teachers of educational institutions covered more than 3,000 respondents. As additional sources for the interpretation of the data, we used the methods of group interviews (two focus groups conducted among rural teachers), as well as a secondary analysis of data from the international study of the educational environment and working conditions of secondary school teachers (TALIS), conducted in 48 countries, including Russia. Results. The study broadened the idea of the impact of bureaucratization of the education system on the quality of professional activity and the social well-being of teachers. Intensification of bureaucratization of teacher work is attributed, on the one hand, to the extensive growth of additional types of work, and on the other, to the low legal awareness of teachers of educational institutions. Working with reporting documentation takes up to 90 % of the working time free from paid teaching ho urs, which practically does not leave time for the implementation of part of the pedagogical load associated with methodological, organizational and consulting activities. The study identifies activities that, according to respondents, contribute to the debureaucratization of teachers’ work. Discussion and Conclusion. The article is of interest to teachers and heads of educational organizations, regional educational authorities, and scientists, researching i nto educational problems.

Background: Presently there is a linguistic dualism i.e. thinking in one language and studying in the other. Proficiency in English is the need of the hour. However, for some an abrupt change in the medium of language along with introduction of terminologies can become a potential barrier to academic success.Methods: A questionnaire based study was carried out in 150 students and 25 teachers of first MBBS.Results: Majority of the students and teachers considered that English as a medium of instruction is not a problem. They also opined that English should be retained as a medium of instruction since it is of global importance; use of regional /national language should be allowed since it will help in dealing with patients and thus better patient care.Conclusions: Since English is the language of global importance, medical teachers should work together to find out a practical approach in addressing some of the problem areas faced by few medical students to help them perform better as an Indian medical graduate.

In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the Corona Virus 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak a global pandemic. As a result, billions of people were either encouraged or forced by their governments to stay home to reduce the spread of the virus. This caused many to turn to the Internet for work, education, social interaction, and entertainment. With the Internet demand rising at an unprecedented rate, the question of whether the Internet could sustain this additional load emerged. To answer this question, this paper will review the impact of the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic on Internet traffic in order to analyze its performance. In order to keep our study broad, we collect and analyze Internet traffic data from multiple locations at the core and edge of the Internet. From this, we characterize how traffic and application demands change, to describe the "new normal," and explain how the Internet reacted during these unprecedented times.

Academic success is conceptualized as a multifactor model, achievement and persistence after the first year of study being considered the main learning outcomes. In this area, the findings are inconsistent, depending on the academic context, individual characteristics and diversity of psychological measures. Here, we conducted two related correlational studies to analyze variables of the emotional domain, as emotional intelligence (2017–2019), emotions, well-being and resilience (2018–2020), dropout intention, perceived barriers to completion at the beginning of first years of study in forestry, academic performance and real dropout at the end of the first year of study and several socio-demographic variables. The two studies focused on undergraduate students and included 367 and 227 participants, respectively. Forestry students with higher academic performance report higher accomplishment and engagement and feel weak negative emotions concerning aversive academic assessment compared with students with lower academic performance and students that abandoned their studies. Female students and students with full ECTS load at the end of the first year use their emotions more effectively, have reported lower dropout intention and lower perception of barriers to completion of study, and have higher GPA admission and expected GPA. Performance at the end of the first year is explained by GPA admission, relationships with high school teachers, expected GPA, gender, and academic resilience. Dropout intention is explained by barriers to completion of studies, general negative emotions and negative affect related to threatened assessment situations, and managing others’ emotions. Our findings may help develop intervention measures at the individual and organizational level.

In this article, the authors consider three sources of support for new teachers—hiring practices, relationships with colleagues, and curriculum—all found in earlier research to influence new teachers’ satisfaction with their work, their sense of success with students, and their eventual retention in their job. They find that a "support gap" exists: new teachers in low-income schools are less likely than their counterparts in high-income schools to experience timely and information-rich hiring, to benefit from mentoring and support by experienced colleagues, and to have a curriculum that is complete and aligned with state standards, yet flexible for use in the classroom. Such patterns of difference between high-income and lowincome schools warrant careful consideration because they reveal broad patterns of inequity, which can have severe consequences for low-income students. Survey data for this study were collected from random samples of teachers in five states. One survey, focusing on hiring practices and teachers’ relationships with colleagues, was administered to 374 first-year and secondyear teachers in Florida, Massachusetts, and Michigan. A second survey, focusing on curriculum, was administered to 295 second-year elementary school teachers in Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Washington. The inequitable patterns of support for teachers reported here have important implications for the work of state policymakers, school district administrators, and principals. The authors describe these and offer recommendations for policy and practice in the conclusion.

The 2020 has been a year of many challenges in many professions and also for dance teachers. The daily challenge is to replace existing dance classes with a totally different class structure, which is defined by the governmental restrictions. The dance teachers must react to these restrictions immediately and without any methodological materials and support. In the crisis the dance teachers must use such learning organizational forms as: group, individual and online, and use them as alternatives to one another. Can a dance teacher reach their professional (curriculum) goals by alternating components of the study process? How do the changing circumstances affect dancers and their attendance? The aim of this article is to analyse the possibilities of a dance teacher to reach their professional goals with group, individual and online classes and to determine the dancers satisfaction with these classes. The research is realized in terms of one dance studio and in two stages. The first stage (March-July 2020) were an experimental video-instruction independent training analysis. 40 video materials were grouped in 20 classes and sent to 20 dancers. The second stage (September-January 2020) were group, individual and online class analysis from the teacher’s and dancers perspective. In the second stage 27 dancers and 5 dance teachers were surveyed.