‘Enter the Dream Tiger’. Borges, Abbau and the Shrouded Hall of Mirrors of Educational Reflection

This article reflects upon initial teacher education programme’s employment of reflection. The article argues that the orginary ground of educational reflection, dominated by theorists such as Dewey and Schon, has been colonised by a form of ‘Total Reflection’ that is conceptualised and manufactured within the Teacher Standards and its associated discourse. Through employment of the concept of Abbau, the work of Borges and mirror theory, the article reveals how student teachers are not enabled to be reflective but instead are created as the celebrated automata whose professional image is shrouded, codified and solidified by a Master Weaving machine. The article suggests that if educational reflection is to become useful in teacher development, then it must return to its past incarnations.

Design Features of Online Teacher Professional Development: A Design Case for Re-Developing the EdHub Library to Improve Usability and Alignment of Content with Teacher Standards

The EdHub Library is an online teacher professional development platform that serves 250 school districts as part of the Network for Educator Effectiveness in Missouri. It has a collection of more than 300 online activities. This design case describes the efforts of re-developing EdHub due to technical and usability issues of the first generation of the content management platform. The second generation of EdHub was the product of two prototypes and two user testing sessions between January 2018–April 2018. A literature review of information-seeking habits of K-12 teachers and web design and usability standards guided the development of the second generation of EdHub to support teachers’ browsing and searching behaviors. Five design decisions support the second generation of EdHub in terms of (1) priority of visual elements, (2) ease of navigation, (3) content alignment with Missouri teacher standards, (4) organization of results in the search engine, and (5) unifying learning objectives, activities, reflection, and external resources.

Manajemen Pendidikan, Tenaga Kependidikan, Standar Pendidik, dan Mutu Pendidikan

Globalization is a necessity, and its movement continues to grow and almost touches various aspects of human life, including education. However, the function of education as a part of the national character building must be maintained. Likewise, education management at the strategic, managerial, and operational levels determine the quality of education. Three aspects of educational management that are important are the issues of educational leadership, teacher standards, and education personnel which directly influence the quality of education. Predictably, effective educational leadership will support and realize the teacher standards and education personnel, which in turn will also improve the quality of education. This research focused on teachers' management, education personnel, teacher standards, and education quality. A qualitative descriptive approach was chosen as a design for this study.

Evaluasi Program Seleksi Di Sekolah “XM” Dengan Metode Evaluasi CIPP

This research is an evaluation research which aims to determine the implementation of the teacher selection program that has been taking place and to find out what improvement needed in the teacher selection program. The evaluation method used is the CIPP evaluation (Context, Input, Process, Product). Researchers evaluated the psychotest, interviews, microteaching and decision making activities with CIPP. The results of this study indicate that the interview and microteaching activities have not achieved their goals. Its necessary to make improvement to the : teacher standards needed by school, interview instruments, microteaching instruments and interview training for the interview officers.

National Competency-Based Teacher Standards and Teaching Effectiveness

The study was conducted to assess the competency and teaching effectiveness of teachers. It aimed at determining the level of teachers’ competency based on the National Competency-Based Teacher Standards in terms of social regard for learning, learning environment, diversity of learners, curriculum, planning, assessing and reporting, community linkages, and personal growth and professional development. It ascertained the level of teaching effectiveness according to commitment, knowledge of the subject, teaching for independent learning, and management of learning. It correlated teaching effectiveness and competency. Also, it identified the variable that singly or in combination best predicts the teaching effectiveness. Employing descriptive-correlational research design, it was delimited to the ninety (90) teacher-participants in Impasugong I District, twenty-nine (29) teacherparticipants in Impasugong II District and sixty-nine (69) teacher-participants in Sumilao District teaching across Grades 1 to VI. Mean, percentage, the Pearson r analysis, and stepwise regression analysis were applied. Among the seven domains of NCBTS, community linkages got the highest aggregate value of 3.88 described which described teachers as proficient. In all domains, the teachers were also found proficient. Results revealed that 0.5% of teachers were fairly effective, 19.15% were satisfactory, 68.09% were very satisfactory, and 12.23% were outstanding. Teaching effectiveness revealed a significant correlation with all the domains of NCBTS. Teachers’ competency in the curriculum was the sole significant predictor of teachers’ teaching effectiveness.

International Perspectives on Standards and Benchmarking in Teacher Education

Ensuring quality teachers and quality teacher education programmes have been fundamental global concerns over the decades. High quality teachers are critical to the future development of national educational systems and economic vitality. Teachers’ quality and professionalism are closely linked to their professional standards, preparation and development. Teacher education, therefore, plays a central role in preparing quality teacher and also laying foundation for the development of teacher as a professional. Worldwide, professional standards, teacher standards, teaching- leaning standards and teacher education standards are considered instrumental for improving teacher preparation, their quality and professionalism. In this context, it becomes pertinent to deliberate upon the multiple standards frameworks in operation and how these frameworks are informing teacher education programmes for preparing quality teachers. The discourses on standards and benchmarking provide effective platforms for measuring and improving performance, practice, and knowledge of teachers. Standard framework can be considered a diagnostic approach to the delivery of education which evolves through research and practice to generate new knowledge and to maintain an accountable profession. The analysis of teacher standards in both developed and developing countries clearly indicates that standards contribute to the professionalization of teaching and raise the status of the profession. Therefore standards and quality dimensions form the cornerstone for the teacher education policy, planning, and implementation. The ideas, concepts, and constructs for standards and benchmarking in teacher education are derived from comparative perspectives and implications on quality dimension processes. The concepts of standards and benchmarks in teacher education around the globe are interpreted and used in diverse ways. The developed countries of the world have specific or explicit teacher education standard frameworks, as per their country-specific expectations and requirements. Countries such as the United States of America, Australia, Canada, Scotland, and Singapore have exclusive standards frameworks for initial teacher education. Singapore and Finland have recognised the implication of teacher education standards and benchmarking on improving teaching profession. The implementation of standards is considered an important part of the solution to the problem of assessment, accreditation, and maintenance of teacher quality by the United States of America and Australia. Acknowledging the potential of standards to raise teacher quality, the East and South Asian countries are using implicit models by drawing essence from teacher, teaching and learning and professional standards frameworks as guiding reference for teacher education .The comparative analysis of standards frameworks across different countries reveals common features such as professional knowledge, professional competencies, professional skills, and professional conduct. Therefore, it can be argued that teaching learning and professional standards make teacher education programmes accountable to deliver quality and to prepare competent teachers. Though the use of a standards framework is highly acknowledged, it is equally critiqued by many researchers. In order to substantiate the deliberation, the major question of whether standard frameworks are facilitating teacher education or act as a trap can be explored. This question rallies around both the merits and demerits of the multiple use of standards in teacher education. Though explicit and implicit models for teacher education standards are in operation, it is recommended that standard framework should be flexible and dynamic in nature in order to be replicated and adopted by various teacher education programs. Despite the raised criticism, once can argue that standards frameworks are necessary for ensuring teacher education quality. The teacher education framework model necessitates continuous research and innovation support to make it more dynamic and contextual.