Catholic Classroom Communities During Remote Teaching

In this COVID-era study, Catholic school teachers report the challenges that they experienced in supporting classroom communities during remote instruction, as well as the strategies that they enacted to address such challenges and make robust relationships with and among remote students. While teachers engaged in remote teaching, they were also studying in a Catholic Master of Arts in Teaching program, where they participated in weekly Freirian culture circles — structured dialogues designed to help teachers identify problems of equity and collectively devise appropriate responses. The teachers found that classroom community was hindered by a lack of in-person affordances, socioemotional stressors related to the pandemic, struggles to engage students, and structures of hybrid teaching. In response, teachers used the culture circles to create and/or share strategies for supporting remote classroom communities, such as classroom meetings and smallgroup collaboration. Teachers recognized that efforts to develop classroom communities were intimately connected to commitments to equity.

Stress and Coping Strategies of High School Teachers of Antique Diocesan Catholic Schools

No one is stress-free, no matter how fortunate, rational, intelligent, and knowledgeable he may be. Stress has almost become a sure thing even among Catholic school teachers. This is probably due to their demands for multiple jobs, teaching unmotivated students, maintaining classroom discipline, demanding workload, being subjected to frequent changes, being judged by others, having difficult or frustrating relationships with colleagues and administrators, and poor working conditions. Stressors faced by one teacher are unique to him or her and depend on factors like personality, beliefs, abilities, and circumstances of the teacher. Other variables, such as coping mechanisms and techniques, personality traits, and environmental characteristics, can interactively influence the teacher's understanding of how stressful situations are. To deal with stressful events and relieve feelings of distress, teachers use coping methods. Rilveria (2018) identified nine coping strategies: a cognitive reappraisal, social support, problem-solving, religiosity, tolerance, emotional release, overactivity, recreation, and substance use. It has been observed that Antique Diocesan Catholic School teachers often experience high levels of stress resulting from multiple job responsibilities; thus, the researcher was propelled to explore and understand more this construct.

The Prevalence of Developmental Instruction in Public and Catholic Schools

Background/Context Prior research has investigated differences in course-taking patterns and achievement growth in public and Catholic schools, but the nature of instruction in Catholic schools is currently understudied. One important dimension of instruction that impacts student engagement is the prevalence of developmental or student-centered instruction. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study The overall goal of the present study was to investigate whether student and teacher reports of developmental instruction differ in public and Catholic schools. In addition, is a teacher's approach to instruction shaped by the social context of the school, as measured by the teacher's perception of her students? Finally, can differences in the social context of schools explain reported differences in the prevalence of developmental instruction in public and Catholic schools? Population, Participants/Subjects Data for this analysis came from the Chicago School Study, a large longitudinal study of public and Catholic schools in the Chicago area. Research Design The prevalence of developmental instruction in public and Catholic schools was analyzed using three student-reported measures of developmental instruction and one teacher-reported measure. Multilevel regression models were used to investigate the relationship between four potential predictors of developmental instruction—teachers’ perceptions of challenging instruction, teachers’ expectations of students’ future educational attainment, teachers’ knowledge of their students’ cultural backgrounds, and principals’ endorsement of developmental instruction—and teacher reports of developmental instruction. Conclusions Catholic school teachers and students were less likely to report the use of developmental instruction than public school teachers and students. This finding was particularly striking given Catholic school teachers’ high expectations for their students’ future educational attainments, a factor that was associated with an increased likelihood of reporting developmental methods in the classroom.

Burnout and its Relationship to Teachers' Somatic Complaints and Illnesses

This study was designed to estimate the relationship between teachers' somatic complaints and illnesses and their self-reported job-related stresses. 79% of the secondary Catholic school teachers in Central Ohio were classified into one of two groups based upon their scores on the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Teachers could be correctly classified as burned out or not 91% of the time when utilizing 24 somatic complaints as discriminating variables. Burnout seemed to represent a potential health risk to these teachers.