Opportunities and Barriers for Ontario Teachers in their Delivery of Environmental Education using Information and Communication Technologies

<div>Teaching and learning about the environment in the present day is filled with possibility, challenge, and urgency. Government-mandated environmental curriculum, where it exists, can provide important pedagogical and content guidance. However, bottom-up and teacher-initiated approaches to the timely delivery of relevant and contemporary environmental education are required. This research identifies and describes barriers and opportunities to the delivery of environmental education in Ontario, Canada. It also explores the receptivity of teachers to the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) as tools to complement existing instructional methods, and proposes refocusing on local geographies to exemplify human-environment interactions. Two methods of data collection were used: an online survey (n=54), a semi-structured focus group (n=18). Both approaches engaged teachers within the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), Canada’s largest school board. Three-quarters of study participants (76%) identified that teaching about the environment with hands-on assignments (e.g., data collection, field observations, experiments) was beneficial to student learning. A similar majority of teachers (74%) agreed that environmental education was an afterthought in the Ontario curriculum. A strong positive response from teachers was solicited when they were asked if ICTs were useful teaching tools. Using a Mantel-Haenszel test of trend, teachers’ perception of student enjoyment in, and engagement with, subject matter was shown to be significantly positively associated with the frequency of environmental content included in their lessons (p<0.000). NVivo software was used with content arising from the focus group discussion, and a content analysis was run to identify the frequency with which educators described current environment-related teaching, providing both new details and offering greater context to the online survey responses. While highlighting systemic weaknesses in the delivery of environmental education in Ontario, this study identified tangible avenues that teachers and schools can pursue in order to bridge the gap between environmental rhetoric and action-oriented practice.</div><div><br></div><div>Keywords: environmental education, place-based learning, Ontario, information and communication technology (ICTs), policy, mixed methods </div>

Opportunities and Barriers for Ontario Teachers in their Delivery of Environmental Education using Information and Communication Technologies

<div>Teaching and learning about the environment in the present day is filled with possibility, challenge, and urgency. Government-mandated environmental curriculum, where it exists, can provide important pedagogical and content guidance. However, bottom-up and teacher-initiated approaches to the timely delivery of relevant and contemporary environmental education are required. This research identifies and describes barriers and opportunities to the delivery of environmental education in Ontario, Canada. It also explores the receptivity of teachers to the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) as tools to complement existing instructional methods, and proposes refocusing on local geographies to exemplify human-environment interactions. Two methods of data collection were used: an online survey (n=54), a semi-structured focus group (n=18). Both approaches engaged teachers within the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), Canada’s largest school board. Three-quarters of study participants (76%) identified that teaching about the environment with hands-on assignments (e.g., data collection, field observations, experiments) was beneficial to student learning. A similar majority of teachers (74%) agreed that environmental education was an afterthought in the Ontario curriculum. A strong positive response from teachers was solicited when they were asked if ICTs were useful teaching tools. Using a Mantel-Haenszel test of trend, teachers’ perception of student enjoyment in, and engagement with, subject matter was shown to be significantly positively associated with the frequency of environmental content included in their lessons (p<0.000). NVivo software was used with content arising from the focus group discussion, and a content analysis was run to identify the frequency with which educators described current environment-related teaching, providing both new details and offering greater context to the online survey responses. While highlighting systemic weaknesses in the delivery of environmental education in Ontario, this study identified tangible avenues that teachers and schools can pursue in order to bridge the gap between environmental rhetoric and action-oriented practice.</div><div><br></div><div>Keywords: environmental education, place-based learning, Ontario, information and communication technology (ICTs), policy, mixed methods </div>

Creating Fun Time in Teaching-Learning Experiences through Teachers’ Teamwork, Humor, and Innovative Behavior

According to the Malaysian Ministry of Education's (MOE) national education model, the education system is meant to produce people who are knowledgeable, competent, and able to contribute to the nation's improvement. Educators must demonstrate unique actions to nurture their students seamlessly and systematically, according to the idea. The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical study that looks at the impact of humor and teamwork on teachers' innovative behaviors in Malaysian secondary schools. The goal of this study was to find out how engaged teachers are in innovative behavior (IB) in terms of idea generation (IGEN), idea promotion (IPROM), and idea implementation (IIMPL), as well as to look at the relationship between humor (HUM) and teamwork (TW) and IB (IB). This quantitative study was conducted using a survey of 354 selected respondents. The respondents were selected from 4,319 teachers in two different zones in the state of Selangor by using the stratified random sampling technique. The findings suggest that there is a good level of teachers’ engagement in idea generation, and a moderate level of idea promotion and idea implementation behavior. The findings also reveal that humor and teamwork are positively and significantly correlated to innovative behavior. Overall, this study provides a better insight into how humor and teamwork contribute to teachers’ innovative behavior.

Exploring Head Teachers’ Instructional Supervisory Role: The Case of Public Junior High Schools in Jirapa Municipality of Ghana

The study explored Head teachers’ instructional supervisory role among public Junior High Schools in the Jirapa Municipality of the Upper West Region of Ghana. It adopted psychological and system theory of supervision propounded by Planturrroot (2006) and Bertalanffy (2015) respectively. The mixed method sequential approach was followed in the conduct of the study where both quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analysed. A sample size of 200 respondents made up of 40 head teachers, 80 teachers and 80 pupils were used for the quantitative data, whilst 10 head teachers were selected for the qualitative data. The Statistical Product for Service Solutions (SPSS) version 23 was used to analyse the quantitative data while thematic approach was used for the qualitative data. The findings of the study revealed in-frequent orientation for newly engaged teachers. It further showed lower ratings in the provision of in-service training, time tabling design and setting of performance target for pupils and teachers. It was recommended that the Ministry of Education and Ghana Education Service (GES) should regularly organize workshops, seminars and in-service trainings on supervisory roles of head teachers and assistant head teachers to equip them with the needed knowledge and skills in the municipality. Lastly, Heads of schools and other supervisors should re-design schools` time tables to suit the use of instructional time in the lesson of teachers to enhance their monitoring.

Online Classroom Management and Motivation

Teaching online has become a considerable challenge for many educators. Everybody is talking about the revolution digital classroom has brought into the education world. Keeping the generation engaged, teachers need to find innovative and versatile methods, to use technology and manage the class online. Whether learning in a physical classroom or online, effective classroom management is the key component to a productive environment. Although, students are not all present in a single room, teachers must be intentional about managing student behavior and engagement in an online setting. Some challenges can be anticipated, and online classroom management strategies effectively overcome those challenges. Online learning focuses on a wide range of technological based learning platforms, delivery methods, and the integration of educational technology components into the learning environment. This article will address online education, its strengths, limitations, online teaching tools, professional development, best practices, and an evaluation of a personal online experience.

A Preliminary Psychometric Investigation of a Chinese Version of the Engaged Teachers Scale (C-ETS)

This study examines the psychometric properties of a Chinese version of the Engaged Teacher Scale (C-ETS). A translated questionnaire with 16 items was administered to a sample of 341 primary and secondary school teachers in Hong Kong. A series of confirmatory factor analyses were performed to assess the construct, convergent, and discriminant validity of the scale in alternative models. Results provide support for a second-order model with teacher engagement as an overarching construct with four hypothesized dimensions: emotional engagement, cognitive engagement, social engagement (students), and social engagement (colleagues). The C-ETS provides a useful measure for teacher engagement in Chinese societies. Contributions and limitations of the study are discussed.

Teachers assessing efficiency of measures aimed at forming safe behaviour in pupils of general and remedial schools

This article considers the problem of preventing pupils of any age from occurring in a dangerous situation. The author of the article suggests considering the results of a poll. The poll was conducted among teachers of primary and secondary schools, both general and remedial ones. They were asked to assess the efficiency of various measures aimed at preventing dangerous situations that pupils of any age can occur in. The research involved primary school teachers and teachers of certain disciplines. The study engaged teachers both from general and remedial schools. The number of respondents was 149. The research revealed differences in teachers’ preferences. The polled referred to these preferences when they chose measures aimed at solving the issue of pupils’ security. The study found that the most efficient measures aimed at forming a safe behaviour in pupils for different situations. The teachers were found to believe that it is efficient to conduct health and safety training classes, to engage parents to protect the children from dangerous situations. The teachers also find it equally efficient when they demonstrate and discuss the dangerous situations that have already happened to the pupils.

Evaluation of Teacher Professional Development Program—A Developmental Evaluation Approach

The professional development of teachers is the main mechanism for improving classroom teaching and improving students’ learning outcomes. To have secondary school teachers improve their teaching by using the new teaching approach of project-based learning, this study engaged teachers to participate in Teachers’ Project-Based Learning Program (T-PjBLP) to learn new knowledge, pedagogy, and skills. During the program implementation, the study applied a developmental evaluation (DE) approach to evaluate teachers’ professional development and to assist them to develop an initiative program for students. In the DE approach, the role of the researcher was as a team member, shaped the course of development to help participants learn, and tracked the professional development process and results through a digital technology platform. The participants in this study consisted of 7 science teachers coming from two secondary schools. The major findings indicated that more than 95% of participants agreed that digital technology was a wonderful platform to provide them with an opportunity to share ideas, feedback, and experiences about what they learned from the program. Also, most of them provided positive feedback about their learning. To conclude, the program effectively changed teachers teaching beliefs from the teacher-centered approach to the learner-centered approach and used what they learned from the program to develop an initiative program for students. However, some limitations encountered in applying the DE approach to evaluate the program also were discussed in this study.