education policy analysis archives

english
español
português

a peer-reviewed, independent,
open-access, multilingual journal

Can professors be socialized in good teaching practices? The case of the Project Visibilidad

Vol 18 (2010), 20
The purpose of this study is to analyze the socialization to teaching experience of faculty who participated in the project Visibilidad. The main objective of this project was to obtain knowledge related to teaching from faculty who are considered good teachers in Spanish universities. This knowledge could enlighten how the socialization to teaching occurs as well as insights on how to improve the process. Based on the international literature on socialization to teaching in higher education and using a methodology of generating themes inductively, the experiences of faculty at the beginning of their careers were analyzed. The data was collected using semi-structured interviews. We found that role models of socialization, self-reflection and formal socialization are the most common experiences reported by participants. This suggests that reinforcing these elements deliberately at an institutional level, it is possible to improve the socialization process of new faculty in higher education as well as their teaching practices.
PDF (Español)

Using Assessments for Instructional Improvement: A Literature Review

Vol 18 (2010), 19
The current educational reform policy discourse takes for granted the central role of using data to improve instruction. Yet whether and how data inform instruction depends on teachers’ assessment practices, the data that are relevant and useful to them, the data they typically have access to, and their content and pedagogical knowledge. Moreover, when one considers teachers’ organizational contexts, it is clear that school leadership and support for using data, capacity-building strategies, and the norms of adult learning and collaboration circumscribe opportunities to examine relevant data and to improve instructional practice in response. This literature review examines teacher as well as organizational practices and characteristics as they pertain to formative uses of assessment. We identify opportunities for important research to illuminate how and under what conditions teachers and schools as organizations can use data to inform instruction.
PDF

Citizenship, social and educational rights: Reflections for a pedagogy of human rights

Vol 18 (2010), 18
This article seeks to address human rights issues from a triple perspective. First, conceptually locating human rights in the context of globalization and making a critique of the liberal conception of human rights. Second, deepen citizenship as an element of visibility of the political and law and focus of education. Finally, think and bet on how the social and educational rights must become the guiding axes civil and political rights that they are not empty in practice. Definitively, it tries to articulate the central elements for a pedagogy of the human rights.
PDF (Español)

Can school structures improve teacher-student relationships? The relationship between advisory programs, personalization and students’ academic achievement

Vol 18 (2010), 17

In this paper, we present findings from a three-year study of students' perceptions of personalization and, specifically, advisory as a reform strategy and its relationship to students' academic progress at 14 recently converted small high schools in a large, urban school district in California.  This study examined the degree to which students' sense of personalization (connections to the school and to adults at the school) interacted with students' academic achievement, as measured by standardized test scores and weighted grade-point averages. In particular, we examined the relationship between students' perceptions of formal structures to enhance personalization -- such as advisory periods -- and students' academic achievement.

PDF