European Journal of Education Studies
ISSN: 2501 - 1111
ISSN-L: 2501 - 1111
Available on-line at: www.oapub.org/edu
Volume 3 │Issue 6 │2017
doi: 10.5281/zenodo.804052
TEACHERS ARE THE PROPELLERS IN BOLSTERING STUDENTS
OUTCOMES: REVIEW OF EFFICACY OF SCIENCE TEACHERS
Aregamalage Sujeewa Vijayanthi Polgampala1i,
Fang Huang2
Huazhong University of Science & Technology, Wuhan, China
Prof., Huazhong University of Science & Technology, Wuhan, China
Abstract:
The importance of good teachers is no secret. Over the last two decades, research on
student achievement has pinpointed the central role of teachers as one of the key
propellers referred to in terms of a focus on student outcomes. This review exploits the
teacher s effectiveness and what makes an effective teacher. Classroom management,
classroom climate and teaching are the three factors that had statistically significant
positive impacts on student academic outcomes. Teachers sense of professional identity
influences their relative commitment and resilience as well as their capacities to manage
variations to sustain their teaching effectiveness. It draws out implications for
policymakers in education and for improving classroom practice. In order to improve
teacher efficacy, greater subject specific training in theory and practical work, both in
pre-service and continuing teacher training programs could be offered. Conclusions are
drawn that highly-qualified teachers are still in high demand for boosting student s
motivation for optimum outcome. The findings unraveled in this study that the trend of
augmentation in the Sri Lankan science secondary education context is growing at a
slow but steady pace and also no significant impacts of teacher training on either
teacher or student
thus imply the ineffectiveness of short-term teacher training
programmes on teacher and student performance.
Keywords: efficacy, science teachers, teacher standards
Copyright © The Author(s). All Rights Reserved.
© 2015 2017 Open Access Publishing Group
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Aregamalage Sujeewa Vijayanthi Polgampala, Fang Huang
TEACHERS ARE THE PROPELLERS IN BOLSTERING STUDENTS OUTCOMES:
REVIEW OF EFFICACY OF SCIENCE TEACHERS
1. Introduction
Twenty-first century education is to bolster student engagement and drive more
innovation for transformation of education. Learning becomes more authentic with
blended approach as it is an umbrella for several important pedagogical strategies that
have great potential to deeper learning approaches which connect curriculum to life
outside the classroom to the real-world application. Teachers are one of the key
propellers referred to in terms of a focus on student outcomes. This review is concerned
with teacher s effectiveness and what makes an effective teacher. From the standpoint
of effectiveness of science, teacher training serves as an important means for the
development of effective and productive in teaching and learning, and in consequence,
in focusing attention on the importance of teacher effectiveness was research that took
an outcomes-based perspective. By looking at differences in the growth of student
achievement across different teachers instead of concentrating on just the background
and characteristics of teachers, it was possible to identify the true impact of teachers on
students. Teacher effectiveness is generally referred to in terms of a focus on student
outcomes and the teacher behaviours and classroom processes that promote better
student outcomes Chaudron, 1988). Teachers are one of the key elements in nation
building and effective teaching is one of the key propellers for building up balanced
personalities to a country (Kyriakides, Creemers, & Antoniou, 2009). The idea that
teachers can impact positively on student outcomes is a crucial driver in the rise of
interest in student development and popularity of a school. This aims to highlight
international examples of best practice in order to effect change and identify how
effective school improvement manifests itself. To generate new knowledge and use it
innovatively a country requires a scientifically literate population.
A quality science education is vital for scientific literacy (DeBoer, 2000). If
students understand the basic concepts, appreciate important ideas and know how
science is applied to everyday situations, high scientific literacy can be achieved.
Effective science teachers play a pivotal role in this process. A number of common
features of effective teachers and the practices that constitute effective teaching have
been identified in a large number of research studies conducted in all over the world
(Llewellyn, 2005). Terms such as instructional effectiveness , teacher effectiveness and
teaching effectiveness have been used interchangeably in much of the research
literature. The issue of creating effective learning environments heavily depends on
teachers talents and behaviors. There is a common consensus on the idea that teachers
behaviors are guided with a set of organized beliefs (Clark & Yinger, 1979). Teaching
efficacy beliefs are one of the key factors affecting teacher practices. Teaching efficacy is
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Aregamalage Sujeewa Vijayanthi Polgampala, Fang Huang
TEACHERS ARE THE PROPELLERS IN BOLSTERING STUDENTS OUTCOMES:
REVIEW OF EFFICACY OF SCIENCE TEACHERS
defined as `the teacher s belief in his or her capability to organize and execute courses of
action required to be successfully accomplished a specific teaching task in a particular
context´ (Tschannen-Moran, Woolfolk Hoy & Hoy, 1998, p. 233). The primary nature of
a teacher s work is instructional and that teaching or instruction is generally carried out
in the classroom. Classroom management, classroom climate and teaching/instruction
were the three factors that had statistically significant positive impacts on student
academic outcomes. Furthermore, this provides an important evidence based on the
correlates of effective teachers and the behaviours and classroom processes that predict
better outcomes for students. It has stimulated initiatives to strengthen and enhance
teacher quality through improvements to initial teacher education and continuing
professional development programmes. It draws out implications for policymakers in
education and for improving classroom practice. The effect of poor quality teaching on
student outcomes is debilitating and cumulative on science educational outcomes are
greater than those that arise from students backgrounds (Rowe, 2004). Student
achievement and student interest in science subjects and careers will improve if
teachers consistently use research-based instructional practices, materials, and
assessments. A reliance on curriculum standards and state-wide assessment strategies
without paying due attention to teacher quality appears to be insufficient to gain the
improvements in student outcomes sought. It forms a useful tool for schools and school
administrators, but also acts as a lesson for policymakers in terms of what works
around the world. Value
added
teacher
effectiveness
research
is
primarily
quantitative; however, there is an increased recognition of the importance of a
qualitative element to further illuminate the statistical data. In order to achieve good
teaching, good subject knowledge is a prerequisite. Also, the skillful use of well-chosen
questions to engage and challenge learners, and to consolidate understanding, is an
important feature, as is the effective use of assessment for learning.
2. Theoretical Framework
Great teachers have the ability to transform and enrich the lives and living standards of
Sri Lankans. Over the past century, investments in general education-such as the
development of and widespread enrollment in government schools, preparation of
more students for exams, and improvements in the accessibility of all levels of
education have boosted to be productive and innovative. There are many benefits that
have been connected with the importance of science education has been recognized in
Sri Lanka s science and technology policy. The National Science and Technology Policy
acknowledge that Science and Technology (S&T) plays a key role in economic
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TEACHERS ARE THE PROPELLERS IN BOLSTERING STUDENTS OUTCOMES:
REVIEW OF EFFICACY OF SCIENCE TEACHERS
development and that education is central to achieving this goal (NASTEC, 2010). It
recognizes that investment in research and development as well as in a strong S&T
resource base is essential to compete successfully in the rapidly growing technologyintensive global market. Key reforms in curriculum and teaching learning methodology
were introduced in 1999 and in 2007 to improve the learning of science. This is in
response to findings that students were not able to apply their learning to everyday
situations and to findings that their skills in open-ended problem solving and decision
making relating to innovation and creativity were weak. Few were able to demonstrate
the ability to use higher order thinking skills (Downing, Kwong, Chan, Lam, &
Downing, 2009).
Science teachers are encouraged to use a variety of strategies to facilitate the
teaching learning process. Students are able to get hands on experience and have the
opportunity to learn in collaboration with peers. The lack of material and equipment for
activities hampers teaching but teachers do adapt, whenever possible, using local
materials. Educational effectiveness is a term that was developed to provide a more
contained definition than notions of good or quality education. It relates to the idea
of examining effectiveness at different levels of an education system, such as nationally,
at a Local Authority/School district level, for individual schools, for departments within
a school or for individual teachers in terms of their success in achieving particular goals
or educational outcomes (Ramsden, 1991). A teacher is effective if he/she can accomplish
the planned goals and assigned tasks in accordance with school goals . Thus, the objectives of
education and the definitions of the quality and effectiveness of education are closely
connected. This means that defining effective teaching must be done in relation to
understanding the objectives of education.
Promoting students cognitive development can be seen as one of the prime
purposes of education and teaching, though there are also likely to be other important
social, behavioural and affective current and future oriented purposes and goals of
education. In this case, the tools are used by supervisors and mentors to collect
evidence of student learning by observing classes or watching videos as part of a
professional development experience. A person is believed to be self-efficient when
he/she can maximize his full capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action in
order to attain goals. This is when a person’s belief on self about the ability which is
reflected in their outputs (Bandura, 1977, 1986, 1997). With this, self-efficacy reflects the
teacher’s confidence in his or her ability to exert control over motivation, behavior, and
teaching environment. This has a considerable effect of teaching experience to produce
quality results as reflected on the students performance. It is inferred that a teacher’s
behavior is motivated and regulated by self-evaluation reactions to their own actions,
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TEACHERS ARE THE PROPELLERS IN BOLSTERING STUDENTS OUTCOMES:
REVIEW OF EFFICACY OF SCIENCE TEACHERS
and therefore self-directedness partly determines the teacher’s behavior inside the
classroom. The goal to look into the connection between teacher’s effectiveness in class
this work may focus on specific traits found in the tool that the teachers identify as an
area where they would like to improve their professional practice. Teacher s
educators/supervisors would use the tool to organize and record their evidence in
preparation of a debriefing among the observers. The debriefing would focus on
collaboratively examining the evidence and identifying ways to make instructional
practice more effective at engaging students in productive learning experiences
(Erikson, 2012). Teachers perceptions of what constitutes high quality or effective
teaching are often collected in surveys, instruction logs, and interviews. Such logs and
their validity and reliability have been questioned because studies tended to fail to
pinpoint the relative significance of specific practices over time. It seems that the
teachers and researchers do not consistently interpret the key terms and in the same
way. As well as finding out what factors, teachers think constitute effective teaching
practices; it is also of interest to establish how teachers perceive their own effectiveness
and whether this changes over time. Do more experienced teachers perceive that their
own effectiveness improves over the course of their career? (Tschannen-Moran, Hoy, &
Hoy, 1998). One research study for example, compared 24 middle school science
teachers value added scores with survey and observation based indicators of teacher
quality, instruction, and student characteristics. Evidence was found showing that
teachers value added scores were positively correlated with expert ratings of their
instruction. However, although many teachers were classified similarly by their value
added and observational scores, a minority were not. Teacher efficacy is extremely
important for successful teaching.
Teachers self-efficacy can be viewed as teachers beliefs about their capabilities
to produce a desired effect on student learning. Content knowledge and quality
pedagogy play a large part in feelings of efficacy. Caprara et al. (2006) note that a
number of studies have pointed to the influence of teachers self-efficacy beliefs on
student achievement and success at school. In addition, teachers feelings of self-efficacy
have been found to be associated with enhanced student motivation, self-esteem, more
positive attitudes in classes, and students own feelings of self-efficacy. They also state
that teachers sense of efficacy is related to their satisfaction with their choice of
profession. What factors influence their perceptions of their effectiveness? In this case,
the tool would need to be used under more rigorous standards by observers who have
been trained on the use of the tool and who have a deep understanding of science
instructional practice. Good teachers have a substantial effect on student achievement,
especially when assigned to work with disadvantaged students. Teacher quality more
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TEACHERS ARE THE PROPELLERS IN BOLSTERING STUDENTS OUTCOMES:
REVIEW OF EFFICACY OF SCIENCE TEACHERS
heavily influenced differences in student performance than did race, class, or school of
the student; disadvantaged students benefited more from good teachers than did
advantaged students (Nye, Konstantopoulos, and Hedges 2004). Achievement gains
from having an effective teacher could be almost three times as large for African
American students than for white students, even when comparing students with the
same prior school achievement (Sanders and Rivers 1996).The effects of teacher quality
accumulate over the years. Fifth-grade math students in Tennessee who had three
consecutive highly effective teachers scored between 52 and 54 percentile points ahead
of students who had three consecutive teachers who were least effective, even though
both groups had the same achievement rates prior to entering second grade. A similar
study in Texas showed a difference of 34 percentile points in reading and 49 percentile
points in math (Sanders and Rivers 1996; Jordan, Mendro, and Weerasinghe 1997).
Teachers with four characteristics, or dimensions, of teacher quality consistently
generate higher student achievement: content knowledge, experience, teacher training
and certification, and general cognitive skills.
3. Teachers' Standards (2012)
1. Set high expectations which inspire, motivate and challenge pupils:
a) Establish a safe and stimulating environment for pupils, rooted in mutual
respect;
b) Set goals that stretch and challenge pupils of all backgrounds, abilities and
dispositions;
c) Demonstrate consistently the positive attitudes, values and behaviour which are
expected of pupils.
2. Promote good progress and outcomes by pupils:
a) ‛e accountable for pupils attainment, progress and outcomes;
b) ‛e aware of pupils capabilities and their prior knowledge, and plan teaching to
build on these;
c) Guide pupils to reflect on the progress they have made and their emerging
needs;
d) Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of how pupils learn and how this
impacts on teaching.
3. Demonstrate good subject and curriculum knowledge:
a) Have a secure knowledge of the relevant subject(s) and curriculum areas, foster
and maintain pupils interest in the subject, and address misunderstandings;
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TEACHERS ARE THE PROPELLERS IN BOLSTERING STUDENTS OUTCOMES:
REVIEW OF EFFICACY OF SCIENCE TEACHERS
b) Demonstrate a critical understanding of developments in the subject and
curriculum areas, and promote the value of scholarship;
c) Demonstrate an understanding of and take responsibility for promoting high
standards of literacy, articulacy and the correct use of standard English,
whatever the teacher s specialist subject;
d) If teaching early reading, demonstrate a clear understanding of systematic
synthetic phonics;
e) If teaching early mathematics, demonstrate a clear understanding of appropriate
teaching strategies.
4. Plan and teach well-structured lessons:
a) Impart knowledge and develop understanding through effective use of lesson
time;
b) Promote a love of learning and children s intellectual curiosity;
c) Set homework and plan other out-of-class activities to consolidate and extend the
knowledge and understanding pupils have acquired;
d) Reflect systematically on the effectiveness of lessons and approaches to teaching;
e) Contribute to the design and provision of an engaging curriculum within the
relevant subject area(s).
5. Adapt teaching to respond to the strengths and needs of all pupils:
a) Know when and how to differentiate appropriately, using approaches which
enable pupils to be taught effectively;
b) Have a secure understanding of how a range of factors can inhibit pupils ability
to learn, and how best to overcome these;
c) Demonstrate an awareness of the physical, social and intellectual development of
children, and know how to adapt teaching to support pupils education at
different stages of development;
d) Have a clear understanding of the needs of all pupils, including those with
special educational needs; those of high ability; those with English as an
additional language; those with disabilities; and be able to use and evaluate
distinctive teaching approaches to engage and support them.
6. Make accurate and productive use of assessment:
a) Know and understand how to assess the relevant subject and curriculum areas,
including statutory assessment requirements;
b) Make use of formative and summative assessment to secure pupils progress;
c) Use relevant data to monitor progress, set targets, and plan subsequent lessons;
d) Give pupils regular feedback, both orally and through accurate marking, and
encourage pupils to respond to the feedback.
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TEACHERS ARE THE PROPELLERS IN BOLSTERING STUDENTS OUTCOMES:
REVIEW OF EFFICACY OF SCIENCE TEACHERS
7. Manage behaviour effectively to ensure a good & safe learning environment:
a) Have clear rules and routines for behaviour in classrooms, and take
responsibility for promoting good and courteous behaviour both in classrooms
and around the school, in accordance with the school s behaviour policy;
b) Have high expectations of behaviour, and establish a framework for discipline
with a range of strategies, using praise, sanctions and rewards consistently and
fairly;
c) Manage classes effectively, using approaches which are appropriate to pupils
needs in order to involve and motivate them;
d) Maintain good relationships with pupils, exercise appropriate authority, and act
decisively when necessary;
8. Fulfill wider professional responsibilities:
a) Make a positive contribution to the wider life and ethos of the school;
b) Develop effective professional relationships with colleagues, knowing how and
when to draw on advice and specialist support;
c) Deploy support staff effectively;
d) Take responsibility for improving teaching through appropriate professional
development, responding to advice and feedback from colleagues;
e) Communicate effectively with parents with regard to pupils achievements and
well-being.
4. Evidence for Teachers Standards
A teacher is expected to demonstrate consistently high standards of personal and
professional conduct. The following statements define the behaviour and attitudes
which set the required standard for conduct throughout a teacher s career.
a) Teachers uphold public trust in the profession and maintain high standards of
ethics and behaviour, within and outside school
b) Teachers must have proper and professional regard to the ethos, policies and
practices of the school in which they teach, and maintain high standards in their
own attendance and punctuality.
The ultimate aim of characterization effective teaching practices involves
identifying the generic features and dimensions of effective teaching, measuring the
relative impacts of teacher effects on students learning outcomes, and establishing the
relative influence of contextual conditions that may influence teacher effectiveness. The
first task begins with summarizing results of research that sought to provide profiles of
effective teachers and effective teaching. Highly effective teachers have long found
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TEACHERS ARE THE PROPELLERS IN BOLSTERING STUDENTS OUTCOMES:
REVIEW OF EFFICACY OF SCIENCE TEACHERS
ways to engage, thus motivate, their students. But it is increasingly clear that the public
education system needs to address student motivation far more systematically, and on a
much larger scale. Researchers have identified a number of ingredients that contribute
to student motivation. They differ on how they weigh and categorize them, but among
them are a student s belief that he is able to do the work, a sense of control over the
work, an understanding of the value of the work, and an appreciation for how he and
the work relate to a social group. These factors, in turn, can be shaped by many others,
including how academic content is taught and how students interact with and practice
that content. Another promoter of student motivation, according to research, is an
educational environment that helps students develop and maintain positive,
meaningful relationships with adults and peers at school. In other words, students care
when they feel cared about.
5. Teacher quality counts
More than two decades of research findings are unequivocal about the connection
between teacher quality and student learning. Indeed, What Matters Most: Teaching
for ‚merica s Future 1996 , the influential report of the National Commission on
Teaching and ‚merica s Future, made teaching the core of its three simple premises
in its blueprint for reforming the nation s schools. They are:
What teachers know and can do is the most important influence on what
students learn.
improving our schools.
Recruiting, preparing, and retaining good teachers is the central strategy for
School reform cannot succeed unless it focuses on creating the conditions under
which teachers can teach and teach well.
Key teacher quality provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)
underscore the importance of these premises. Central to NCL‛ s goal of closing the
achievement gap by 2014 is the requirement that all teachers be highly qualified by the
end of the 2005-06 school year. For new teachers, this means that they must meet
existing state certification requirements and demonstrate mastery of the content area in
which they teach, either by passing a content knowledge test or by having majored in
the subject in an undergraduate or graduate program.
Achieving this goal is proving to be a challenge for states and districts. The 2004
estimates put the number of teachers who have not yet met the highly qualified
standard at 20 percent in elementary schools and 25 percent in secondary schools (U.S.
Department of Education 2004).
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TEACHERS ARE THE PROPELLERS IN BOLSTERING STUDENTS OUTCOMES:
REVIEW OF EFFICACY OF SCIENCE TEACHERS
Yet a growing body of research shows why current education policies emphasize
teaching and why it s important for states and districts to rise to this challenge. These
studies not only provide insight into the characteristics of good teachers, they reveal
how these contribute to student learning and closing achievement gaps.
6. Characteristics of an effective teacher
The following teachers qualities are related to higher student achievement are:
Content knowledge: Effective teachers have a solid background in the subject
area they teach as measured by a college major or minor in the field.
Teaching experience: Teaching experience, typically five years or more, produces
higher student results. Some studies further suggest that the effect of
inexperience can be a significant obstacle to student achievement.
Teacher training and credentials: Certified teachers are more effective than
uncertified, particularly in mathematics. In general, teachers with emergency
certificates don t perform as well as those with traditional certification. However,
opinions conflict about the effectiveness of Teachers who enter classrooms with
alternate certificates.
Overall academic ability: Teachers with stronger academic skills perform better,
whether these skills are measured by teachers science scores, grade point
average or selectivity of the college they attended.
7. Implications for closing the achievement gap
Research consistently shows that teacher quality
whether measured by content
knowledge, experience, training and credentials, or general intellectual skills
is
strongly related to student achievement: Simply, skilled teachers produce better student
results. Many researchers and analysts argue that the fact that poor and minority
students are the least likely to have qualified teachers is itself a major contributor to the
achievement gap. It follows that assigning experienced, qualified teachers to lowperforming schools and students is likely to pay off in better performance and
narrowing gaps.
This is sometimes easier said than done. Some attempts to redistribute good
teachers to low-performing schools have not been entirely successful. The most
common strategy has been to offer pay increases or signing bonuses for teachers to
come to high-need areas or to teach high-need subjects. Massachusetts, for example,
offered a $20,000 signing bonus to attract qualified candidates into the teaching
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TEACHERS ARE THE PROPELLERS IN BOLSTERING STUDENTS OUTCOMES:
REVIEW OF EFFICACY OF SCIENCE TEACHERS
profession. Yet even when the incentives were substantial, teachers have not always
been willing to go to or to stay in difficult schools. Major drawbacks to these efforts
were: (1) not enough attention to what was needed to retain teachers, and (2) too much
attention to individuals and too little on schools (Liu, Johnson, and Peske 2003).
What these results mean is that incentives to work in hard-to-staff schools should
also take into account the working conditions they provide for teachers. For example,
low-performing schools often have weak organizational supports for teachers. Often
they do not have a culture of high expectations for students and teachers or that values
teacher learning, collegiality, and cooperation. Districts also need strategies to ensure
that these schools have strong and resourceful principals and that teachers have
sustained professional learning opportunities, including intensive long-term new
teacher-induction programs, in which they can work with colleague to continually
sharpen and upgrade their knowledge and skills. This research also suggests that
scattering a handful of good teachers around the district is not going to produce wideranging results. One study has identified a teacher quality tipping point when the
proportion of underqualified teachers is about 20 percent of the total school faculty.
Beyond this point, schools no longer have the ability to improve student achievement
(Shields, Esch, Humphrey, Young, Gaston, and Hunt 1999). Clearly, districts need to
recruit, develop, and retain a well-qualified teaching force.
8. Toward a highly qualified teacher in every classroom
Problem still remain for research to answer. Most of the effective teacher studies, for
example, have focused on elementary school. While a few studies suggest that the
teaching effect is somewhat less in high school, a lot more needs to be discovered before
we can make that statement with confidence. In addition, the conflicting findings on the
effectiveness of alternate route teachers need to be resolved, especially since many
districts rely on such non-traditional candidates to deal with teacher shortages. We also
need to know more about the incentives and working conditions that will attract highly
effective teachers to traditionally hard-to-staff schools.
But as this review has shown, there is already enough evidence to show
unequivocally that good teachers are vital to raising student achievement and closing
achievement gaps. The challenge in Sri Lanka is to ensure that every classroom is
staffed by a skilled, qualified science teacher.
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Aregamalage Sujeewa Vijayanthi Polgampala, Fang Huang
TEACHERS ARE THE PROPELLERS IN BOLSTERING STUDENTS OUTCOMES:
REVIEW OF EFFICACY OF SCIENCE TEACHERS
9. Discussion
Good teachers have a substantial effect on student achievement, especially when
assigned to work with disadvantaged students.
Teacher quality more heavily influenced differences in student performance
than did race, class, or school of the student; disadvantaged students benefited
more
from
good
teachers
than
did
advantaged
students
(Nye,
Konstantopoulos, and Hedges 2004).
Achievement gains from having an effective teacher could be almost three
times as large for African American students than for white students, even
when comparing students with the same prior school achievement (Sanders and
Rivers 1996).
The effects of teacher quality accumulate over the years. Fifth-grade math
students in Tennessee who had three consecutive highly effective teachers scored
between 52 and 54 percentile points ahead of students who had three
consecutive teachers who were least effective, even though both groups had the
same achievement rates prior to entering second grade. A similar study in Texas
showed a difference of 34 percentile points in reading and 49 percentile points in
math (Sanders and Rivers 1996; Jordan, Mendro, and Weerasinghe 1997).
Teachers with four characteristics, or dimensions, of teacher quality consistently
generate higher student achievement: content knowledge, experience, teacher training
and certification, and general cognitive skills.
10. Conclusions
The collected results show the pre service science effectiveness, besides other factors,
depends on the learners´ outcomes type. This individual characteristics decides on the
way how the teacher activates learner´s inner motivation, which then the learner
integrates to the education process. The research emphasizied the fact that strong
attention should be paid in the process of designing the lesson plan as they have
substantial impact on the whole process of instruction (McKeachie, 1987). In accordance
with the research aim, it was proved effectiveness significantly differs. The highest
effectiveness was reached through learning activities. However, the validity of these
results should be considered through limitations of the conducted research which are
reflected in two main factors. The first one is that the period learners were exposed to
practice teaching was relatively short (three months). The experimental method of the
research is the second factor. In previous phases (years) learners were used to
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TEACHERS ARE THE PROPELLERS IN BOLSTERING STUDENTS OUTCOMES:
REVIEW OF EFFICACY OF SCIENCE TEACHERS
exploiting them. Therefore, in this research good results were reached by learners who
are able to quickly adapt to changing conditions, which is more suitable for dynamic
situations. Reflecting this finding, the inquiry-based concept should not be merely
limited to Science subjects (Edwards, 2012).
Teacher effectiveness is generally referred to in terms of a focus on student
outcomes and the teacher behaviours and classroom processes that promote better
student outcomes. This review, based upon research evidence, suggests that effective
teachers:
accesses a rich repertoire of instructional practices/strategies and applies them
appropriately to the particular needs of his/her students aligned with the
cognitive demand of the science content (pedagogical content knowledge),
demonstrates proficiency in the use of measurement and data collection tools
and techniques to gather, manage, analyze, and interpret data; including
computer-based measurement devices, modeling tools and instructional
supports to enhance student learning opportunities,
accesses a rich repertoire of instructional practices/strategies and applies them
appropriately to the particular needs of his/her students aligned with the
cognitive demand of the science content (pedagogical content knowledge),
creates learning environments where students are active participants in creating,
questioning, sharing, discussing, reasoning and analyzing the processes involved
in solving scientific problems/tasks,
motivates students to achieve, and nurtures their desire to learn in an
environment that promotes empathy, compassion, and a mutual respect both
among students and between students and the teacher,
nurtures and motivates student desire to learn and achieve and promotes
empathy, compassion, and mutual respect among students and between
students and teacher,
encourages students to accept responsibility for their own learning and respects
the right of each student to ask questions and to request resources to more fully
understand, enhance, or add clarity to the learning,
and as members of collaborative groups,
cooperative groups, in use of equipment or hands-on materials),
provides learning experiences that actively engage all students as individuals
displays effective and efficient classroom management (e.g., in facilitating
provides sufficient time in science class for students to engage in hands-on
experiences and to make connections with these experiences and scientific
principles,
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TEACHERS ARE THE PROPELLERS IN BOLSTERING STUDENTS OUTCOMES:
REVIEW OF EFFICACY OF SCIENCE TEACHERS
uses multiple methods and systematically gathers data about student
understanding and ability (formative and summative assessments)
interactions with colleagues to reflect on and improve teaching practice,
and long term),
uses student work/data, observations of instruction teaching, assignments and
revises instructional strategies based upon student achievement data (short term
uncovers students prior conceptions about the concepts to be addressed and
addresses students misconceptions/incomplete conceptions,
co-develops scoring guides/rubrics with students and provides adequate
modeling to make clear the expectations for quality performance,
improvement strategies,
descriptive, qualitative) that moves learners forward,
to show how science is a part of other major subjects,
guides students to apply rubrics to assess their performance and identify
provides regular and timely feedback to students and parents (focused,
works with other teachers to make connections between and among disciplines
possesses an understanding of a variety of technology appropriate to the content
area, computer-assisted instruction, CBLs and probes for data collection,
scientific and graphing calculators for middle/high school,
integrates a variety of learning resources with classroom instruction to increase
learning options for all students; these should include guest presenters, field
experiences, and career explorations,
effectively incorporates technology that prepares students to meet future
challenges, as articulated in the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.
References
1. Chaudron, Craig. (1988). Second language classrooms: Research on teaching and
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Rothstein, Jesse. (2012). Evaluating teacher evaluation. Phi Delta Kappan, 93(6), 815.
3. DeBoer, George E. (2000). Scientific literacy: Another look at its historical and
contemporary meanings and its relationship to science education reform. Journal
of research in science teaching, 37(6), 582-601.
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TEACHERS ARE THE PROPELLERS IN BOLSTERING STUDENTS OUTCOMES:
REVIEW OF EFFICACY OF SCIENCE TEACHERS
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of lived experience, teacher preparation and working contexts: University of Illinois at
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7. Ko, James, & Sammons, Pamela. (2013). Effective Teaching: A Review of Research
and Evidence: ERIC.
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study approach: Corwin Press.
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http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id
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http://www.nsta.org/about/initiatives/spir/vision.aspx
http://www.nsta.org/about/initiatives/spir
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TEACHERS ARE THE PROPELLERS IN BOLSTERING STUDENTS OUTCOMES:
REVIEW OF EFFICACY OF SCIENCE TEACHERS
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