Ron Hoz

The practicum in preservice teacher education: a review of empirical studies

This literature review presents a systematic analysis of 113 empirical studies conducted between 1996 and 2009, portraying a picture of the rationales, goals, activities, roles, and outcomes in the different practicum settings in teacher education programs. The review shows that the rationale, goals, and activities in the different practicum settings are focused on teaching competencies and acquaintance with the pupils’ diversity. The supervisors’ role is focused mainly on the preservice teachers’ inner world, and only few studies examined school students’ achievements as a result of preservice teachers’ instruction. The individual relationships between mentors, supervisors, and preservice teachers were attended by tension and conflicts ensuing from different interests, educational philosophies, and status differences that were not bridged. Preservice teachers’ acquaintance with staff and principals at the host school were a negligible part of the practicum descriptions. The discussion will portray two kinds of asymmetric relations between the host schools and the teacher education programs, and one kind of symmetric relations emerging from the descriptions of the practicum. The implications will suggest a broader view of the practicum, designing a new teacher education program embedded in school organizational culture.

The Differential Effects of Prior Knowledge on Learning: A Study of Two Consecutive Courses in Earth Sciences.

We studied the occurrence and nature of learningin a university first year Introduction toGeomorphology course, and its relations with priorknowledge taught in a prerequisite course, and withthe prior knowledge in the to be learned subjects. Tendimensions of knowledge were tapped before and afterthe course by conventional and cognitive structuremeasures that were derived by the concept mappingmethodology. The fine-grain analysis of learningoutcomes yielded the following results: (a) studentsacquired only a small portion of the content in thecourse Introduction to Geomorphology, (b) the priorgeological and geomorphological knowledge did notaffect the learning of the new geomorphologicalcontents, (c) the minor effects appeared within ratherthan across knowledge dimensions, and they affectedmainly the learning of smaller knowledge units, and(d) concept definition cannot be considereda valid probe of knowledge. The differential effects of prior knowledge question thecentral, global and undifferentiated role that schematheories ascribe to prior knowledge in futurelearning. They call for greater reference to theexposed dimensions of knowledge by suggestingadditional factors to be considered in the sequencingof courses, as well as to the acquisition of complexknowledge with partial meaning of the basic knowledgeunits, and the use of new cognitive structure probesof knowledge.

Psychometric and Edumetric Validity of Dimensions of Geomorphological Knowledge Which Are Tapped by Concept Mapping.

The validity of several dimensions of knowledge which were inferred from concept maps was assessed for its psychometric and edumetric aspects. Data were collected from 14 students who enrolled in the university first-year introductory geomorphology course and in its prerequisite introductory geology course. They took an objective geomorphology test, the tree construction task, and the Standardized Concept Structuring Analysis Technique (SConSAT) version of concept mapping. Comparisons among these dimensions of knowledge before and after the geomorphology course yielded convergent evidence. For the psychometric perspective, the SConSAT version of concept mapping and tree construction had similar knowledge structure representations, and the cognitive map correctness was moderately positively correlated with the objective test but not with the geomorphology course test. For the edumetric perspective, the majority of the dimensions of knowledge structures from the SConSAT showed large improvements following the geomorphology course. This evidence shows that the knowledge structure dimensions have moderate to good construct validity which warrant their widespread use for evaluating learning outcomes in both experimental and classroom settings.

The Effects of Rigidity on School Geometry Learning.

This study attempts to explain certain difficulties which ninth grade students face in tackling geometrical “problems to prove”, by relating them to general and to specific rigidity and cognitive style variables. The specific Geometrical Rigidity (GR) construct was conceived as comprising a perceptual component named Geometrical Functional Fixedness (GFF) and a conceptual component named Geometrical Method Embeddedness (GME). The general rigidity constructs were SDI and BRT that were derived within the Field Theory of K. Lewin and the Gestalt Theory respectively. The cognitive style construct was articulated-global style (measured by EFT). The results show that (a) GFF and GME are mutually independent (b) GR and its components have small negative correlations with SDI (c) GR and its components have insignificant correlations with BRT (d) GR and its components have strong negative correlations with articulated-global style (e) school geometry achievement has strong negative correlations with GR and its components, positive correlations with SDI and EFT, and insignificant correlations with BRT (f) GR is a potent and efficient predictor of future failure in school geometry learning. These results confirm the conceptual analysis of GR and indicate that GR has an independent existence as a cognitive style construct rather than a personality trait.

Conceptions, Practice and Change

Abstract This article proposes a model of teachers’ conceptual change that is based on the interrelationship between conception and practice, and uses reflective processes. The model is based on a school project that aimed to change teachers’ conceptions regarding their role in the learning processes of their students. The project involved reflective learning groups that dealt with dialectical analysis of alternative preconceptions. A specific example of how science and math head teachers developed a ‘new’ concept of assessment is provided.

Negev Bedouin Parents' Views on the Reasons for School Drop-Out

pupils, with special emphasis on the common and separate reasons put forward by men and by women for this phenomenon. The Bedouin communities in southern Israel has undergone cultural and sociological change in the last twenty years, especially in the transition from nomadic life to permanent settlement, which has led to a massive growth in the school system. The expansion increased both the size of the student body and the level of early school leaving. Studies of these societal changes have dealt with the last problem within the larger context of the first issue, and suggested conventional explanations. It is difficult to find definitive statistics concerning the Bedouin school system, since the figures used by different researchers appear somewhat biased. Beyond such inaccuracies, all commentators found high drop-out rates among Bedouin students at all grade levels. Between 1977 and 1995 the number of pupils grew from 6,205 to 27,100 (Melitz, 1995), a rate between 1992 and 1995 of 33 per cent (Glaubman and Katz, 1997). The reasons for this growth were the consistent and continuous increase in the Bedouin population, which has grown sevenfold since 1948, intense settlement in towns and greater pupil enrolment in schools. These societal changes have been accompanied by a high rate of drop-out or early leaving, especially among girls, which is a matter of great concern to Bedouin society and to schools. For instance, Abu Rabiah et al. (1996) show that between 1988 and 1993 the drop-out rate among pupils in the upper grades of high schools was 56 per cent. The problem with Bedouin girls’ education is that a substantial proportion of girls do not reach school in the first place, and that among those who do some drop out or leave before graduation. Bedouin girls began to attend school only in the 1960s, much later than boys. In 1965 only 100 Bedouin girls were in the schools (Melitz, 1995), but the female percentage of the student population grew from 26 per cent to 45 per cent between 1989 and 1997 (Shochat, 1997). In 1995 only 47 per cent of all Bedouin girls attended elementary school and only 37 per cent attended high school (Melitz, 1995). Two opposite trends were observed: the percentage of girls entering school R es ea rc h in E du ca tio n N o. 6 3

The Residence Teaching Practicum Internship at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Internship in teaching at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev is described in the general context of the role of the practicum in teacher education as are methods of internship or induction into teaching at the University of New Mexico, the Arizona State University, the University of New Hampshire, and the University of Alberta. Details of the full-year Residence Practicum Internship at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev are given at its organizational structural level and the work of the mentors and their interns. An evaluation of the seven years during which the Residence Practicum Internship program has been implemented is presented and the benefits and difficulties for the involved institutions and individuals are given. Suggestions are made to enhance the effectiveness of the Residence Practicum Internship and its relationship to the wider perspectives of school-university partnerships in the USA and United Kingdom is considered.

A revised theorization of the relationship between teachers’ conceptions of mathematics and its teaching

We assembled the ideas about mathematics and about its teaching which were expressed by mathematicians and mathematics educators into two pairs of ‘official’ (collective) conceptions: mathematics is either static or dynamic, and mathematics teaching is either closed or open. These polar conceptions produce a 4-pair relationship between the conceptions of mathematics and its teaching. The adherence to official conceptions was tapped by a questionnaire encompassing 176 Israeli high school mathematics teachers, aimed at examining the relationship between their conceptions of mathematics and its teaching. The majority of these teachers either hold a single conception in one of the domains or do not adhere to any conception, and a quarter of them hold either the static-closed or dynamic-open pairs of conceptions that prevail among teachers in other countries. Consequently, we define a conception of an entity as a comprehensive and homogenous set of ideas about a particular characteristic or feature of that entity. Reality is that teachers practice their profession without adhering to any official conception, and perhaps are (/to be?/) praised for their reluctance to blindly adopt the clear-cut rigid official conceptions of mathematics and its teaching while maintaining their individual and independent blends of ideas.

The Effects of the Yom Kippur War on Values of Israeli Female Students.

The Rokeach Terminal Value Scale and an attitude questionnaire were administered to two similar groups of female Israeli students before and after the Yom Kippur War. The second group also responded to a questionnaire about the effects of the war on the importance attributed to each of the values. The results were as follow: (a) Subjects stated that after the war 14 out of the 18 values in the Rokeach list increased in importance. (b) The war brought about a significant increase in the relative importance (rank) of 4 values (Pleasure, National Security, Happiness, and Mature Love), and a significant decrease in Equality. (c) No attitude change was found in respect to issues related to the war itself. (d) Values accounted for a smaller percent of the variance in attitudes after the war than they did before it. In view of these findings it is suggested that a distinction be made between relative and absolute importance within a value system.

Representation of individuals' ideational knowledge through their knowledge maps.

The Knowledge Map is considered an external representation of an individuals ideational (commonly called declarative or conceptual) knowledge stored in ideational (or propositional) memory. The Knowledge Map contains 4 graphic components: concepts, concept clusters, multicomponent links, and texts. The graphic components are mutually related by their inclusion and connectedness, and their analysis yields numerous visible and abstract unitary dimensions which have local, intermediate, and global values described by a 3-level framework and correspond to the elements of the ideational memory. That correspondence and the nature of these dimensions imply the Bigness of Change and Interminate Changes principles: all changes in the Knowledge Map and ideational memory are expansive, and in ideational memory they are expansive and never-ending.