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Teaching is one of the most stressful occupations, often due to the emotional investment of managing and caring for a classroom of students. In addition to environmental stressors, teacher wellbeing is impacted by relationships with students. While the relation between challenging student behaviors and adverse outcomes for both teachers and students is well-established, less is known about teachers’ mental representations and perceptions of challenging behaviors. This study examines preschool teachers’ perceptions and interpretations of challenging student behaviors through a reflective writing exercise. Eight Head Start teachers provided reflections on their relationship with a specific student displaying challenging behavior. Through content analysis, we found four distinct themes: balance, malleability, valence, and relational flexibility. Taken together, these themes suggest that, while all teachers’ mental representations of their relationship with students are impacted by the challenging behavior, their perceptions of the types of behaviors identified as challenging, the attribution of the challenging behavior, the tone used to describe the relationship, and the beliefs around sources of and solutions for the challenging behavior, vary considerably. By gaining a deeper understanding of teachers’ perceptions of their relationships with students displaying challenging behaviors through reflective writing, these findings provide the groundwork for interventions capable of improving overall classroom interaction quality, teacher wellbeing, and student learning and development.

An open classroom climate, one where diverse opinions and discussion of social and political issues are welcome, promotes civic development among youth and fosters critical consciousness. Critical ...

This mixed methods study examines the impact of online professional development on preschool teachers’ self-efficacy, burnout, and stress. Participating teachers (n = 89) were randomly assigned int...

There has been limited research on the development of in-service teachers' self-efficacy beliefs across multiple school years. The current longitudinal study investigated (a) how teachers' self-efficacy beliefs change over time and (b) how teacher and classroom characteristics relate to these changes in a sample of 341 US American preschool teachers involved in a professional development intervention. Latent growth curve models indicated that teachers' self-efficacy beliefs increased, particularly for those receiving a coaching intervention. Teacher ratings of children's behavior problems had a negative effect on self-efficacy beliefs. Together, findings highlight the need for support of changing self-efficacy beliefs among in-service teachers.

Teacher reflection has been at the core of teacher development efforts for almost 100 years, yet inconsistency in the literature results from a lack of clarity on how reflection is conceptualized—from its purpose to processes, and how they relate to refining teacher practice. This article draws from research in cognitive science to explain how engaging in an ongoing reflection approach, focused on observations of real classrooms, can help teachers refine their responses to classroom situations over time. The authors also provide examples of this reflective approach from an online course for early childhood teachers focused on improving teacher–child interactions in the classroom.

I appreciate the opportunity to respond to the thoughtful comments made by Alan Schoenfeld (2018) and Jon Star (2018) in their commentaries on replication studies in this issue of JRME, including their comments on our study of teacher expectancy effects (Jamil, Larsen, & Hamre, 2018). I have decided to write this rejoinder in the form of a personal reflection. As academics, we carry the tremendous burden of expertise, and perhaps that is partly why, as pointed out by Schoenfeld (2018), the academic reward system focuses so heavily on novelty and innovation. With our expertise, we are supposed to have all the answers, solve all the problems, and do so in brilliant, new ways. Replication studies are undervalued because they not only, by definition, recreate past research but, perhaps, also bring into question another scholar‧s expertise. Star (2018) even states that one of the three criteria of an outstanding replication study is that it “convincingly shows that there is reason to believe that the results of the original study may be flawed” (p. 99). Although this rigorous examination is precisely the way to build trust in the quality of our findings and move the field forward, it is also what makes it challenging to have candid conversations about what we do not know.

The current study uses a large, nationally representative data set and a new method for computing teacher expectations to better understand the developmental effect of mathematics teacher expectations on future student achievement. The study utilizes autoregressive cross-lagged models with 5 time points between kindergarten and 8th grade as well as multigroup modeling to examine group differences in teacher expectancy effects on achievement for girls and minority students. Results indicate that students' experiences with teacher expectations from 1 time point to the next are not significantly associated with one another, but their association with future student achievement grows over time. Teacher expectancy effects in mathematics are stronger for White girls, minority girls, and minority boys than they are for White boys. Implications for teaching are discussed.

The success of new pedagogies depends on teachers’ beliefs about what they entail, and the promises and challenges they hold. This study uses a mixed-methods approach to understand the beliefs of early childhood teachers who attended a professional development conference on STEAM teaching, an emerging approach that combine STEM disciplines and the arts through problem-based learning to engage students and push deep thinking. Data from a post-conference survey (N = 41) and follow-up interviews (N = 4) showed teachers varied in their beliefs about STEAM and the supports they needed to implement it successfully. Implications for teacher education are discussed.

STEAM, where the “A” represents arts and humanities, is considered a transdisciplinary learning process that has the potential to increase diverse participation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. However, a well-defined conceptual model that clearly articulates essential components of the STEAM approach is needed to conduct empirical research on STEAM's efficacy–in particular, the teaching content that should be considered when enacting STEAM teaching practices. This paper proposes a conceptual model of STEAM, providing educators with the opportunity to teach effectively using transdisciplinary inquiry. The instructional content domain of the model includes problem-based delivery, discipline integration, and problem-solving skills.

This paper reports the development and initial validation of the Short Critical Consciousness Scale (CCS-S), which measures critical consciousness via its three component parts: critical reflection, critical motivation, and critical action. In Study 1, we identified and extracted four subsets of items from the original Critical Consciousness Scale and from a validated critical motivation measure, creating the 14-item CCS-S while maintaining construct validity and the strong psychometric properties of the original sub-scales. In Study 2, we completed initial validation of the CCS-S with a larger-scale, independent sample (n = 4901; Mage = 14.69) and tested measurement invariance of the CCS-S across ethnic-racial, age, and gender groups. Measurement invariance was supported for each group. We conclude by considering implications and directions for future critical consciousness research, including recommendations for the use of the CCS-S in both research and applied settings.

This study examined how overall quality and within-day consistency in fifth graders’ teacher-student interactions related to feelings about, engagement, and academic performance in school. Participants were 956 children in a national study. Students who experienced higher quality interactions reported more positive feelings about school, were more engaged, performed better in math and reading, and had more closeness and less conflict with teachers. Independent of overall interaction quality, students who experienced less consistency in their interactions with teachers, whether it was with the same teacher or across teachers, were less engaged and had more teacher-reported conflict. Findings emphasize the separate contributions of both high quality and consistency of teacher–student interactions to students’ success.

Contemporary education reforms focus on assessing teachers’ performance and developing selection mechanisms for hiring effective teachers. Tools that enable the prediction of teachers’ classroom performance promote schools’ ability to hire teachers more likely to be successful in the classroom. In addition, these assessment tools can be used for teacher training and preparation that contributes to improved student performance. This article summarizes the theoretical and empirical support for a direct assessment of teachers’ skill in detecting and identifying effective classroom interactions—the Video Assessment of Interaction and Learning (VAIL). Findings from a study of 270 preschool teachers suggest that the VAIL reliably measures teachers’ interaction detection and identification skills. Teachers who can accurately detect effective interactions on video exemplars tend to have more years of education and display more effective interactions with the students in their classroom. Findings are discu...

The present study examined the pattern of association(s) over time between (a) knowledge of and observational skills in identifying teacher–child interactions, and (b) observed behavior in the domain of instructional interaction for 405 preschool teachers enrolled in a professional development study. Teacher's knowledge/observational skills and observed instructional support behaviors with children were assessed in the fall and spring over a two-year period. During this time, the teachers were also randomized into a college course focused on interactions, then re-randomized into a coaching intervention, also focused on instructional interaction. Cross-lagged analyses suggest that prior observed behavior was the stronger predictor of change in both knowledge/observation skills and in later observed behavior, and that both the course and the coaching interventions contributed to improvements in teachers observed instructional support behavior. Mediational analyses of the course effects indicated longer-term impact on observed instructional behavior were through immediate impacts on those same behaviors, whereas long-term impacts on knowledge were through immediate impacts on both observed instructional behavior and knowledge. The results have implications for the design, delivery, and focus of professional development for early childhood educators.

This study evaluates a model for considering domain-general and domain-specific associations between teacher-child interactions and children's development, using a bifactor analytic strategy. Among a sample of 325 early childhood classrooms there was evidence for both general elements of teacher-child interaction (responsive teaching) and domain-specific elements related to positive management and routines and cognitive facilitation. Among a diverse population of 4-year-old children (n = 1,407) responsive teaching was modestly associated with development across social and cognitive domains, whereas positive management and routines was modestly associated with increases in inhibitory control and cognitive facilitation was associated with gains in early language and literacy skills. The conceptual and methodological contributions and challenges of this approach are discussed.

Spring is a great time for learning about nature and an even better time to learn math. Solving these math problems may help your students gear up for gardening and catching butterflies as cool, rainy days give way to colorful blooms and students become eager to spend time outside.

Math by the Month features collections of short activities focused on a monthly theme. These articles aim for an inquiry or problem-solving orientation that includes four activities each for grade bands K–2, 3–4, and 5–6. This month's article presents mathematics word problems for students focused around the theme of pets. Solving these problems can help students apply mathematical thinking to authentic problems related to an interesting topic.