In this study, music teachers' exposure to sound was tested by measuring the A-weighted equivalent sound pressure level (SPL), the A-weighted maximum SPL and the C-weighted peak SPL. Measurements were taken prior to and after acoustic treatment in four rooms during classes of trumpet, saxophone, French horn, trombone and percussion instruments. Results showed that acoustic treatment affects the exposure of music teachers to sound. Daily noise exposure levels (LEX, 8 h) for all teachers exceeded a limit of 85 dB while teaching music lessons prior to room treatment. It was found that the LEX, 8 h values ranged from 85.8 to 91.6 dB. The highest A-weighted maximum SPL and C-weighted peak SPL that music teachers were exposed to were observed with percussion instruments (LAmax = 110.4 dB and LCpeak = 138.0 dB). After the treatments, daily noise exposure level decreased by an average of 5.8, 3.2, 3.0, 4.2 and 4.5 dB, respectively, for the classes of trumpet, saxophone, French horn, trombone and drums, and did not exceed 85 dB in any case.
What is focused on in the undertaken study are teachers from schools educating in the Polish language in the Czech Republic. The author refers to the studies conducted in 2014–2016 and in 2017 among teachers from schools for the Polish national minority located in Zaolzie. These schools effectively compete with schools for the Czech majority. Among other things, they have survived owing to teachers and their decisive strategies, which involve not only strictly competitive but also various forms of collaborative behaviour.
Self-fulfilling prophecy is seen as an important phenomenon linking social perception with social interaction, being in line with the assumption that conviction creates reality. The adoption of such a perspective upgrades the rank of expectations, which being in control of human behaviour, permeate all areas of people’s activity. Within the area of interpersonal interaction, its participants either perceive what is expected of them or make assumptions about expectations on the basis of behaviour which is directed towards them. Following this lead, and referring to the possibility of co-operation between teachers and parents, we are confronted with a question whether within the anticipated interaction parents may cope as well, or as badly as it is expected of them by teachers. This article attempts to answer this question as well as to analyse the relationships between teachers and parents through the prism of the idea of self-fulfilling prophecy, bearing in mind that the phenomenon itself consists of extremely complex interaction of cognitive and behavioural factors.
Despite the large number of studies conducted on teachers’ oral corrective feedback, the findings of these studies have been mainly limited to cognitive orientations rooted in experimental designs and the verbal discourse of the teacher as the main object of inquiry. Considering teachers’ affective concerns regarding their corrective feedback and the shift from negative psychology to positive psychology in the field of second/foreign language teaching as well as the entirety of the teacher’s corrective repertoire, in this case study, we aimed to explore the enjoyment building capacity of a teacher’s multimodal corrective feedback in a university general English course. We video-recorded the teacher’s multimodal corrective feedback including verbal and nonverbal semiotic resources like gesture, gaze, and posture while observing the learners’ emotional experiences for eight sessions. We also conducted stimulated recall interviews with some learners and collected their written journals about the experiences of enjoyment with regard to the teacher’s multimodal corrective feedback scenarios. The teacher’s multimodal corrective feedback was analyzed through systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis (SF-MDA) and the content of the interview transcripts as well as the written journals were qualitatively analyzed. The findings indicated that the teacher’s inherent multimodality in his corrective feedback broadened the main dimensions of enjoyment by raising the learners’ attention to their errors, heightening their focus on the correct form, and increasing the salience of his corrective feedback. Further arguments regarding the findings are discussed.
Psychodrama is a method of therapy and personal development which strongly engages – apart from the intellect – the body and emotions. It frequently makes use of symbols and metaphors based on a natural inclination to play, at the same time triggering spontaneity and creativity. Psychodrama was invented by Jacob Moreno in the early 20th century. For a long time, it has been subjected to various changes. Its development has brought about the adjustment of its tools to different needs and group situations. Today, psychodrama is widely applied in psychotherapy, personal development, business, as well as education. The presented study is aimed at showing the usefulness of psychodrama as a tool which enhances the understanding of disability by both people without disability (as it is understood by the non-disabled) and the disabled (as regards the understanding of their own limitations). An additional goal is presenting the general assumptions of psychodrama the benefits from using its techniques for the development of e.g. teachers, therapists, tutors and other people working with the intellectually disabled, post-graduate students of special pedagogy in the field of oligophrenopedagogy.
Professor architect Juliusz Żórawski was for the author of this paper, a leading personality, during his period of studiea and assistantship. Author on the wider background of events of his life, draws a portrait of his mentor according to: creative Modern projecting, thinking, talking and writing about architecture – especially on the field of form. The teacher and his pupil had similar passions, e.g. expressing oneself by free hand sketching, sensibility towards a landscape, e.g. Tatra Mountains. This is why in spite that Żórawski was rather radical Modernist, the fan of abstraction, the author of this paper owes him his own views closer to the contextualism, and a creative, more “hot”expression, and at the first – his passion towards architecture and its creation.
Given the significance of teacher characteristics in student motivation for class attendance, the present paper aimed to investigate the roles of teacher success, credibility, and stroke in students’ Willingness to Attend Classes (WTAC). To this aim, a total number of 276 undergraduate students majoring in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) and English Language and Literature completed four scales: Characteristics of Successful EFL Teachers Questionnaire (Moafian & Pishghadam, 2008), Teacher Credibility Scale (McCroskey & Teven, 1999), Student Stroke Scale (Pishghadam & Khajavi, 2014), and WTAC Scale (Rajabnejad, Pishghadam, & Saboori, 2017). For data analysis, Pearson multiple correlation coefficients and path analysis were employed. The results of correlational analyses revealed a significantly positive correlation, first, between teacher success and students’ WTAC, secondly, between teacher credibility and students’ WTAC, and thirdly, between teacher stroke and students’ WTAC. Furthermore, the results of path analysis indicated that students’ WTAC was significantly predicted by teacher success, credibility, and stroke. At the end, the results were discussed in light of previous findings, and potential conclusions were made in the EFL context accordingly.
Educational policy is a complex social phenomenon which both determines and is determined by political, socio-cultural, economic or demographic conditions. It is treated as deliberate activities of state and local authorities strictly related to educational practice. Therefore, each educational policy should be a planned activity which is based on a broader programme and which takes into account developmental strategies not only of education but also of the region or state. The period following the system transformation in Poland has involved numerous activities which – from teachers' perspective – have been treated as unexpected or even threatening their professional situation or the whole education. however, J. Rutkowiak emphasizes that relations between politics and pedagogy result from social engagement of both educationalists and teachers in politics and, thus, it is indispensable to treat politics as a dimension of their daily functioning at work [1]. The following questions are raised: what are actual teachers' expectations from politicians and the educational policy? how do teachers assess the educational policy and situate it in their professional daily routine? Referring to Rutkowiak, is this policy a significant dimension of their daily functioning at work or a factor of unpredictable results which may appear at any time – the expected unexpected as the title suggests? what is presented in this study are some analyses of the data collected in the studies on educational policy and politicians, conducted among teachers in 2000–2014.
The need to generate innovative solutions clearly is closely related with professional activities of special education teachers. The specificity of functioning of people with disabilities, unpredictability of actions and behaviours, developmental disharmoniousness imposes the searching and implementing of customized solutions, improvements and modifications to adjust the educational process to the needs and capabilities of this group of students. The presented beliefs have become the basis for research activities allowing to describe the innovativeness of special education teachers in their workplace. The main aim of this article is to attempt to determine the relationship between innovativeness in the workplace and locus of control in special education teachers group.
On September 16, 2019, prof. dr hab. Janusz Haman, member of the Polish Academy of Sciences passed away. The death of the Professor is a great loss not only for the family, but also for the entire national scientific community of agricultural engineering – the discipline of which he was the creator in Poland, and at the same time one of the greatest authority on an international scale. He has worked for almost 20 years at the Central Qualification Committee for Scientific Personnel (formerly CKK) at the Prime Minister’s office. For three terms he was a member of the Main Council of Science and Higher Education and the State Awards Commission. For two terms he was a member of the Science and Technology Council. He was the vice-chairman of the Scientific Council of the Ministry of Agriculture for five consecutive terms. He was a member of many scientific councils, including three terms of chairmanship of the IMER Council and OIN PAN. He also actively worked in the TNOiK structure, where he was the president of the Lublin Branch and NOT, being the president of the Lublin Branch of SIMP. In recognition of the great merits for creative activity, in particular for the development of agricultural sciences, Professor Haman was awarded four times with the highest academic dignity, which is an honoris causa doctorate, and also repeatedly decorated by the state authorities: Crosses – Knight's, Officer's and Commander's with the Star of the Order of Rebirth of Poland, Distinguished Teacher PRL, National Education Medal, Copernicus and Oczapowski Medal.
In the text the author makes a critical assessment of legal solutions regulating the education of teachers in Poland. In the realms of argument, he refers to his own experiences as a member of the Polish Accreditation Committee. The presentation of those experiences reveals areas of omissions, irregularities, and even pathologies in the process of conferring teaching qualifications on graduates of schools of higher education. The author derives the sources of the status quo from imperfections or contradictions in the documents regulating the same areas of education, as well as from the struggle of schools of higher education to survive in the market, leading to a dramatic reduction in the quality of education. The text ends in demands for necessary modifications of the standards of teacher education and changes in legislation.
In this text, a critical reflection is presented on assessment practices in early childhood education, which are discussed in the context of the creation by those practices of the students’ sense of agency which, according to J. Bruner, is treated as a category of school culture. The discussion is based on the results of the recent research conducted in Poland on students’ agency and an analysis of the data collected as part of the author’s own research.
The picture obtained by using the triangulation of methods and sources confirms that assessment in early childhood education strips children of the opportunity to build a sense of agency, even in terms of independent control of a task situation. The surveyed students, admittedly, are capable of a relatively independent reflection on the context of school assessment, but the world of their educational experience is limited to the incapacitating culture of the school grade. It is a culture that becomes one of the sources of children’s self-restraint in the perception of themselves as agents, perpetuating their external steerability and passivity. To change this situation, external regulations will not suffice, but only the organizing of the learning environment based on the relationship between the teacher and the student, which is free from the daily pressures of assessment and the worship of formal correctness.
Being reflective is one of the most paramount features that EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers need to be equipped with in the post-method era for their professional growth and development. The present study aimed to explore reflective teaching from a multi-dimensional perspective in terms of a) determinants that simulates teachers to reflect, b) consequences that teachers experience as a result of their reflective teaching, and c) obstacles that may arise and preclude teachers from reflective teaching. Qualitative data collection method was employed to gather data from 10 EFL teachers triangulating semi-structured interviews, diaries, journal, and observation. Data analysis via MAXQDA led to the emergence of three models for each dimension of the study. The results revealed that teachers not only reflect to respond to a problem, but also they reflect to diminish some negative factors like stress or anxiety on the part of both learners and themselves as well as improving, enhancing, or mending something in teaching or learning. The codes of determinants were also conceptualized into three broad categories of reflection-in-action, reflection-on-action, and reflection-for-action with the reflection-for-action used more frequently by the teachers. In the case of consequences, the codes were classified into two categories of internal and external consequences. It was also concluded that some of the consequences reinforce the reflective teaching and play the role of determinants motivating teachers to reflect again. Regarding the obstacles, after categorizing the codes into external and internal obstacles, it was observed that external factors are more robust.
Professor Jacek Fisiak’s outstanding achievements are well known in the scholarly community in Poland and abroad. He was an excellent and widely recognizable scholar, an exceptional teacher and talent-detector, an ingenious science manager, and he was so likeable and cordial! Professor Jacek Fisiak directed the Institute of English at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań for 40 years. Thanks to his management, English studies in Poznań obtained a leading position among such institutions in Poland and in the world. Professor Fisiak also cared about other English departments in Poland. On the one hand, he supervised 61 (!) PhD students who continued their academic careers throughout Poland, on the other, he supported English studies as well as the humanities and research in general as Minister of National Education and member of numerous influential bodies. I am grateful to Professor Fisiak for his guidance in my academic work, starting with my M.A., through the doctoral and post-doctoral degrees and the professorial title, my function as his deputy director for 3 terms, up to the ‘take-over of the command’ of the Institute and the creation of the Faculty of English. His opus survives and will last.
Presented article contain the teachers opinions of the perceived social expectations in relation to their own expectations of both the institutions of school and local educational authorities. The starting point is a thesis that asymmetrical and disproportionate expectations conducive to the construction of the reduced school reality a specified group of students. as reality shows school does not always reflect the social expectations, which is closely connected with the attitudes of teachers in mainstream schools. however, their expectations of working conditions and the same students with disabilities often remain inconsistent. To identify and interpret the reality that create the appearance of the school, the topic is examined in the context of the concept of the reduced space and the theory of games.
The paper presents the latest research results concerning the correlation between changes in the room acoustics of school spaces and noticeable changes in the communication and functioning of students and teachers at school.
The primary school covered by the research is the second largest school of this type in Poland. The large number of students and hard interior finishing made the acoustic conditions in the school building very unfavourable. The measurements showed that school rooms were very noisy and reverberant. The measured values of reverberation time T were in many rooms 3–4 times higher than the acceptable values specified in the mandatory Polish acoustic standard PN-B-02151-4:2015-06. Also the speech intelligibility measured by the speech transmission index was very poor, in the extreme case STI = 0:31. This situation (very characteristic for most of Polish schools) became the basis for the first such comprehensive acoustic treatment of the whole school building in Poland. This intervention allowed to meet PN-B-02151-4:2015-06 demands almost in every room accessible for students. This case gave an excellent opportunity to assess the influence of improved room acoustics on teachers’ and students’ performance and wellbeing.
Measurements of the equivalent sound level LAeq, reverberation time T and STI speech transmission index were made before and after acoustic treatment. The questionnaire survey used the Acoustic Change Feelings Scale (ACFS-S, ACFS-T) for teachers and students. 378 students, and 44 teachers were included in the study. Both students’ and teachers’ answers show significant improvement of their performance and wellbeing. Positive changes were noticed in students’ level of concentration, short memory capacity and pace of work. After acoustic treatment students (both in teachers’ and their own opinion) can better hear and understand teachers’ instructions and are much more capable of task fulfilling. Both teachers and students observed clear reduction of aggression level. Teachers reported considerable drop in students’ fatigue and their own voice effort.
Objectives: The OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) is a common method of assessing clinical skills used at many universities. An important and simultaneously difficult aspect of good examination preparation is obtaining a properly trained and well-motivated group of assessors. To effectively recruit and maintain cooperation with assessors, it is worth knowing their opinion. The aim of this study was to investigate the opinions of teacher-examiners about the OSCE and to identify the factors that could shape this opinion and influence on motivation.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted using a questionnaire on teachers who participated as OSCE examiners. This questionnaire consisted of 21 questions about their perceptions. Answers were rated in a five-point Likert-type scale. Chi-square or Fisher’s exact test was used to analyze the data.
Results: A total of 49 (out of 52) teachers participated in this study. Nearly 90% of examiners believed that it is fair, and more than 90% that it is transparent. Despite the fact that 67% of examiners believe that the examination is difficult to organize and 71% believe it is stressful for students; according to 72% of respondents the OSCE has a positive effect on learning. More than 91% of examiners believed that the OSCE is an appropriate test to assess students’ skills. Opinions about the examination were independent of specialty, seniority, gender or having taken the OSCE as students.
Conclusion: Teacher-examiners viewed the OSCE as a fair and transparent examination, adequate for the assessment of skills and, despite it being difficult to organize, worth doing as it is appropriate to assess practical skills and positively influences students’ motivation to learn tested skills.