A Study of Professionalism of Secondary School Teachers
A professional teacher needs to be confident without being arrogant. Nobody can expect to have all the answers, so if a student asks a weird doubt, the professional teacher should be able to admit defeat but offer to find out more for the student and they must carry that promise out. Proper preparation is another crucial requirement of professionalism. When the teacher enters the classroom s/he should have all the required materials and the lesson plan ready.  The researcher has pursued a study on such professionalism of teachers, as to how a teacher is aware towards his / her professional ethics, and how such awareness can bring results in the rewards and achievements of students. The study was conducted on 1044 teachers of secondary schools in Saurashtra Region Comprising of 11 districts of Gujarat. The study was conducted using a self-constructed scale “Secondary School Teachers Professionalism Scale”. The variables under study were Nature of Job, Qualification, Professional Qualification, Family Background, and Education Board. The method of research was descriptive survey research. The tool comprised of ten components viz. Time Keeping, Content Mastery, Contemporary Knowledge, Communication with Students, Communication with Colleagues, Delivery Mechanism, Pro-Activeness and Follow up, Parents Counseling and Students Counseling. The findings of research are, Nature of Job as a variable affect the Contemporary Knowledge and Physical Appearance of the Teachers. The Qualification of Teachers affected the Time Keeping, Contemporary Knowledge, Communication with Students, Communication with Colleagues, Pro Activeness and Followup, Parents Counseling and Students Counseling. The Professional Qualification affected the Students Counseling of Teachers. The Family Background affected the Parents Counseling of Teachers. The Education Board affected the Time Keeping, Content Mastery, Contemporary Knowledge, Delivery Mechanism, Parents Counseling and Students Counseling. Schools and Educational institutes can use the tool to measure the professionalism of teachers and can device training programmes to enhance professionalism for relevant components. The findings highlights key components where Other Board teachers are score better in professionalism and the same can used to device training programme for Gujarat Board teachers to improve for such key components. Over all, the research will help the teacher in general to measure the professionalism of self and motivate development of professionalism.
Preservice Agricultural Education Teachers and Secondary Education Teachers’ Self-Efficacy and Professional Identity
During the nineteenth century, a decision was made to separate the preparation of agricultural education teachers from their elementary and secondary counterparts (Hearings, 1908; Heren & Hillison, 1996; Hillison, 1986). The majority of land-grant universities and colleges have continued to prepare agricultural education preservice teachers within the college of agriculture, separate from other secondary education preservice teachers in the college of education (Myers & Dyer, 2004). Despite the differences among content disciplines, teachers who possess a strong sense of self-efficacy and professional identity have higher success rates in the classroom when it comes to collaboration, involvement, and student achievement (Ashton & Webb, 1986; Bandura, 1997; Dembo & Gibson, 1985; O’Bryant, 1992; Putman, 2012; Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2008; Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001White, 2009; Woolfolk, Rosoff, & Hoy, 1990). Therefore, the purpose of this study was to describe the self-efficacy and professional identity of preservice agricultural education teachers and other secondary education preservice teachers. Data were collected from land-grant universities and colleges through either electronic or paper surveys. Respondents (N = 85) from 13 institutions included both agricultural education preservice teachers (n = 68) and other secondary education preservice teachers (n = 17). The instrument used in this study was a modified questionnaire that combined two previously established scales, Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy’s (2001) Teacher’s Sense of Efficacy Scale and Woo’s (2013) Professional Identity Scale in Counseling. Descriptive statistics revealed that agricultural education preservice teachers’ possessed a slightly higher level of self-efficacy than other secondary education preservice teachers. Conversely, secondary education preservice teachers possessed a slightly higher level of professional identity than agricultural education preservice teachers. A Pearson’s Correlation was used to reveal a negligible relationship between self-efficacy and professional identity among agricultural education preservice teachers. However, there was a small relationship between self-efficacy and professional identity among secondary education preservice teachers. Further research should be conducted to establish the development of self-efficacy and professional identity throughout the teacher career cycle through longitudinal studies. Additionally, the literature suggest a relationship between selfefficacy and professional identity, but more research is recommended to empirically prove and generalize this to all preservice teachers.
Modelling environmental impacts of marine finfish aquaculture
Summary Our understanding of the interactions between fish farms and the environment has reached the stage where it is reasonable to expect that quantitative estimates of the possible environmental consequences of aquaculture development can be provided for regulatory and mitigation purposes. This paper summarizes recent developments in this area and provides several case histories of areas where theoretical analyses appear to have direct practical relevance. Fish wastes