Portraits of Teacher Dedication in Vermont.
The authors of this study have concluded, after an extensive review of the literature and the testimony of numerous Vermont teachers, that dedication and commitment are useful terms to apply when discussing teacher outstandingness and teacher excellence, especially in rural context, and that there are measures which can be quantified of these attributes. It may be that higher levels of teacher dedication or commitment are present in either end of the population spectrum among the very rural and the very urban. It is believed that measures of teacher commitment and dedication could include teacher time and teacher wealth. Outstanding or excellent teachers in Vermont over time have spent their own money and have given great quantities of discretionary time to their students in support of improving education. The authors of this paper became interested several years ago in teacher motivation, teacher commitment, and teacher dedication. Several literature searches spaced throughout the 80's up into the early 90's showed that, although there was some interest in teacher commitment, no work had been done in the area of teacher dedication, especially as it related to teacher quality, teacher effectiveness, and teacher excellence. In spite of the lack of research, words like commitment and dedication are often used in research on teaching and teacher motivation. The authors ccncluded that this phenomena was worthy of further investigation and set out to develop a design. Vermont, which at the time that field research was completed, was the most rural state in the nation. It seemed an excellent place to begin for several reasons. There was a readily identifiable population of teachers who had been labeled by their peers and administrators as excellent or of high quality. These teachers were those who had been selected for recognition by the University of Vermont through its Outstanding Teacher program run annually since 1981. By 1990, almost 800 Vermont teachers had been singled out for this accolade. A search of archival sources led to several diaries and previously unpublished works related to teachers and teaching in Vermont and Northern New England housed at both the Wilbur Collection at the University of Vermont and the Vermont Historical Society Museum in Montpelier. The existence of the second pool of information stimulated the researchers to develop a two-stage case study using the archival data for the first set of cases and eighteen purposefully selected teachers as the second set of cases. Thus, a qualitative design emerged using the two-stage case study mentioned above and incorporating purposive sampling techniques. Among the descriptors associated with rurality are remoteness, loneliness, scarcity, and lack of opportunity (Matthes and Carlson, 1987).
A backup choice or not? Pre-service graduate students' views of choosing teaching as a career in Taiwan
Recent teacher education reform in Taiwan allows regular universities to set up programs to recruit graduate students for teacher preparation. There have been assumptions that these students may take teaching as a backup career choice since they may have multiple career choices for their future. This study attempts examines the degree of decisiveness and enthusiasm for choosing teaching as a career by a group of 44 pre-service graduate students from a prestigious university in Taiwan. Based on data collected from in-depth interviews with these students, five sub-groups emerge: Devoted Educators, Responsible Teachers, Career Explorers, Pragmatists and The Uncommitted. As the majority of these students have decided to choose teaching as their primary future career, the backup choice assumption is challenged. Socio-cultural roots to this positive view of teaching are further discussed.
Description of roughness profiles by separating the random and periodic components
Abstract The probability that it is not possible to obtain a significant description of roughness profiles composed of random and periodic components by using statistical methods is discussed. It is shown that the random and periodic components can be separated by using the frequency spectrum and the autocorrelation function of the profile. The physical significance of the separate components is discussed and it is shown that it is possible to describe a long crested surface by a single profile using these components The method of separating the random and periodic components allows a parametrical description of the roughness profile to be given. It is then possible to use these parameters to calculate a synthetic signal sign with the same basic properties as the measured profile.