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Dr.
Stephen Rushton
Research Agenda
Student teaching in the inner city school
My primary research interest is teaching effectiveness. My early work, beginning with my Ph D. dissertation, tracked the experiences of student-teachers in inner-city schools. What were their stories, their adventures, their stresses and their conflicts? How did the context of the inner-city school impact them? I found they had not been well prepared for what they encountered. Even though the student-teachers had been trained to work with culturally diverse populations through a special five-year Master’s degree program, the differences between their expectations and reality led them to undergo stress and conflict over whether to pursue a teaching career. However, I found that over the one-year course they developed a sense of self-efficacy and grew more confident in the situation.
Rushton, S. (2004). Using narrative inquiry to understand a preservice practical knowledge while teaching
in an inner city school. Urban Review,36, 61-79.
Rushton, S.
(2003). Two preservice teachers' growth in self-efficacy while teaching in an inner-city
school.
Urban Review 35,3.
Click here to read.
Rushton, S. (2000). Student teacher efficacy in inner city schools.
Urban Review 3, 365-383. Click here
to read.
Rushton, S. (2000). Cultural assimilation: A narrative case study of
student-teaching in an inner city school.
Teaching and Teacher Education, 17, 147-160.
Click here to read.
Brain-Research and Effective Teaching
My research also focused on what effective teachers actually do in the classroom that creates positive learning environments and makes their teaching more successful. Several of my articles and presentations examined existing philosophies and policies such as the “developmentally appropriate practices” established by National Association for Education of Young Children and “Cambourne’s conditions of learning.” I have related these established practices to the new research on how the brain develops. This new research on the developing mind seems to bear out the “constructivist” approach to early childhood education in which environments are designed to gain the learner’s attention, foster connections with prior knowledge, and maximize both short, and long-term memory through active problem solving.
Rushton, S.,
Eitelgeorge, J., & Zickafoose, R. (2003). Connecting Cambourne's
conditions of learning to brain-
principles: Application for the classroom teacher. Early
Childhood Education Journal 31, 11-21.
Click
to read.
Rushton, S., & Larkin, E. (2001). Shaping the learning environment:
Connecting developmentally
appropriate
practices to brain research. Early Childhood Education Journal, 29,
25-33. Click to read.
Rushton, S., (2001). Applying Brain
research to create developmentally appropriate learning environments.
Young Children, 56, 76-82.
Myers-Briggs and
Effective Teaching
In addition to my qualitative research, I have begun to use psychometric tests to examine the personality characteristics associated with being an effective teacher. I have used the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory to identify the personality type of those who have won Outstanding Teacher Awards, such as the Sarasota County Schools Teacher of the Year recipients and the Florida League of Teachers. My research found that the most effective teachers are those described on the Myers-Briggs Inventory as being Extraverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Perceptive.
Rushton, S., Knopp, T.Y.,
& Smith, R.L. (in press). Teacher of the Year award recipients'
Myers-Briggs
personality profiles: Identifying teacher effectiveness. Journal of
Psychological Types.
Rushton, S., & Richard, M. (Manuscript submitted for publication).
Teacher's Myers-Briggs
personality
profiles: Identifying effective
teacher personality traits.
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