Abstract: When teachers reflect and evaluate whether their teaching methods actually have an impact on students’ learning, they will adjust their practices accordingly. This inevitably improves their students’ learning and performance. The approach in meta-teaching can invigorate and create a passion for teaching. It thus helps to increase the commitment and love for the teaching profession. This study was conducted to determine the level of metacognitive thinking of teachers in the process of teaching and learning in the classroom. Metacognitive thinking teachers include the use of metacognitive knowledge which consists of different types of knowledge: declarative, procedural and conditional. The ability of the teachers to plan, monitor and evaluate the teaching process can also be determined. This study was conducted on 377 graduate teachers in Klang Valley, Malaysia. The stratified sampling method was selected for the purpose of this study. The metacognitive teaching inventory consisting of 24 items is called InKePMG (Teacher Indicators of Effectiveness Meta-Teaching). The results showed the level of mean is high for two components of metacognitive knowledge; declarative knowledge (mean = 4.16) and conditional (mean = 4.11) whereas, the mean of procedural knowledge is 4.00 (moderately high). Similarly, the level of knowledge in monitoring (mean = 4.11), evaluating (mean = 4.00) which indicate high score and planning (mean = 4.00) are moderately high score among teachers. In conclusion, this study shows that the planning and procedural knowledge is an important element in improving the quality of teachers teaching in the classroom. Thus, the researcher recommended that further studies should focus on training programs for teachers on metacognitive skills and also on developing creative thinking among teachers.
Abstract: Dan C. Lortie’s Schoolteacher: A sociological study is
one of the best works on the sociology of teaching since W. Waller’s
classic study. It is a book worthy of review. Following the tradition of
symbolic interactionists, Lortie demonstrated the qualities who studied
the occupation of teaching. Using several methods to gather effective
data, Lortie has portrayed the ethos of the teaching profession.
Therefore, the work is an important book on the teaching profession
and teacher culture. Though outstanding, Lortie’s work is also flawed
in that his perspectives and methodology were adopted largely from
symbolic interactionism. First, Lortie in his work analyzed many
points regarding teacher culture; for example, he was interested in
exploring “sentiment,” “cathexis,” and “ethos.” Thus, he was more a
psychologist than a sociologist. Second, symbolic interactionism led
him to discern the teacher culture from a micro view, thereby missing
the structural aspects. For example, he did not fully discuss the issue of
gender and he ignored the issue of race. Finally, following the
qualitative sociological tradition, Lortie employed many qualitative
methods to gather data but only foucused on obtaining and presenting
interview data. Moreover, he used measurement methods that were too
simplistic for analyzing quantitative data fully.