Attempting to document teachers' professional knowledge

This paper explores ways of uncovering and documenting teachers' professional knowledge. Through a research project that has worked with a number of teachers over an extensive period of time, serious attempts have been made to make the (often) tacit nature of teachers' knowledge more explicit in ways that might begin to address the question of what a knowledge base in teaching might look like. The paper examines methodological issues that have guided this research and illustrates how the knowledge of teachers can be articulated in ways that might help to clarify particular features of practice. An important aspect of the research reported in this paper is the need to have a language of teaching that is common to participants. Therefore, the research reported in this paper offers one way of considering this issue and offers a methodology for exploration and further development whilst simultaneously highlighting some aspects of the problematic nature of developing such a methodology.     

师范生教师专业知能培养策略研究

分析了教育信息化时代教师专业知能的内容,指出师范生教师专业知能,既要获得学科知识和教育知识,更要具有运用信息技术教授学科知识的能力,具体表现在专业理念、专业知识、专业技能、专业实践、专业发展能力等五个方面.并以思想建设和能力建设为出发点,从重构师范生的教育教学理念及观点和构建合理的课程体系两个方面,研究了师范生教师专业知能的培养策略.     

Assessing Thai early childhood teachers' knowledge of inclusive education

An ever-increasing number of children with and without disabilities are attending early childhood programmes and learning together. Early childhood inclusion considers all children with and without disabilities, and their families as full members of the early childhood community. Although many early childhood teachers accept the educational rights of children with disabilities and the core principle of inclusion – that early childhood learning programmes should provide for the needs of all the children in their centres, regardless of ability and disability, there remain significant barriers in terms of teacher professional knowledge in achieving these goals. In this article, we report a study on Thai preschool teachers' knowledge of inclusive early childhood education. Quantitative data obtained through a questionnaire were supplemented by teacher interviews. Both the quantitative and qualitative data focused on the teachers' assessment of their professional knowledge. Findings from this study can inform effective professional development programmes in preparing early childhood teachers for successful inclusive practices.     

Pedagogy,information and communications technology and teachers' professional knowledge

In this article UK governmental policy imperatives to apply new forms of information and communications technology (ICT) to school improvement are explored, with particular reference to the National Curriculum for England and Wales. The analysis juxtaposes the piecemeal, random way in which ICT is used in National Curriculum programmes of study and schemes of work with the government rhetoric that requires coherent planning and integration of ICT within all aspects of teaching learning. The article argues that this contradiction within the policy process could be overcome if a stronger conceptualization of teachers' professional knowledge was embraced. An example of such a conceptualization is presented and this is exemplified by accounts of teachers' development of ICT within their pedagogic practice.     

Practicalising theoretical knowledge in student teachers' professional learning in initial teacher education

This paper reports the findings collected from a four year longitudinal study aiming to investigate the professional learning of student-teachers in Bachelor of Education programmes. Four case studies which suggest a typology of ways of practicalising theoretical knowledge with one extreme as the testing out of teaching approaches mainly to find out their practicality in the school context to the other extreme whereby the student-teacher sought to work out a schema or personal theory were identified. Influences from the campus-based and the field-based components of the teacher education programme are drawn. The paper ends with implications for initial teacher education.     

Developing pre-service teachers' professional knowledge of teaching: The influence of mentoring

This study was situated in a Primary Teacher Education program in the Netherlands. The participants (N=16) comprised four each of: Pre-Service Teachers (PST); Mentor Teachers; School-Based Teacher Educators; and University-Based Teacher Educators. Video-recordings of four mentoring conversations for each PST which transcribed and translated for analysis. A mixed methodology was applied with analysis based on examining mentoring conversations in relation to the MERID-model through turn-taking analysis and Propositional Discourse Analysis. The study illustrates that mentors tend to use a more directive mentoring approach and that they dominate dialogue suggesting that there is aneed for reconsideration of the mentor-PST learning relationship and how it is understood in teacher education.     

Co-teaching as a context for teachers' professional learning and joint knowledge construction

The study examined two primary teachers' professional learning and joint knowledge construction in the context of co-teaching. The teachers narrated their learning as a collaborative process with serendipitous origins. Shared knowledge construction was crucial in the learning process, as was implementing the resulting new ideas in practice. It is concluded that experiences of co-teaching may support teachers in meeting their professional responsibilities effectively. Professional development programmes need to be sensitive to teachers' individual and collaborative learning experiences to be able better to support them in the natural context of those experiences in particular local and national contexts.     

Seeing is believing: using videopapers to transform teachers' professional knowledge and practice

Gaps, barriers, boundaries and walls are words often used to describe the separation between educational research and practice. They account for the differences that are said to exist between the ‘two cultures’; the members of which appear to occupy different worlds, have different mindsets and express themselves in different discourses. The purpose of this paper is to suggest ways of overcoming this divide by presenting a new genre of publication, videopaper, that integrates and synchronizes different forms of representation, such as text, video and images, in one cohesive document. We argue that this has the potential to end the elision in the educational community which sees researchers as knowledge generators and teachers as knowledge translators. We contend that videopaper has a range of affordances that may help the professional and academic communities to find new ways of seeing, creating and using educational research.     

Measuring teachers' structural knowledge

Long-term effects of a teacher education program on beginning teachers' cognitive structures for classroom management, and relationships between various measures of cognitive structure were investigated. Nine elementary teachers completed an ordered tree and a concept mapping exercise of the domain classroom management one year after program completion. Comparisons of follow-up data with exit scores revealed a positive but non-significant trend toward greater organization. Correlations between the ordered tree and scores derived from concept maps revealed significant relationships between the ordered tree and the scoring procedure of Roehler, Duffy, Conley, Hermann, Johnson, and Michelson (1990). Implications for the measurement of cognitive change in teacher education students are discussed.     

The impact of Every Child Matters on trainee secondary teachers' understanding of professional knowledge

This study is concerned with the way in which the introduction in England of Every Child Matters (ECM), a mandatory framework for the well‐being of all pupils, has created new intraprofessional and interprofessional expectations about the development of professional knowledge for pre‐service secondary school teachers. In the light of current literature, the paper seeks to establish whether ECM for secondary teachers provides a simple reconciliation between subject expertise and the facilitation of human learning or a much more profound challenge to the development of values‐based autonomous professional knowledge. The research undertaken using questionnaires and interviews with cohorts of trainee secondary teachers between 2005 and 2008 aims to identify the impact of ECM on the development of their pre‐service professional knowledge. The data demonstrate a degree of movement in emphasis from an organic, values‐based understanding to a propositional, skills‐based understanding of professional knowledge. It is argued that this movement in emphasis is, to some degree, related to the instrumental implementation of a social justice policy that may have contributed to the weakening of the intrinsic relationship between teachers' values, ownership of professional knowledge and pupil well‐being. The study concludes that the challenge for teacher educators is to find the critical questions and pedagogies to counter the view that professional knowledge is simply the acquisition of strategies, skills and safeguarding knowledge that ensures accountability and legality in the classroom.     

Investigating the relationship between pre-service physics teachers' professional knowledge,self-concept,and interest

This study investigates the relationships between professional knowledge, self-concept, and interest of pre-service physics teachers. In order to support student learning and interest development alike, teachers need a profound professional knowledge and respective motivational orientations. Developing both professional knowledge and motivational orientations in teachers is therefore a key challenge of teacher education. Prior research has focused on the development of content knowledge (CK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) within teacher education, but the role of motivational orientations such as self-concept and interest have mostly been neglected areas of study. As individuals develop domain-specific motivational orientations, they compare their achievement in an external frame to the achievement of their peers, and they compare their achievements in an internal frame across domains. The effects of these psychological processes on domain-specific motivational orientations are described by the generalized internal/external frame of reference model (GI/E model). We assessed the professional knowledge (CK and PCK) and motivational orientations (self-concept and interest) of N = 200 pre-service physics teachers from 12 teacher education institutes in Germany. To investigate the predictions of the GI/E model, we utilized structural equation modeling. In line with the GI/E model, the analysis revealed that pre-service teachers use social comparisons. Pre-service teachers with a higher CK/PCK also showed a higher CK/PCK self-concept. We also identified instances of internal comparisons as we found that a high level of CK corresponds with a lower PCK self-concept. While we could not identify the same effects from professional knowledge on interest, self-concept mediated the effects from professional knowledge on interest. The results suggest that interdependencies between professional knowledge and motivational orientation should be given more consideration in teacher education research and should also be addressed more explicitly in teacher education.     

高职教师专业化研究综述

教师队伍需要专业化建设,完善专业化教学能力,改善教师专业化发展动力已经成为了高职教师未来发展的主要方向。在高职教学过程中,教师主体的作用是根据教学内容制定教学计划,结合高职教师的教学特点与专业要求制定教学研究特点,以此提高职业化教学的可行性。     

Constructivism and teachers' professional development

The study aims to explore the implications of constructivist theory to the teacher's education and development. A post-graduate course for students of Education—“A Teacher Thinking” seminar, was constructed for this purpose. Its knowledge base was the participants' own practical knowledge which they were willing to share in the group. Its main strategy was the “Dialectical process of reflection in the group” which was used as a means of enhancing the participants to investigate their own practice and construct their own theories-of-teaching. Four examples from the seminar are elaborated in the paper. They serve as illustrations for the teachers' personal professional development.     

教师专业道德何以可能——试论普通高中教师专业道德培养

在教师专业化改革的进程之中,人们关注的重心往往放在了知识、技能等领域,对教师专业道德的建设投入力度不够。尤其是高中阶段更容易忽视教师专业道德的培养,提升高中教师专业道德水平势在必行。     

Science teachers' views of professional development

Seventy-five science teachers from schools across Australia were interviewed in 1991 as part of the Science Education Professional Development Project (SEPD), a Department of Employment, Education and Training (DEET) funded Project of National Significance with a brief to develop a strategy to enhance the professional development of science teachers. At the time of interviewing there was considerable discussion about the implementation of a new classification, the Advanced Skilled Teacher. A major purpose of this Award Restructuring was to offer a career path for classroom teachers. In order to retain good science teachers and to encourage them to continue in the important role of classroom teaching it is crucial to understand and to meet their professional development needs. But what does it mean to develop and grow as a science teacher? What constitutes quality professional development? What do science teachers expect from professional development activities? This paper explores science teachers' expectations in relation to professional development and examines the implications for policy.     

教师专业发展中的智慧意蕴

教育与智慧本身就是共生、共存的,只是当教育爱上智慧时,再来看教育：教育学就是迷恋于他人成长的学问;教育学的意向也可以看作是我们面对孩子时我们发现被召唤时的一种主动的回应;教育需要一种智慧性直觉和蕴涵智慧的理解;教育智慧需要教育机智来实现;教育智慧是一种适时、适当的“教育反应本能”;使教育智慧成为彰显教师职业专业化的一个重要标志;反思成为教师生成、内化、发展教育智慧的一种基本能力;学校成为实现教育的真正的教育场所。     

Engineering teachers' pedagogical content knowledge

The aim of the study was to discover the essential characteristics of engineering teachers' pedagogical content knowledge by studying teachers' conceptions of their students' ideas of moment. To compare the conceptions maintained by teachers with those of their students, the most common difficulties experienced by first-year engineering students in understanding the moments of forces were looked at. The data on students' conceptions were collected by means of a questionnaire. In addition, four experienced teachers were given the same questionnaire as the students and then were asked to write what they expected the students' answers to be. The students' answers and the teachers' conceptions of their students' potential answers were compared. It was found that although the teachers originally appeared to be familiar with their students' conceptions, they were rather astonished by the general pattern of the students' thinking. It is planned that the information gathered about the teachers' pedagogical content knowledge will eventually be used to improve engineering teacher training.     

教育博客：青年教师职业成长的助推器

青年教师职业成长是一个循序渐进的过程,而借助教育博客,可以优化成长方式,助推青年教师职业成长。文章从由“传帮带”的“单一式”向“开放式”优化、职业成长由“注入式”向“互动式”优化、教学反思由“零碎式”向“常态化”优化、教学资源由“零乱式”向“条块化”优化等四个优化阐述教育博客的助推作用。让教育博客成为博取众长的学习空间、开放交流的互动平台、教学反思的最佳阵地、知识积淀的管理仓库。