Understanding the Development of a Hybrid Practice of Inquiry-Based Science Instruction and Language Development: A Case Study of One Teacher’s Journey Through Reflections on Classroom Practice

This qualitative case study looks closely at an elementary teacher who participated in professional development experiences that helped her develop a hybrid practice of using inquiry-based science to teach both science content and English language development (ELD) to her students, many of whom are English language learners (ELLs). This case study examines the teacher’s reflections on her teaching and her students’ learning as she engaged her students in science learning and supported their developing language skills. It explicates the professional learning experiences that supported the development of this hybrid practice. Closely examining the pedagogical practice and reflections of a teacher who is developing an inquiry-based approach to both science learning and language development can provide insights into how teachers come to integrate their professional development experiences with their classroom expertise in order to create a hybrid inquiry-based science ELD practice. This qualitative case study contributes to the emerging scholarship on the development of teacher practice of inquiry-based science instruction as a vehicle for both science instruction and ELD for ELLs. This study demonstrates how an effective teaching practice that supports both the science and language learning of students can develop from ongoing professional learning experiences that are grounded in current perspectives about language development and that immerse teachers in an inquiry-based approach to learning and instruction. Additionally, this case study also underscores the important role that professional learning opportunities can play in supporting teachers in developing a deeper understanding of the affordances that inquiry-based science can provide for language development.     

Capturing student teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) using CoRes and digital technology

During the last decades, digital technologies have become more common in providing opportunities for reflection and in-depth analysis of classroom practices and have afforded new ways of organising teacher education. In particular, videotaped lessons have proven to be a valuable tool for capturing teaching episodes, subsequent reflection and development of student teachers’ professional knowledge, here referred to as ‘pedagogical content knowledge’ (PCK). The aim of this project was to investigate how the use of the reflective tool, content representations (CoRes) in combination with video and associated digital tools might be used as a means for capturing student teachers’ professional knowledge of practice. In the study we explore how a group of 24 secondary science student teachers were provided with Content Representations (CoRe) and video annotations to support their reflection-on-action during their practicum. Video annotations, alongside a written reflection of critical incidents in the student teachers’ teaching constituted data for analysis. Our findings suggest that the different tools enabled the student teachers to connect captured examples of teaching instances with theoretical issues, and in this way offered the ability to see as well as to analyse their teaching practice. As such, the CoRe, together with the video annotation tool, proved to be successful in scaffolding and structuring student teachers’ reflection-on-action, allowing them to connect their reflections to components of PCK and further to articulate connections between these components.     

外语教师的课堂角色定位探究

对教师角色的外部规约、分析与其自身生成的角色认同之间所存在的错位和距离是导致教师在教学实践中时常感受到“职业疼痛”的重要原因。本文通过对课堂教学实践的本质解读,探讨外语教师的角色张力以及他们在外语课堂上所应起到的核心作用,提出教师在外语课堂教学的复杂情境中所应扮演的是 “对话者”的角色。     

Noticing and weighing alternatives in the reflection of regular classroom teaching: Evidence of expertise using mobile eye-tracking

Instructional videos are widely used to study teachers’ professional vision. A new technological development in video research is mobile eye-tracking (MET). It has the potential to provide fine-grained insights into teachers’ professional vision in action, but has yet been scarcely employed. We addressed this research gap by using MET video feedback to examine how expert and novice teachers differed in their noticing and weighing of alternative teaching strategies. Expert and novice teachers’ lessons were recorded with MET devices. Then, they commented on what they observe while watching their own teaching videos. Using a mixed methods approach, we found that expert and novice teachers did not differ in the number of classroom events they noticed and alternative teaching strategies they mentioned. However, novice teachers were more critical of their own teaching than expert teachers, particularly when they considered alternative teaching strategies. Practical implications for the field of teacher education are discussed.

     

Changes in teachers’ beliefs after a professional development project for teaching writing: two Chinese cases

A plethora of research has found that teachers’ beliefs directly influence their classroom practices and teaching outcomes. While numerous studies in second/foreign language writing have examined the effectiveness of different innovative approaches on students’ learning to write, there is a paucity of research on writing teachers’ beliefs about these approaches and how their beliefs change in the process of their professional development. Such a lacuna becomes prominent in English as a Foreign Language contexts, especially in China, where there are numerous calls for changing the nature of classroom practices from product-focused to process- and student-centred instruction. In order to fill this gap, this brief article reports on a case study regarding changes in two Chinese English teachers’ beliefs after attending a professional development project for teaching writing. A key research question guides this study: What changes, if any, did the two teachers experience in their teaching beliefs during the project? Two writing teachers were voluntarily recruited for a case study. Findings show that the professional development project for teaching writing broadened the teachers’ understanding of different writing theories, provided a clear model of how to integrate these new approaches into regular writing courses, changed their instructional focus and shifted their perception of teachers’ roles in teaching practice.     

Video viewing in teacher education and professional development: A literature review

This article reviews the international literature on video viewing in teacher education and professional development. Two hundred and fifty-five articles were collected, summarized and categorized using a conceptualization that includes four aspects: teachers' activity as they view a classroom video, the objectives of video viewing, the types of videos viewed, and the effects of video viewing on teacher education and professional development. The findings in each of these aspects suggested three main questions that may profitably guide future research: How can teaching teachers to identify and interpret relevant classroom events on video clips improve their capacity to perform the same activities in the classroom? How can we best articulate the diverse objectives of video viewing and the diverse types of videos in teacher education and professional development programs? How can we create a “continuum” between teacher education programs and professional development programs in such a way that video viewing becomes a routine, familiar professional practice able to produce the desired effects over the course of an entire teaching career?     

More than just a group: teacher collaboration and learning in the workplace

Teaching is often characterized as an isolated activity, yet opportunities for teachers to work and learn together in schools are increasing. Underlying this shift is the view that as teachers work on new practices and teaching challenges together, they will express varied perspectives, reveal different teaching styles and experiences, and stimulate reflection and professional growth. Despite strong research interest in teacher learning groups, few studies have looked at the relationship between teachers' conversations and collaboration outside the classroom and their actual classroom teaching. Drawing on data from a larger study of literacy instruction with middle‐school teachers, this article describes how three teachers participated in an ongoing literacy program with a research group. Two were seventh‐ and eighth‐grade language‐arts teachers, the third was a special‐education teacher who taught a substantially separate class of cognitively delayed and learning‐disabled students. Case studies of each teacher draw on meeting observations, classroom observations and interviews to describe how each participated in after‐school meetings, how they used the work of the group in the classroom, and how they brought teaching successes and challenges back to the group. Although each of the teachers participated actively in the teacher learning group and changed their practice, the teachers with the most advanced teaching of literacy practices did not bring that expertise into the teacher group as fully as they might have. The analysis raises questions about how teachers participate and learn and how to structure teacher groups to maximize teacher learning.     

Renaming experience/reconstructing practice: Developing new understanding of teaching

Although teacher-thinking research is now well established, the specific mechanisms through which teachers construct new understandings of their teaching have not been closely examined. This paper presents four interrelated concepts—teachers' conceptions of practice, tensions in their practice, articulation, and local and professional language—which emerged as grounded categories from a longitudinal study of change in teachers' practice. The study focused on how a group of foreign language teachers integrated new ideas, encountered in an inservice masters' degree program, in their thinking about and activity in the classroom. The analysis traced the ways in which the teachers reconstructed their classroom practice, using professional discourse to rename their experience and thus to assign new or different meanings to their actions. The concepts, presented with illustrations from the study and accompanying analysis, have implications for research on teaching and teacher education as well as the design and execution of teacher education programs.     

“To make the tacit explicit”: Teacher education, emerging discourse, and conceptions of teaching

The influence of teacher education on teaching is a problematic area, both in practice and in research. Often, because much research adopts a “first-order” perspective which focuses on teachers' behaviors, influences of teacher education are seen as temporary, negligible, or difficult to determine. The study reported here grew out of a general concern to document, via a “second-order” perspective which examines their thinking and perceptions, how teachers modify or improve what they do through formal teacher education. It addresses three important areas which have received little attention in recent research: foreign language teaching, in-service graduate education, and the role of a shared, professional discourse in developing teachers' conceptions of teaching. The paper presents a summary of the findings of an 18-month longitudinal study which examined how foreign language teachers' conceptions of their classroom practice developed as they took part in an in-service teacher education program. The paper discusses how the program's shared professional discourse contributes to increasing the complexity of the teachers' thinking about their teaching and suggests that as they learn to articulate their de facto ways of thinking in the shared discourse, the teachers gain greater control over their classroom practice and are thus more able to shape it to their own ends.     

Just add hours? An assessment of pre-service teachers’ perception of the value of professional experience in attaining teacher competencies

This study compared pre-service teachers’ perceptions of their professional competencies at two campuses of a large regional teacher education university, where one campus provided students 22% more hours of professional placement in schools and related educational settings. Students who had experienced more hours in schools and such settings were more positive about their, ability to apply their knowledge of students and how they learn, classroom management, professional knowledge and practice, and community engagement; however, when students felt well supported during professional experience, such differences diminished. Additional hours were not associated with pre-service teachers’ perceptions of their ability to apply subject content and teaching; plan, assess and report; and effective student communication. Researchers argued that this pointed to the crucial role of good classroom mentors in teacher professional experience but also the value of students’ tertiary teacher education in preparing them for classroom teaching.     

Teachers’ professional development in Nanoscience and nanotechnology in the context of a Community of Learners

ABSTRACT

This case study focuses on teachers’ professional development in NanoScience and nanoTechnology (NST). In the context of a Community of Learners (CoL), in-service teachers in collaboration with science education researchers, nanoscience researchers and experts from science museums, developed a teaching module. This module integrates NST topics along with aspects of science communication, i.e. development of science exhibits and socio-scientific issues, e.g. ethics regarding the research in this field. The data were gathered over 1-year period by using video recordings and interviews. The Interconnected Model of Professional Growth was used to study the processes that support teachers’ professional change in this context, as they are elicited from their interactions in the CoL. Our findings indicate that the dynamic of teachers’ interactions with colleagues and the mediating processes that impact on their professional learning, are crafted on the basis of the emerged challenges in each phase of module’s design and development. These findings give an insight on teachers’ professional learning as they transfer their professional knowledge regarding scientific topics which are innovative to them, i.e. NST, into their teaching practice. In this respect, this study contributes to research literature relevant to teachers’ professionalisation in order to implement innovations in the classroom.     

The impact of foreign language mediated teaching on teachers’ sense of professional integrity in the CLIL classroom

Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) has received significant interest in recent years as a practical means of creating a plurilingual European community. A key feature of CLIL is the non-native speaking teacher responsible for developing learners’ content and language knowledge in a foreign language mediated environment. Teachers often enter the CLIL classroom with established expertise in either content or language learning; however, the impact of entering the foreign language mediated environment is little explored in existing literature. This investigative research is based on six teacher interviews intended to access the teachers’ own understanding of how foreign language mediated teaching impacts their professional integrity. The interviews aimed to explore how CLIL teachers experience the change in language, how new demands are encountered and handled. This research found that foreign language mediated teaching affects teachers’ sense of professional integrity with regard to both the person and the practice of the teacher at a fundamental level.     

Emotional climate of a pre-service science teacher education class in Bhutan

This study explored pre-service secondary science teachers’ perceptions of classroom emotional climate in the context of the Bhutanese macro-social policy of Gross National Happiness. Drawing upon sociological perspectives of human emotions and using Interaction Ritual Theory this study investigated how pre-service science teachers may be supported in their professional development. It was a multi-method study involving video and audio recordings of teaching episodes supported by interviews and the researcher’s diary. Students also registered their perceptions of the emotional climate of their classroom at 3-minute intervals using audience response technology. In this way, emotional events were identified for video analysis. The findings of this study highlighted that the activities pre-service teachers engaged in matter to them. Positive emotional climate was identified in activities involving students’ presentations using video clips and models, coteaching, and interactive whole class discussions. Decreases in emotional climate were identified during formal lectures and when unprepared presenters led presentations. Emotions such as frustration and disappointment characterized classes with negative emotional climate. The enabling conditions to sustain a positive emotional climate are identified. Implications for sustaining macro-social policy about Gross National Happiness are considered in light of the climate that develops in science teacher education classes.     

Spinning a Web (Case) Around Professional Standards: Capturing the Complexity of Science Teaching

This study examines the intersection of two key reform ideas in science teacher education – professional teaching standards and the use of case methods. In this article, we track the historical development of what can be called second wave teaching standards and describe how those standards can be exemplified through multimedia web cases of science teaching. We describe a web case development project in which a group of experienced secondary science teachers work together over several months to video their own classes, and assemble video and audio commentaries of their lessons based on a set of science teaching standards. We conclude that the project was a rich professional development experience for those involved. Further, as the teaching standards movement gathers momentum in Australia and elsewhere, we contend that high quality multimedia cases linked to a standards framework show considerable promise as a vehicle to assist science teachers to reflect on their practice.     

Exploring university-based teacher educators’ teaching beliefs and practice: a Hong Kong study

This study explores two higher education-based language teacher educators’ teaching beliefs and how they implemented their beliefs in classroom practice. Drawing on data from in-depth interviews and classroom observation, the findings revealed the teacher educators’ multiple and complex beliefs, which were derived from their past experiences and continued to be shaped and transformed through their professional work. The study also shows that while the participants tried to act in accordance with their beliefs in their teaching of teachers, they encountered some contextual obstacles (e.g. the ‘publish-or-perish’ system) which resulted in the gap between their beliefs and practice. Through their continuous reflections and agentive work, the teacher educators tried to close the gap and facilitate their students’ learning to teach. This study concludes with some implications for current teacher education and higher education on how to promote language teacher educators’ cognitive learning and continuous development.     

Effekte videobasierter Trainings zur Förderung der Selbstwirksamkeitsüberzeugungen über Klassenführung im Grundschulunterricht

Self-efficacy in classroom management and knowledge on classroom management are important teacher resources regarding their health. Fostering student teachers in their self-efficacy in classroom management and situated knowledge on classroom management is a promising approach for reducing reality shock at the beginning of in-service teaching. Thus, the present quasi-experimental pre-post control group study investigates whether video-based and practice-oriented coursework in teacher education can promote self-efficacy in classroom management and the professional vision of classroom management. Analyzing own classroom videos as well as analyzing videos from other teachers lead to a significantly higher latent increase in self-efficacy and professional vision than that of a control group. This was only the case for professional vision in a course with own teaching elements but without video analysis.     

The impact of collaborative video analysis by practitioners and researchers upon pedagogical thinking and practice: a follow‐up study

The ‘T‐MEDIA’ project analysed and documented how teachers exploit the use of projection technologies – data projectors and interactive whiteboards (IWBs) – to support learning in secondary‐school subject lessons. The research involved collaboration between university researchers and four pairs of UK teachers (of English, mathematics, science and history) in an intensive process of systematically analysing video recordings of classroom activity and other data in depth. Our goals were to assist teachers in articulating the pedagogical rationale underlying their practice, and uniquely, to engage them in theory building about strategic technology use. This paper reports on a follow‐up study carried out one year after the collaborative analyses in order to assess the subsequent impacts of the process of critical reflection. The eight teachers were questioned using a semi‐structured interview technique that allowed us to elicit structured and personalised accounts of impact on pedagogical thinking and practice and the supporting or constraining factors. The findings suggest that for at least some, the sociocultural theory introduced and reformulated during the analyses provided a powerful analytical lens upon emerging practices, including those not incorporating technology. All of the participants reported lasting effects upon their own thinking and, except where external constraints operated, on teaching practices. The approaches developed during T‐MEDIA had additionally been disseminated to and adapted by other subject colleagues. The study illustrates how collaborative analysis of lesson videos can be used to engage teachers in deep reflection, critique and debate. This approach supports the development of an analytical scrutiny of classroom teaching and offers a significant professional development opportunity. In particular, under conditions of sensitive support, teachers will readily accommodate theoretical constructs into specific areas of professional thinking and practice.     

An examination of teachers’ perceptions and practice when teaching large and reduced-size classes: Do teachers really teach them in the same way?

Class size research suggests that teachers do not vary their teaching strategies when moving from large to smaller classes. This study draws on interviews and classroom observations of three experienced English language teachers working with large and reduced-size classes in Hong Kong secondary schools. Findings from the study point to subtle differences between teachers’ perceptions and their subsequent classroom practice. Implications for professional practice and development are presented.     

Pre-service teachers’ questions about the profession during mentoring group conversations

The use of mentoring group conversations as a tool to support pre-service teachers’ professional development has become more common. However, there is still a lack of research that shows how conversations are used to develop knowledge. The present paper is based on ethnographical observations of mentoring group conversations, and describes how pre-service teachers who participate in an obligatory mentoring model use their conversations as an arena in their search for professional knowledge. Three areas were focused upon during the conversations: the teachers’ role and teaching practice, conditions for professional development and conditions related to the profession. The pre-service teachers mainly used conversations to question, discuss, share and reflect over pedagogical and didactical dilemmas related to teaching activities in the classroom and to their own as well as other teachers’ behaviour and attitudes in different situations. The paper provides an insight into how a mentoring model can contribute to professional preparation.     

对外语课堂教学改革中母语的作用之思考

母语在外语教学中的作用在外语界一直是一个颇有争议的问题,也是外语教师在实际的课堂教学中时刻面临的问题。但一直以来,研究重点一直放在母语的负迁移上,而对母语的正面影响关注不多。母语作为学习者的第一语言,应充分利用使其起拐杖的作用,充当帮助者的角色。