Assessing reflective thinking: pre‐service teachers’ and professors’ perceptions of an oral examination

This paper investigates the role questioning occupies in an oral examination as it relates to King and Kitchener’s theory of critical, reflective thinking. Pre‐service teachers’ experience of sitting an oral examination and professors’ reflections on conducting the assessment in a small liberal arts university are considered. Findings from this research reflect upon the learning process in an oral examination and review the relationship between the examiners’ probing questions and the assessment of reflective thinking in pre‐service teachers.     

Discipline orientations of pre‐service teachers before and after student teaching

This study examined the classroom discipline orientations of pre‐service elementary teachers both before and after the student teaching experience. Prior to beginning and immediately after completing their full‐time student teaching experience, pre‐service teachers (N = 220) from three southeastern universities in the USA completed a discipline belief instrument which identified their preferred model of classroom discipline. The results showed that the student teaching experience significantly increased beginning teachers’ preferences toward a more assertive discipline model (Rules and Consequences) and decreased their preferences toward the humanistic discipline model (Relationship–Listening). These results demonstrate that the student teaching experience may be creating a dissonance in prior knowledge and beliefs, and experiences of pre‐service teachers in classrooms. The results of the study suggest that teacher education programs can help pre‐service teachers transition more smoothly into classroom teaching by providing a school–university partnership as well as more lessons and advice on handling specific classroom management situations.     

Beliefs about teaching and uses of technology among pre‐service teachers

In the current learning environments, technology is integrated in different ways. Teachers acting in the capacity of main change agents bring with them beliefs about teaching which effects their use of technology in the classroom. This study aims to examine the possible relationship between teachers' beliefs about teaching and uses of technology. Unlike past research on this issue, the results from this study show that belief in constructivist teaching correlates significantly with both constructivist and traditional uses of technology. However, a belief in traditional teaching is only significantly correlated (negatively) with constructivist use of technology. Implications for teaching training and future research are discussed.     

A framework for developing pre‐service teachers’ competencies in using technologies to enhance teaching and learning

This paper presents a framework for developing pre‐service teachers’ competencies in using technologies to enhance teaching and learning. It focuses on building the capacity of teacher education institutions (TEI) based on six strategic dimensions: (1) vision and philosophy; (2) program; (3) professional learning of deans, teacher educators and support staff; (4) ICT plan, infrastructure, resources and support; (5) communications and partnerships; and (6) research and evaluation. This paper describes each of these six strategic dimensions and synthesizes these in the overall framework for developing pre‐service teachers’ competencies in generating technology‐enhanced teaching and learning.     

Learning to teach: enhancing pre‐service teachers’ awareness of the complexity of teaching–learning processes

Abstract

Interest in story in teaching has been linked to teacher research (Carter, 1993; Elbaz, 1991), to teacher education (Connelly &; Clandinin, 1994), to curriculum (Britz‐man, 1989; Gudmundsdottir, 1991c), and to school change (Giltin, 1990). I wish to argue here for a link between story and one form of teacher reflection, for portfolio construction, unlike more conventional forms of teacher development, encourages teachers to tell the story of their classrooms and to frame that story in particular ways. I wish to argue here for a view that constructing a portfolio shifts the ownership of learning to the portfolio‐maker and that in this constructing, we can trace a teacher's developing understanding of pedagogy. Specifically, my aim is to illustrate the narrative dimensions of a self‐generated portfolio question — its interpretations, the reflections upon its meaning, and its transformations of pedagogical understanding — as this text becomes pedagogy and pedagogy becomes text. This interpretive process is illustrated through a case study of Ellen Nicol, a secondary English as a Second Language teacher, in her graduate teacher education year and her first 2 years of classroom teaching. Ellen's pedagogical text, her question, is reinterpreted with major changes each time she comes to understand more completely the richness and complexity of her classroom. Each new transformation and reinterpretation serve as guide for selection of materials, for selection of pedagogy, and for assessment of success. Each new collection of pedagogical information serves as impetus for possible reframing and transformation of the text.     

The teaching efficacy beliefs of pre‐service teachers in the USA and Turkey

The purpose of this study was to compare pre‐service elementary teachers' sense of mathematics teaching efficacy beliefs in a Turkish university and in a major American university located in the Midwest. The data for this study were collected by means of the Mathematics Teaching Efficacy Beliefs Instrument. In the Turkish sample there were 141 pre‐service elementary teachers, and in the American sample there were 104 pre‐service elementary teachers. Results from the study indicate that pre‐service teachers in Turkey tend to have a stronger belief that teaching can influence student learning when compared with pre‐service teachers in the United States. However, a similar difference was not observed for personal mathematics teaching efficacy.     

Critical social theory and transformative learning: evidence in pre‐service teachers’ service‐learning reflection logs

This paper reports on the opportunities for transformational learning experienced by a group of pre‐service teachers who were engaged in service‐learning as a pedagogical process with a focus on reflection. Critical social theory informed the design of the reflection process as it enabled a move away from knowledge transmission toward knowledge transformation. The structured reflection log was designed to illustrate the critical social theory expectations of quality learning that teach students to think critically: ideology critique and utopian critique. Butin’s lenses and a reflection framework informed by the work of Bain, Ballantyne, Mills and Lester were used in the design of the service‐learning reflection log. Reported data provide evidence of transformational learning and highlight how the students critique their world and imagine how they could contribute to a better world in their work as a beginning teacher.     

Preparing pre‐service teachers for inclusive classrooms: revising lesson‐planning expectations

The purpose of this article is to explore the use of a lesson‐planning template designed to support and scaffold pre‐service teachers’ lesson‐planning techniques for a wide range of learners in inclusive classrooms. This template is currently used across the final three semesters of a dual certification inclusive elementary and special education teacher preparation programme. This article reports on an empirical study using a mixed methodology that addresses the following question: How do pre‐service teachers, university faculty, supervising teachers and field supervisors perceive their experiences using this template? Addressing that question led to revising the original template. This article concludes with that revised lesson‐planning template.     

Tolerant Inclusion: racialised experiences of Asian Australian pre‐service teachers

In this paper we examine the educational experiences of Asian Australian women enrolled in a Faculty of Education in an urban university. We argue that the everyday social relations of pre‐service teacher education are constituted by discourses of liberal tolerance which call for a celebration of difference and diversity. This celebratory discourse suppresses, and thereby denies, the unequal power relations between the Anglo‐Celtic majority and ethnic, racialised minority groups. Discourses of liberal tolerance position the Anglo‐Celtic majority to be either tolerant or intolerant of its ethnicised and racialised Other(s). However, social interactions cannot be simply analysed in terms of a binary logic of tolerance or intolerance of the Other. Social interactions between members of majority and minority groups are complex; inherently contradictory and ambivalent. In this paper we explore these complex dynamics in the everyday experiences of Asian Australian women enrolled in a teacher‐education course     

Peer mentoring: engaging pre‐service teachers in mentoring one another

This article discusses a peer mentoring teacher education initiative that aims at developing pre‐service teachers’ capacities to participate successfully in learning communities, both during their initial teacher education and throughout their teaching careers. Peer mentoring utilizes the latest conceptualization of mentoring, that of co‐mentoring by Bona et al. or that proposed by Hargreaves and Fullan, where all teachers give and receive support. Such a conceptualization challenges the traditional assumption that the mentor knows best and is consistent with the latest approaches to teacher professional development, where teachers are encouraged to participate in learning communities. A peer mentoring teacher education initiative is described and three essential elements are highlighted.     

Outcomes of a service‐learning program for pre‐service teachers: links to Butin's conceptual model

The outcomes of a pilot Service‐learning Program designed for pre‐service teachers enrolled in a unit about inclusive education in an Australian University will be discussed in this paper. Service‐learning requires university or school students to become involved in their community in order to utilize knowledge learned at university. The program involves reciprocal relationships with organizations in which the service reinforces and strengthens the learning in the academic unit on inclusive education, and the learning reinforces the service for the organization. Pre‐service teachers completed 10 hours working in the community along with completing a service‐learning reflection log. Evaluation of the service‐learning reflection process as a pedagogy will be discussed using the conceptual lenses: technical, cultural, political and post modern. The data demonstrate evidence to suggest that Butin's four lenses can be supported by the reflection process associated with the Service‐learning Program described in this study and be used to construct an improved service‐learning reflection log for future students.     

Pre‐service primary education teachers’ changing attitudes towards teaching: a longitudinal study

This study investigated the longitudinal changes in the attitudes of pre‐service primary education teachers towards the teaching profession as they progressed through training. The results indicate that there is a significant difference in pre‐service teachers’ attitudes towards the profession between their freshman and senior years. Moreover, the findings obtained through interview data have shown that both positive and negative changes occur in pre‐service teachers’ attitudes towards teaching throughout their education, and these changes are observed to be related to teaching practice, cooperating teachers, teacher education institutions and teacher educators.     

Using microteaching to enhance teacher efficacy in pre‐service teachers

This study examined pre‐service teachers' efficacy in relation to the utilisation of microteaching as an assessment tool for postgraduate education students in Australia. Three hundred and fifteen pre‐service teachers completed the teacher efficacy survey and additional qualitative questions at Time 1 and 208 completed the survey and questions at Time 2. A principal components analysis conducted on the Time 1 survey data revealed teacher efficacy to be comprised of two components: ‘teacher efficacy in classroom management’ and ‘personal teacher efficacy’. Repeated measures ANOVAs conducted on the 208 participants who completed the survey at Time 1 and 2 revealed that efficacy on both components increased significantly over time, and that internet students had higher efficacy levels than internal students. The qualitative data revealed that pre‐service teachers enter teaching in order to positively impact on children, yet are concerned about behaviour management in the classroom. In addition, this data highlighted the positive impact that microteaching had on their developing teacher identity.     

‘Baby teachers’: how pre‐service early childhood students transform their conceptions of teaching and learning through an infant practicum

This qualitative study explores how working with infants changed pre‐service early childhood students’ thinking about important aspects of early childhood education. Through a qualitative analysis of four pre‐service early childhood students’ weekly dialogue journals during a required, one‐semester infant practicum, the authors discovered how the course provided a context for challenging students’ previously held notions about early childhood teaching and learning. Their findings showed that infants’ ways of being were a powerful influence on pre‐service early childhood students’ sense of themselves as teachers and emphasized the value of hands‐on experiences with infants as an important component of early childhood professional preparation.     

Self‐regulated pupils in teaching: teachers’ experiences

This article outlines in a theoretical and practical way the concepts of self‐regulated learning, learning strategies and metacognition by looking at concrete examples in the classroom. The teachers presented in the article were taking part in a research and development (R&D) work project in which they were cooperating both with each other and a researcher who was facilitating their way through the development processes. The article focuses on how the teachers introduced learning strategies, how the strategies were adapted to the pupils, how the strategies were connected to various tasks and what the use of strategies means for the pupils’ learning in the studied context. The overall aim of the article is to illuminate how the teachers experienced the pupils’ use of strategies in their learning work. Findings from the study indicate that teachers have to adapt the introduction and use of strategies to the pupils’ development levels and that pupils from 13 to 16 years of age need help from their teachers, both in learning and in controlling their own learning processes.     

Mathematics anxiety and mathematics teacher efficacy in elementary pre‐service teachers

This study investigated the relationship between mathematics anxiety and mathematics teacher efficacy among 156 elementary pre‐service teachers from a university in the southeastern United States. Data sources included the Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale (MARS), Mathematics Teaching Efficacy Beliefs Instrument, and pre‐service teacher interviews. Findings revealed a significant, negative relationship between mathematics anxiety and mathematics teachers’ efficacy (r = ?.475, p<.05). Specifically, the pre‐service teachers with the lowest degree of mathematics anxiety had the highest levels of mathematics teacher efficacy. Interviews with pre‐service teachers indicated that their mathematics anxiety is associated with efficaciousness toward mathematics teaching practices and is the basis for their mathematics teaching efficacy beliefs.     

Using a student‐centred learning approach to teach a discrete information technology course: the effects on Malaysian pre‐service teachers’ attitudes toward information technology

The purpose of this study was to measure pre‐service teachers’ attitudes toward information technology (IT) after completing a discrete IT course taught in a student centred‐learning (SCL) environment during laboratory sessions. Evidence from this study suggests that there was a positive shift in the participants’ attitudes toward IT. Pre‐test results showed that IT‐competent participants who regarded IT as useful had more confidence and less aversion toward IT. Post‐test results showed increased mean scores on all three dependent variables with no differences between IT‐competent and low IT‐competent participants. The results were supported by interviews which indicate that after completing the IT course, participants were more independent, more creative and possessed collaborative learning skills. The results suggest that infusing SCL into a discrete IT course can help promote and enhance positive attitudes toward IT and enable students to be active participants in their own learning process.     

Assessment preferences,learning orientations,and learning strategies of pre‐service and in‐service teachers

The importance of developing effective learning strategies and motivational beliefs has been widely acknowledged as a way of meeting the demand to acquire lifelong learning capabilities for successful functioning as professionals in the ‘information age’. The study reported in this paper examined the learning orientations and strategies of prospective teachers as well as their assessment preferences and compared them with those of in‐service teachers. The Motivated Learning Strategies Questionnaire (MSLQ) and the Assessment Preferences Inventory (API) were used to test the hypothesis that in‐service teachers will exhibit a deeper approach to learning and assessment due to their constant engagement in meaningful learning experiences. The results confirmed the hypothesis and their implications for teacher education programmes were then discussed.     

Relationship between developmentally appropriate beliefs and practices of pre‐service teachers

Abstract

This article explores the meaning of professionalism as it relates to early childhood teacher education. The poignant need for such professionalism is timely within the context of contemporary policies that have the potential to de‐skill educational professionalism as well as minimize the breadth and depth of early childhood education. After exploring problems/issues associated with a number of specific policies with such potential, an action plan and strategies for implementing such a plan are proposed. Now that early childhood teacher certification has been receiving increased attention in several states, the author concludes with what she feels is a problem worthy of immediate attention—greater school administrator preparation in early childhood curriculum.