Narrating experiences of sexism in higher education: a critical feminist autoethnography to make meaning of the past,challenge the status quo and consider the future

Increasingly, the third-level sector across the world has acknowledged a hopeless track record of promoting and retaining competent women in leadership roles. However, change, in terms of women’s contribution and participation, has been minimal at least, or gradual at the most optimistic. In this paper, a woman with more than two decades experience as a full-time academic in the field of higher education relates her sense of loss and purposelessness when attempts to reach for a higher level position were consistently unsuccessful. Using autoethnography she relates her experiences of sexism in higher education, and the ways in which sexism turns into oppression through silencing. She proposes how her experiences point to the need for change, and she indicates that training to reduce gender bias has been proven to improve feelings of workplace fit for participants who collaborate with people who have addressed their gender bias.     

Early field experience: A question of effectiveness

Abstract

This paper offers a historical perspective of field‐based experiences in teacher preparation. The literature review presents information from studies that support the educative value of early field experiences and studies reporting results that do not lend empirical support for endorsing early field experiences.

Based on the information reported in the literature review, the writer offers guidelines for program development designed to increase the likelihood that an early field experience program will have the beneficial results that educators intend. The key issues for program development are: (a) determine the purpose of the experience, (b) determine the administrative feasibility of the experience, and (c) determine the method of evaluation for the experience.

In summary, the writer expresses a need for congruence between the university's teacher education program and the classroom sites for early field experiences. He further states that the goals, methods, and philosophy of university and classroom teachers need to be mutually understood and endorsed.     

Knowing and learning about science in a preservice setting: A narrative study

This study employs narrative methods to give a holistic view of the experiences of five mature age preservice teachers in a semester unit of science education. The unit was designed to help teachers examine and make explicit their ideas about science and science teaching and consider ways in which they might put those ideas into practice. The pivotal theme, around which the teachers' experiences could be organised, was found to be learning science. The preservice teachers expressed a need for a supportive learning environment in which concepts were built gradually and introduced using concrete examples. Previous science experience was found to be a major influence on the attitudes the participants brought to the present course. A lack of previous experience or negative past experiences were a major cause of anxiety. Gender was also important as it had limited the science experiences available to some participants in the past and continued to influence the way they participated in classes during the semester. Specializations: primary science, science teacher education, primary school field experience. Specializations: formation of teachers' knowledge, leadership, teacher change, school reform.     

The reflection integration model: A process for facilitating reflective learning

Abstract

One of the goals of teacher education is to develop each preservice teacher into a reflective educator. A reflective educator is a lifelong learner who perceives every experience as an opportunity for growth, change, and development of understanding. As a result of our teaching experiences in the College of Education, we have developed a process that helps students become reflective learners. In this article we discuss this process, the Reflection Integration Model (RIM). The four components of the model are (a) pre‐experience, (b) experience, (c) reflection, and (d) integration. While the model is germane to any experiential‐based learning, in this article it is applied to a field experience for preservice teachers.     

美国推广创造教育的特点与经验

20世纪50年代以来，一个崭新的教育领域－创造教育在美国逐渐兴起。创造教育在美国的发展过程表现出三个特点：与教育改革结合，注重转变教育观念，与科研结合，探索创造力开发的有效途径，面向社会，致力于应用推广，创造教育在美国取得成功的经验主要有以下三个方面：用先进的理论指导实践，有利于提高的指导下普及；建立高效的工作机构，有利于推动事业迅速发展；发动受教育者积极参与，有利于创造教育及时得到社会的承认。     

The Long,Wide View of Biology

Significant life experience research suggests that outdoor experiences foster proenvironmental outcomes. Time spent outdoors is more frequently identified as the source of proenvironmental behavior than is education, suggesting that cognition may be less important than affect. Yet, environmental education field programs are often evaluated on cognitive outcomes alone. The authors piloted a mixed-methods evaluation, measuring both cognitive and affective responses to a field education program. Quantitative responses suggest that field-based participants demonstrated greater cognitive understanding than classroom-based participants. Qualitative responses suggest that field programs foster different affective reactions than do classroom programs. These results have critical implications for field-based programming, classroom instruction, and evaluation.     

Political Education in a Democracy: the Implications for Teacher Education

Abstract

The relationship between prior field experience and professional development has been frequently documented in teacher education (Denton, 1982; Calderhead, 1988). There is less research, however, which has explored the relationship between students' prior experiences and their initial images of teaching and professional development. This paper outlines some, findings from a UFC research project into experiential learning in higher education. It concentrates specifically on teacher education and focuses primarily upon the experiences of student teachers prior to their professional training. The paper examines the extent to which prior experiences influence students' images of teaching and professional development. It describes the nature of those experiences and explores the relationship between prior experience and students' preconceptions about professional development.     

Development of Teaching and Technology Integration: Focus on Pedagogy

The development, implementation, review, and subsequent revision of a capstone assignment during teacher education candidates' field experience and the assignments-related rubric was based on research that points teacher education programs to give candidates experiences in rethinking their views of pedagogy as they integrate technology into the curriculum. The initial development of the rubric came as a result of requirements of national accrediting organizations for licensure programs to have performance assessments of their candidates. The review of the assignment by technology experts as well as education faculty showed a disconnect between the goals of the technology faculty and the mentors helping the candidates implement technology during their field experiences. As a result of this disconnect, we developed a new set of indicators for the technology section of the assignment and provided examples of lessons that showed low and high expectations of technology use.     

Context in Methods Course Learning: Lessons for partnership work

Teacher education programs are being encouraged to collaborate with K‐12 partners to develop and implement contextually rich field experiences that integrate methods course instruction with public school practices. As a result, we outline four models of integrating methods instruction and field experiences and raise the question “How does the classroom and school context of the field experience influence what prospective teachers learned in the methods courses?” This study examines the way two different cohorts of prospective elementary teachers who learned to teach in two different contexts define their own social studies pedagogical content knowledge. The students' espoused philosophies of education offer insight into how different models of integrated field experiences may impact on their beliefs about social studies teaching. Through this study we raise questions that should be considered in constructing methods courses linked to field experiences and suggest Bronfenbrenner's model as a tool for looking at these contextual influences.     

Quality and Early Field Experiences: Partnering with Junior Achievement

This study explored the perceptions of preservice teacher candidates who participated in a pilot partnership between a public teacher education preparation program and Junior Achievement (JA). The partnership was grounded in the premise that providing early field experiences to preservice teacher candidates was a necessary requirement of quality teacher education. In an introductory pedagogy course, preservice teacher candidates in their junior year participated in a five-week field experience where they taught JA lessons in partnership schools. The results suggested that preservice teacher candidates perceived an expanded sense of comfort with teaching strategies, classroom management, and diversity during the actual teaching of the lessons in the field experience. Additionally, participants reported increased confidence levels with their own preparation to teach. The partnership with JA that provided a quality, early field experience may have enhanced the general pedagogical proficiencies needed for preservice teachers to succeed as practicing educators. Suggestions for creating a partnership with JA are provided.     

Biography,Identity, and Inquiry: The making of teacher,teacher educator,and researcher

This is a self-study of my professional and cultural biography and identity, a history which directed me first toward the work of urban teaching and then into teacher education and research into comparative educational issues of racial and national identity. I use this inquiry to demonstrate how biography and identity influences the lived experience of teaching and the researcher's stance. I also examine areas where preservice urban teacher education programs must improve. My personal recommendations describe experiences that would have better prepared me for urban teaching. Suggestions include expanding coursework in the historical, political, and sociocultural influences on urban education and in designing culturally responsive curricula. I also recommend restructuring field experiences to offer richer classroom-based learning opportunities for preservice teachers and extending fieldwork into urban communities. Finally, I suggest ongoing inservice teacher education in learning-community models that respond to educators' context-specific teaching concerns.     

“They taught me”: The benefits of early community-based field experiences in teacher education

Research in teacher education suggests that field experiences in community settings can offer pre-service teachers a context for understanding the link between theory and practice. This paper documents the experiences of pre-service educators participating in a service-learning experience at a Children's Defense Fund Freedom School in the south-eastern United States. Pre-service teachers engaged in critical reflection, online journals, and daily debriefing sessions and praised the benefits of a service experience in an urban context and explained how interactions within the programme gave them the insight into the teaching profession. The author argues that this project successfully bridged the gap between teacher education theory and practice.     

‘I understood the complexity within diversity’: preparation for partnership with families in early childhood settings

‘Partnership between parents and teachers’ is a taken-for-granted feature of the philosophy and practice of early childhood education. Yet, the literature suggests this rhetoric belies a more complex and problematic reality for teachers. Making connections with the families and communities they will serve may help teacher education students confront understandings of the realities of family lives and assist them to prepare for their professional responsibilities. Teacher education literature suggests that supported field experiences may assist student teachers to examine their beliefs and reflect on their practices with families. This paper reports on the experiences of student teachers who undertook a community placement in order to interact with children and families outside their normal range of teaching practice experience. Three themes of changes in student learning are discussed: (1) beliefs about partnerships; (2) notions of complexities within diversity; and (3) developing relationships with diverse families. The paper argues that the change in placement setting prompted student reflection in relation to these themes and shifts in beliefs, towards more authentic and complex understandings of partnership.     

Coach Education and Continuing Professional Development: Experience and Learning to Coach

Research over the last decade has demonstrated that it is experience and the observation of other coaches that remain the primary sources of knowledge for coaches. Despite this, coach education and continuing professional development fail to draw effectively on this experience. Using the work of Pierre Bourdieu, this paper attempts to understand how the “art of coaching” can be characterized as structured improvisation and how experience is crucial to structuring coaching practice. An examination of current coach education and assessment demonstrates that coaching practice viewed as a composite of knowledge has not specifically addressed the pervasive influence of experience on coaching practice. Drawing on experiences from the educational field, we examine how coach education and continuing professional development can utilize mentoring and critical reflection to situate learning in the practical experience of coaching.     

What is open learning?

The recent change in this journal's title, from Teaching at a Distance to Open Learning, poses obvious questions of definition. What is open learning? And how does it relate to distance education and adult education? In this article, Roger Lewis, Head of Educational Development Unit at North Staffordshire Polytechnic, makes use of his considerable and varied experience of working with the Open University, the Council for Educational Technology, the Open Tech, the National Extension College and other practitioners of open learning in providing some answers. Readers should find the analytical tools and examples included in the article of considerable use in examining their own experiences in the open learning field.     

‘Some people might say I'm thriving but … ’: non-traditional students' experiences of university

The expansion of neo-liberal policies' framing higher education has contributed to an increase in participation rates of students from non-traditional backgrounds. While an increase of a wider range of students might be seen as contributing to a more just and equitable higher education system, research has shown that broadening entry points does not necessarily ensure inclusion or positive experience for these students. This research investigated the experiences of first in family, rural and international students as they transitioned into their first year of university. Focus group interviews and surveys were used to collect data. Using Bourdieu's theory of field, habitus and capital as well as Weiss's dimensions of loneliness findings illuminate a number of poignant experiences for non-traditional students. We suggest that facilitating the transition for non-traditional students might require a cultural change by universities and a move away from the notion that the students need to ‘adapt’ to university. Rather, the evolving university might provide for increasingly diverse student cohorts by embracing their habitus and unique features.     

How Preservice Teachers Engage in the Process of (De)Colonization: Findings from an International Field Experience in Honduras

Critical multicultural education and its promise of cultural inclusion face a crisis induced by powerful neoliberal forces that view education as an economic enterprise rather than open dialogue and inclusive pedagogies. With this in mind, this article uses interpretive phenomenology to examine how US American preservice teachers engage in the process of decolonization to challenge neoliberal influences in education and develop multicultural awareness during an international cross-cultural field experience in Honduras. Participants in this study comprise seventy-six preservice teachers from a Mid-Western university who went on a study abroad program to Honduras. Data for the study were collected through interviews, discussions, class assignments, reflective journals and researchers’ field notes and observations. Multiple levels of data analysis reveal that international cross-cultural field experiences promote a deeper understanding of colonial social relations and questioning of powerful neoliberal networks that perpetuate the status quo to disadvantage diverse and minority students. Findings also indicate that through reflexive and critical dialogue preservice teachers negotiate difference, engage with the self and other, and question their own knowledge and practices in sustaining colonial relations of privilege and domination with implications for classroom practice. This study suggests that ongoing multicultural awareness at every stage of teacher preparation, beginning at the preservice level, has the power to effect change in future classroom practice so that all students, including diverse minority populations experience educational equity and equal opportunities for academic success.     

河北省高校创业教育现状、问题及对策

创业教育是教育实践探索和教育理论研究的崭新领域。自2000年以来,河北省创业教育实践已经积累了一些经验,但总体而言还处在起步阶段,尚未制度化。通过对河北省创业教育现状和问题的分析,借鉴国内外大学生创业教育的成功经验,为构建河北省创业教育保障体系提出对策和建议。