From pre-service to practicing teacher: considering the stability of personal and classroom mastery and performance goals

Research shows that personal and classroom goals are important for pre-service and practicing teachers’ personal and professional outcomes; however, no research has examined changes to these types of motivation across the transition from student to teacher. This study followed pre-service teachers (n?=?47) into practise and assessed changes in self-reported personal and classroom goals using surveys and focus groups. Correlations, repeated measures analysis of covariance and reliable change indices were used to assess stability/change in the quantitative data. Qualitative data were analysed for themes and largely supported the quantitative results. The results showed that teachers were at least as personally oriented towards mastery-approach in their practice as they were during their pre-service education but less personally performance focused. In terms of classroom goals, performance practices increased whereas mastery practices decreased, particularly for secondary school teachers. Although practicing teachers are personally mastery-oriented in their teaching, their intentions to establish classroom mastery goals appear difficult to enact in practice.     

What factors support or inhibit secondary mathematics pre-service teachers’ implementation of problem-solving tasks during professional experience?

There is an acknowledged gap between the theory presented in university preparation programmes and the reality of classroom practice that has resulted in many secondary mathematics pre-service teachers failing to implement university-endorsed teaching strategies. Using responses to a questionnaire and interviews, this qualitative study examined the factors that support or inhibit secondary mathematics pre-service teachers’ implementation of problem-solving tasks during professional experience. The results showed that even though the majority of pre-service teachers reported having beliefs compatible with using problem-solving tasks, the secondary students’ ability, preparation time, and the cooperating teacher were key factors that inhibited pre-service teachers’ implementation of problem-solving tasks. It is recommended that pre-service teachers regularly visit classrooms to observe the evolving implementation of problem-solving approaches. Furthermore, cooperating teachers should be required to attend professional development before the professional experience so they understand the goals of the university preparation programme and have the requisite skills and knowledge to support the implementation of problem-solving tasks in learning mathematics.     

Professional aspirations among pre-service teachers: personal responsibility,time perspectives,and career choice satisfaction

Exploring the direct and indirect effects of pre-service teachers’ sense of personal responsibility on their professional aspirations through affective (i.e., career choice satisfaction) and cognitive (i.e., time perspectives) variables may enable teacher educators and policy makers to better describe the factors influencing teacher development in an era of teacher accountability. Indeed, current teacher accountability movements rather neglect the ‘teacher’ as a person who has professional aspirations, a sense of personal responsibility, career choice satisfaction and time perspectives within which these professional aspirations are contextualized and/or interpreted/reinterpreted. This indicates that it is important to consider pre-service teachers’ professional intentions together with their sense of responsibility, professional satisfaction, and time perspectives in order to inform current accountability movements more comprehensively. Thus, the current study examined whether pre-service teachers’ sense of personal responsibility, time perspectives, and career choice satisfaction were significantly related to their professional aspirations, with a particular focus on the mediating roles of their time perspectives and career choice satisfaction. A total of 511 pre-service teachers voluntarily participated in the study. Correlation, multiple regression, and structural equation modeling analyses were conducted in order to analyze the data in a comprehensive manner. The results showed that aspects of pre-service teachers’ sense of personal responsibility were significantly and positively related to their professional aspirations, career choice satisfaction, and future time perspective. The results also showed that career choice satisfaction and future time perspective played significant mediating roles in the relationships between personal responsibility and professional aspirations. Notably, the mediating role of career choice satisfaction was stronger than that of the mediating role of future time perspective. Overall, the results of the study reveal that the correlational patterns, derived from the links between pre-service teachers’ sense of personal responsibility, career choice satisfaction, future time perspective, and professional aspirations, have clear potential to inform teacher educators and policy makers regarding the factors influencing pre-service teachers’ engagement with the teaching profession and professional development aspirations.     

Pre-service teachers’ perceptions of self as inclusive educators

Teacher education institutions play a key role in preparing pre-service teachers to graduate as competent and confident inclusive educators. Seeking to understand pre-service teachers’ current perceptions of diversity and inclusion, and how they perceived themselves as future inclusive educators, this qualitative study employed inductive analysis to explore pre-service teachers’ self-perceptions as inclusive teachers, utilising the theory of possible selves. Forty-six (n?=?46) of 292 pre-service teachers enrolled in an inclusive education subject in a graduate entry teacher education programme in eastern Australia participated in this study. Findings revealed that pre-service teachers had developed good theoretical understanding of inclusive education through their coursework. However, their development of possible selves as inclusive educators was less well-defined in that they had difficulty extending their understandings of who they might be as inclusive teachers beyond their coursework samples. This difficulty in identifying their cultural selves beyond a stereotypical norm of who a ‘classroom teacher’ is indicates a need for more and extensive time for pre-service teachers to develop their professional identities as inclusive educators.     

Improving Professional Practice through Practice-Based Research: V<Emphasis Type="Italic">a</Emphasis>KE (Values <Emphasis Type="Italic">and</Emphasis> Knowledge Education) in University-Based Teacher Education

Evidence suggests that in the professional education of teachers the moral goals are currently a neglected topic in favor of the subject matter and knowledge. The constructivist instructional approach VaKE (Values and Knowledge Education) addresses this problem by combining the moral and epistemic goals through the discussion of moral dilemmas. The main research question of this practice-based study was whether teacher educators can improve their instructional practice by using VaKE. We describe an empirical study of a teacher educator who used VaKE in order to (i) facilitate pre-service teachers to solve moral conflicts which they are faced with in their workplace learning and to (ii) increase the moral climate in his course. 58 pre-service teachers who formed two classes participated in the study. The study consisted of three research phases: In the first research phase the types of the pre-service teachers’ moral conflicts were examined. In the second research phase the most frequent types of moral conflicts were used as a basis for an explorative quasi-experimental pre-posttest study. This study investigated the effects of VaKE compared to a traditional case-analysis approach with regard to the pre-service teachers’ application of discourse-oriented actions for conflict resolution. In the third phase, a case study method was used comprising a random sample of seven pre-service teachers chosen from each class to investigate the perceived learning climate during the intervention. The results indicate that VaKE provides the possibility to combine the moral and epistemic goals of the professional education of teachers.     

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.     

Special education trainee teachers’ perceptions of their professional world: motives,roles, and expectations from teacher training

To open a window into perceptions entailed in the professional world view of special education teacher trainees, three research questions were developed: (a) What are their motives for joining the profession? (b) How do they perceive the role of the special education teacher? and (c) What are their expectations from teacher training? The research was carried out using a qualitative approach. Ninety-three students about to begin their professional training in special education in an Israeli teacher-training college completed a questionnaire consisting of five open questions. The data were analyzed according to the grounded theory approach. The research findings showed that the trainees chose special education because they wanted to belong to a group of teachers perceived as the most ethical; one that considers its mission to help ‘vulnerable’ individuals, mold their characters, and ‘have an impact on society.’ The role of special education teachers was perceived mainly as caring for students and their parents; the trainees expected that during their training, they would become completely familiar with the range of disabilities and how to deal with them, as well as learn about themselves and strengthen their teaching skills. The world of special education was perceived as ‘mysterious,’ having a high moral standing; as a closed profession, in that relations are limited to teacher, child, and parents; but with a spiritual aspect. The professional world of special education as perceived by the teacher trainees was different than that actually waiting for them, and for which teacher training institutes must prepare them.     

Understanding Teacher Educators and Their Pre-Service Teachers through Multi-Media Case Studies of Practice

The challenges facing those who seek to prepare mathematics teachers are well established in the literature. Most of the research to date has focused on the perceptions and understandings of pre-service teachers, but not on the perceptions and understandings of teacher educators. In this study, we explore how four teacher educators understand their pre-service secondary teachers as the pre-service teachers attempt to make sense of teaching through the investigation of a multimedia case study of practice. We found that the teacher educators adopted two different implementation strategies: one strategy tended to be open-ended and exploratory; the other was more focused on the teacher educators' goals of anticipating student understanding and developing mathematical content knowledge for teaching. We also found that, in using the case study, teacher educators elicited pre-service teachers' thinking about the complexities of the teacher's role in small group work, about the value of explicitly revealing the teacher's reflections on the lessons, about the role of planning and preparation, and about the limits of pre-service teachers' abilities to understand and appreciate students' thinking and to extend lesson ideas. Both teacher educators and their pre-service teachers gained perspectives on the role of a teacher's mathematical content knowledge. These results imply that multimedia case studies of practice can serve as vehicles for revealing the knowledge and practice of teacher educators, as they engage in supporting the professional development of pre-service teachers.     

Thriving,not just surviving: The impact of teacher mentors on pre-service teachers in disadvantaged school contexts

This study explores the perceptions held by nine mentor teachers from four Australian secondary schools about the impact they have on pre-service teachers during professional placement. Using Fraser’s (2000, 2005, 2008) social justice framework as a theoretical lens, this paper examines what can be learnt from these teacher mentors about mentoring in disadvantaged school contexts. These mentor teachers felt their most significant impact was in shaping pre-service teachers’ awareness and responsiveness to contextual factors so that they could not only fulfil professional experience requirements, but also be better prepared for potential future teaching opportunities in disadvantaged school contexts.     

Pre-service teachers’ greater power to act in the classroom: analysis of the circumstances for professional development

This case study analysed the circumstances during a one-year work placement in which a pre-service teacher showed professional development, with a focus on the impact of her interactions with various interlocutors. The study was conducted within the framework of the cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) and of activity theory with its methods for the clinical study of activity. The results showed intra-psychic conflicts. produced by interactions with trainers, peers, experienced colleagues, and students. These conflicts prompted the development of the pre-service teacher’s professional activity through the construction of new goals and new motives for action (development through sense), and the construction of new operations to reach these goals (development through efficiency). This study thus opens the way for creating training programmes that favour the development of teachers’ power to act. It provides a source for transforming traditional mentoring methods in teacher training.     

Pre-service teachers’ engagement in a cross-curricular television news project: impact on professional identity

This paper focuses on the impact of pre-service teachers’ engagement in the annual BBC News School Report project on their emerging professional identity and on the evidence they provide as part of the process of becoming qualified. The research reported on is drawn from three years of enquiry. Respondents included pre-service teachers themselves, their tutors as representatives of teacher education providers and their mentors as representatives of schools in which they were placed. The methodological approach was interpretative and phenomenological with qualitative and quantitative data being analysed for emergent themes. Two years of evaluations were followed by a third year in which a set of case studies were developed. The research showed that professional identity is enhanced through being in a leading role in respect of curriculum and working with other staff. Through engagement in such projects, this paper moots that pre-service teachers develop richer evidence of emerging professionalism as defined by standards of initial teacher training. Moreover, self-perception of role was modified to one in which they saw themselves, and were seen, as equals to qualified staff rather than subservient to or dependent on them. A new more equal power relationship developed as they took on responsibility for the project. Pre-service teachers’ move to become full members of the professional community for which they are training was accelerated.     

Analysing the socio-psychological construction of identity among pre-service teachers

A teacher’s representation of self is crucial in how they construct their identity. In this article, it is argued that pre-service teachers’ identities are intricately linked to their perceptions of the teaching profession. This paper explores the social construction of identity among pre-service teachers and the implications for professional identity. It focuses on pre-service teachers in Kenya. The findings presented here are primarily based on semi-structured interviews distributed among students enrolled in a Kenyan university. They highlight pre-service teachers’ difficulty in overcoming the negative perceptions of the profession and building positive identities of self as teacher. They also underscore the need for training programmes that take perceptions and representations of the teaching profession into account when formulating training curricula.     

Pre-service teachers’ motivation,sense of teaching efficacy,and expectation of reality shock

The present study investigated how pre-service teachers’ motivation and their sense of teaching efficacy influence their expectation about reality shock during the first year of professional teaching. A total of 533 pre-service teachers at a state university in the US Midwest participated in this study. The results showed that the pre-service teachers’ expectation of reality shock was negatively related to teacher efficacy and intrinsic motivation while it was positively related to introjected and external motivation. The results of a hierarchical regression analysis revealed that pre-service teachers’ sense of efficacy and introjected motivation were strong predictors of their expectation of reality shock, when gender difference was controlled for. There was an interaction effect between intrinsic motivation and teachers’ sense of efficacy in predicting the reality shock expectation. We discussed the educational implications for future research in an endeavour to reduce the reality shock among novice teachers.     

Reframing primary curriculum through concepts of place

Australian curricula name “sustainability” as a key priority area with implications for preparing pre-service teachers. In the research that generated this paper, we asked: How can framing teaching through space and place inform pre-service teachers’ pedagogical thinking and practice? In new third year Bachelor of Education (primary) subject Understanding Space and Place, Australian teacher education students shared online responses to focus questions and readings framing education through place, designed and taught a unit of study “beyond the classroom” to children in their professional placements and reflected on changes in their theoretical, philosophical, and curriculum goals. Data from these forum posts were analysed through Somerville’s three “enabling place pedagogy” categories of embodiment, storylines, and cultural contact zones. Many students came to re-imagine their teaching roles and understand how a place pedagogy framework can operate to expand the possibilities of teaching and learning sustainability through creative and embodied place-making experiences in local places.     

‘Fitting in’ or ‘being different’? Integration,separation, and identity construction during a teaching practicum in Hong Kong

This paper reports the results of a qualitative study that examined the perspectives of one group of teacher educators and pre-service teachers about a teaching internship in Hong Kong. Reflecting recent interest in both a practice turn in pre-service teacher education as well as teacher identity construction, the study uses in-depth interviews to reveal how both teacher educators and pre-service teachers construct the meaning of a teaching internship. The results suggest that two discourses dominate such meanings: the discourse of integration and the discourse of separation. The study not only reveals the presence of these discourses but, moreover, considers how their interplay provides affordances for and constraints upon the capacity of pre-service teachers to construct their professional identities during the teaching internship. This exploration suggests that this interplay can lead to identity conflict for pre-service teachers. Implications for overcoming such conflict in ways that support the construction of pre-service teachers’ professional identities are considered and suggestions for future comparative research discussed.     

Looking back on experienced teachers’ reflections: how did pre-service school practice support the development of self-efficacy?

This research focuses on experienced Estonian teachers’ pre-service school practice. Each one of the 19 teachers interviewed in this study had over 25?years of professional experience. We were interested in their recollections of their pre-service school practice and the impact that their experience had on them professionally. The results indicate the importance of support systems and a cooperative atmosphere in the school, both of which enable a beginning teacher’s self-efficacy. Despite the lack of explicit support structures from the 1960s to the 1980s, implicit support existed and played an important role in facilitating the development of student teachers’ self-efficacy.     

Reimagining the role of mentor teachers in professional experience: moving to I as fellow teacher educator

New accreditation requirements for Australian initial teacher education programs require that universities and schools establish quality partnerships to ensure strong links between pre-service teachers’ university-based learning and school-based professional learning experiences. This paper focuses on the shifts of identity, thinking and practice that occurred for five school-based mentor teachers as they co-created new professional experience practices alongside university-based teacher educators in a Teaching Academies of Professional Practice (TAPP) project. Interview data was analysed through the theoretical framework of Dialogical Self Theory to examine how the repositioning of mentor teachers as fellow teacher educators allowed for expansion in the understanding and enactment of their role. The findings of this study suggest that partnerships between schools and universities can enhance learning opportunities for all participants when commitments are made to creating collaborative and dialogical spaces to support new approaches to teacher education.     

Inhabiting the ‘tragic gap’: pre-service teachers practicing racial literacy

Set in the context of a teacher education program, this study examined how three White pre-service teachers participate in book club discussions of children’s literature. We asked: When White pre-service teachers are in a context that enables talk about race, racism and anti-racism, what do they talk about? What conceptual and discursive tools do they use? We were guided by these questions, along with theoretical perspectives of racial literacy, multicultural discourses and a form of critical discourse analysis referred to as ‘positive discourse analysis’ or ‘reconstructive discourse analysis’. Our analysis illustrates that the participants held two questions, what constitutes racism and what makes a person a White ally, without firm resolution in the form and function of their talk. Their discourses illustrate that racial literacy involves what teachers say and also a willingness to stand in the space of indeterminacy, which may create space for new social positions. We argue for a continued theorization of critical discourse analysis alongside of racial literacy and multicultural discourses.     

关于反思性实践课程中职前教师学生意识发展变化的调查研究

本文通过对海南师范大学外语系2006级实习生的实习进行跟踪调查并整理分析其实习文本,发现职前教师的学生意识以及对教学的理解在反思性实践课程前后有很大的变化。影响职前教师学生意识和教学理解发生变化的主要因素有以下几个方面:职前教师的教师理想和专业基础、实践、个人反思及各种互动性反思形式,如:反思会,与实践导师和教师教育者的交流、与同伴教师的合作与交流。其中实践与反思是影响职前教师学习教学的关键因素,尤其是各种不同的互动性反思对职前教师学生意识和教学理解产生了极为重大的影响。     

The role of lesson analysis in pre-service teacher education: an empirical investigation of teacher learning from a virtual video-based field experience

A video-based program on lesson analysis for pre-service mathematics teachers was implemented for two consecutive years as part of a teacher education program at the University of Lazio, Italy. Two questions were addressed: What can preservice teachers learn from the analysis of videotaped lessons? How can preservice teachers’ analysis ability, and its improvement, be measured? Two groups of preservice teachers (approximately 140 in total) participated in the program. A three-step lesson analysis framework was applied to three lesson videos: (1) goal(s) and parts of the lesson; (2) student learning; and, (3) teaching alternatives. Preservice teachers’ ability to analyze lessons was measured through an open-ended pre- and post-assessment. In the assessment, preservice teachers were asked to mark and comment on events (in a lesson not included in the program) that they found interesting for: teachers’ actions/decisions; students’ behavior/learning; and, mathematical content. A coding system was developed based on five criteria: elaboration, mathematics content, student learning, critical approach, and alternative strategies. In both studies, the ability to analyze instruction improved significantly on all five criteria. These data suggest promising directions for the development of both an instrument to measure lesson analysis abilities and a model for teacher learning.