Mentoring beginning teachers: Mentor knowledge and skills

This article focuses on a number of quality assurance issues identified through the partnership scheme offered jointly by Homerton College, Cambridge and the University of Cambridge Department of Education, in conjunction with some ninety secondary schools situated predominantly within East Anglia. Our early experience has led us to reflect in some detail upon the foundations for successful mentoring within a partnership programme. Issues identified include: changing expectations within schools and HEIs; the selection of mentors and the safeguarding of mentor time; student entitlement and the comparability of experiences across mentors and across schools. The paper ends with a discussion of what we believe are the preconditions for high quality mentoring, taking into account the issues, identified above, which we think all partnership schemes will need to confront at some stage in their development.     

Induction seminars as professional learning communities for beginning teachers

This paper explores the operation and contribution of induction seminars operated as learning communities for new teachers. Mixed methods were used: 378 new teachers and 29 seminar leaders completed questionnaires, 16 new teachers and 14 seminar leaders were interviewed, and 20 seminar meetings were observed. Findings showed that seminar discussions focused primarily on coping with discipline problems, building self-confidence, and developing a professional identity. The main contribution of the seminars was emotional support provided in a non-threatening environment. Findings imply that seminars can be a significant supplement to in-school mentoring for the professional development and adjustment of new teachers.     

Mentoring support and the professional development of beginning teachers: a Chinese perspective

For a long time, there has been a tradition in China of experienced teachers helping beginning teachers. This empirical school study investigates the kinds of support that are provided by eight dyads of mentoring teacher and first‐year secondary school teachers in Guangzhou of southern China and the major factors affecting mentoring support. In addition, this research focuses on the professional development of first‐year teachers in areas of subject knowledge, student, teaching and classroom management. The findings reveal that mentors provide four forms of support: provision of information, mutual lesson observation, collaborative lesson preparation and discussion in the office. Factors affecting mentoring support include teaching workload, grade and subject, style of mentor–protégé interactions, relationships between mentor and mentee, incentives for the mentors, and collegial culture in the case study schools. It is notable that there are positive and negative developments perceived by the protégé and the foci of mentoring tend to be the teaching of content rather than curriculum and pedagogy.     

Characteristics of support for beginning teachers: evidence from the new Teacher Induction Scheme in Scotland

The Teacher Induction Scheme, introduced in Scotland in August 2002, guarantees beginning teachers a year’s structured support from a more experienced colleague, a reduced timetable and opportunities for professional development. This article places the Scheme in the wider context of recent policy developments in Scotland and reports on research carried out into the early implementation of the Scheme. The personal and professional characteristics sought by the probationers in their supporters and suggested by the supporters themselves are analysed both in terms of the literature on mentoring and of the guidelines accompanying the Scheme. The structures set up in schools to support beginning teachers are also described. The implications of the data are discussed and proposals made for the development of a more extended model of mentoring in Scotland than the one currently in operation.     

The sustainability of a teacher professional development programme for beginning urban teachers

This study investigated the long-term effects of a professional development intervention for beginning urban teachers and explored which characteristics and activities in school organisations contributed to the sustainability of these effects. A quasi-experimental study (n = 72) investigated whether the positive effects of the programme were observed one year after the programme ended. Interviews with teachers and principals (n = 19) were used to explore which characteristics and activities in schools contributed to those positive effects. A significant long-term effect of the programme was found on teachers’ competences and professional orientation. An open culture in the schools was experienced as an important factor for the sustainability of the programme’s effects.     

Teacher collaboration and professional development in the workplace: a study of Portuguese teachers

This article reports on findings from research aimed at investigating teacher collaboration and professional development in the workplace. It draws upon a broader study carried out in a school in Northern Portugal. Data were collected through questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and written reflective accounts. In total, 80 teachers participated in phase 1, 11 key informants participated in phase 2 and 10 teachers participated in an intervention/training project (phase 3). Findings suggest that problems and limitations in relation to collaborative work are situated at the organisational level, such as time and working conditions. Lack of training in collaboration, and issues such as motivation and personal difficulties, also emerged from the data. Teachers tend to stress the importance of interpersonal relationships at school, but they also identified formal meetings when they described the contexts and opportunities to work collaboratively in the workplace, namely department meetings and projects driven by central government or school administration initiatives. Implications for teacher collaboration and professional development are discussed.     

Changing the professional knowledge and beliefs of teachers: A training study

The knowledge and beliefs in a domain constitute the cognitive “working capital” of the professional. Restructuring this professional knowledge, as is strived for in training or professional development, can be extremely difficult.In a training study with teachers as participants, it was tested (a) whether delivering training that is congruent with teachers' pre-existing ideas enhances their learning and performance in a domain: and (b) whether providing trainers with diagnostic information about participating teachers' knowledge and beliefs results in better tuned instruction. Training was given according to three training models, each of which offers a different solution to the problem of knowledge restructuring.Teachers' beliefs were found to filter the knowledge acquisition process: the greater the correspondence between teachers' beliefs and what was presented in training, the more likely it was that learning would take place. On the other hand, providing the trainer with diagnostic information was not found to be an effective strategy for achieving greater congruence between teachers' beliefs and instruction. Apparently, other intervention techniques for promoting knowledge restructuring in teachers will have to be considered.     

Storytelling as dialogue: how teachers construct professional knowledge

This study shows how a group of English language lecturers use storytelling as a form of professional dialogue. The aim of the study is to highlight the dialogic role of storytelling in supporting the construction of lecturers' professional knowledge and not to identify lecturers' professional knowledge. In a professional development project, 12 lecturers created digital stories about their experiences of professional development. These stories were shared with colleagues who then responded with their own digital stories. A narrative framework was used to analyse stories for the types of connections lecturers made between stories. Five dialogic processes were identified: connecting, echoing, developing, questioning and constructing. Excerpts of stories are used to demonstrate how lecturers construct professional knowledge through storytelling. The study concludes by outlining the potential and limitations of storytelling as an approach to professional development and proposes further research into the dialogic capacity of storytelling in a professional development context.     

Teacher design in teams as a professional development arrangement for developing technology integration knowledge and skills of science teachers in Tanzania

This study investigated the impact of teacher design teams as a professional development arrangement for developing technology integration knowledge and skills among in-service science teachers. The study was conducted at a secondary school in Tanzania, where 12 in-service science teachers participated in a workshop about technology integration in science teaching and worked in design teams to prepare technology-enhanced biology, chemistry and physics lessons. Through collaboration in design teams, teachers were able to make science animations using PowerPoint and record videos to use in their teaching. The designed lessons were taught in the classroom and reflected upon thereafter by all teachers. In order to determine the change in teachers’ technology integration knowledge and skills, data were collected before and after the professional development arrangement by using questionnaire, interview and observation data. Focus group discussion and reflection questionnaire data were used to assess teachers’ experience of working in design teams at the end of the professional development arrangement. Findings showed an increase in teachers’ technology integration knowledge and skills between pre- and post-measurements. Collaboration in design teams had the potential for teachers to share knowledge, skills, experience and challenges related to technology-enhanced teaching.     

ICT professional development for teachers in online forums: Analysing the role of discussion

This paper explores the role of engaging teachers in constructive dialogue within ICT professional development activity. As part of an ICT professional development program, sixteen teachers across eight geographically removed schools participated in an online threaded discussion forum for a school year. Data reported in this paper are generated from the archived posts to a threaded discussion forum and are analysed qualitatively for evidence of community and quantitatively for different forums of feedback (Mäkitalo, Häkkinen, Leinonen, & Järvelä, 2002) and levels of discussion (Jarvela & Hakkinen, 2002). The findings suggest evidence of both collegial and critical forms of discussion. Collegial discussion was found to be important in developing and maintaining community while critical discussion was vital for its role in transforming teachers' beliefs. The data also revealed a number of practical aspects of online environments that inhibit what is termed in this paper as constructive discussion.     

刍议中小学教师职业道德修养

中小学教师职业道德修养水平直接关系到中小学教育教学质量和水平 ,并进而影响整个社会的道德风尚、关系到民族的未来。加强师德建设 ,首先应建构科学的师德规范体系 ,并加强对广大中小学教师提高修养水平的指导。文章对此作了相关论述     

浅谈现代音乐教师的专业能力和教学艺术

艺术教育是全面推行素质教育的重要组成部份。它对现代中小学音乐教师提出了更高的专业能力和教学艺术的要求。本文从充实的音乐基础理论知识，熟练的钢琴即兴伴奏能力，一定的舞蹈能力及文学语言艺术，形体语言艺术，独特的板书艺术，多媒体应用，合谐互动的课堂组织艺术几个方面，对现代音乐教师应具备的能力和教学艺术作了论述。     

Teacher professional development as knowledge building: a Popperian analysis

This paper offers an analysis of how six experienced teachers, and two in particular, used portfolios to aid and chart steps in their own professional development. The key finding of the study was that the pattern of growth of professional knowledge conformed strikingly to the central features of the model proposed by the philosopher of science, Karl Popper, to account for the growth of scientific knowledge. That is, the use of portfolios assisted these teachers in identifying and formulating problems, in proposing tentative theories for their solution, in testing those theories against their experience of implementation, and in moving on to new problems of practice. The research therefore supports a Popperian structure for teacher professional development that coheres with a conception of teachers as self‐learners, or autonomous learners.     

(Re)beginning and becoming: antiracism and professional development with white practicing teachers

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on an educational foundations-based professional development (PD) curriculum of antiracist conscientization we as two teacher educators designed and implemented with eight white practicing teachers in the Midwestern United States. We first articulate our conception of educational foundations and curriculum theory as a framework for our PD. We briefly review literature on other PD on race in the United States, outline our data sources, and describe the pedagogy and curriculum of RaceWork’s Tripartite Model of race-visible and antiracist praxis. We then highlight, through interview data, the significance of group (relational) accountability and collaborative relationships that supported these teachers’ self-designed antiracist interventions in their own unique school contexts during the 2-year PD experience. An ongoing, relationship-based PD model leading to material antiracist changes and practices points to a need for a broader, more holistic, and contextualized conception of antiracist interventions in U.S. public P12 school contexts, but also one grounded in the notion that in a white supremacist society, we (as race-visible white educators) are always becoming antiracist.     

Structure and development of pre-service physics teachers’ professional knowledge

ABSTRACT

Teachers’ professional knowledge is considered one of the most important predictors of instructional quality. According to Shulman, such professional knowledge includes content, pedagogical content and pedagogical knowledge. Although recent research shed some light on the structure of the dimensions of professional knowledge, little is known how teacher education impacts pre-service physics teachers’ professional knowledge. In an effort to address this issue, we examined the content, pedagogical content and pedagogical knowledge of N?=?200 pre-service physics teachers enrolled in different years of teacher education at 12 major teacher education universities in Germany. We used structural equation modelling (1) to examine the relations amongst pre-service physics teachers’ content, pedagogical content and pedagogical knowledge, (2) to explore how the three kinds of knowledge and their relations differ across different stages of teacher education and (3) to identify factors affecting the level of each component of professional knowledge. Our findings suggest that content, pedagogical content and pedagogical knowledge represent distinct types of knowledge. Furthermore, our findings show that in the first years of professional education, pedagogical content knowledge is more closely related with general pedagogical knowledge while in later years, it is more closely related with content knowledge, suggesting that it develops from a general knowledge about teaching and learning into knowledge about the teaching and learning of specific content. Finally, beyond school achievement and years of enrolment as predictors, we find in particular the amount of classroom observations to have a positive impact on the professional knowledge of pre-service physics teachers.     

Accomplished story telling: English teachers write about their professional lives (the standards for teachers of English language and literacy in Australia project)

This paper draws on research that has recently been conducted in Australia on the possibility of formulating professional standards for teachers of English in primary and secondary schools. English teachers around the country have played a vital role in the project, writing stories in an effort to capture ‘accomplished’ English teaching, and participating in workshops and consultations that have led to the formulation of Standards for Teachers of English Language and Literacy in Australia. The paper focuses on the teachers' narratives and the interpretive discussions they have generated. Rather than simply illustrating ‘accomplishment’, the teachers have explored various aspects of their professional lives and asked whether standards can actually do justice to the complexities of their work. Their narratives provide a critical perspective on commonsense notions of professional standards, most notably managerial attempts to introduce standards as forms of performance management and accountability.