Between continuity and change: identities and narratives within teacher professional development

This year-long ethnographic case study examined high school teachers’ participation in technology-focused professional development. By pairing a dialogical perspective on teacher identity with a micro-level analysis of narratives, findings indicate that teachers use language and other semiotic resources to express their own identity as well as to acknowledge, expand on, and counter others’ identity claims. Moreover, technology integration may challenge teachers’ established identities or threaten their authority in the classroom. This analysis suggests that teacher educators need to value teachers’ established and emergent identities as well as create space for dialogic narratives in order to facilitate technology integration in schools.     

The teacher I wish to be: exploring the influence of life histories on student teacher idealised identities

This paper examines the influence of life histories and apprenticeship of observation on the formation of student teachers’ idealised identities. The life histories of 15 student teachers are decoded. Through eliciting from the student teachers the teacher they wish to be, the paper focuses on the interplay between the personal histories and ideal teacher identities for the future. The implications of the findings for initial teacher education are considered.     

The resourceful facilitator: teacher leaders constructing identities as facilitators of teacher peer groups

The use of teacher peer groups is a prevalent strategy for school-based professional development and instructional improvement. Facilitation of such groups is an increasingly vital dimension of teacher leadership as a component of school improvement efforts. Drawing on a qualitative study of facilitation of teacher peer groups, the article investigates how teacher leaders integrate experiences from different domains of life in constructing a unique facilitator identity. Focusing on portraits of three teacher leaders, it demonstrates how teachers relate experiences outside of teaching, including academic experiences, other professional experiences, and social experiences, to the skills and orientation necessary for effective facilitation. The article argues for attention to reflexive practices of identity formation in the preparation of teacher leaders as facilitators and in the ongoing development of teacher leaders who already function as facilitators.     

Seeking for the unwelcome truths: beyond celebration in inquiry-based teacher professional learning

This paper seeks to interrupt the dominant discourse of action research that emphasises the celebration of achievements, paying less attention to the ‘unwelcome truths’ that can sometimes be revealed. Building on our work in supporting inservice teacher professional learning thorough practitioner research in contexts such as the Coalition of Knowledge Building Schools, we examine the capacity of practitioner inquiry and student voice to contribute to teachers’ broader professional knowledge base. Welcoming ‘unwelcome truths’ requires a robustness on the part of teachers, an openness to the professional learning and growth that can ensue from genuine critique and reflection. Among other things, asking questions of young people in schools can sometimes yield new and challenging insights into school and learning. We draw on examples from our work with schools and teachers to consider what might be done to make these ‘unwelcome truths’ the basis for the reconceptualisation of practice and catalysts for the ongoing formation of teacher professional identity.     

Aspects of the professional identity of preschool teachers in Greece: investigating the role of teacher education and professional experience

In this paper, we present the results of a research programme we developed to investigate the professional identity of preschool education teachers in Greece. Our aim was to investigate parameters affecting not only the creation but also the reform of professional identity and to highlight potential differences in terms of professional identity. Contemporary approaches to professional identity – developed since the 80s – raise issues related primarily to participatory processes, reflection, autonomy and emancipation. Teachers’ professional identity is gradually developed through an ongoing process of three interrelated and complementary steps: (a) pre-service teacher education, (b) vocational integration and (c) exercise of professional duties and in-service training. We interviewed 20 teachers on their professional identity. We chose two categories of teachers based on two criteria: (a) their studies, and (b) their professional experience in the field. Tentative findings showed that professional experience was more important than studies in the construction of their professional identity. Professional identity also relates to both their professional experience and the dominant beliefs about early childhood education.     

The development of elementary teacher identities as teachers of science

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the contributions of pre-service teachers’ memories of science and science education, combined with their experiences in a STEM-focused teacher preparation programme, to their developing identities as elementary school teachers of science. Data collected over three years include a series of interviews and observations of science teaching during elementary teacher preparation and the first year of teaching. Grounded within a theoretical framework of identity and using a case-study research design, we examined experiences that contributed to the participants’ identity development, focusing on key themes from teacher interviews: memories of science and science instruction, STEM-focused teacher preparation programme, field experiences, first year of teaching, and views of effective science instruction. Findings indicate the importance of exposure to reform strategies during teacher preparation and are summarised in main assertions and discussed along with implications for teacher preparation and research.     

Landmarks in the professional and academic development of mid-career teacher educators

This paper focuses on the professional and academic development of mid-career teacher educators from two universities in England. The objectives of the study were to analyse and compare the career experiences of teacher educators; in particular, to identify stages of development, landmark events and contextual factors affecting professional learning and academic identities. In-depth biographical interviews were carried out with 12 teacher educators, together with living graphs of their career paths. Clear landmarks were identified in both contexts, with development in teaching seen as largely positive, while research development was much more varied. Teacher educators who were further on in their careers saw research development as transformative personally as well as academically. In analysing the findings within a sociocultural learning framework, the authors draw in particular on Swennen et al.’s model of teacher educators’ sub-identities, Akerlind’s categorisation of an academic identity and Eraut’s contextual and learning factors.     

面向21世纪的高等职业技术师范教育研究

高等职业技术师范教育作为我国师范教育体系的重要组成部分,其教学内容和课程体系既要顺应高等教育改革的总趋势,又要体现自身特色,这是关系到职技高师生存与发展的基础与前景。     

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.     

Teaching national and regional cultures: the role of teacher identities in Martinique

Schooling is widely considered to be vital to the development of modern nation-states, yet little is known about how teachers might go about transmitting national culture within schools. Using the case of history–geography lycée teachers in the French overseas department of Martinique, this article makes the argument that teachers’ professional identities must be taken into account when considering the ways in which teachers implement curricula and understand their role in passing on national and other collective identities to students. Through local-level research in schools – comprised of interviews with teachers, school administrators, local officials and others, classroom observations and archival research – it becomes evident that teachers on the island, as elsewhere in France, enjoy considerable autonomy in implementing curricula. By training students to think critically, teachers encourage students to consider new meanings of ‘French’ and ‘Martinican’ identities on an everyday basis.     

The emergence of unique elective identities in the professional identity development research in the counseling profession

In this study, a qualitative content analysis of the professional identity development research in counseling was conducted to describe elements of the development of “elective identities” of leader, research, counselor educator, and social justice practitioner. Predisposing, process, and outcome codes reveal experiences and contexts that influence this development in students, educators, and counselors.     

Changing literacies,changing formations: the role of elicitation in teacher action research with new technologies

As new technologies promise to be an enduring feature of the landscape of teachers’ work, we consider how teachers implicitly bring stories forward into their classroom explorations with new media as a part of their ‘informal learning’. By ‘stories’ is meant specific classroom texts as well as preferred teacher practices with those texts. The article represents a reflection on the methodological role that ‘elicitation’ can play in drawing out teacher thinking during a time of professional change, thinking that would otherwise likely remain embedded, particularly when teachers’ attention is focused forward on innovation in practice. The methodological use of ‘elicitation’ emerged in the first year of an ongoing teacher action research study, in which seven teachers have been involved in a professional development initiative that actively engages teachers in examining changing literacy formations, beginning with the teachers’ own literacy formations. The methodological practice of elicitation borrows from phenomenology, ethnomethodology, narrative research, reader response theories, curriculum theory and psychoanalysis, and emerged as a way to acknowledge the life histories that teachers were bringing to their professional development with new media. We suggest that elicitation can potentially draw out deep and sustaining sources of a teacher’s commitment, as well as resistance, to change. It can help disclose the tensions between commitment and resistance that even teachers who voluntarily undertake to incorporate new technologies into their practice may experience. Within a teacher action research framework, elicitation can also serve to remind teachers (and others) of the value of what they know and are learning, thus contributing to teachers developing a ‘scholarship of practice’ in response to any actual or perceived ‘intensification’ of their work.     

The influence of the ecological contexts of teacher education on South Korean teacher educators' professional development

This study is designed to explore how the ecological context of teacher education influences affect South Korean teacher educators' professional development. Research findings reveal that South Korean teacher educators' concerns about their professional development are mainly related to conducting research influenced by global, political, social, and institutional influences together. The global influences permeate lower contextual levels in order and appear as concrete policies affecting teacher educators' work. As a result of an environment that favors academic achievement in various levels of the ecological contexts of teacher education, South Korean teacher educators desire more international academic communication.     

Academic identities and communities of practice in a professional discipline

This paper explores the dynamics surrounding the formation of academic identities in a context where the nature of academic work is contested both as a result of tensions within the discipline and in response to pressure from both the institution and the field of higher education. It is based on a case study which investigated the process of academic identity formation at the micro level of a department at a South African university. The study revealed a complex relationship between identity construction and participation within the particular configuration of teaching, professional and research communities of practice that defined the academic field in the department. Multiple identity trajectories were evident, indicating the role of individual agency, despite the dominance of a professional community of practice within the department. The arrival of new academics in the department without professional practice experience was found to have created the possibility of a changed notion of the academic within the discipline.     

Factors affecting the professional characteristics of teacher educators in Israel and in the USA: a comparison of two models

The objective of this research study was to identify the factors affecting the professional characteristics of teacher educators by comparing two models of teacher education. The research findings revealed four major focal points that have an impact on professional characteristics: the operational model adopted by the institution where teacher educators work; the breadth and depth of teacher educators’ research and scholarship and the degree to which such scholarship is required as part of the assessment criteria; the cooperation between the training institution and the practical field (i.e., the schools where the students do their practice teaching); and the informal relationships between teacher educators and their students. The novelty of the study resides in the fact that these points affect teacher educators’ professional characteristics and that focusing on these characteristics facilitates a comprehensive view of methods, tools and directions that may expedite the professional development of teacher educators.     

The professional identities of teacher educators in three further education colleges: an entanglement of discourse and practice

Initial teacher education programmes have been identified as crucial to meeting the twin policy aims of professionalising the further education (FE) workforce and achieving improved learner outcomes, yet college-based teacher educators are underrepresented in published research and commentary. Drawing on a case study of teacher educators employed by three FE colleges in England, this paper argues that the contested and politicised nature of the FE sector presents a unique set of circumstances that distinguishes this population from other members of their professional group and severely restricts the identities available to them. Through a thematic discursive analysis of documentation, observation and interview data, it is argued that FE positions teacher educator identity through political governance, through the business practices of colleges and through the sector’s historical relationships with vocational and higher education. Within this distinctive context, teacher educators experience competing identities of ‘qualified and credible’, ‘teacher’, ‘different from others’, ‘part of FE’ and ‘employee’ that are entangled with the dominant discourses of English further education. After discussing the implications of these findings for a professional profile of teacher educators, the paper concludes that teacher educators are better understood as a heterogeneous occupational group in order to avoid obscuring professional concerns linked to policy landscapes.     

Dual-mode teacher professional development: challenges and re-visioning future TPD in Indonesia

This paper presents the results of a two-year research project aimed at developing a teacher professional development (TPD) model in Indonesia. New government policies in this nation, its archipelagic nature, vast numbers of teachers and scarcity of support resources present a unique challenge to TPD. A needs assessment was conducted to identify teachers’ professional needs. Based on the results of this assessment, a dual-mode TPD that combines face-to-face sessions and online sessions was developed. Participation in face-to-face sessions was relatively high but the participation rate in online sessions was very low. Incentives, teachers’ autonomy as professional learners, ICT skills and infrastructure are important considerations when designing TPD in Indonesia. This study and an analysis of TPD policy allow us to suggest future directions for TPD in Indonesia.     

Remaking the professional teacher: authority and curriculum reform

Globally, national curriculum policies are up for renegotiation. These negotiations are shaped by international and national top-down accountability regimes, and an increasing turn towards curriculum centralization and standardization. The new Australian Curriculum (AC) is no exception. The AC is an important educational policy event, one in which understandings about teacher professional authority is being redefined. In this paper, we examine how judgements about teachers’ professional authority are used to defend, promote and explain the AC. Drawing on an analysis of policy documents and interviews with high-level policy-makers, we argue that the AC is opening space in the policy field to reposition teachers’ work by promoting a view of teachers’ professional authority as constrained and defined through the written curriculum documentation.