Information and communication technology in teacher education in Vietnam: from policy to practice

During the school year 2008?C2009, the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam launched the ??Year of ICT?? to produce a breakthrough in educational innovation. In light of this development we have carried out a policy analysis to study the national vision on ICT in education. The policy analysis takes into account a decade of governmental policy guidelines on ICT and education, starting from 2000??the year that the Ministry announced its Master Plan for ICT in education. A critical analysis puts rationales in perspective. Exploratory analysis at the level of five provincial teacher education institutions sheds light on the impact of these guidelines in teacher education. 783 educators completed a self-report questionnaire addressing factors of access, capacities and actual use of ICT in teaching practice. To assess the adopted discourse and operational planning, technology plans of the different institutions are analyzed. It is argued that unbalanced operational planning in the technology plans led to a gap between the current rhetoric in policy guidelines, vision statements of the institutions and the reality in teaching practice.     

Deliberate practice in teacher education

Deliberate practice is increasingly recognised as necessary for professional development. This paper sets out to explore in what ways student teachers’ learning activities in a teacher education programme can be characterised as deliberate practice. Based on an in-depth exploration of 574 learning activities, our results highlight the different ways in which activities in teacher education programmes can be designed, the different motivations students have to engage in them repetitively, and different ways in which feedback can be organised, within contextual constraints posed by all professional environments. Results also indicate that self-improvement is not the only motivation for engaging in deliberate practice for student teachers, as pupil improvement is also considered important. These results support a context-specific operationalisation of deliberate practice and provide starting points for teacher education programmes to promote deliberate practice in their curriculum.     

Educational policy and teacher education

This article stresses the importance of teacher training in implementing changes in educational policy. It considers some of the ‘hidden’ implications of educational change and suggests that in order to reduce such undesirable consequences, teacher trainers should be more involved in educational policy-making, especially in regard to curriculum development.     

Transformational practice: critical teacher research in pre-service teacher education

This article traces the experiences of three pre-service teachers as they engaged in teacher research as part of their teacher education program and considers how teacher research might disrupt dominant paradigms that aim to de-contextualize teaching and offer one-size-fits-all solutions to address inequities. In particular, the article examines: the role of the teacher’s personal and academic history in the design of their teacher research projects; how their research worked to disrupt and complicate classroom cultures and practices; and the ways in which the pre-service teachers interpreted their research in light of new contexts during their first year of teaching. This work has critical implications in an era when teacher education programs are under attack, including: the value of drawing on pre-service teachers' lived experiences as an entry point into inquiry; creating highly localized inquiries; and positioning novice teachers as knowledgeable practitioners who are able to share research with colleagues.     

Do We Practise What We Preach?: putting policy into practice in teacher education

There are substantial pressures for changes in teaching practice which are now clearly reflected in government policy. It is argued that these pressures have emerged from changes in the culture of technologically based societies and the resulting changes in the needs of all students in schools. The implications of recent theories of learning and new needs for learners are discussed with respect to teacher education. An attempt to change the way in which students are prepared in mathematics education is reported. Data collected as part of the study indicate the need for a system‐wide approach to change.     

Evaluation of reflective practice in teacher education

Teacher education based on ‘reflective practice’ consists of observing, analysing and reflecting on teacher performance in order to improve professional practice. This article presents the results of an evaluation of a programme on mathematics teaching carried out using reflective practice. It was targeted at 284 teachers in various stages of the education system, using an approach that combines quantitative (surveys) and qualitative (interviews and reports) methods. While the study shows that the education programme generates high levels of satisfaction, pedagogical appropriateness and learning, its achievements in effectiveness are moderate. Although, in general, what is learned through teacher education is implemented in the classroom, it is done so in an isolated fashion, in other words, individually and without becoming a part of the culture of the school. The results show little evidence of its impact on student learning. The article offers proposals for improving the education programme, while, at the same time, analysing the usefulness of the approach and evaluation tools employed.     

Gender,policy and initial teacher education

An examination of gender discourses within New Labour education policy on the preparation of students for a career in teaching in the UK reveals a contradictory yet, at the same time, complementary position. In the guidelines outlining the Standards that a prospective teacher has to achieve, the ways in which gender informs pupils’ educational opportunities is ‘played down’ in that it is not addressed directly. Rather ‘gender’, along with ethnicity, social class, disability and sexuality is embedded within the broader concept of ‘diversity’. At the same time, gender is foregrounded in education policy on the recruitment of teachers with the drive by the Training and Development Agency to encourage men into primary schools. This article explores these tensions and relates these to the published research on the experiences of male primary teachers. It concludes by arguing for a recognition of student/practicing teachers’ real concerns regarding the gender issues which influence and inform their professional choices and careers rather than those set by the Government agenda.     

Insights into the policy and practice of teacher education in low‐income countries: the multi‐site teacher education research project

Abstract The Multi‐Site Teacher Education Research project (MUSTER) explores initial teacher education in five countries—Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa, and Trinidad and Tobago. National research teams collected and analysed data on key dimensions of the training process, which included the characteristics of those selected for training, the curriculum processes they experience, the outcomes of training, the reflections of newly trained teachers in schools, analysis of supply and demand for new teachers, and projections of the resource and cost implications of meeting national targets to universalise primary schooling. Many insights are contained in the extensive publications associated with the project, and these lead to a variety of evidenced‐based conclusions that will inform future policy.     

Coming to matter in practice: enacting education policy

This article is offered as a counterpoint and complement to the symposium on policy enactment in a previous issue of Discourse by Stephen Ball, Meg Maguire and colleagues. Although their focus was largely on the discursive, and policy actors and policy subjects, this article is concerned with researching the emergent materiality of policy and draws on an Australian Vocational Education and Training policy study. It focuses on one particular object (a mini-warehouse) and one policy (Productivity Places Program) and develops an approach to researching a topology of policy enactment along three intersecting axes. In this topology, the material is given an ontological status, which is ‘in-here’ as opposed to ‘else-where’; where reality is emergent in practice. The research focus therefore is on policy processes and the assumption is that these processes are not benign as the world continues to be (re)articulated unequally; the point of policy research being to investigate the ways in which policy processes contribute to or work against this inequality.     

Using Second Life to enhance classroom management practice in teacher education

The following article discusses an educational simulation created within Second Life (SL) in order to assist pre‐service teachers (PSTs) in gaining more experience managing student behavior. The article discusses the development, implementation, and assessment of the simulation as well as student data on the feasibility of the approach in comparison to other methods of learning classroom management. It includes discussion of the use of artificial intelligence (AI) methods to infuse the simulation with random student behavior, much as it would arise in the classroom. Results indicated that the students found the simulation to be a useful learning experience and put them in situations that forced them to think on their feet. Recommendations for future work with the simulation and for others considering the use of SL for educational purposes are discussed.

Der Gebrauch von Second Life zur Verbesserung von Unterrichtsmanagement in der Lehrerbildung

Im folgenden Beitrag wird über eine im Second Life (SL) erstellte Ausbildungssimulation zur Unterstützung von auszubildenden Lehrern (PSTs) beim Erwerb von Kompetenzen beim Steuern von Schülerverhalten berichtet. Der Artikel beschreibt die Entwicklung, die Einführung und Bewertung der Simulation ebenso wie die Studentendaten bei der Umsetzung der Annäherung im Vergleich zu anderen Methoden des, lernenden Klassenzimmer "…Managements”. Es schließt Diskussionen über die Nutzung von Methoden künstlicher Intelligenz (KI) zur Einführung der Simulation mit zufälligem Schülerverhalten in der Art, wie es im Unterricht entstehen könnte, ein. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Studenten die Simulation als nützliche Lernerfahrung ansahen und und die sie auch in Situationen benutzen, in denen sie zu grundsätzlichen Überlegungen aufgefordert waren. Empfehlungen für zukünftige Arbeit mit Simulationen und für andere Überlegungen des Gebrauchs von Second Life für pädagogische Zwecke werden angestellt.

L’utilisation de Second Life pour renforcer la pratique de la gestion de classe dans la formation des enseignants

L’article qui suit fait le bilan d’une simulation éducative crée au sein de Second Life (SL) dans le but d’aider les enseignants en formation (PSTs) à acquérir davantage d’expérience de la gestion des conduites d’élèves. Cet article examine le développement, la mise en place et l’évaluation de la simulation ainsi que les données provenant des étudiants sur la viabilité de ce mode d’approche par comparaison avec les autres méthodes d’étude de la gestion de classe. On y inclut une discussion sur l’usage des méthodes d’intelligence artificielle (IA) pour intégrer la stimulation avec le comportement aléatoire des élèves tel qu’il peut se produire en situation de classe. Les résultats ont indiqué que les enseignants en formation ont trouvé que la simulation était une expérience d’apprentissage utile et qu’elle les plaçait dans une situation qui les forçait à penser debout sur leurs pieds. On présente des recommandations en vue de travaux futurs avec la simulation et d’autres portant sur l’usage possible de Second Life à des fins éducatives.

El uso de Second Life para mejorar las prácticas de la gestión de aulas en la formación de los profesores

El artículo abajo trata de una simulación educativa creada dentro de Second Life (SL) para ayudar a los futuros profesores (PSTs) a adquirir más experiencia en el manejo de la conducta de los alumnos. El artículo examina el desarrollo, la puesta en práctica y la evaluación de la simulación además de los datos procedentes de los alumnos acerca de la factibilidad de este abordaje en comparación con otros métodos de estudio de la gestión de aulas. Se incluye también un estudio del uso de los métodos de (IA) inteligencia artificial para dotar la simulación de conductas estudiantiles aleatorias, parecidas a lo que ocurre en aulas reales. Los resultados han mostrado que los futuros profesores opinan que la simulación fue una experiencia de aprendizaje útil, poniendoles en situaciones que les obligaban a pensar « de pie ». Se hace también recomendaciones para otros trabajos, unos con la simulación y otros sobre los usos posibles de Second Life con fines educativos.     

Creating frames of practice for teacher education

Conceptualising teacher learning as being immersed in and arising from the totality of professional practice, this paper reports experiences and insights from practice-based teacher education. Initial data are drawn from two sites of seven involved in the federally funded School Centres for Teaching Excellence programme conducted in the state of Victoria, Australia. This programme is arranged as a partnership between the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development and various school clusters and universities. Each university is working with a cluster of primary and secondary schools and with large numbers (20–100) of pre-service teachers allocated to schools across each cluster. In general, PSTs in Victoria University’s two clusters are placed at each school for 2 days per week with some block time throughout the year. Some university units of study are taught on-site by visiting lecturers with a strong emphasis being placed on the mentoring of PSTs by classroom teachers. Interviews with mentors/mentees and teachers, PSTs and principals indicate a particular understanding or approach to an issue of learning or relationship that provides a frame/scaffold of practice. Further practice begins to detail the frame for continuing application. We are considering the notion of frame as a conceptual skeleton of understanding that arises from school and classroom practice and is formatted in practice. Cases of practice have been reported in the paper below that indicate preliminary understandings and engagement with this concept for the learning of teachers.     

我国教师继续教育存在的问题及解决对策

目前，我国中小学教师继续教育存在的主要问题是：培训目标和内容缺乏针对性、实用性和全面性；培训模式单一；课堂教学模式僵化。新时期要提高教师继续教育的质量，必须注意建立规范的工作程序，加强继续教育目标与内容的针对性、实用性和全面性；构建系统配套的继续教育模式；积极探索多种多样的课堂教学模式，努力适应培训对泉的多种需求。     

Fostering meaning-oriented learning and deliberate practice in teacher education

Meaning-oriented learning and deliberate practice may be expected to promote student teachers’ continuous professional development. We interviewed twelve expert teacher educators to explore their understanding of these concepts, as well as pedagogies to stimulate them in teacher education. The experts understood deliberate practice in two ways: an enactment conceptualization focusing on pupil learning, and a regulation conceptualization focusing on teacher learning. Pedagogies were operationalized in twelve design principles, which integrated ideas previously scattered in the literature, and added to it with respect to anticipatory reflection, diverse ways of “modeling”, and student teacher agency in creating a powerful learning environment.     

Mapping the effects of policy on mathematics teacher education

Changes in school mathematics curricula, pedagogy and assessment, and as a consequence the pressure for changes in initial teacher preparation, are consequences both of government policy initiatives and pressure from unofficial agents such as the research community, teachers and others, though with great variation across the world. In the case of England, it has resulted in strong regulation, including inspection, of initial teacher education too. In this article, I draw on sociological theory to help in mapping the relations between official and unofficial agents and in interpreting the effects on mathematics teacher educators, in particular. The article draws in the main on the changing position in England over the last decade or so, and a case study analysis is carried out of a key official document to illustrate the application of theoretical tools provided by sociologists and others for examining the relations between agents and agencies and on their consequences.