The contribution of educational research to teachers’ professional learning: philosophical understandings

In this paper, we argue from principle that teacher education must enable a positive relationship between educational research and teaching knowledge and practice. We discuss two popular conceptions of good teaching, which conceive of the teacher as craft worker and as executive technician, and suggest that, while each of these aspects of knowing reflects something of the qualities that good teachers need, any one on its own is insufficient. In contrast to such mono-dimensional conceptions, a research-based textured notion of professional judgement encompasses a complementary and mutually enriching relationship between different aspects of professional knowledge and practice. We identify three interconnected and complementary aspects of teachers’ professional knowledge: situated understanding; technical knowledge; and critical reflection. Accordingly, teaching as professional endeavour demands of teachers practical know-how, conceptual understandings of education, teaching and learning, and the ability to interpret and form critical judgements on existing knowledge and its relevance to their particular situation. We conclude that in principle research can both enrich and be enriched by teachers’ professional knowledge and practice but that to build this relationship in a holistic way into teacher education programmes and partnership models presents considerable practical challenges.     

微格教学:历史演变与当代诉求

教师专业发展是当代教师教育的基本价值追求。当前,教师专业发展的基本范式发生了转换,即由关注教师知识与技能的"技术理性"转向关注教师作为生命个体价值实现与教育智慧生成的"价值理性"。在此背景下,微格教学在经历技能训练取向、认知发展取向与综合化发展取向后,在当代教师专业发展的理念要求下,将致力于教学目标综合化、教学过程合理化、教学形式多样化与教学评价实践化的方向发展。     

从教育实践意蕴的转型看教师教育课程的改革

受理智取向培养思路的影响,人们往往对教师职前教育阶段的教育实践仅仅作＂技术层面＂的认识。但是,随着对教师实践性知识的＂发现＂,人们对教育实践意蕴的理解也发生了从＂技术性实践＂到＂反思性实践＂的深刻转型。我们应该坚持教育实践的核心价值地位,以反思性实践能力培养为主线推动教师教育课程的改革,建立＂实践取向＂的理论教学模式,整合专业技能与教育理论学习,努力实现见、实习活动的课程化,提升教育实践课程的＂反思性＂品质,培养适应教育职场需要的专业化教师。     

Interesting and difficult mathematical problems: changing teachers’ views by employing multiple-solution tasks

The study considers mathematical problem solving to be at the heart of mathematics teaching and learning, while mathematical challenge is a core element of any educational process. The study design addresses the complexity of teachers’ knowledge. It is aimed at exploring the development of teachers’ mathematical and pedagogical conceptions associated with systematic employment of multiple-solution tasks (MSTs) in a “problem-solving” course for prospective mathematics teachers (PMTs). Our attention to teachers’ mathematical conceptions focused on the development of PMTs’ problem-solving competences. Our attention to teachers’ meta-mathematical and pedagogical conceptions focused on changes in teachers’ views concerning the level of interest and level of difficulty of the mathematical tasks. We differentiated between the systematic and craft modes of professional development integrated in the course. Systematic mode involved problem-solving sessions and reflective discussions on collective solution spaces. Craft mode involved interviewing school students. The study demonstrates the effectiveness of MSTs for PMTs’ professional development.     

Having an EfECT: Professional development for teacher educators in Myanmar

As part of Myanmar's current educational reforms, the EfECT project aimed to improve the competence of pre-service teacher educators in Education Colleges across the country. Drawing on baseline and exit measures collected through questionnaires, tests, observations, interviews and written reflections, this paper examines the impact of the two-year project on 1647 teacher educators' propositional knowledge of teaching methodology, practical teaching skills, reflective abilities and professional confidence. Overall, but not exclusively, the outcomes of the project in relation to these issues were positive, and these results are analysed critically with particular attention to the tools used to measure project impact.     

Developing Professionalism through Reflective Practice among Pre-Service Teachers at the National University of Lesotho

This article is based on a study which aimed to explore the use of reflective practices to develop professionalism among pre-service teachers at the National University of Lesotho. The study sought to contribute to the local and international debate on best practice in encouraging and scaffolding constructivism through reflective practice among teachers. Forty final year pre-service teachers participated in the study and were interviewed individually and in groups. They shared their conceptions and views about how they plan to engender professional growth in their own teaching. By engaging in this exercise, this group of future teachers was empowered to develop into reflective professionals. The findings are discussed against the Centric Reflection Model which posits the different stages and dimensions of the reflective exercise. The author argues that reinforcing reflective dispositions could promote professional growth, and decrease misconduct and lack of professionalism associated with some teachers in Lesotho.     

Redesigning academic essays to promote teacher reflection on selected issues of learning and teaching related to the current educational reform in Hong Kong

Teachers in Hong Kong have faced constant demand for practice renewal due to successive waves of educational reforms in the past decade. This paper describes the design of an assignment structure that promotes teacher reflection on important issues related to a major education reform in Hong Kong. This particular assignment structure includes three components – self-reflection, understanding alternative perspectives and situated analysis. Teachers are expected to complete these components in a sequence. The design addresses teachers’ teaching experiences, engages them in learning alternative perspectives, and assists them to juxtapose self-reflection and alternative perspectives in analysing commonly encountered teaching situations. An evaluation of teachers’ levels of reflection in these assignments showed that both high- and low-scored teachers improved their reflection. Based on the findings of an interview study, this paper reported a grounded model explaining how this innovative assignment structure promotes reflection. The model situated the reflective assignments within the local teaching context in Hong Kong and highlighted the importance of different forms of assistance and guidance in facilitating teachers’ reflective engagement in completing these cognitively demanding assignments.     

Teaching,teacher formation,and specialised professional practice

This paper starts by exploring the relevance of Bernstein’s work on vertical and horizontal discourses and the constitution of professional knowledge for conceptualisation of the knowledge needed for teaching practice. Building on arguments for the differentiated nature of knowledge, and drawing on the work of Winch, Young and Muller on expertise, and the sociology of the professions, this paper advances a conception of teaching as a ‘specialised professional practice’ that requires the support of particular socio-epistemic arrangements and conditions embedded in professional communities. Prevalent notions of teaching and teacher education that find favour in some European countries are examined in the light of these arguments, with particular reference to recent reforms in England.     

Research engagement and educational decentralisation: problematising primary school English teachers’ research experiences in China

Teachers are encouraged to enhance professional competence through reflective practice and they are also asked to undertake research to generate evidence for their professional practices. This paper reports on an inquiry into a group of primary school English language teachers’ research engagement in the province of Guangdong on the Chinese mainland. The inquiry explored the effect of educational reforms on the participants’ research engagement through the use of an open‐ended questionnaire and group interviews. The inquiry revealed that research engagement had become an important part of the teachers’ professional lives. Emerging findings from the inquiry also problematised their research engagement as it was found to have been undermined by a competitive promotion mechanism, the teachers’ conceptualisations of research and challenges in the knowledge dissemination process. The paper ends with reflections on how to make teacher research “educational” for teachers and serve as an effective way for professional development.     

基于教师专业发展的高师教育类课程设置研究

高等师范院校教育类课程存在着课程设置结构不合理、内容不完善、教育实习效果不佳等问题。主要原因是课程设置倾向于"学术性"以及受科学主义与工具理性的深层次影响。高师院校设置教育类课程应当充分考虑基础教育与师范教育改革的实际需要,应有利于职前教师培养与在职教师培训的一体化进程。通过设置条件性课程,提高师范生的基础教育理论素养,增强教育研究意识;通过设置实践性课程,开展教育教学实践活动,培养师范生的教师职业认同感和专业技能,从而提升其专业发展水平。     

Student teacher reflective writing: what does it reveal?

Some researchers claim that reflection helps student teachers to better understand their practice teaching. This study aims to explore how deliberate reflection by student teachers is encouraged as a way to prepare, analyse and evaluate their practice. A total of 104 student teachers in primary education participated in this study during their practicum and produced reflective accounts to identify and think about problems they encountered in their teaching practice. The written reports were analysed for precision or explicitness of statements in relation to types and levels of knowledge generated in reflection. Three main types of knowledge were produced by the student teachers through deliberate reflection (appraisals, rules and artefacts). A relationship was found between producing high levels of knowledge and precision of reflective statements. We interpret this to mean that while deliberate reflection can support the construction of professional knowledge, this only rarely occurs.     

论教师教学策略的知识管理

对教师的教学策略进行知识管理,在实践中具有重要的价值和意义。它可以使教师隐性的教学策略知识显性化,有助于变革传统的教学管理体制,创建学习型教学文化,提升教师的专业素养。对教师的教学策略进行知识管理包括教学策略知识的搜集、保存与传递等程式。教师教学策略的知识管理需要具备相应的条件,诸如发展型的教师培养、自觉性的理论学习、反思性的教学实践与创建共享型的学校文化等等。     

Postgraduate student teachers’ developing conceptions of the place of theory in learning to teach: ‘more important to me now than when I started’

Integrating theoretical knowledge within teacher education has often been portrayed as difficult, with previous studies reporting student teachers’ ambivalence, or even scepticism, about the value of research findings and theory to classroom practice. Moreover, the nature of teachers’ professional knowledge is itself uncertain and highly complex. This paper reports on the developing conceptions held by a group of postgraduate student teachers about the relationship of theory to classroom practice in learning to teach. The data are drawn from a small-scale longitudinal case study. They capture participants’ preconceptions about theory before beginning training and subsequent developments through the course and into the first teaching post. The research finds these students to be far from naïve at the outset, entering training open to a range of forms of learning, with a positive view of the potential contribution of theory to practice. Alongside a growing appreciation of the complex, situated and contested nature of theory, the data suggest that theory comes to be increasingly valued over time. As newly qualified teachers, the participants not only see theory as integral to their practice, but recognise the important, largely unanticipated, role of the university in this process. As a result of these insights, potential considerations for course design are offered, at a time when teacher education in many countries is becoming more school-based and new forms of partnership are being developed.     

Adrift Without a Life Belt: Reflective self-assessment in a post-modern age

Self-assessment is an established aspect of teaching in higher education, informing reflective practice, self-study and continuing professional development, and offering a fundamental method in student-centred approaches to the support of learning. However, reflective self-assessment is often treated uncritically by its proponents, where it is taken for granted as 'a good thing'. Self-assessment is typically grounded in a humanistic-psychological approach that fails to critically investigate its own theories of knowledge, such as the assumed transparent nature of the 'self'. Where many practitioners regard self-assessment as a radical and 'freeing' practice, a post-structuralist critique of the dominant humanistic approach to teaching in higher education exposes self-assessment as a normative and 'disciplining' educational practice, where the self is constituted, not constitutive. An argument is made for an alternative to humanistic models of self-assessment as a self-forming without invoking personal agency.     

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.     

The dilemmas of teaching for creativity: Insights from expert specialist dance teachers

This paper offers part of the findings of a qualitative, interpretive Ph.D. study, which used a case study approach to explore and illustrate the conceptions of and approaches to creativity of three expert specialist dance teachers working with late primary age children. The specialists had extensive expertise as dance educators in different educational settings together with experience as dance artists. One way of framing their conceptions and practice was in terms of the pedagogical puzzles or dilemmas that they encountered. This paper focuses on the dilemma of ‘balancing personal/collective voice and craft/compositional knowledge’ when teaching for creativity. The findings articulate the foundations of embodied knowing (intrinsic to aesthetic understanding) and the processes fundamental to their teaching for creativity. This is followed by details of the key pedagogical spectra which emerged when responding to the dilemma: prioritisation of creative source—inside out or outside in; degrees of proximity and intervention—distanced reactivity or close proactivity; and spectrum of task structures—purposeful play to tight apprenticeship; and their use in action by the teachers in their different situations. The paper relates these findings to two current questions within education: that of the relationship between knowledge and creativity, and the ways in which adults/experts might engage in teaching for creativity. The paper concludes that this research supports calls for a re-evaluation of aesthetic understanding's role in creativity, grounded in embodiment, within dance pedagogy, which might also be fruitfully heeded within wider educational contexts. It also provides the findings as ‘images of possible’ approaches to inter-relating knowledge and creativity both within dance, and other disciplines, and argues for the use of dilemmas and their solutions as one way of acknowledging complexity and encouraging reflective practice in teaching for creativity, both within teacher training and continuing professional development. Finally, the paper highlights the unique perspective of a group of hybrid education professionals at the arts/education interface, and suggests future areas of research which might develop from this investigation of their practice.     

Visiting good company: Arendt and the development of the reflective practitioner

ABSTRACT

The importance of the concept of reflective practice within the teaching profession has been stressed heavily in recent decades. How it is enacted and how beginning teachers, in particular, have been encouraged to exercise it remains somewhat unclear, with the risk that it becomes a cursory, ill-informed exercise in self-affirmation rather than a central pillar of professional life. In this paper, Hannah Arendt's thinking on judgement, drawn from her studies of Kant, and particularly her concept of ‘enlarged thought’, are used to suggest a stronger basis for the nature of reflective practice and for the validity of the professional judgement involved. The paper concludes with some suggestions as to what could be involved in making fruitful use of Arendt's concept of judgement in the development of beginning teachers as reflective practitioners.     

论研究本位的教师教育理念与实践

教师研究是教师专业发展的重要途径。研究本位的教师教育模式成为当前世界教育变革的主题。研究本位的教师教育旨在培养实践反思型教师,而不是专业的研究者。本文阐释了研究本位的教师教育的内涵、范式及其改革实践。研究本位的教师教育主要包括目标定位、课程开发、教学方法以及大学与中小学合作伙伴的教师教育研究等四个方面的策略。     

The Cultural Roots of Professional Wisdom: Towards a broader view of teacher expertise

Perhaps the most pressing issue concerning teacher education and training since the end of the Second World War has been that of the role of theory—or principled reflection—in professional expertise. Here, although the main post-war architects of a new educational professionalism clearly envisaged a key role for theory—considering such disciplines as psychology, sociology and philosophy as indispensable for reflective practice—there are nevertheless well-rehearsed difficulties about crediting such disciplines with quite the (applied) role in educational practice of (say) physiology or anatomy in medical practice. This paper argues that while recent developments in professional teacher education and training may have moved on from erstwhile instrumentalist and/or applied science (competence and other) perspectives, there may yet be a case for further progress towards a rather more sophisticated philosophical psychology of teacher knowledge and expertise.