Tailored for China: did it work? Reflections on an intensive study abroad programme for Chinese student teachers

ABSTRACT

This study examines how a cohort of 32 Chinese student teachers experience a 3-week Intensive Study Abroad Programme in Canada, which focused on facilitating understanding of teaching and learning from an international perspective. Research findings underscore the effectiveness of a context responsive approach to cross-cultural teaching and learning that places emphasis upon modelling and deliberate explication of teaching practice, experiential learning and dialogic reflection.     

From assistant teacher to teacher: challenges and pathways in situated pre-service teacher education

Vocational pathways to Higher Education have a key role in opening teacher education to under-represented groups but bring with them particular challenges. Teacher educators need to address the challenges faced by these learners, of not only connecting their learning but also challenging their knowledge, and doing so in an invested work environment. This paper shares my experiences as a teacher educator working with two groups of Indigenous and non-Indigenous para-professional pre-service teachers in remote and urban Central Australia. I identify four key role-shifting challenges individuals face in developing their professional practice and locate them in two interdependent areas: social sphere challenges arising out of the situated learning setting of professional experience, and those occurring in the personal sphere of professional identity. I suggest that the new ways of mentoring and the development of student’s reflexive capacity needed to address these challenges can best be mobilised by re-positioning the role of professional identity at the centre of both professional experience and academic learning.     

Learning,teaching, and constructing identities: ESL pre-service teacher experiences during a short-term international experience programme

Short-term international experience programmes are a common element of English second language (ESL) teacher education in many countries. This study problematizes the belief that such programmes necessarily result in beneficial changes in pre-service teachers thinking about themselves as teachers – their beliefs, habits, and values – by exploring the experiences of eight pre-service ESL teachers from Hong Kong as they undertook a short-term international experience programme in Australia. Drawing on a theory of identity construction, the findings suggest that identity conflicts impacted how the student teachers experienced this programme as they struggled to reconcile past, present, and future trajectories of teacher identity. In particular, the student teachers constructed rigid divisions between different types of teachers and teaching they experienced at home and abroad. These divisions were reflected in antagonistic relations between the types of English language teachers and teaching they aligned their own teaching activities and practices with and the teacher identities that they perceived to be available to them within the Hong Kong education system. Implications for addressing such identity conflicts throughout international experience programmes are considered and implications for future research are discussed.     

Impact of short-term study abroad program: Inservice teachers' development of intercultural competence and pedagogical beliefs

A comprehensive study abroad program is one of the most effective ways to prepare multicultural and global teachers. However, in teacher education, most of the study abroad programs are designed for preservice teachers. In this study, we detailed the design of a short-term study abroad program for inservice teachers and reported on the impact of the program not only on teachers’ intercultural competence development, but also their teaching beliefs and practices. Discussions and implications were provided for educators designing study abroad programs for teachers.     

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.     

Promoting experiential learning in pre-service teacher education

This report introduces the experiential learning initiative at a major university in Hong Kong that prepares pre-service teachers with experience of engaging with social and cultural issues in teaching. It calls on teacher educators in different contexts to work together on similar initiatives that help pre-service teachers grow professionally through designing, developing, managing and promoting their experiential learning projects to enhance human development and improve human conditions.     

Assessing multicultural competence (knowledge and awareness) in study abroad experiences

This study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the study abroad experience on student multicultural competence (i.e. knowledge and awareness) using the Multicultural Counselling Knowledge and Awareness Scale in two study abroad programmes during four separate yearly excursions. The first study abroad programme incorporated cultural immersion and two courses taught over five weeks in Germany. The second five-week study abroad programme focused on exploring non-governmental organisations and development as well as multicultural competence in India. Effect size results indicate that both direct and indirect approaches to increasing multicultural competence can be effective in exposing students to diverse immersive multicultural perspectives, norms, rituals, and practices.     

Tracking changes in pre-service EFL teacher beliefs in Greece: A longitudinal study

This article reports on a longitudinal study that aims to investigate pre-service EFL teacher beliefs about learning and teaching in Greece. The study attempts to track possible changes in those beliefs during a 3-year teacher education program and explores the impact of teaching practice, in particular, on student teachers’ beliefs. The results indicate that while there is a gradual and sometimes significant development in student teachers’ beliefs during the program, student teachers’ engagement in the teaching practice seems to have a low impact on the development of their beliefs. Those findings are interpreted with reference to the structure and context of the specific teacher education program and can be useful for the design and development of EFL teacher education programs.     

Teaching in rural Turkey: pre-service teacher perspectives

Despite preliminary findings that preparing teachers for rural positions is of great importance in Turkey’s conditions, little has been reported regarding the measures that need to be addressed in order to effectively prepare teachers for remote areas. In response to this gap, the present study aimed to provide some preliminary views about the expectations of pre-service teachers in relation to rural teaching from a qualitative research paradigm. Data were collected through an open-ended questionnaire from 115 senior pre-service teachers in a large Turkish university. Thematic analysis of the data revealed that participants had polarised views about the issue. While some of them viewed the experience positively, others highlighted the potential challenges. Pre-service teachers’ vague and dichotomous images concerning rural teaching suggested that they had some preconceptions formed through media representations or word of mouth. Implications for teacher education and professional development, along with directions for future research were included.     

International field experiences: The impact of class,gender and race on the perceptions and experiences of preservice teachers

We explore ways class, gender and race complicate perceptions and experiences of preservice teachers during an international field experience in Honduras. Data were collected over 5 years through observations, group discussions, course assignments, and on-site focus group interviews and post-trip individual interviews. An inductive approach combined with cross-comparative analysis reveal diverse ways class, gender and race shaped and re-shaped preservice teachers' perceptions of self, peers, and host community members. We conclude with a call for international cross-cultural experiences that encourage preservice teachers to critically examine their perspectives, positions in the host community, and learning during study abroad.     

Linking reform-oriented experiences to teacher identity: The case of an elementary mathematics teacher

Novice teachers often have difficulty transferring what they learn in teacher education programs to classroom practice. This is especially true for elementary school teachers who are expected to teach mathematics with reform-oriented methods. The purpose of this longitudinal case study was to examine the experience of one novice elementary school teacher over a 3-year period, and understand the factors that supported her to enact a reform-oriented practice in mathematics as she transitioned from being a preservice to inservice teacher. Influential mathematics education models, her commitment to learning, and school-based contexts affected her teaching identity and practices. To conclude, an argument is made for teacher education experiences to explicitly address mathematics teacher identity to support the enactment of reform-oriented practices.     

Consonance and dissonance in a study abroad program as a catalyst for professional development of pre-service teachers

This research examines the experiences of elementary and early childhood pre-service teachers from the U.S. engaged in a month long study abroad internship program in England. Using data from participants written journals, we use a hermeneutic approach to interrogate their evolving sense of professional development and their understanding of cultural differences in the internship in England. Informed by a theoretical framework of consonance and dissonance (Cochran-Smith, M. (1991). Reinventing student teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 42(2), 104–118), the emerging themes were related to the school context, the teacher's role, the learners, the buildings, and the community. Implications are for planning and facilitation of pre-service teachers study abroad experiences are discussed.     

SRL in Online Cooperative Learning: implications for pre-service teacher training

The aim of this article is to investigate the relation between self-regulated learning and online collaborative environments. Based on the study of a blended course for trainee teachers, it explores the potential of the online collaborative component of the course for the practice and development of Self-Regulated Learning. The study made use of two questionnaires, developed within the TELEPEERS European project, to evaluate the potential support to SRL provided by technology-enhanced learning environments. The results provide information about the aspects of SRL practised in our environment. These include social competences, such as communication and negotiation with tutors and peers, emotional and motivational aspects, such as keeping up motivation and maintaining and restoring a positive working attitude, and cognitive and metacognitive skills such as management of time and learning environment and reflection on learning outcomes. The study also suggests the need to consider not only the SRL of the individuals involved in the learning process, but also the SRL of the whole community, that is, the result of the mediation between individual autonomy and group collaboration.     

Everyday life and everyday learning: the ways in which pre-service teacher education curriculum can encourage personal dimensions of teacher identity

This article presents and discusses the findings of a research project, the main objective of which is to identify curriculum components that promote personal development as a nuclear part of teacher professional identity formation through pre-service teacher education. Curriculum is viewed as an ecological scenario with different subsystems and both as formal and informal. Identity formation is conceived as an ever-provisional result of a double transaction: the biographical one and the relational one. The curricula of four different historical periods of pre-service teacher education in Portugal and the professional identity of teachers trained within them were characterised through collection and analysis of documents and biographical narratives. Crossing results from the four periods, the quality of school climate emerges as an important variable to the quality of the teachers’ identity. The lifelong learning ethos seems to emerge when the training curriculum connects everyday learning with everyday life, namely by urging the students’ involvement in school life, peer learning activities and peer and teacher educators’ informal learning activities.     

Service learning using English language teaching in pre-service teacher education in Singapore

In line with the Ministry of Education's vision of the delivery of twenty-first century competencies amongst all students in Singapore, the National Institute of Education in Singapore employs service learning as a pedagogical tool to develop community outreach and engagement. This paper begins with a review of related literature on service learning as a means of enhancing the quality of pre-service teacher education programmes internationally. It then looks at how the teaching of the English language may be used as a principal means by which students can make an impact on a local community of their choice in the Singaporean context. It draws attention to the nexus of theory and practice via highlighting three service-learning projects where the vital relationship between the pedagogical methods area of study known as Curriculum Studies on English Language Teaching and the opportunity to practise English language teaching outside the traditional clinic field experience offered through practicum posting are presented. The paper concludes with the proposition that service learning promotes active citizenry and moral education of youth and allows student teachers an opportunity to build deep partnerships with the community even before they step into the teaching profession as full-fledged teachers.     

职前英语教师教育实习期身份建构叙事探究

本文采用叙事探究方法,以一名职前英语教师为研究对象,探索其实习期身份建构及其影响因素。研究表明,该教师在实习期建构了批改工具、良师益友、学习者、多面手及教师预备兵等多重身份。影响其身份发展的个人因素主要包括个人过往学习经历、反思能力和情感,社会因素主要为重要他者和学校文化。本研究对推动职前教师积极身份建构和职前教师教育具有重要意义。     

Spaces of possibility in pre-service teacher education

Pre-service teacher education is a spatialised enterprise. It operates across a number of spaces that may or may not be linked ideologically and/or physically. These spaces can include daily practices, locations, infrastructure, relationships and representations of power and ideology. The interrelationships between and within these (sometimes competing) spaces for pre-service teachers will influence their identities as teachers and learners across time and space. Pre-service teachers are expected to make the connections between these often-contradictory spaces with little or no guidance on how to negotiate such complex relationships. These are difficult spaces, yet the slippages and gaps between these spaces offer generative possibilities. This paper explores these spaces of possibility for pre-service teacher education, and uses the spatial theories of Lefebvre and Foucault to argue that critical reflective practice can be used to create Soja’s ‘thirdspace’ for reconstructing future practice.     

Science teacher education for sustainable development: a case study of a residential field course in a Norwegian pre-service teacher education programme

In this paper, we explore how a Norwegian teacher education institution promotes education for sustainable development (ESD) through a residential field course. The residential field course was located in a mountain area and data were collected through participant observation. The data included—together with instructional artefacts—evaluation schemes and assignments written by the student teachers, and the analysis was based on categories for science ESD. Through exemplary teaching experiences in an outdoor environment and pupil-active teaching methods, such as inquiry learning and phenomenon-based teaching, the student teachers gained experience in outdoor education and of stepping into the unknown in a safe learning environment. This was further connected to ESD pedagogy.     

Professional identity in graduating teacher candidates

This longitudinal mixed methods study investigates the development of teacher candidates’ professional identity throughout a four-year degree program. Data were analyzed using the following dimensions of professional identity: task orientation, self-efficacy, commitment to teaching, and professional orientation. During practicum, teacher candidates were able to realize the ideals articulated in their teaching philosophies, including a strong focus on student engagement. Their self-efficacy grew as they developed a sense of purpose in teaching and committed to future growth in assessment. Professional orientation flourished in supportive school-based seminars. All participants remain committed to teaching in part because they were able to persevere through challenges. Program features supporting professional identity are discussed.