Contemporary Classroom Practice in Australian Primary Classrooms

What does the published literature on contemporary classroom practice in Australian primary schools tell us about what classroom practice looks like? And what strategic directions for research does a review of the literature suggest. In this review, I show that teacher educators preparing teachers for Australian primary schools have alarmingly little to go on in terms of what day to day life in schools is like, how the different parties involved perceive contemporary practice and how schools address, if they do at all, issues of social justice. I address some strategic directions for research. In particular, I suggest the need to accumulate case studies documenting and analysing contemporary school practices.     

Teachers reflecting on their work: articulating what is said about what is done

Teachers' written reflections on their work, which report on a change in their practice, were the object of this research. Taking teachers' articulation of their plans and actions in teacher journals as our source, this study's aim is twofold: (1) to describe how teacher reflect in a self‐initiated and non‐framed way on their own practice, and (2) to review teacher self generated reflections in reference to models of reflection. In this way, we tried to disclose what precisely teachers write (said) when reflecting on their work (did) in order to appreciate their way of describing what matters in their work; and position this in reference to models that conceptualise (“talk”) on how to actualise (‘walk’) reflection. This ‘double’ articulation of reflection is gauged in two ways, i.e., on: a) completeness, that is, whether it includes relevant components of reflection (models) to be found in the literature, and on b) recursiveness, that is, whether the written account gives evidence of an integrated cyclical, i.e., recursive process of re‐view, which appraises and looks back on what has been accomplished.

The results show that teachers do not work along the lines identified in current reflection models (i.e. providing clear problem definition, searching for evidence, planning for change, and reviewing plans). Instead, many teachers use a narrative and valuing appraisal of their accomplishments; not so much cautiously reviewing their actions but prospectively commenting on plans and solutions for future action. The data lead us to be cautious about the prominence of reflection models as advocated in the literature to be applied to teachers' written accounts of their practice.     

Teacher education accreditation in Turkey: The creation of a culture of quality

Turkey's experience in developing and piloting accreditation criteria and national standards for teacher education is examined. The full implementation of an accreditation process for teacher education programs was not completed within the time of the development project. However, the effort to do so encouraged the formation of a ‘quality culture’ in the faculties of education. The paper discusses what took place and analyses the later response of teacher educators to the introduction of accreditation criteria and the way in which they were introduced. Educators largely welcomed national standards and accreditation, but wished to have flexible means of implementation.     

Things Fall Apart and Come Together: Using the Visual for Reflection in Alternative Teacher Education Programmes

In this article, we focus on the use of the visual for reflection in ‘alternative’ pre‐service teacher education and, in particular, we address the question: How and what can we learn about teacher education using the visual? By way of illustration, we focus on the use of pre‐service teachers’ photographs in a public exhibition, participatory video documentary production and pre‐service teachers’ use of photographs in their professional teaching portfolios. The article draws from research done in relation to three alternative pre‐service teacher education projects based at McGill University in Canada and the University of KwaZulu‐Natal in South Africa.     

Reflection and theory: conceptualising the gap between teaching experience and teacher expertise

Arising from an inductive reflection on the teaching of an INSET course for rural teachers, this article develops a largely conceptual argument about the role of theoretical knowledge in teacher development. Teachers' experiences – and practical knowledge derived from it – are not sufficient to develop teacher expertise. Theoretical reflection in turn produces qualitatively different insights about teaching and learning, which can provide teachers with conceptual tools to establish new links between what they know and what they do. However, there is very little research evidence about the way experienced yet poorly qualified teachers use theoretical knowledge to reflect about their work     

The Oppressor Within: A Counterstory of Race, Repression, and Teacher Reflection

In this paper, I offer my own counterstory of matriculating through a teacher education program as an African American student on a predominately White campus as a reference point for thinking through how racism operates through teacher education’s dominant discourse and practice of teacher reflection. It is an important story to tell primarily because it touches on a largely unexplored dimension of teacher reflection. While the large majority of the literature has focused on how to prepare White preservice teachers to teach in a culturally and racially complex world, little qualitative attention has been given to the preparation of nonwhite students. While there are a few select and important articles that touch on some of the challenges African American students face in predominately White teacher education programs, including covert and overt racism, none focus on how teacher reflection might reproduce these dynamics. Thus what the literature on teacher reflection often suggests is that it is a racially neutral practice. In this essay, however, I suggests otherwise, by providing an intimate and critical look at my process of learning to be a reflective practitioner. The question I seek to grapple with is quite simply, “What does teacher reflection work to repress?”     

Learning to look through the eyes of our students: action research as a tool of inquiry

Abstract

The story we are about to tell occurred when Gayle was a middle school science teacher and graduate student in Joanne's seminar on the study of teaching. Gayle was trying to make sense of her science students' indifference toward the environment, an attitude that concerned her as an environmentalist. She turned her inquiry into an action research project that sought to answer the question, ‘What are the assumptions that my middle school students have about their relationship with the environment?’ Joanne was mentoring Gayle in her action research study, and at the same time exploring Gayle's perspective as an action researcher. Now, several years later, we are both action researchers and teacher educators and understand that we have been looking through the eyes of our students in order to become scholars of our own teaching.     

教师聊天,教师发展：一个教师学做科研的行动研究报告

鼓励普通教师积极参与科研是目前国内外教师发展的主题,通过一个教师第一次开展一个行动研究的过程记录,详细报道了此教师如何通过同事间私下聊天这种交流方式消除职业孤独、增强反省和解决教学问题的能力,成为善于合作的自信积极的人。通过系统对比分析专业研究者和普通教师研究者的科研条件和目标的区别,提出教师研究、教师发展的运动必须尽快树立教师友善的研究评估标准,以确保科研不会变成教师肩上的新负担、真正促进教师职业发展。     

The Enactment and Perception of Mathematics Pedagogical Values in an Elementary Classroom: Buddhism,Confucianism, and Curriculum Reform

The purpose of this case study was to investigate the values demonstrated by an elementary school teacher in her mathematics teaching and what values her students perceived. This research adopted the valuing theory (Raths, Harmin & Simon, 1987) and used classroom observations and interviews to document the teacher’s mathematics pedagogical values and a questionnaire, interviews, and instructional artifacts to document the students’ perceptions of these values. The results of this research identified two educational values and three mathematics pedagogical values that were influenced by the teacher’s personal beliefs about Buddhism, Confucianism, and curriculum. Her goals for education were to reinstate the students’ original enlightenment and the students’ respect for ethics and experts when dealing with people and life; and her values about mathematics learning were that it depends on individual efforts and personal understanding, her central purposes for teaching were to make students understand the mathematics content and to cultivate their problem-solving methods, and her purposes for evaluation were to understand students’ learning and to encourage students to correct their errors. The students’ awareness of these goals and values did not parallel the teacher’s personal priorities. The implications of teachers’ pedagogical values on teacher professional development and curriculum reform are discussed.     

Inside research,inside ourselves: teacher educators take stock of their research practice

This paper tells the story of how a group of teacher educators in a university education department used action research to examine their research situation, and what conclusions they reached. Some recent historical background puts the study in context, identifying tensions between university expectations and time‐heavy teaching demands that operated as obstacles to research activity. This context is shared by many academics who provide training for practitioners in UK universities that seek substantial funding through their performance in national research quality assessments. The project was initially organised in Spring 2007 by new research staff who had investigated staff perceptions of and interests in research through semi‐formal interviews, observations and documentation. An invited group turned to action research as a possible way forward. They asked the question ‘What kind of research culture do we want, and how can we get it?’ Over a year, all participants gathered at semi‐formal meetings for collaborative reflection and discussion, engaged in a diversity of micro‐researches that experimented with ways of researching around the barriers, and wrote a collaborative paper about what they had learned. This gave rise to a series of national and international conference presentations that drew several of the group members into the wider research community. The group members grew to realise that the kind of research that they perceived the institution to value was not necessarily a kind that was readily built into their identities as teacher educators. But this realisation itself was empowering, exposing previously opaque assumptions that had left a felt irreconcilability that had been difficult to articulate.     

Relationships in the workplace: Doing what comes naturally?

In this paper I explore the connection between workplace relationships and teacher development. Using a conceptual framework built on Brim and Wheeler's (1966) ideas on self-socialization and Erickson's (1963) theory of psychosocial development I draw on information gathered in year one of a 2-year qualitative study of teacher socialization to explore the following questions: With whom do beginning teachers form relationships in their new professional contexts? What is the nature of these relationships? What functions do they serve? Are some relationships more important at some times than others? How do certain relationships facilitate or constrain the various aspects of teacher development? Can facilitating relationships be contrived? Can contrived relationships be facilitating? And, finally, what role does context play in all of this?The focus on relationships grows out of a need to understand better the role of the “other” in the professional growth process. By examining information gathered through conversations with 13 new teachers I will uncover and explore some of the issues pertaining to professional relationship formation and development particularly in relation to teacher socialization and the psychosocial aspects of teacher development. These insights will be used as a basis for a discussion of formalized induction programs which feature forms of institutionally imposed collaborative arrangements. Drawing on some of the recent work on teacher culture and collegiality (Hargreaves, 1990; Little, 1990; Rosenholtz, 1987, 1989), Barth's (1990) ideas on school improvement through the creation of a “community of learners”, and on Noddings' (1986) and Gherke's (1987) notions on the building of caring and helping communities, I will discuss the limitations of some of the recent trends in professional development for new teachers. I will recommend an alternative approach to new teacher induction, one that takes into account the individuality of the teacher, the school culture, and the socialization process. In essence, I will argue for a “natural” and integrated approach to teacher induction.     

Narratives, choices, alienation, and identity: learning from an elementary science teacher

As we contemplate on teacher identity research, there is a need to place a teacher’s narratives or story-lines at the center of that work. In this forum, in response to the insightful commentary from Stephen Ritchie and Maria Iñez Mafra Goulart and Eduardo Soares, I place a greater emphasis on understanding Daisy’s narratives from an existing social identity framework. Narratives tell us intricate and complex actions that a teacher has taken both personally and professionally. Additionally, narratives help us see implicit nature of identity explicitly. Therefore, a greater focus has to be placed on interactions and utterances of a teacher to make sense of who they are and what they do as expressed by their own words (identity and action). Finally, I join with Ritchie and Goulart and Soares to advocate that identity research needs to include participants as co-researchers and co-authors as identities are very personal and complex to be fully understood by the outsiders (researchers).     

Learning to teach at the elbows: The tao of teaching

The metaphor learning to teach at the elbows is put forward in this article to highlight claims about learning to teach that focus on the development of “teaching manner.” My particular interest is in characterizing and understanding aspects of teaching that seem to be acquired, shared, mediated, and changed through teachers' work together—a shaping which I believe occurs initially through mimicry in the practice setting, and which in many cases appears to take place independent of rational deliberation. I ask “How do I understand this kind of learning?” and “How, then, do I then represent my work as a teacher educator?” These questions are explored in light of contemporary Western ideas about situated cognition, activity, and identity—ideas which are extended further in this paper by pointing out similar problems related to integrating knowing and action that are found in early Chinese philosophy. In particular, the dialogical relationship between Confucianism and Taoism provides a useful framework for understanding the studio interplay between learning as socio-culturally mediated activity and critical reflection in the initial preparation of teachers.     

Teacher reflections on ‘bumpy moments’ in teaching: a self‐study

This study recounts a practicing teacher's attempt to describe reflections during the course of teaching at the primary level. A self‐study was conducted to address teacher thinking during ‘bumpy moments’ in teaching, offering an insight into how we might capture the details of teachers' unseen reflections. Through an analysis of the many ‘bumpy moments’ in teaching, several important findings emerged about the nature of reflection and how reflection actually occurs in the classroom context. Results of this study have implications for future research, teacher education and improvement of the teaching practice.     

Opportunities and limitations for learning within teachers’ collaboration in teams: perspectives from action learning

Researchers posit that teachers' teaching and learning are improved by teachers' collective efforts to examine and reflect on practice. Yet the questions of what and how teachers learn when collaborating with colleagues remain unanswered: What kinds of knowledge and skills do teachers acquire in conjunction with their collaboration? What brings about teachers' learning when they collaborate in teams? And how does their learning affect their practice? In this paper I will examine to what extent action learning can contribute to answering these questions from a Danish perspective.

I begin the paper by presenting action learning, which formed the framework for the teacher team collaboration that provides the empirical fundament of this paper, and by discussing my roles as consultant and researcher. Thereafter, first the possibilities, then the limitations of teachers' collaboration in teams for learning are discussed. Finally, several methodological dilemmas are considered and the paper's conclusions are presented.     

Studying science teacher identity: current insights and future research directions

Over the past 10?years an increasing number of articles have been published in leading science education journals that report on research about teacher identity and describe interventions that support teacher identity development. My purpose in this review paper is to examine how the construct of science teacher identity has been conceptualised and studied in science education. In doing so, I synthesise the findings of 29 empirical studies on teacher identity within the field of science education in an attempt to respond to the following questions: (a) In what ways have researchers used the construct of teacher identity to examine science teacher learning and development? (b) What approaches to supporting science teacher identity development have been documented in the literature? Following that, I identify gaps and limitations in the existing literature and I offer recommendations for future research in the area of science teacher identity and identity development: (a) studying teacher identity as a process; (b) connecting science teacher identity research and reform recommendations; (c) conducting large-scale, longitudinal and life-history studies; and (d) examining teacher identity enactment in school classrooms.     

Formative assessment and teaching practice: the point of view of Italian teachers

Over the years the debate on the aims, approaches, and impacts of formative assessment has never stopped to grow. Parallel to this growth is the awareness that it is crucial to understand what conceptions teachers have of assessment in order to guarantee more effective teacher education. This paper tries to connect these two fields of research: formative assessment and teacher education through an analysis of teachers’ conceptions: What do teachers think about assessment? What aims do they pursue through it? Do teachers really distinguish between formative and summative assessment? On the backdrop of the formative assessment literature, the article reports on an exploratory research study. Limitations and issues are analysed in order to shed light on teacher education implication and on future educational research paths in the educational assessment field.     

Roles, caring and learning to teach science

Classroom narratives and stories are rich and powerful in offering deep insights into classrooms and the reality of teaching—a reality critically re-examined in this forum. Discussing Maria’s narratives led to reflections about what it takes to support teachers to become agents of more equitable science practices. Factors such as time and identity-work are key dimensions of the authors’ struggle, but they also address understanding students in profound ways. The ways in which contradictions at different levels in the educational system can become sources of growth, reflection and action are discussed; yet no simple answers follow. Teaching and becoming a teacher are best understood as life-long processes of reflection and action and as political acts that entail challenging many boundaries. They also involve putting oneself into vulnerable roles and positions. This dialogue opens up many questions about how we can collaborate, guide and support both novices and experienced professionals in education as researchers, science staff developers, and teacher educators. It seeks to support the on-going quest to make science education authentic and equitable.     

The reconceptualisation of learner-centred approaches: a Namibian case study

The case study, which explored the implementation of learner-centred approaches, emerged from an action research study of a three-year INSET (In-service Education and Training) programme for 145 unqualified primary teachers in Namibia. A learner-centred curriculum was introduced in Namibia soon after her Independence from South Africa in 1990. It was considered an effective antidote to the stifling teacher-centred practices used within the previous apartheid system. The case study raises questions about the implementation of learner-centred approaches. Data emerged which indicated their non-implementation, and reasons are presented to explain this: teacher professional capacity at the time of the study, limited resources, cultural factors and learner background. Efforts within the INSET programme to support teachers’ implementation of learner-centred approaches led to their reconceptualisation. The study indicated the effectiveness of developing teachers’ skills in the use of whichever approaches, methods and skills best bring about learning. The study highlights the usefulness of an adaptive approach—examining the realities within which teachers work and experimenting with strategies that seek to achieve student learning within the limitations of these realities. The focus is on learning-centred rather than learner-centred approaches.