The Significance of Physical Education Content: “Sending the Message” in Physical Education Teacher Education

Mind-body dualism has likely influenced how many view human beings and their behavior—mind (i.e., thinking) is elevated over body (i.e., performing)—even in Physical Education Teacher Education. The problem is that such a perspective makes physical education content (i.e., dance, games, play, and sport) subsidiary to more “intellectual” or “academic” content. This article invites Physical Education Teacher Education faculty to consider how to effectively “send the message” to future physical educators that physical education content is valuable and respectable and in many ways epitomizes intelligent human behavior. Specifically, Physical Education Teacher Education faculty are invited to (a) challenge traditional definitions of intelligence and introduce alternative definitions, (b) participate regularly in their own playgrounds, (c) provide a sufficient dose of activity courses in their curricula, (d) teach activity courses, (e) establish a performance-oriented culture, and (f) administer performance and/or game play evaluations.     

Training the Physical Education Teacher: A Worried Re‐Think

Abstract

The increasing demand on nurses to adopt the roles and responsibilities of full professional status have been reflected in nurse training by the move into higher education. However, while there are undoubted benefits to this move, the authors believe that it has been at the expense of student involvement in their courses and a widening of the gap between theory and practice.

This paper presents three strategies for addressing those problems. Firstly, the authors argue for a student‐centred humanistic approach to education within the constraints of a curriculum for professional training. Secondly, they present a strategy for narrowing the theory practice gap through the use of reflective practice. Finally, they outline an approach to continuous and ongoing course evaluation in which findings are immediately applied to produce a flexible and responsive curriculum. The paper concludes by arguing that this broad approach could be successfully employed in any professional training within the further and higher education framework.     

When the “Other” Is the Teacher: Implications of Teacher Diversity in Higher Education

The Urban Review - Using qualitative methods, I explore these questions: What is it like for women of color to teach in predominantly white universities? What happens in the classroom of a...     

Finding Common Ground: A Synthesis of Science and Mathematics Teacher Educators’ Experiences with Professional Growth

The seven articles that comprise this Special Issue examine the professional growth of mathematics and science teacher educators across different contexts and different foci of who is the teacher educator being studied. Despite these differences, a common thread running throughout these seven articles is the need for learning to be situated in collaboration with others. In this final article, we examine the contribution of these articles through two perspectives: that of the collaborative contexts supporting the professional growth of mathematics and science teacher educators, and the role of disciplinary knowledge as part of the purpose for teacher educators’ professional growth. We notice that collaboration can take on very different structures in supporting teacher educators’ professional learning due to the different purposes and roles of the teacher educators in the studies. We also notice that while collaboration figures as an important component in all of the studies, the disciplinary specific aspects of collaboration, i.e., how collaboration might be negotiated differently by teacher educators in mathematics and science, is still not well understood. Overall, these articles provide important insights that help to shed new light on the complex and multifaceted nature of teacher educators’ learning and growth and provide productive avenues for future research.

     

“What’s the Middle Ground? Am I Ever Going to be the Perfect Teacher?:” Self-Study of a Doctoral Student’s Acculturation Process

In higher education, doctoral training has been identified as a process of stewardship development whereby individuals learn the knowledge and skills required to advance their respective disciplines. Self-study of teacher education practices is one approach that has gained the interest of doctoral students to help them understand their own development whilst also forging recommendations for others in publications. In this self-study, we worked to understand the experiences of Shrehan, a teacher from England beginning doctoral study in the USA. Shrehan had no experience teaching at the college level prior to moving to the USA, and she saw self-study as an opportunity to understand her development and acculturation into an unfamiliar system of higher education. Data were collected through journaling, critical-friend discussions, and artefacts, as well as student data in the form of surveys, exit slips, and focus-group interviews. Qualitative data analysis of Shrehan’s experiences was guided by the four stages of acculturation theory – honeymoon, culture shock, adjustment, and recovery. Shrehan’s journey emphasizes the importance of getting to know undergraduate students and building rapport as key aspects of teaching at the college level. Self-study provided Shrehan with a heightened personal-identity awareness that increased her cultural sensitivity and broadened her worldview. Results are discussed with reference to acculturation theory and future directions for research are provided.     

“I am Out of My Comfort Zone”: Self-study of the Struggle of Adapting to the Professional Identity of a Teacher Educator

It is often assumed that graduate students will develop as teacher educators simply by participating in a doctoral program. However, research has shown that doctoral students find the shift from teaching K-12 to preparing teachers to be a difficult transition. Within the context of a doctoral program community of practice established specifically for the purpose of examining this transition through self-study research, we sought to understand the shift in identity of a novice teacher educator working as an early field experience instructor with elementary science and mathematics preservice teachers. Our findings indicate that the process of self-study research, when supported within a community of practice, offered Jared the opportunity to recognize different aspects of his shifting professional identity, the dominance of particular aspects of his identity in certain situations, and the impact this was having on his students’ development as teachers. Developing this awareness of his adapting professional teaching identity from a classroom teacher to a teacher educator should help as he continues to develop his knowledge and skills working with teachers in different contexts and at different grade levels. Implications for how teacher education programs could better support the professional identity development of novice teacher educators through the use of a self-study focused community of practice are discussed.     

A Sociological Interpretation of the Formation of Teacher＇s Education Idea

教师教育观念作为教师个体成长的“伴生物”,是教师文化的核心构成元素,具有稳定性和可塑性。依据结构功能理论,教师身处和谐社会体系之中,其行为不可避免地受到体系结构的规约,教师教育观念是在角色扮演过程中逐渐形成的,来自学校或其他专业团体的外部支持对教师教育观念的形成具有重要作用。社会冲突理论则认为,教师作为教育实践活动的主体,其教育观念的形成是教师进行主动社会建构的结果,教师应该担负起建构个人教育观念的主要责任。而符号互动理论则强调,个体不能无视和脱离社会结构与情境的影响,教师教育观念的形成过程就是教师在特定的社会环境中,不断地与他人互动、对话、沟通的动态发展历程。     

Teacher Learning and Collaborative Action Research: Generating a “Knowledge-of-Practice” in the Context of Science Education

In this case study, teacher inquiry groups from 3 school districts engaged and transformed various facets of their professional knowledge and practice in the context of science education. To examine the nature of teacher learning, a 3-part teacher knowledge and learning framework, proposed by Cochran-Smith and Lytle in 1999, was adopted (knowledge-for-practice, knowledge-in-practice, and knowledge-of-practice). While 16 school-based inquiry groups participated in the collaborative action research project, one case study involving a primary teacher, Katrina, is highlighted to illustrate outcomes related to the role of collaborative inquiry in supporting teacher learning, contextual issues and concerns that impact teachers’ daily classroom practice, and the types of knowledge generated by teachers within collaborative inquiry communities.     

Do the Study of Education and Teacher Education Belong at a Liberal Arts College?

The question whether the study of education and teacher education belong at a liberal arts college deserves careful consideration. In this essay Bruce Kimball analyzes and finds unpersuasive the three principled rationales that are most often advanced on behalf of excluding educational studies, teacher education, or both from a liberal arts college. Specifically, Kimball argues that no principled definition of the conventional liberal arts disciplines excludes the study of education without barring other fields now regarded as legitimate, and consistency demands that all such fields be excluded if any are. In addition, teacher education, even if considered as merely “craft know‐how” or as professional training, cannot be excluded from liberal arts colleges without arbitrarily classifying it as suspect and subjecting it to strict scrutiny. But the question of whether educational studies or teacher education fit any asserted definition of liberal education does not finally resolve the question of whether they belong in a liberal arts college. Kimball concludes by suggesting that there are moral and prudential reasons for liberal arts colleges to offer teacher education and, concomitantly, the study of education, even apart from the unpersuasive objections that they do not fit a definition of liberal education.     

Developing a Pedagogy of “Making” through Collaborative Self-Study

We believe that the ideas associated with the Maker Movement have profound implications for teacher education. We have isolated the pedagogical principles of hack, adapt, design, and create as central to exploring how they work with teacher candidate participants in a maker pedagogy lab. We frame these ideas as Maker Pedagogy, which is the enactment of the principles inspired by the maker movement in the classroom to foster learners who operate as innovators, creators, sharers and givers of knowledge, tools and technologies. The purpose of our self-study research is to describe, interpret and analyze how our pedagogies of teacher education and our critical friendship have changed and developed as a result of providing experiences for teacher candidates in our maker pedagogy lab. In this project we use self-study methodology to investigate our teaching and practices, and we dialogue about our tacit and personal knowledge as it contributes to the knowledge and understanding of our teaching through Maker Pedagogy. In particular, the emphasis is on critical collaborative inquiry through critical friends and on dialogue as a valued component of our research. Of particular interest were data in the video recordings of each lab that indicated that one or both of us had reframed our understanding of maker pedagogy. The findings are framed as three themes that document what we are learning about Maker Pedagogy through teaching teacher candidates. These are (1) the value of self-study methodology, (2) Maker Pedagogy as distinct and (3) deepening our pedagogies of teacher education.     

Shaking the “Magic 8 Ball”: Reflections of a First-Time Teacher

Social work doctoral candidates and others without much or any formal teaching experience or training are frequently invited to teach a variety of graduate-level social work courses. This beginning teaching experience can be quite challenging both personally and professionally. Yet, it is seldom discussed in the literature, especially from a personal perspective. This paper seeks to address that gap by providing a narrative account of the author's first-time experience teaching an Advanced Clinical Practice course to fifteen second year social work masters students. Included is an examination of influences on the experience of teaching, with particular attention to the importance of attending to student needs, teaching techniques, and to who the “self” is that one brings to teaching. Implications of the author's experience, including an appended “list” of what might have been done differently is presented as a general guide for other new social work educators as well as for those who mentor them.     

Immigration in 2018: What is a Teacher Educator to Do?

ABSTRACT

This article contemplates the unique responsibilities of teacher educators toward immigrant students and teachers in a changing immigration landscape. The article highlights scholarship in critical care pedagogy and culturally sustaining pedagogies and identifies three “action areas” where teacher educators can apply these theories. The authors also recommend practices that can be adopted to create more caring and culturally sustaining spaces for immigrant teachers and students.     

A Teacher of the Old School

My grandfather was a teacher. He was the headteacher of a school for boys between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. I know that he was a kind and gentle man at heart, because when I was young(and he was old), he gave me presents, and sat me on his knee, and told me stories. But I believe the boys at his school were afraid of him.     

Striving for Discussion: An Analysis of a Teacher Educator’s Comments in Whole-Class Conversation

During my English Language Arts methods class, I noticed that my discussion patterns were teacher-focused and in an Initiation-Response-Evaluation format. Because I wanted to model dialogic methods of whole-class discussions for my preservice teachers, I recoiled from this finding and began a self-study using an action research method to examine the techniques and comments I used while leading whole-class discussion. Using dialogic instruction as the theoretical perspective, I examined 11 class sessions, including 32 whole-class discussion events. I found that I was using phrases that stopped student-to-student interaction and that I often took over the conversations. These findings led to more questions about the nuance in the analysis of whole-class discussion, as well as some specific concepts that I incorporated into my teaching of the next year’s class.     

Industry‐related Work in Initial Teacher Education: a decade of development

Abstract

In the last decade, against a background of growing links between industry and schools, industry‐related work in teacher education has undergone a considerable expansion, in terms of numbers of courses, of time devoted and of numbers of students involved. Influences on this expansion have included the initiatives of individuals, the work of link organisations, course criteria in OES circulars, a spreading conviction of the relevance of industry‐related work to the personal and professional development of teachers, the stimulus of networks and partnerships of institutions and industries and the work of specific externally‐funded projects, including Industrial and Commercial Perspectives in Initial Teacher Education (ICP) and Enterprise Awareness in Teacher Education (EATE). During this period there has been a ‘conceptual shift’ in the idea of industry‐related work to include enterprise capability, as well as economic and industrial understanding; in tune with this shift, the accent in courses has been increasingly placed on practical experience and negotiated investigational activities.