Preparing student teachers to use computers in mathematics classrooms through a long-term pre-service course in Turkey

Recent studies have found short in-service teacher education programs are not providing adequate technology experiences to prepare their participants for teaching mathematics with computers. As an alternative to the short-term courses the author has been teaching a two-term mandatory undergraduate course within a mathematics teacher education program since 1995 to train student teachers and to investigate their perceptions on their preparation to use computers in their own teaching. This article describes issues that emerged from the analysis of this undergraduate course. Data were gathered through questionnaires and students' writings about the course activities. Findings indicated that computer literacy appeared to be an important key factor in utilising the course activities successfully. Students who felt prepared made the link between computer-based mathematical activities and school mathematics, and had more experience of using instructional software during the course than others. Findings of this nature can also assist teacher educators as they incorporate information technology into existing pre-service programs. The implications of these results for the designing and implementing of computer-based undergraduate courses and for further research in this field are discussed.     

‘School doesn't feel as much of a partnership’: parents' perceptions of their children's transition from nursery school to Reception class

This small‐scale study explores a group of English parents' perceptions of their relationships with their child's nursery school and, after the transition to Reception class, their primary school. It references current research and literature on the issues of transition and the role of parents in their children's education. Findings from semi‐structured interviews with parents, and with the children's key workers, were analysed for emergent themes. Parents felt very positively about their relationship with their child's nursery, and that they were fully involved in, and informed about, their child's learning. However, the transition to school heralded a change in their relationships. Most parents felt that they had a more distant and less reciprocal relationship with their child's teacher than they had had with their key worker at nursery. The paper concludes with recommendations for further research.     

‘It’s very much taken as an insult if I say anything’: do new educators have a right to speak their mind?

This article describes the challenges beginning teachers face in schooling contexts that have become increasingly subject to direct political intervention. To tell the story it focuses on the experiences of five teachers in their first year of teaching in an urban jurisdiction in Australia, examining the ways in which they taught literacy, and were required to teach literacy. Government-driven political agendas of national testing, teacher standards and performance pay were all gaining traction as they commenced their first year of teaching. The ways in which these new educators felt they were discouraged from voicing their own opinions about these issues are examined and the consequences of silencing new educators are considered. The article concludes with recommendations for teacher education programmes to better prepare teachers for the politics of teaching.     

More than just a group: teacher collaboration and learning in the workplace

Teaching is often characterized as an isolated activity, yet opportunities for teachers to work and learn together in schools are increasing. Underlying this shift is the view that as teachers work on new practices and teaching challenges together, they will express varied perspectives, reveal different teaching styles and experiences, and stimulate reflection and professional growth. Despite strong research interest in teacher learning groups, few studies have looked at the relationship between teachers' conversations and collaboration outside the classroom and their actual classroom teaching. Drawing on data from a larger study of literacy instruction with middle‐school teachers, this article describes how three teachers participated in an ongoing literacy program with a research group. Two were seventh‐ and eighth‐grade language‐arts teachers, the third was a special‐education teacher who taught a substantially separate class of cognitively delayed and learning‐disabled students. Case studies of each teacher draw on meeting observations, classroom observations and interviews to describe how each participated in after‐school meetings, how they used the work of the group in the classroom, and how they brought teaching successes and challenges back to the group. Although each of the teachers participated actively in the teacher learning group and changed their practice, the teachers with the most advanced teaching of literacy practices did not bring that expertise into the teacher group as fully as they might have. The analysis raises questions about how teachers participate and learn and how to structure teacher groups to maximize teacher learning.     

Women and literacy: a Nepal perspective

This article looks at adult women's experiences of literacy and literacy learning in a remote area of Western Nepal. As part of a research degree at Sussex University, I spent eight months living in a small village community where an American aid agency was implementing a development programme, comprising of a literacy class with follow-up income-generating activities for women. Drawing on an “ideological” approach to literacy research, I investigated how women and men of differing ages and economic backgrounds used literacy in their everyday lives. My research aimed to move away from the simple polarisation of women and men, traditional and developed, to analyse what meanings of literacy and gender were shared or disputed between different groups of people and how they reacted to literacy interventions by a foreign aid agency.By looking at three main kinds of literacy practices which so-called “illiterate” women participated in—existing everyday practices such as religious reading; new everyday practices such as account keeping introduced by the aid agency; and the literacy class which ran every evening in the village—this article analyses how women reacted to different kinds of literacies and what they gained from attending a literacy class. Everyday literacies tended to be seen as separate or even in opposition to the literacy class or new practices since they were learnt informally in the home. Many new literacy practices, such as form filling or keeping minutes, were viewed by both men and women as symbolic of the agency's authority but not necessarily useful. The literacy class introduced women to new roles as “class participants” and more participatory methods of teaching, but they preferred the kind of education seen in local schools so encouraged the teacher to adopt chanting methods and mirror the hierarchical teacher–pupil relationship.Though the women contested the dominant model of literacy and gender presented to them by the aid agency—that reading and writing would help in their existing role as mothers or wives or were useful for income generating—they wanted to become “educated” by attending the literacy class. They felt they gained a new identity through becoming literate and valued the additional social space that the class gave them as a group of women from differing backgrounds. Certain new practices like creative writing, though imposed by the aid agency, were welcomed by women at the class as enabling them to have a new voice.     

‘I never imagined I’d have to teach these children’: providing authentic learning experiences for secondary pre‐service teachers in teaching students with special needs

This article describes a collaborative and cross‐curricula initiative undertaken in the School of Education at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. The project involved developing an integrated approach to providing professional year pre‐service secondary teacher education students with experiences that would assist them to develop their knowledge and skills to teach students with special needs in their classrooms. These experiences were undertaken in the authentic teaching and learning context of a post‐school literacy program for young adults with intellectual disabilities. In preliminary interviews pre‐service teachers revealed that they lacked experience, knowledge and understanding related to teaching students with special needs, and felt that their teacher education program lacked focus in this field. This project was developed in response to these expressed needs. Through participating in the project, pre‐service teachers’ knowledge and understanding about working with students with diverse learning needs were developed as they undertook real and purposeful tasks in an authentic context.     

Teacher education matters: Finnish teacher educators’ concerns,beliefs, and values

The professional development of teacher educators is gaining increasing interest globally. However, not so many studies have been carried out in the Finnish context, which is somewhat surprising considering that the Finnish education system and teacher education has gained so much interest worldwide. This study investigates Finnish teacher educators’ concerns, beliefs and values. The results show that teacher educators experienced a variety of concerns in their work, in the beginning mainly dealing with the position and being a novice, and later they became more concerned with heavy workloads and practical teaching-related matters. The teacher educators studied considered the students’ education to be the most important aspect of their work. The research-based nature of teacher education was also felt to be very important, along with its community aspects, and their own specialization. In general, Finnish teacher educators considered their work to be important.     

Enhancing teachers’ counselling skills: student teachers’ views on a teachers’ education programme

The purpose of this small‐scale study is to investigate the outcomes of a brief teacher education programme by exploring student teachers’ views. The teacher education programme aimed to provide teachers with the opportunity to develop qualities and skills that facilitate communication and to enhance teachers’ competence to apply social and emotional (SEL) programmes’ intervention activities in the classroom. According to student teachers’ estimations, the teacher education programme provided them with new knowledge and experiences in communication and counselling, which they felt they could use in teaching practice. Besides, teachers reported that the programme enabled them to develop their self‐awareness and to adopt a non‐directive attitude during the implementation of SEL programme’s activities.     

The determinants of research performance: A study of Australian university economists

In this article, the relationship between individual productivity in research, as measured by an index of publications produced, and their preferences and perceptions about research-related issues is explored. A sample of 134 Australian university economists were classified as low, average and high in respect of their publication performance using cluster analysis. Discriminant analysis was then used to see whether membership of these groups was associated with items representing individuals' preferred research approach, their involvement in a range of research-related activities, the things which they felt constrained their research and their perceptions of the benefits of their position which might be conducive to research.Our results show that there was a relationship between these items and group membership, and therefore productivity. Highly productive researchers made deliberate choices about the type of research they undertook in order to enhance their career advancement; they were heavily involved in a number of areas of research activity; they felt relatively few constraints on their research by comparison with low producers; and they enjoyed the freedom and challenge of their positions. These results imply that research performance is more a function of individual motivation than resource support.The authors would like to acknowledge the helpful comments of two anonymous referees.     

A home visiting project for Reception children predicted to experience literacy difficulties

The importance of early success in literacy learning and of engaging parents in this process has long been recognised by those involved in early years education. However, key factors that underpin effective strategies for helping families who might be described as 'difficult to reach' have yet to be identified. The study reported here was designed to support two children judged to be most at risk of struggling with literacy, primarily through the provision of weekly home visits during their first year at school. Anthony Feiler, a lecturer in special educational needs at the Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol and previously a teacher and educational psychologist, describes the work of the teaching assistant who carried out these visits and presents data on the outcomes for the children involved. There is evidence that the additional support was effective. Anthony Feiler uses both test scores and the views of participants, taken from a series of interviews, to draw tentative conclusions from this research and to highlight a need for further development work and enquiry in this crucial area.     

Experiences of teachers and trainee teachers who are dyslexic

In the current climate of inclusion, an important issue involves the inclusion of teachers with a range of disabilities. The Dyslexia in Higher Education Report raised concerns about the negative attitude of some teacher training departments to admitting and supporting students with dyslexia. This study interviewed a small number of practising teachers and trainee teachers with dyslexia about their experiences of teaching and training and the specific coping strategies they adopted in the classroom. They were all asked if (and how) their own experiences of literacy difficulties had influenced the way they taught children, and especially those with literacy difficulties. All the participants reported using a number of effective coping strategies and felt on balance the advantages of being dyslexic outweighed the disadvantages in terms of giving them greater empathy and understanding of children's problems. The majority felt their own very negative experiences of school had been a strong motivating factor in wanting to teach in order to give children a better educational experience than their own. Trainee and newly qualified teachers were fearful of being ‘found out’ by other members of staff and often felt low in confidence despite performing well in the classroom. Most would have welcomed constructive support and mentoring from experienced teachers with dyslexia. In a supposedly inclusive education culture, it is argued that a more enabling and open attitude to teachers with dyslexia should be adopted     

Changing literacies,changing formations: the role of elicitation in teacher action research with new technologies

As new technologies promise to be an enduring feature of the landscape of teachers’ work, we consider how teachers implicitly bring stories forward into their classroom explorations with new media as a part of their ‘informal learning’. By ‘stories’ is meant specific classroom texts as well as preferred teacher practices with those texts. The article represents a reflection on the methodological role that ‘elicitation’ can play in drawing out teacher thinking during a time of professional change, thinking that would otherwise likely remain embedded, particularly when teachers’ attention is focused forward on innovation in practice. The methodological use of ‘elicitation’ emerged in the first year of an ongoing teacher action research study, in which seven teachers have been involved in a professional development initiative that actively engages teachers in examining changing literacy formations, beginning with the teachers’ own literacy formations. The methodological practice of elicitation borrows from phenomenology, ethnomethodology, narrative research, reader response theories, curriculum theory and psychoanalysis, and emerged as a way to acknowledge the life histories that teachers were bringing to their professional development with new media. We suggest that elicitation can potentially draw out deep and sustaining sources of a teacher’s commitment, as well as resistance, to change. It can help disclose the tensions between commitment and resistance that even teachers who voluntarily undertake to incorporate new technologies into their practice may experience. Within a teacher action research framework, elicitation can also serve to remind teachers (and others) of the value of what they know and are learning, thus contributing to teachers developing a ‘scholarship of practice’ in response to any actual or perceived ‘intensification’ of their work.     

Why aren't teachers being prepared to teach for diversity,equity, and global interconnectedness? A study of lived experiences in the making of multicultural and global educators

Despite increasing demands for teachers to teach for equity, diversity and global interconnectedness, colleges of education are not producing teachers with such knowledge and skills. In this study the author identified teacher educators, who are recognized by their peers for their success in preparing teachers in both multicultural and global education and asked them to reflect upon the experiences that have most influenced their work in these fields. The 80 teacher educators in the study told of encounters with people different from themselves, experiences with discrimination, injustice or outsider status, and their felt contradictions in dealing with multiple realities. There are significant qualitative differences between those experiences identified by people of color and those who are white. Most of the people of color acquired an experiential understanding of discrimination and outsider status by the nature of growing up in a society characterized by white privilege and racism. However, many of the middle-class white teacher educators had their most profound experiences while living outside of their own country. Given the demographics of professors of education, the findings have implications for the ability of the nation's universities to prepare teachers in multicultural and global education.     

THE CLASSIFICATION OF ABILITIES

Sixth‐form students who had expressed varying degrees of commitment to entering teaching as a career reported on their knowledge of the teaching profession, their expectations for teacher training and on their own educational experiences. By the time they had entered the sixth form most had developed quite sophisticated views about the profession and about their own potential to become effective teachers.

A warm and approachable personality was seen as the most important characteristic of the good primary teacher, while for the secondary teacher, subject matter competence was emphasized. Students planning to enter teaching saw themselves, already, as warm and approachable, but felt that their training would have a great effect on their general level of competence, and indeed on their confidence. At their chosen college of education, they anticipated too much ‘educational theory’ and not enough on ‘methods of teaching’ or teaching practice.

Most students who planned to teach had had a reasonable amount of prior experience in one of a wide range of teaching settings. This appeared to have had a beneficial effect, especially for those enrolled in formal work experience programmes.     

Fostering teacher educators’ professional development in research and in supervising student teachers’ research

Most teacher educators who work at institutes for higher vocational education have faced a new role since the European Community aimed to upgrade the general quality of education. Research tasks have been added as a new important core business for institutes that used to be mainly focused on education. Teacher educators therefore have to become familiar with research knowledge and skills, and with the skills to supervise student teachers in conducting research. Professional development activities have been set up to prepare them for it. In this explorative study, we investigated the extent to which four different professional development activities within three Dutch institutes for teacher education contributed to the knowledge and skills needed for these new tasks. We gathered data by interviewing 12 teacher educators. In addition to some striking differences, we found corresponding positive experiences in all four activities. Exchanging experiences and discussing issues with colleagues was perceived to be the most outstanding part of each activity. This research has yielded necessary insights into constructing professional development activities. It is clear that any professional development activity about research should be consistent with teacher educators’ daily practices and concerns.     

Literacy Practices in Head Start and Early Childhood Special Education Classrooms

A preliminary study was conducted to investigate the literacy experiences of preschoolers in Head Start and early childhood special education (ECSE) class- rooms. Two groups of teachers (10 Head Start teachers and 20 ECSE teachers) completed surveys that gathered information relative to the literacy activities occurring in their classrooms, the priority given reading and writing goals, and their attitudes about the literacy development of their students. The results indicated similarities between the two groups of teachers regarding the relatively low priority placed on reading and writing goals at preschool, and the ways in which children were involved in reading activities. The two groups differed in their use of supportive interactions during TV viewing-and writing/drawing activities, and the expectations the teachers held for the children's future literacy abilities. The need for further research describing emerging literacy practices with at-risk and disabled groups of children is discussed.     

A Systematic Review of Assessment Literacy Measures

This work systematically reviews teacher assessment literacy measures within the context of contemporary teacher evaluation policy. In this study, the researchers collected objective tests of assessment knowledge, teacher self‐reports, and rubrics to evaluate teachers’ work in assessment literacy studies from 1991 to 2012. Then they evaluated the psychometric work from these measures against a set of claims related to score interpretation and use. Across the 36 measures reviewed, they found support for these claims was weak. This outcome highlights the need for increased work on assessment literacy measures in the educational measurement field. The authors conclude with recommendations and a resource to inform a research agenda focused on assessment literacy measurement to inform policy and practice.     

Early childhood literacy: Creating a better world

Abstract

Problem‐posing teaching using multicultural children's literature nourishes an integrated literacy curriculum that supports young children's meaningful learning. This method encourages integrated learning that is both developmentally and culturally meaningful through interacting with story, reading literature, and participating in related learning activities. The problem‐posing method was developed by Paulo Freire [Education for Critical Consciousness, Seabury, New York] and critical pedagogists. The method leads students of any age, experience or ability level to base new learning on personal experience in a way that encourages critical reflection. This method has not been widely used with younger learners, but lends itself well to integrated early childhood literacy development.

This article shows selected qualitative data samples from case studies of early childhood teacher education students as they experience the method in a literacy course and as they use the method with young children. A critical analysis of the students’ work draws out key points regarding literacy development in a rapidly changing world. The teacher education students’ work provides an arena for developing the theory further as they implement theoretically‐based pedagogy with young learners. Data reveal issues regarding critical literacies and postmodern approaches to early childhood education.