The Dialectic Relationship between Research and Practice in Mathematics Teacher Education

This paper addresses issues linking research in student teacher learning with reflection on practice in mathematics teacher education. From a situated perspective on learning and practice, we explore our own practice as teacher educators while researching student teacher learning in our classrooms. We describe a study on student teacher learning, considering student teacher learning as a “process of becoming”, and how the results of this research have affected our development as mathematics teacher educators and members of a community of inquiry. Our work shows how in the mathematics teacher education context the relationship between theory and practice becomes an element of both teacher educator and researcher development.     

The Dialectic Relationship between Research and Practice in Mathematics Teacher Education

This paper addresses issues linking research in student teacher learning with reflection on practice in mathematics teacher education. From a situated perspective on learning and practice, we explore our own practice as teacher educators while researching student teacher learning in our classrooms. We describe a study on student teacher learning, considering student teacher learning as a “process of becoming”, and how the results of this research have affected our development as mathematics teacher educators and members of a community of inquiry. Our work shows how in the mathematics teacher education context the relationship between theory and practice becomes an element of both teacher educator and researcher development.     

Connecting initial teacher education and continuing professional learning through action research and action learning

This paper reflects our commitments as teacher educators to develop the skills, knowledge and interests amongst ‘nearly qualified teachers’ to establish action learning as an integral part of their professional practice. We outline the development of an undergraduate unit that is endeavouring to achieve this at Edith Cowan University, Western Australia. Key principles and characteristics of action research and action learning are used as a framework for critical reflection on the unit. Attempting to provide learning experiences that adhere to these principles within the context of initial teacher education courses is identified as a challenging process. Planned developments in which we seek to enhance the extent to which teacher education can be seen to embrace and promote action research and action learning are discussed.     

Complexity Science and Cohorts in Teacher Education

In this paper we examine the nature of our self-study practices in an elementary teacher education cohort called CITE (Community and Inquiry in Teacher Education). We argue that self-study is not only important to our continued work in CITE but also a critical feature of professional practice in general. Two general questions frame our analysis: (1) What is significant about cohorts in teacher education? (2) How might complexity science inform our understanding of cohorts in particular and of teacher education programs in general? We argue in the paper that the use of a cohort-type structure in a teacher education program provided us with flexibility and potential for improvisation to address the perennial problems of program fragmentation. To better understand our own teaching and learning practices in this community setting, we sought an analytic framework that emphasized the importance of the learning potential of the collective as opposed to just the learning potential of the individual. We argue that complexity science, with its ecological emphasis on learning systems, is such an analytical framework. We generate six propositions about the role and value of cohorts in teacher education that arise from self-study of our own practice.     

Design Approaches to Support Preservice Teachers in Scientific Modeling

Engaging children in scientific practices is hard for beginning teachers. One such scientific practice with which beginning teachers may have limited experience is scientific modeling. We have iteratively designed preservice teacher learning experiences and materials intended to help teachers achieve learning goals associated with scientific modeling. Our work has taken place across multiple years at three university sites, with preservice teachers focused on early childhood, elementary, and middle school teaching. Based on results from our empirical studies supporting these design decisions, we discuss design features of our modeling instruction in each iteration. Our results suggest some successes in supporting preservice teachers in engaging students in modeling practice. We propose design principles that can guide science teacher educators in incorporating modeling in teacher education.     

Deliberate practice in teacher education

Deliberate practice is increasingly recognised as necessary for professional development. This paper sets out to explore in what ways student teachers’ learning activities in a teacher education programme can be characterised as deliberate practice. Based on an in-depth exploration of 574 learning activities, our results highlight the different ways in which activities in teacher education programmes can be designed, the different motivations students have to engage in them repetitively, and different ways in which feedback can be organised, within contextual constraints posed by all professional environments. Results also indicate that self-improvement is not the only motivation for engaging in deliberate practice for student teachers, as pupil improvement is also considered important. These results support a context-specific operationalisation of deliberate practice and provide starting points for teacher education programmes to promote deliberate practice in their curriculum.     

Designing for Critical,Relational, Practice-Immersed Teacher Preparation: Weaving Threads into Tapestry in a Critical Project-Based Literacy Partnership

As teacher educators located in K–12 and university contexts, we had experienced the often-highlighted disconnections between university teacher education and preservice apprenticeships in schools. Thus, calls for innovations in preparation programs aimed at deeper immersion in practice spoke to our desires to move literacy methods preparation into schools in ways that allowed teacher candidates, children, classroom teachers, and university instructors to be together in practice. A central goal of our work was to use our partnership as a path toward deeply intertwining practices of literacy teaching with critical lenses and pedagogies centered on justice. In this article, we situate our partnership in the landscape of research on practice-based teacher preparation and critical scholarship in teacher education. We describe our partnership, including its layers of contexts, relationships, and opportunities for critical, mediated practice, and our methods of studying our work over time. Our findings illustrate how the design of our partnership has afforded opportunities to (a) trace how critical ideas and practices thread across contexts of participants’ learning and (b) critically reframe problematic language, policies, and practices with novice teachers. We end by highlighting implications of our work for others invested in critical project-based partnerships.     

Portfolio appraisal: In search of criteria

Two inherently contradictory forces are pushing for reform in portfolio assessment. On the one hand there is a felt need for creating more rigid standards that operate to promote uniformity of ratings in appraisal practice to certify achievement. However, on the other hand, critical questions are being raised about separating acclaimed portfolio goals aimed both at appraising achievement while also improving quality of student learning and development. The position of portfolio assessment, which is widely used nowadays in teaching and teacher education, comes into debate. In our study, we look for actual practices in portfolio appraisal in search of criteria used for rating the quality of portfolio materials. It is our interest to find out how appraisal criteria are selected and used to evaluate achievement or to improve the quality of development and learning. In the context of teacher education, we have examined both the espoused criteria of both assessors and collectors of portfolios as well as the actual appraisal practices by looking at the judgmental orientations and supervision styles used by portfolio assessors. In addition, we offered an authentic portfolio document to be rated by different assessors to gauge and compare their quality of rating and criteria use. The actual processes we detected point to a most common practice of employing judgmental, usually normative evaluations based on assessor dependent, more or less pre-decided criteria which permit a “checkbox” approach to appraisal.     

Redefining our Roles as Teachers,Learners, and Leaders through Continuous Cycles of Practitioner Inquiry

ABSTRACT

Practitioner inquiry is an alternative form of professional learning that can result in significant changes in teacher practice and student learning. We share our evolution as teacher learners within our classrooms and teacher leaders within our school as we progressed through 10 years of continuous cycles of practitioner inquiry. Beginning as novice inquirers examining classroom-specific problems of practice and evolving into experienced facilitators of practitioner inquiry, we have expanded our roles as teacher leaders among our colleagues as we collaboratively lead a secondary change initiative in equitable assessment practices, a direct result of continuously making our learning through engagement in practitioner inquiry public.     

Narratives of Learning from Co-editing,Writing and Presenting Stories of Experience in Self-Study

In this self-study, we look at the contribution made towards our professional learning through an aspect of teacher education work that is not commonly featured in the research literature: exploring the implications of our work as co-editors of an international collection about teacher educators’ journeys of professional becoming. Through this self-study, we argue that this type of work is valuable to individuals and institutions in relation to its impact on the professional learning and career development of teacher educators. Adopting a narrative approach, we examined our experiences of co-editing the book and the associated activities such as conference presentations, to understand how this influenced our professional learning and identity as teacher educators. Findings include having a stronger sense of the evolution of our professional selves over time and greater insight and awareness of our strengths and uncertainties. A clearer perspective on our own career development and professional becoming was evident, and many parallels could be drawn between our experiences of professional becoming and those of the chapter authors in the edited book. We conclude that while activities such as book editing do not usually count in institutional metrics as outputs, they are nonetheless a significant opportunity for professional learning and make a contribution to knowledge and to teacher education practice, and should be recognised as such by institutions and colleagues.     

Teacher Educator Identity in a Culture of Iterative Teacher Education Program Design: A Collaborative Self-Study

Faculty in the School of Education have collaborated to re-envision teacher education at our university. A complex, dynamic, time-consuming and sometimes painstaking process, redesigning a teacher education program from a traditional approach (i.e. where courses focus primarily on theoretical principles of practice through textbooks and university-based classroom discussions) to a model of teacher education that embraces teaching, learning and leading with schools and in communities is challenging, yet exciting work. Little is known about teacher educators’ experiences as they either design or deliver collaborative field-based models of teacher education. In this article, we examine our experiences in the second implementation year of our redesigned teacher education program, Teaching, Learning, and Leading with Schools and Communities (TLLSC) and how these unique experiences inform our teacher educator identities. Through a collaborative self-study, we sought to make meaning of our transformation from a faculty delivering a traditional model to educators collectively implementing a field-based model, by analyzing the diverse perspectives of faculty at different entry points in the TLLSC development and implementation process. We found that our participation in an intensive field-based teacher preparation model challenged our notions of teacher educator identity. In a culture of iterative program design, this study documents the personal and professional shifts in identity required to accomplish this collaborative and dynamic change in approach to teacher education.     

美国教师教育课程评价的策略与启示

美国通过评价来切实保障教师教育课程的质量。美国的教师教育课程评价大体可以分为教师教育机构外部专业组织开展的认证和机构内部的学生学习评价两部分。美国专业组织开展的教师教育认证由于标准的清晰性、人员的专业性、过程的规范性、结果的透明性,能够对教师教育专业及其课程起到重要的指导与监督作用。美国教师教育机构内的各门课程都非常重视对学生学习过程和结果的评价,作品评价、表现性评价和成长记录袋评价等评价策略得到广泛使用。这启发我们,应该重视对教师教育课程评价的研究并切实改进我们的评价实践。     

Clinical Teacher Preparation: A Retrospective

In this article, we explore how teacher preparation programs have developed from the mid-1800s to present day, emphasizing changes in the clinical component. Drawing from the history of teacher education from the normal schools of the 19th century to present-day interest in clinically based preparation, we first review the migration of teacher preparation from normal schools into higher education. Next we discuss how accreditation has shaped programs. We then turn our attention to major initiatives in the 1980s that explicitly focused on linking school improvement with teacher education reform—partnerships that emphasized clinical aspects of teacher preparation. Finally, we discuss efforts to enhance clinical learning, highlighting instructional strategies and issues regarding design, settings, and outcomes for programs as they work to meet challenging new accreditation standards.     

Enhancing teacher engagement with workplace learning

In this article we have injected the idea of engagement with learning into the discourse of teacher professional development and workplace learning. Whilst a common theme for student learning it has not previously been demonstrated that it is useful for analysing teacher learning as well. We have sought to show that it is possible to use portfolios to both enhance teacher engagement with learning and also as a source of research data on that learning. We have also sought to show that teachers and researchers can work closely together in collaborative and creative ways to document and reflect upon professional knowledge through portfolios. Whilst we recognise that there are some barriers to this in current education practices there are also some good reasons to pursue it as a way of enhancing teacher learning for the ultimate benefit of students in our schools.     

A Professional Learning Experience for Pre‐service and In‐service Teachers and One Teacher Educator: reflections and lessons learned

Abstract

In this paper we reflect on our efforts during the 1992–93 academic school year to create a different type of teacher education experience — one based on active learning, and collegiality and mutuality. Drawing on a model for classroom‐based teacher development described by Thiessen (1992), we begin with an overview of how we worked to (a) improve the quality of learning for all participants; (b) create a supportive learning environment for all the stakeholders; (c) leant in the complex and changing situation of classroom life; (d) combine personally meaningful, educationally defensible and socially justifiable evaluation practices; and (e) engage in reflective, interactive and transformative experiences. After this we. describe tension we experienced, which resulted from a lack of shared vision among us and from our efforts to examine our own practice. We also explore how we tried to deal with the tension. We conclude with lessons learned from our experience which have led to new questions about teacher education reform.     

Sociological tools in the study of knowledge and practice in mathematics teacher education

In this paper, we put Basil Bernstein’s theory of pedagogic discourse to work together with additional theoretical resources to interrogate knowledge and practice in mathematics teacher education. We illustrate this methodology through analysis of an instance of mathematics teacher education pedagogic practice. While the methodology itself is our focus, the particular example provides a compelling story at the heart of which is the problem of integration of knowledge(s) within a pedagogic practice. Here, a constructivist pedagogy is at work, but differentially with respect to teaching/learning mathematics and teaching/learning mathematics teaching. The example illuminates mathematics and teaching, and their co-constitution in a particular pedagogic context.     

Standards of practice to standards of evidence: developing assessment capable teachers

Abstract

Teacher education is a hotly debated policy area in higher education and schooling portfolios, with increasing emphasis on standards and accountability. It is in this environment that The Standards Project (2013–2015) presented in this article began. It has at its core a three-part commitment: first, to undertake a comprehensive audit and analysis of all teacher education programmes in the state of Queensland, Australia, to establish the approaches and practices Universities relied on to preparing beginning teachers as assessment capable; second, to take account of multiple perspectives and approaches in initial teacher education to integrating data into how beginning teachers are prepared to source and use evidence for improving learning and teaching; and further, to develop new principles, policy and practices for reviewing and moderating teacher education programmes against professional standards. The paper proposes a move beyond the discourse of professional standards of practice towards a complementary discourse of standards of evidence. In our collaboration we drew on two fields, namely the writing on teacher education including reviews, and the field of assessment, both considered within broader sociocultural theory applied to assessment.     

论现代教师教育道路演变的逻辑

现代教师教育的演变遵循着一条以教育实践为起点的逻辑线路,即"教育实践——教师教育实践——教师教育理念"。推动这一演变发生的动力源是教育理论与教育实践间的矛盾,它构成了我们分析和区分不同教师教育道路的直接线索。对这一逻辑线路的考察表明:现代教师教育道路演变的脉络是"培训——教育——学习",该脉络的形成有其内在必然性。走向教师学习是未来教师教育道路演变的大致路向。     

Using Community Artifacts to Support Novice Math Teacher Educators in Teaching Prospective Teachers

Despite the centrality of math teacher educators (MTEs) in teacher education, we know little about the nature of professional learning opportunities for MTEs to develop and enhance the knowledge needed to teach prospective teachers. Existing models for supporting MTEs in developing their knowledge and practice do not address how to prepare novice MTEs in initially learning to teach prospective teachers. We present a professional learning model we have been pursuing for supporting novice MTEs and the generation of and role for community artifacts, namely lesson plans, in that model. We outline the process by which we implement, analyze, and collectively revise lesson plans so that they are continually improved over time to serve as artifacts that better instantiate what members of the local community are learning about how to support novice MTEs through identification of their problems of practice. Finally, we problematize the model we are investigating and propose implications of this model and questions raised by our work with the goal of inviting further discussion about supporting novice MTEs.