Language of learning and teaching in schools: an issue for research in mathematics teacher education?

Most countries in Africa have introduced the use of local languages as the language of learning and teaching for the first few years of schooling. Meaning that for the first few years of learning, learners learn mathematics in their local languages. In response to this, most research has focused on the challenges of using local languages in multilingual mathematics classrooms in schools. Not much research focuses on how the teacher educators prepare the prospective teachers to teach mathematics in multilingual classrooms. To further knowledge in the area of multilingualism in mathematics education, I, in this paper, present an analysis of the literature on multilingual teacher education in Africa. Specifically, I look at what it is that governments in interested countries are doing in teacher education programs in response to the introduction of local languages in schools. From the literature examined, I found that although there is awareness in a number of countries of the need for multilingual teacher education, not much has been done in order to train mathematics teachers on how to use local languages in the classroom. I therefore recommend that, for those countries that have implemented or planning to introduce the use of local languages in schools, some reforms should also take place in teacher education programs in terms of training the prospective teachers how to teach in local languages.     

How does learning happen for people participating in adventure training?

Adventure training has become fashionable over the past few years in Hong Kong. Current Education Reform suggests learning should not be confined to the classroom, and adventure training is viewed as an alternative method to institutional routines for personal and group development. This paper reported a longitudinal study investigating how learning happened for four church members (out of twenty-five participants) purposively selected in an adventure team-building camp. Both quantitative and qualitative instruments were used. Results shed light on: (1) how the constructs of self-efficacy and organizational commitment helped to conceptualize what people meant by a team; (2) how qualitative findings revealed evidence of learning of the four members which could not be observed by quantitative findings; and (3) how participants experienced and learnt from adventure training.     

Ethnographical mapping of thick places – teaching and learning practices in teacher training schools

The aim of this study is to use an ethnographic method in order to map where understandings of teaching and learning practices (TaLP) are being discussed in three schools. The questions posed are: what are the relations between thick places, meaning, affect, and TaLP? This study uses an ethnographic method outside the classroom and in between different activities as a starting point for understanding TaLP and where many students at the same school produce thick places of affect and meaning. The main conclusion from this study is that matters of where, what, and who are shaping TaLP. Another important conclusion from this study is that training schools offer new conditions for teacher students, but also offer new opportunities for ethnographic studies that aim at understanding these school environments with a range of new questions.     

Active learning—a cultural change needed in teacher education and schools

In this article, the purpose is to evaluate how teacher education may promote active learning and what the main obstacles are to reach this target. The problem is investigated from the perspective of student teachers, teacher educators, teachers and pupils in schools. All these groups have evaluated how active learning is applied and what the obstacles are to active learning. The results clearly indicated that schools and teacher education departments are in the middle of a cultural change. Many indicators of active learning can be seen, but there are many obstacles which should be overcome.     

Teachers in schools transitioning from one year level to another: what impact does this have on teachers’ professional identity?

This article reports on the results of a study which explored teachers transitioning from one year level to another in primary schools in New Zealand, and in particular the impact of this transition on teachers’ professional identity. While this transition could be considered to be a commonplace occurrence in schools, the lack of literature indicates that it is currently under-researched. Findings from the study indicate that teachers can strengthen their professional identity as they experience positive outcomes in terms of their practice, pedagogy and relationships when they transition from one year level to another. However, attention is drawn to contextual factors which, if not fully understood and addressed, can lead to teachers having negative outcomes from transition. Finally, the important role that school leaders play to help alleviate these negative outcomes and ensure that teachers can successfully transition is also highlighted.     

Improving teacher education in the Netherlands: data team as learning team?

Using data in a professional learning community is a promising form of professional development. In this study, we followed a data team of teacher educators, who systematically tried to improve the education of student teachers (by decreasing first year drop-out). By conducting a single case study, we investigated the data team participants' learning in depth. We analysed the team's conversations and investigated the role of the data coach. The results of our observations and interviews showed that the conversations in the data team (1) provided a context for learning; (2) were relevant and slowly reached a higher level of inquiry as the meetings continued; (3) were focused on teaching and learning, although the action plan developed involved general actions and was not so much related to their own teaching and learning; (4) could reach greater depth when the conversations were informed by data.     

Collaborative teaching for teacher educators—What does the research say?

In this paper, the literature related to collaboration in teacher education programmes is reviewed. The authors discuss the benefits for teacher educators who collaboratively plan and develop team-taught coursework and monitor the impact of their collaboratively developed pedagogy. Gaps in the current knowledge and research are delineated, and recommendations are offered for efforts to further develop the practice of collaborative teaching so as to increase the capacity of future teachers to address the increasingly diverse student populations enter their classrooms.     

How does classroom composition affect learning outcomes in Ugandan primary schools?

There is widespread agreement that schooling quality should be a priority in the post-2015 education agenda, but less agreement on how quality can be enhanced in a cost effective manner. In Uganda, classroom overcrowding is often considered a critical cause of poor learning outcomes. This paper investigates how various aspects of classroom composition, including class size and the achievement distribution of classmates, affect individual learning. Using test score data for over 250,000 children, such compositional factors are found to be relevant. However, their influence on learning is not so large as to justify major standalone policy interventions. Rather, pedagogical changes that support children with literacy difficulties merit particular consideration.     

Toward self-directed learning in secondary schools: what do teachers do?

Promoting self-directed learning has become an important educational goal. This goal requires a new role for teachers: not traditional transmission of knowledge but activating and process-oriented teaching. An observational study was conducted to establish the features of teaching in Dutch senior secondary education. Activating features of teaching were more predominant than the mere transmission of knowledge, but process-oriented teaching occurred very little. In other words the observed teachers did not devote much attention to teaching the students how to learn. Two patterns of activating were discerned: one pattern in which the teacher interacts with students focusing on the subject matter, and another pattern where the students are working on their own and the teacher is coaching and supervising.     

Callous-unemotional interpersonal style in DSM-V: what does this mean for the UK SEBD population?

The definition of conduct disorder in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSMV) includes a new ‘limited prosocial emotions’ specifier, designed to assist in the identification of those with more severe and persistent difficulties and the better targeting of interventions. This study set out to investigate its relevance to pupils with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD) in the United Kingdom who might meet the criteria for a diagnosis of conduct disorder (CD). Limited prosocial emotions were assessed using a measure of callous-unemotional (CU) interpersonal style, and their relationship with social behaviour, social status and self-concept was investigated among children aged 8–11 years with identified SEBD (N = 54) using teacher, peer and self-report measures. Findings demonstrated that higher scores on the specifier were associated with more severe problems in all but one of the domains investigated. Higher CU scores were positively associated with teacher and peer-assessed antisocial behaviour and with social rejection. The association between CU scores and social acceptance by peers was negative. However, associations between CU scores and self-perceptions, including social self-perception, were small and non-significant. Thus, despite being socially rejected and rated more negatively by peers than children with low CU levels, the social self-concept of children with elevated CU levels was not lower. Implications for assessment and the differentiation of interventions are considered.     

Preparing teachers for professional learning: is there a future for teacher education in new teacher induction?

Today the quality of teachers is held to be increasingly important yet there continue to be doubts about whether teacher education programs graduate teachers ready to meet the challenges of their initial years of teaching. In some jurisdictions, other agencies (Ministries of Education, school districts, and private providers) are supplementing the work of teacher education through the introduction of new teacher induction programs which have become favoured policy initiatives to enhance new teacher transition, retention and quality. Evidence suggests that induction and mentoring increase teacher retention and ensure more effective socialisation of new teachers into the school culture. In spite of their growing popularity, the degree to which induction programs complement teacher education and/or impact new teacher professional learning remains unclear. In this paper the authors report a secondary analysis of data from an evaluation of the New Teacher Induction Program in Ontario, Canada to consider the implications for the future of teacher education by asking: What are the challenges facing new teachers? In what ways does the induction program support new teacher professional learning? What are the major implications for the future of teacher education?     

Assessment for learning in constrained contexts: How does the teacher’s self-directed development play out?

This qualitative case study explores how a teacher directed himself in implementing assessment for learning (AfL) among his students in a constrained context (i.e., a lack of institutional support in offering effective teacher education programs). The data included a Chinese college English writing teacher’s reflections over two courses, interviews, and dialogues with the students, coupled with field notes. The qualitative analysis shows that in a constrained context, self-directed AfL was buttressed by the teacher's existent pedagogical knowledge. In the process, the teacher’s self-agency empowered him in synergizing existent knowledge with external resources and revamping his teaching based on the students’ needs as reflected through AfL. These student-centered practices contributed to reduced complexity of AfL implementation, and yielded a more or less beginning cycle: the students echoed the teacher’s purpose of assessment, which considered knowledge appropriation as pivotal, and the teacher felt professionally rewarded from self-directed development using assessment-based information to improve his instruction and benefit his students.     

Firefighter training in Sweden: from face-to-face learning in training grounds to distance learning – a challenge for exercise instructors?

When distance learning supported by digital technologies was introduced in firefighter training in Sweden some years ago, training exercise instructors accustomed to face-to-face teaching in the field had to adapt their professional roles to an electronic landscape with a number of new opportunities and constraints. Based on activity theory and comparisons between campus and distance mode, this study was aimed at increasing the understanding of how the training exercise instructor role is affected by the shift towards technology-enhanced distance learning. An analysis of interviews with instructors and students, and observations of response exercises, show that contradictions are emerging in the distance mode between instructors’ motives, their technology tools and the object of the training they provide, and also between the two types of training, that is, the campus and the distance modes. Structural tensions and personal motives contribute to changes in the division of labour with instructors tending to adopt a much more passive role in the distance mode compared to their more active role in the campus mode.     

Beyond the ‘learning society’: what have we learnt from widening participation research?

This article emerges from a recent review of evidence, conducted by the authors and others, on the lifelong barriers to widening participation in higher education in England. This has led us to a consideration of the quality and relevance of the research activity in this large field of endeavour, and to the creation of a typology of the kinds of widespread problems we then encountered. These include pseudo‐research, poor quality reporting of research, deficiencies in datasets, analytical errors, a lack of suitable comparators, obfuscation, a lack of scepticism in general, and the regular misattribution of causal links in particular. The article discusses each of these, and illustrates them using generally high‐profile research studies and publications. We found a substantial proportion of non‐empirical pieces. Of the remainder, we found a substantial proportion that did not report sufficiently well their methods or their findings. Of the remainder that were empirical and did explain their methods and findings sufficiently, we found a substantial proportion in which the findings could not support the conclusions drawn from them. The article ends with a plea for a great deal more ‘learning’ and openness to new ideas among those engaged, lifelong, in researching lifelong learning.     

Perfect presence: What does this mean for the design of virtual learning environments?

One of the advantages of building a virtual reality system is that it allows students to enter new worlds which in these instances include trips to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, a field visit to an Oak Wood and a close encounter in a 3D maze. In all these environments the factors affecting a sense of being there or presence was investigated. Enhanced audio feedback increased a subjective sense of presence but did not increase students' conceptual learning scores. We have also found that a sense of social presence enhanced the notion of being there together with measures of collaboration. However being there can take its toll on students and our findings suggest it imposes a cognitive overload. Where students have a choice, they try and reduce this overload by asking for conceptual tools to assist them in their learning tasks. The studies reported in this paper provide some benchmark data about these issues which deserve further investigation if we are to design effective virtual environments for conceptual learning.     

Do personality and learning climate predict competence for learning? An investigation in a Greek academic setting

The effects of personal characteristics (e.g. personality, aptitude, gender) on student performance, such as Grade Point Average (GPA) and course grades, have been systematically researched, with the emphasis being mainly on outcomes rather than the processes leading to them. The purpose of this paper is to shift the focus to students' perceived competence for learning and examine how this is affected by personality characteristics and learning climate. Data were collected from students enrolled in an elective economics course at a Greek public university. Results indicated that all Big Five traits, except emotional stability, and learning climate were significantly related to students' perceived learning competence. Finally, only conscientiousness interacted with learning climate to predict learning motivation. Limitations and future research initiatives are discussed in light of these findings.     

Social learning as approach for teacher professional development; how well does it suit them?

Learning from others has been reported as a productive approach for teacher Professional Development (PD) and is seen as a valuable addition to formal PD. Specific insights into whether social learning suits teachers is still lacking. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to develop and apply an instrument to assess social learning mindedness of teachers. A questionnaire called the “Quiz: Social learning, how does it suit me?” was developed and its reliability and factor structure were explored. A total of 110 teachers, ranging from primary school to pre-university education filled out the Quiz. Results indicated that the teachers were already quite social learning minded; they were positively oriented towards social learning. Social learning mindedness encompassed five underlying factors including counteracting social-learning preferences, teachers’ opinions and preferences related to learning from colleagues/others, their orientation towards collaboration in new approaches to PD, an autonomy factor, and a more general attitude towards knowledge dissemination. Mostly, teachers like to explain and share their knowledge, like to collaborate with others to enhance their knowledge and ask others for advice if they have a problem. At the same time, they want some control over their PD (e.g. the outcomes). The teachers in this sample did not show much preferences that would counteract social learning, leading to the conclusion that social learning suits teachers as a form of PD. The Quiz, which is accessible online (in Dutch), is a useful tool for teachers to quickly get acquainted with social learning.     

Improving teaching and learning of basic maths and reading in Africa: Does teacher preparation count?

Teacher education has an important role in ensuring quality of learning especially for the poorest children. The article draws on a study of teacher preparation for the early primary grades in six African countries – Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda – in reading and mathematics. Initial teacher education had the strongest impact on newly qualified teachers but also induced misplaced confidence leading to standardised teacher-led approaches that failed to engage learners. Learning to read was divorced from meaning while mathematical activities were not linked to learning concepts. We suggest that teacher education is reconstructed as a study of classroom practice that places children's learning at its centre.