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.     

On the Narrator in“Boys and Girls”

Widely regarded as Canada's best writer of short stories,Alice Munro reflects her precise social observation and penetrating psychologically insight into the complex existence.The paper analyzes the narrator in the mini-story \"Boys and Girls\" and sheds light on the suppression endured by the central female characters in a patriarchal society.     

“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.     

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...     

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.     

The Art of the Impossible? A Case Study and Reflections on the Experience of Art in a Rural Kenyan Primary School

The arguments for, and justification of, the value of teaching art in school have been made previously, but contextually these are often situated in Western affluence. This article explores the issues with a strikingly contrasted setting. The rural school in the study is approximately 30 minutes' drive from the nearest town, and the pupils are drawn from the surrounding rural bush area which is itself developmentally and materially poor in comparison to the UK. In school, the poverty seemed initially to relate to a lack of educational resources, but the reality experienced in the classroom may have also been linked to other issues. These included the desperate preoccupation with survival in difficult climatic conditions, a postcolonial legacy and the delicate balance of utilising resources without waste. What conclusions might then be drawn about the teaching of art? Utilising the work of others who have considered the issues in Kenya, this small‐scale ethnographic case study is presented with personal reflection and observations. The author would be pleased to hear from others with similar experiences or who have recognised additional issues in seemingly challenging circumstances.     

Interpreting the Rules: Language and Transformation in a Boys’ Comprehensive

This essay emerges from my position as a new trainee teacher, entering my first school, a school as unique and also as typical as any. What struck me was the complexity of the school's culture (and counter-cultures). Language was revealed as a site of resistance, a clash between staff and pupils at the point of instruction; a reluctance to read or write; an unanticipated response to text. This resistance was often shut down, yet it must at some level be meaningful. Indeed, it was often clearly communicated to me by the boys' complaints about having to read the texts prescribed to them, or indeed in the depth of the creative responses, particularly to visual images, that many of them displayed when given the opportunity to write in class. This suggests the need for a broader understanding of the way language is used, the different registers employed by pupils in interactions in the classroom; and, for me in my new role as teacher, the challenge of how to harness those moments which enable students to explore expression in ways they find meaningful.     

Adrian Peterson and the “Wussification of America”: Football and Myths of Masculinity

Twitter has become a unique site for making sense of public discussions about authority and morality in the United States. This article addresses these discussions by analyzing the elements of conservative discourse that claim the health of the nation is in decline because of a diminished emphasis on masculine leadership. There is a long tradition of conservative politicians in the United States warning against “soft” or “weak” figures of authority. Such conversations take place within a range of contexts, including the sport of football. As a means to engage hegemonic masculine authority from a critical perspective, this article investigates Twitter users’ various reactions to Adrian Peterson’s suspension due to his disciplining his child with a “switch.”     

Practical Experience in Teacher Education: the Norwegian case from a mid‐Norwegian perspective

After numerous debates and discussions over the last century Norway decided in 1992 to extend the half year GCE‐course at the universities to a one year study. Due to this decision it was for the first time written National Guidelines for these kinds of studies.

This paper seeks to show how this change is carried out at one of the four universities in Norway—the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. The author presents this reform under the heading practical experience in Teacher Education. This is done because the National Guidelines for Norway underline that all theory in the GCE‐studies must be school‐based. Practical classroom experience is, in other words, supposed to be the starting point for all theory being taught as a part of the GCE‐program.

This paper also tries to view the Norwegian change in the GCE‐course from international trends within teacher education.     

Human Anatomy: Teaching–Learning Experience of a Support Teacher and a Student with Low Vision and Blindness

In Brazil, a federal law ensures that all students with disabilities are entitled to enrollment in higher education institutions. Higher courses in human anatomy stand out for their complexity in both theoretical and practical contents. Therefore, adaptation is required to accommodate students with special educational needs. This study aimed to describe the experience of a Support Teacher in the development of inclusive pedagogical practices for the discipline of Human Anatomy offered in the physiotherapy course for a student with low vision and blindness. The challenges and learning difficulties faced by a visually impaired student are reported. Qualitative analysis was performed by interviewing a student with low vision and blindness and a Support Teacher. The audio recordings were transcribed, categorized, and analyzed using content analysis. The Support Teacher created schematics and drawings of anatomical structures, reviewed theoretical and practical contents, developed adaptations of the examinations, and applied palpatory anatomy to facilitate the student’s learning process. The findings illustrate that the student faced the greatest difficulty in dealing with the emotional aspects, due to the inability to visualize the anatomical details in human cadavers. Thus, the presence of a Support Teacher was fundamental to ensure that the student could learn the content and overcome this limitation. In conclusion, personalized adaptation, commitment, and collaborative work between the Support Teacher and students with low vision and blindness improve their learning conditions.     

Self-Study of a Teacher’s Practices of and Experience with Emotion Regulation: Being and Becoming through Reflection and Engagement

ABSTRACT

Research on teacher emotion regulation is typically conducted by outsiders and focuses on how emotion is regulated. This self-study was conducted by a practicing teacher to explore the lived experience of teacher emotion regulation and the many influences that inspire the need for such regulation. Throughout a 14-week semester, daily “in-the-moment” recordings of emotion were collected as they arose, and analyzed weekly. With a critical friend, further analysis was conducted to explore the genesis of the emotion as well as the response and possible alternatives. We believe that understanding the experience of the emotion is possibly more important than how it is regulated. Through reflection, this teacher began to resolve deeper issues that had evoked negative emotions, which shifted her approach to difficult situations and reduced the amount of negative emotions experienced. We conclude that the research on emotion regulation should focus on understanding the underlying issue triggering the emotion than on controlling the emotions displayed.     

What Every Teacher Should Know: Reflections on “Educating the Developing Mind”

Over the past half century, much has been learned about the ways in which students develop and learn. Unfortunately, this knowledge often does not find its way into the classroom. Teachers can begin to use this knowledge by focusing on a few key ideas. They need to go beyond the presentation of content to helping students acquire strategies for processing that content. They need to achieve a balance between knowledge and process (rather than choose one or the other). They need to minimize teaching content in isolation, choosing instead to contextualize the content in real-life experiences and applications. Finally, they need to help students learn to make informed, defensible decisions on their own. Changes in curriculum, both at the macro- and micro-levels can assist teachers in making these changes in their teaching.     

Boys Write About Boys: Androcentrism in Children’s Reading Experience and Its Emergence in Children’s Own Writing

Gender bias exists in our language environment. We investigated personal name usage in two large corpora of language written for and by U.K. children aged 5–13. Study 1 found an overrepresentation of male names in children’s books, largely attributable to male authors. In stories written by over 100,000 children, Study 2 found an overall male bias that interacted with age. Younger children wrote more about their own gender. With age, girls became more balanced yet boys continued to show a strong male bias. Our findings demonstrate a male-centered bias in both children’s books and their own writing. We consider the power of written language to both shape and be shaped by cultural stereotypes via systematic biases in gender associations.     

Teacher preparation for vocational education and training in Germany: a potential model for Canada?

Germany's vocational education and training (VET) and corresponding teacher-education programmes are known worldwide for their integrated framework. Government legislation unifies companies, unions and vocational schools, and specifies the education and training required for students as well as vocational teachers. Changing from the Diplom programme model to the Anglophone Bachelor and Masters degree model has raised concerns for VET teacher preparation. It is within this context that we explore Germany's VET teacher-education system and current academic debates. We further investigate challenges in the development of Canada's VET teacher-education programmes and suggest some policy borrowing from the German model.