Building disciplinary literacy: an analysis of history,science and math teachers' close reading strategies

This collective case study explores the strategies history, science and math teachers use to conduct close readings in their disciplines. Through qualitative analysis of forum posts and lesson plans submitted to a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) designed as professional development (PD), this study examines the strategies history, science and math teachers reported using to conduct close readings in their discipline, as well as how these teachers conduct close readings after receiving professional development on reading strategies for their disciplines. Ultimately, the research showed that while more teachers reported using disciplinary literacy strategies following the PD, they did not necessarily report using the strategies that, according to experts in their fields, are considered to be the most important for their discipline.     

Student Perceptions of Industrial Chemistry Classroom Learning Environments

This article describes a study conducted in Israel which focused on how learning industrial chemistry case studies affects students' perceptions of their classroom learning environment and their interest in chemistry studies. The goal of the study was to determine the effects of industrial case studies on students' perceptions of chemistry in general, and industrial chemistry in particular. Information on students' perceptions was gathered from a learning environment inventory specifically developed for this study. It was observed that industrial chemistry case studies helped in providing students with a relevant picture of chemistry in general and their chemistry studies in particular. It was also found that teachers who had attended an intensive training workshop were the most successful in presenting the relevance of chemistry in the case studies. These teachers also were more successful in raising students' awareness of the social implications of chemistry studies. Furthermore, their students had a better awareness of the contribution made by chemistry studies to their preparation as future citizens and for a possible career in chemistry. These findings have important implications for any decisions about whether to make industrial chemistry case studies obligatory for students who major in chemistry. There are further implications regarding the content and learning strategies to be used for the professional development of science teachers in general and chemistry teachers in particular. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Resolving feelings of professional inadequacy: Student teachers’ coping with distressful situations

Student teachers face various difficult situations during their teacher education. The aim of this study was to examine how student teachers perceive coping with distressful situations during their teacher training. Focus groups and individual interviews were conducted. The results show that student teachers feel professionally inadequate, characterized by powerlessness, limited means of action and uncertainty. In resolving professional inadequacy, they use concepts connected to the social process of becoming teachers: modifying professional ideals, dependence on future colleagues and continuing to build experience. These concepts lead to acceptance and postponing strategies for learning from distressful situations.     

Getting recognised: Teachers negotiating professional identities as learners through talk

This paper presents findings from a qualitative study on teachers' negotiation of professional identity through talk with colleagues at an urban, public, Midwestern school in the United States. The purpose of the research was to identify discourse strategies the teachers used to negotiate local significances for their professional identities. Analysis and findings demonstrate that the teachers made and recognised identity bids to accomplish the professional identity of teacher as learner, using a range of discourse strategies, including two genres of reflective talk. Implications for our understanding of teachers as knowledge-producers and how this can inform teacher education and education policy are considered.     

A case study of early career secondary teachers’ perceptions of their preparedness for teaching: lessons from Australia and Spain

This paper presents an international comparison of Australian and Spanish secondary teachers’ perceptions about the effectiveness of their pre-service education and their learning as in-service teachers. It aims to identify, firstly, the extent to which beginning teachers believe they are prepared for their careers through their teacher training and, secondly, what teachers have learned as practicing teachers. A qualitative case study was conducted to uncover whether similar issues raised by early career teachers were identified in different contexts. Data were collected through interviews with secondary teachers (N = 11) from Australia and Spain in their third year of full-time teaching. Findings suggest similar positive perceptions towards their practicum experiences, transition to beginning teachers and professional development. However, differences were found in their early career experiences regarding professional learning and their development of identity. Implications of the study are discussed by identifying strategies to improve pre-service education for secondary teachers.     

Teacher perspectives on their alternative fast-track induction

The purpose of this study was to explore the professional challenges and concerns of 30 second career teachers (SCTs) participating in an alternative fast-track induction program during their first year of teaching. Additionally, the study investigated their perspectives of the institutional support provided to them. The main source of data was online case study discussions and reflective journals which were analyzed qualitatively through content analysis. The results suggest that the challenges and concerns of SCTs trained through a fast-track program are essentially not dissimilar from novice teachers trained in traditional programs. Even though SCTs entered the profession with extensive life and work experience, they seemed to perceive the same mismatch experienced by other first-year teachers between what they had expected and what they actually encountered. Their main challenges and concerns centered on: classroom teaching, teacher–student relations, the extensive workload, and their emotional involvement. Nevertheless, these SCTs demonstrated the ability to apply strategies acquired in their previous professions to cope with the professional challenges they had encountered in the school context. Drawing on transition theory proposed by Schlossberg, the process of transition into the teaching profession was explored. Applying Schlossberg’s model, the professional concerns and the types of strategies used by SCTs to cope with the various challenges were identified. This theory also provided the framework for understanding the perceptions of SCTs of the institutional support provided to them and the use they made of it throughout this year. Implications for teacher education programs are discussed.     

Learning About Semi Conductors for Teaching—the Role Played by Content Knowledge in Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) Development

This study focuses on how teachers learn to teach a new topic and the role played by their developing content knowledge as they teach. The paper is based on seven high school science teachers’ studies on the teaching of semiconductors, at the time a new topic in the curriculum. Analysis of artefacts such as teacher concept maps, video recordings of lessons, journals and other classroom-based evidence shows how the extent and type of teachers’ content knowledge informed their choice of teaching approaches and how their learning of content took place alongside the development of teaching strategies. The development of content knowledge was combined with increased understanding of how to teach the topic in almost all cases. Evidence of development of teachers’ PCK was found in their increased ability to design teaching strategies, and their use of representations and suitable assessment tasks for their lessons. Some specific common teaching strategies were identified across the teachers. These strategies could add to the canon of teachers’ topic - specific professional knowledge for semiconductors. The study provides increased understanding of how teachers simultaneously master content and its teaching and how mediated self-reflection is a fruitful approach for assisting teachers to learn to teach a new topic.     

Teachers’ professional development in Nanoscience and nanotechnology in the context of a Community of Learners

ABSTRACT

This case study focuses on teachers’ professional development in NanoScience and nanoTechnology (NST). In the context of a Community of Learners (CoL), in-service teachers in collaboration with science education researchers, nanoscience researchers and experts from science museums, developed a teaching module. This module integrates NST topics along with aspects of science communication, i.e. development of science exhibits and socio-scientific issues, e.g. ethics regarding the research in this field. The data were gathered over 1-year period by using video recordings and interviews. The Interconnected Model of Professional Growth was used to study the processes that support teachers’ professional change in this context, as they are elicited from their interactions in the CoL. Our findings indicate that the dynamic of teachers’ interactions with colleagues and the mediating processes that impact on their professional learning, are crafted on the basis of the emerged challenges in each phase of module’s design and development. These findings give an insight on teachers’ professional learning as they transfer their professional knowledge regarding scientific topics which are innovative to them, i.e. NST, into their teaching practice. In this respect, this study contributes to research literature relevant to teachers’ professionalisation in order to implement innovations in the classroom.     

‘Everyone thinks that I just need to know a few words and sing some songs to teach English to the kids’: primary school English language teachers struggled for their professional legitimacy

Language teachers’ struggles for professional legitimacy have emerged as an area of interest in the field of language teaching research. Grounded in Wenger’s concept of ‘trajectories of learning’, the current study explored the fight for legitimate status of two primary school English language teachers in Vietnam. Data for this article were collected through life-history interviews in which the two participating teachers were encouraged to tell stories about the early days of their teaching careers. The findings of the study reveal that the participants struggled for professional legitimacy during the early stage of their teaching careers. Beyond the school setting, the two teachers encountered negative attitudes towards their teaching profession as teaching languages to young learners was not highly valued in society. Based on the findings, the study pointed to the issue of power relations which, although regarded as a barrier to teachers’ professional legitimacy, is not adequately addressed in the concept of ‘trajectories of learning’. The study also revealed some implications for legitimising language teachers’ professional status.     

Searching for good practice in teaching: a comparison of two subject‐based professional learning communities in a secondary school in Shanghai

Since the mid‐1990s, the concept of professional learning communities has arisen in the education field in the West, aiming to improve teachers’ professional competency by using collaborative approaches. Western studies indicate that these strategies help teachers achieve professional growth. Schools in China have had a long history of enhancing the professional competency of teachers by using collaboration in school‐based contexts. But do professional learning communities in Chinese schools, especially in times of change, do the same for Chinese teachers? This study provides empirical data from Chinese teachers to assist global discussions on school‐based professional development. The study uses qualitative data collection methods, including semi‐structured interviews, observations and documentary analysis, to investigate how teachers from two subject departments in a secondary school in Shanghai enhance their knowledge and practice within their subject‐based professional learning communities. Results show that members of these two communities have shared common goals and have developed a sense of collective accountability. The study also found that socio‐cultural factors, such as the collectivist values, authoritarian‐oriented practices and influences of interpersonal relationship, are crucial in the development of Chinese professional learning communities, even though different communities may differ in other respects.     

Peer Mentoring by resource teachers in Zimbabwean schools

Mentoring is a learning and instructional strategy that could be used effectively, especially in the area of continuing professional development. The purpose of this study was to determine the potential and the capacity of teachers who function as resource teachers within the Zimbabwean secondary school system to mentor their peers. Nine case studies of active resource teachers were examined through in-depth interviews. It was found that the resource teachers were doing minimal mentoring activity in their everyday work as resource teachers. The activity is mostly in the form of dispensing information and organising workshops and demonstrating instructional strategies. Their potential as mentors could be enhanced by simply improving their work environment, developing critical personality traits that embody humility and ‘a culture to serve others’, and raising the level of professionalism among themselves, their peers, and their school managers through education.     

Teachers’ Practice a Decade After an Extensive Professional Development Program in Science Education

Science teachers are expected to teach in innovative ways that are different from their long experience as students. Professional development programs are planned to help teachers’ development, yet, there is little knowledge of the long-term effects of professional development programs (PDPs), and especially on actual practice. The purpose of this study is to gain a long-term perspective of the ways in which the process and outcomes of a reform-oriented, extended PDP are expressed in science teachers’ practice. Data sources included interviews and documents. The study presents four case studies of the practices of junior high school science teachers (grades 7–9) in Israel, with respect to a past PDP in which they took part a decade ago. The cases are presented in pairs of a leader and a follower. Each case details the teacher’s work context, sustained implementation, coherence of tools and approaches, and adaptations. All four teachers shared the view that scientific skills are important to their students as learners in a changing world. All four teachers adopted one or two major approaches, which were the PDP’s main focus. In addition, the two leaders adopted two more approaches. The teachers were still using many strategies associated with the major foci of the PDP. The level of enactment and modifications of the strategies varied. Usability of innovations is discussed in relation to the teachers’ context. We suggest that science teachers’ professional development include the ability to adapt the innovation to their teaching context in order to sustain the changes for a long period of time.     

Redefining ‘community’ through collaboration and co-teaching: a case study of an ESOL specialist,a literacy specialist,and a fifth-grade teacher

This article explores the development of a professional learning community through a case study of three teachers – an ESOL specialist, a literacy specialist, and a fifth-grade teacher – who engaged in co-teaching and collaboration. The emerging community of practice offered these teachers a space to learn and problem-solve by utilizing their specialized disciplinary knowledge of students and expanding the application of reading strategies during language arts. Concurrently, opportunities for revising curriculum and instruction remained unrealized, as teachers struggled to negotiate roles and responsibilities within the top-down administratively initiated collaboration that required redefining their professional community. Implications and recommendations are discussed.     

The Development of Professional Self‐concept

This paper re‐analyses data originally gathered as part of a longitudinal study of entrants to teaching in an effort to isolate the conditions which affect the development of a strong professional self‐concept. Differences were found between primary and secondary student teachers. For primary specialists, teaching practice had become the dominant influence in the development of their conceptions of themselves as teachers. Their academic courses were regarded unfavourably as not helpful in their professional development. Secondary specialists viewed their college courses very favourably as the foundation on which their development as teachers during teaching practice was based. Associate teachers in schools had their greatest influence on self‐concept development when they provided a climate marked by autonomy for the student teacher backed up by support and advice.     

Preservice Teachers and Technology Integration: Rethinking Traditional Roles

Although the use of learning technology has become increasingly prominent in schools, significant changes in teaching strategies have not kept pace. Lack of quality professional development and inadequate teacher preparation are often cited for this situation. This case study explores the use of the student teaching experience as an avenue for both preservice and inservice teachers’ professional development associated with educational technology. Two main questions are explored: First, to what extent can preservice teachers enact a technology-rich curriculum unit during their field experience; second, to what extent and under what conditions can the preservice teachers facilitate their cooperating mentor teachers’ acquisition of these same skills. Results indicate preservice teachers can stimulate the integration of technology-rich innovations in their mentor teachers.     

Teachers’ professional identity in super-diverse school settings: teachers as agents of intercultural education

ABSTRACT

This research study focuses on the ways in which teachers’ professional identity is being shaped and influenced in ‘super-diverse’ school settings. For the purposes of this research, we used the Cyprus educational system as our case study to investigate how teachers experience the enactment of intercultural education at the school level. To this end, 20 interviews were carried out along with 11 female and 9 male teachers of 10 primary schools, which presented diverse profiles of their student populations. Research data revealed that teachers’ professional identity and its underpinning constructs such as emotions, job satisfaction, professional commitment, autonomy and confidence were constantly challenged and negotiated within the changing educational setting. Contextual and professional factors such as work intensification, lack of training and resources, lack of respect and negligence of teachers’ previous experiences, ideologies, values and beliefs were found to affect teachers’ identity and consequently intercultural policy enactment. Therefore, the case is made that the complexity of professional identity needs to be taken into account by policymakers because teachers are the ones who embrace, reinterpret and develop the curriculum. The way and degree to which teachers understand, adjust, perceive and enact on educational policies are affected by the extent to which these policies interact with and challenge existing identities.     

When communities collide: the shared construction and defence of community and identity during a teaching practicum

This article describes the results of a qualitative multiple case study investigation of the experiences of preservice teachers during a teaching practicum in Hong Kong. The study uses in-depth interviews with pairs of student teachers and their school-based supporting teachers to understand how the former positioned themselves as particular types of teachers through mutual interactions with other communities of teachers during a teaching practicum. Three case studies explore the ways in which the pairs of student teachers not only supported each other within the context of a teaching team, but also jointly deployed strategies to establish and defend the values of teaching and learning that were afforded a premium by their community of preservice teachers. The results underscore the importance of investigating relations between different communities, such as student teachers, school-based teachers and school authorities if the learning goals of the teaching practicum are to be attained. Implications for how relations that foster the professional development of all teachers within and across different communities during a teaching practicum might be achieved and sustained are discussed and implications for future research considered.     

Chinese Teachers’ Professional Identity and Beliefs about the Teacher-Student Relationships in an Intercultural Context

This paper presents a qualitative study of immigrant Chinese teachers’ professional identity and beliefs about the teacher-student relationship in an intercultural context. Theoretically, this study takes its departure from a sociocultural perspective on understanding professional identity. The empirical analysis in the study drew mainly upon ethnographic interviews with a group of Chinese language teachers in Denmark concerning their life experiences, perceptions, and beliefs. The results of this study suggest that teachers’ beliefs about their roles as teachers and about student-teacher relationships are shaped by both their prior experiences and backgrounds and the current social and cultural contexts in which they are situated. Changes of context (e.g., from China to Denmark) often lead to a transformation of their professional identity and beliefs. Being a teacher in an intercultural context often exposes them to the confrontation of diverse challenges and dilemmas. On one hand, teachers in this study generally experienced a transformation from being a moral role model, subject expert, authority and parental role to being a learning facilitator and culture worker. On the other hand, they developed diverse individualized coping strategies to handle student-teacher interactions and other aspects of teachers’ professional identity.     

解读教师专业素养——基于专家教师和教研员的视角

在促进以发展学生核心素养为理念的课程改革中,教师专业素养至关重要.本文结合对专业素养、特别是教师的专业素养文献的介绍,描述了一项启发式研究(Elicitation Study).通过对上海地区一线教育研究工作者(主要指教研员和专家型教师)关于教师专业素养的观点的调查,研究刻画出他们对教师专业素养的认识,包括专业素养的主要成分;并且指出不同职称、学段的教育研究工作者对教师专业素养的不同观点.希冀能启发并指向在后续研究中提出更合理、更细目化的教师专业素养模型,促进教师专业的发展,最终达到发展中国学生核心素养的目标.研究结果显示,从一线教育研究工作者(以数学学科为例)的观点中,我们可以得到教师专业素养是一个多维度的概念,它包含教师知识等在内的诸多因素,以及这些因素交互作用所产生的个人特征;具有较高职称的、工作于高中学段的教育研究者对教师专业素养的观点与其他工作者有明显差别.     

特级教师研究:目标、内容与策略

本文阐述了特级教师研究的目标、内容和策略;在系统梳理我国特级教师评选制度来龙去脉的基础上,对特级教师的专业成长与发展提出了规律性假设,对特级教师的教学艺术风格进行了多角度的分析和总结;在对相当数量且有一定代表性的特级教师进行个案研究的基础上,对我国特级教师遴选、管理、使用和专业发展等进行了系统研究与反思。