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.     

Using peer and teacher-student exemplar dialogues to unpack assessment standards: challenges and possibilities

Dialogic use of exemplars is effective in developing student understanding of assessment standards. However, limited studies have investigated how exemplar dialogues are conducted in the post-secondary context. To fill the gap, this teacher-research explores the characteristics of peer and teacher–student exemplar talk in three post-secondary classrooms and the challenges in the dialogic process. The participants involved 69 first-year post-secondary students, a critical friend and a teacher-researcher. Data analysis on selected dialogue excerpts, an open-ended survey, focus group interviews with the students, critical friend’s commentary and a teacher-researcher reflective journal indicated two major issues: (i) students’ lack of capacities to resolve socio-cognitive conflict in the peer dialogue; (ii) the dilemma of addressing students’ immediate assessment needs and developing their long-term evaluative judgements in the teacher–student dialogue. Recommendations are made to tackle the challenges and to orchestrate productive exemplar dialogues.     

Emotional intelligence,self‐efficacy,and coping among Chinese prospective and in‐service teachers in Hong Kong

Emotional intelligence (intrapersonal and interpersonal) and general teacher self‐efficacy were assessed to represent personal resources facilitating active and passive coping in a sample of 273 Chinese prospective and in‐service teachers in Hong Kong. Intrapersonal emotional intelligence and interpersonal emotional intelligence were found to predict significantly active coping strategy, but teacher self‐efficacy did not contribute independently to the prediction of active coping even though there was some evidence that teacher self‐efficacy might interact with intrapersonal emotional intelligence in the prediction of active coping, especially for male teachers. The implications of the findings for preventive intervention efforts to combat teacher stress through teaching to enhance emotional intelligence are discussed.     

Starting small in assessment change: short in-class written responses

This paper is focused on an innovation which involved students being assessed on short written responses to an issue to be addressed in the following classroom session. The innovation was evaluated through a student survey, individual and focus-group interviews with participants, and the analysis of a critical friend. Positive findings included promoting student preparation and reflection, and enabling the teacher to understand students’ prior knowledge before the next session. Challenges included some student misperceptions about the assessment innovation, and the difficulty of assessing the short responses efficiently and reliably. The analysis suggests that starting small is a useful principle for assessment change. The discussion also brings out some wider issues of incentives and barriers for assessment innovation, and sketches some related future research directions.     

Blurring the boundaries: connecting research,practice and professional learning

Educational researchers can incorporate benefits for themselves and teacher participants by planning for interactions between research, practice and teachers’ professional learning from the outset of a project. However, the dual role of a researcher as a professional learning partner has rarely been explicated and theorised in studies of teacher–researcher relationships. The study described in this paper occurred in the context of early childhood education. The notion of a critical friend was extended and validated as a useful theorisation of the relationship. Four ways that I acted as a critical friend are described. The expertise, roles, boundaries and hybridity of a co‐constructed approach to research are discussed. The importance of a researcher as critical friend having research and theoretical knowledge to shift teacher knowledge and practice is argued. Implications for teacher–researcher partnerships in terms of strengthening coherence between research, practice and professional learning are suggested.     

‘Challenge and support’: the role of the critical friend in continuing professional development

Abstract

In this paper, the writer, a senior teacher in a comprehensive school, describes his role as a critical friend to two teachers who were undertaking self‐initiated action research projects as part of a school‐based, award‐bearing curriculum development scheme offered in conjunction with the local higher education institute (HEI). He concludes that such a relationship, in providing both challenge and support for colleagues who are attempting to improve practice, is a powerful vehicle for the professional development of teachers and has a positive impact on whole‐school development.     

A comparison of Saudi and Canadian children's knowledge of the causes of learning difficulties

In this comparative study, students from inclusive schools in Canada and Saudi Arabia shared their beliefs about factors associated with learning difficulties. Qualitative data were collected through interviews with 36 Canadian and 62 Saudi elementary students in Grades 5 and 6. Thematic analysis uncovered six themes: lack of knowledge, achievement or academic skills; cognitive and social‐emotional barriers; lack of attention and/or motivation and behavioural issues; home and parental concerns; teacher‐related issues; and physical/sensory disabilities and innate conditions. Although participants from both countries had a general understanding of the factors associated with learning difficulties, Canadian students showed a deeper understanding of cognitive and social‐emotional factors associated with learning difficulties. Educational and research implications are discussed.     

The personal and professional selves of teachers: stable and unstable identities

In much educational literature it is recognised that the broader social conditions in which teachers live and work, and the personal and professional elements of teachers' lives, experiences, beliefs and practices are integral to one another, and that there are often tensions between these which impact to a greater or lesser extent upon teachers' sense of self or identity. If identity is a key influencing factor on teachers' sense of purpose, self‐efficacy, motivation, commitment, job satisfaction and effectiveness, then investigation of those factors which influence positively and negatively, the contexts in which these occur and the consequences for practice, is essential. Surprisingly, although notions of ‘self’ and personal identity are much used in educational research and theory, critical engagement with individual teachers' cognitive and emotional ‘selves’ has been relatively rare. Yet such engagement is important to all with an interest in raising and sustaining standards of teaching, particularly in centralist reform contexts which threaten to destabilise long‐held beliefs and practices. This article addresses the issue of teacher identities by drawing together research which examines the nature of the relationships between social structures and individual agency; between notions of a socially constructed, and therefore contingent and ever‐remade, ‘self’, and a ‘self’ with dispositions, attitudes and behavioural responses which are durable and relatively stable; and between cognitive and emotional identities. Drawing upon existing research literature and findings from a four‐year Department for Education and Skills funded project with 300 teachers in 100 schools which investigated variations in teachers' work and lives and their effects on pupils (VITAE), it finds that identities are neither intrinsically stable nor intrinsically fragmented, as earlier literature suggests. Rather, teacher identities may be more, or less, stable and more or less fragmented at different times and in different ways according to a number of life, career and situational factors.     

Reverberating chords: implications of storied nostalgia for borderland discourses in pre-service teacher identity

The research that is the subject of this paper set out to interrogate pre-service teachers’ responses to issues of national identity, ideology, and representation in contemporary multicultural Canadian picture books. While the research focused on whether and how the literature could serve to inform and broaden pre-service teachers’ conceptualizations of diversity, we retrospectively decided to re-visit the focus group and interview data to know which of the 70 picture books had most engaged the teachers and why. We critically consider the implications of teachers’ attachments for social justice education and teachers’ cultivation of a critical, ‘borderlands’ discourse aware of self and open to others. The research suggests that a significant source of teacher knowledge and thinking is lodged in teachers’ personal memories of childhood texts, called touchstones. Touchstones were a place from which teachers implicitly began; certain stories struck particular chords, chords largely attributable to childhood memories. Most intertextual connections were personal, with some tangential to the text. While touchstones performed different functions depending on the subject position of the pre-service teachers, they pointed to the existence of an underlying position of teacher as nostalgic subject. Given the importance of this subject position for teachers’ responses to picture books, we explore critical reconceptualizations of nostalgia that can support the development of borderland discourses. We suggest that pre-service teachers need to be invited to individually and collectively examine their responses to both old and new touchstone stories. More nuanced research also needs to be conducted on the role of nostalgia in teacher formation, how it influences teacher practice, and how to best design teacher education courses to foster ‘borderland discourses’ related to the storying of teacher identity, especially with respect to popular ‘collectibles’ and core teaching texts like picture books.     

Education for ethically sensitive teaching in critical incidents at school

The purpose of the present study was to identify and investigate critical incidents at school that require ethically sensitive teaching. This kind of knowledge is needed in teacher education to prepare future teachers for their profession. The data included narrative interviews with 12 teachers from four urban schools in Finland. Critical incidents were defined as issues or situations in teachers' work that produce ethical reflection and moral emotions. The critical incidents experienced by urban schoolteachers were analysed and compared with earlier studies on ethical dilemmas in teaching. Concrete examples of these incidents were reported which contain teachers' emotional expressions. Four main categories of critical incidents were identified. These were related to the principal, students and families, teachers, and the school community. Teachers reported commitment, caring, co‐operation and respect as the most dominant emotional expressions in these situations. These emotional expressions reflected ethical sensitivity skills, especially in reading and expressing emotions. Based on our study we suggest recommendations for teacher educators on how education for ethically sensitive teaching can be promoted.     

From anxiety to enthusiasm: emotional patterns among student teachers

Studying to become a teacher is a highly emotional experience. Nevertheless, little is known about emotional patterns and emotional change. The aim of this study is to enhance the understanding of student teachers’ academic emotions by exploring patterns of emotions experienced in emotionally loaded episodes. A total of 19 primary school student teachers were interviewed. The qualitative content analysis revealed five different emotional patterns: positive, negative, ascending, descending and changing. Most of the emotional patterns were positive or changing in nature. Yet all the emotional patterns were highly focused on studying and learning. Moreover, the patterns were experienced equally in short, medium-length and long episodes. Our study showed that emotional patterns were triggered by various task-related elements of teacher education: most commonly, fulfilled or unfilled expectations, sufficient or insufficient abilities, and experiences of social support received or not received.     

Early career teachers’ emotion and emerging teacher identities

The goal of our project was to develop an understanding of the connections among emotional episodes and emerging professional teacher identities of first year teachers. We interviewed eight first year mathematics and science teachers. We asked them to reflect on emotional episodes and talk about how those emotions informed their teaching identities. Our data yielded a model of ‘identity-work’ that reflected the teachers’ engagement in a reflective process of understanding themselves as it related to those emotional episodes. Our model includes four key processes: (1) Teacher incoming identity beliefs; (2) Teacher identity emotional episodes; (3) Teacher attributions and (4)Identity adjustment. All of our teachers exhibited a form of this process with some teachers elaborating on the ways in which pleasant emotional experiences confirmed their identities and others elaborating on the ways in which unpleasant emotional experiences caused them to confront and/or adjust their emergent identities. Implications for future research and teacher education are discussed.     

Supervising the Teacher Education Practicum: A Self-Study with a Critical Friend

ABSTRACT

If the practicum is the most valued element of a teacher education program, how good is each teacher candidate’s learning and how well is it supported by the university supervisor? While most self-studies of teacher education practices focus on practices in the university classroom, this article reports an analysis of a supervisor’s practices, with special attention to underlying assumptions of the supervisor. Data permitted identification of patterns in the supervisor’s pedagogy and in teacher candidates’ responses to that pedagogy. The supervisor’s underlying assumptions and the contribution of conversations with a critical friend were identified. A table was constructed to contrast the assumptions in two stances toward supervision, one characterized as transmission and the other as interpretation. Conclusions emphasize the importance of listening to each candidate’s voice and including a metacognitive element in a supervisory conversation after a lesson observation.     

School self‐evaluation and the role of a critical friend

School self‐evaluation is receiving increasing attention in England, partly as a result of changes in the Ofsted inspection framework giving greater prominence to what schools can do to speak for themselves. The relationship between internal self‐evaluation and external inspection was a theme in a high profile policy speech made by the Schools Standards Minister, David Miliband, at the North of England Conference in January 2004. As part of a ‘new relationship with schools’ heralded in the speech, Miliband articulated critical friendship in terms of a ‘school improvement partner’. This article draws upon a number of research projects to critique these proposals, especially in respect of the role of a critical friend in school self‐evaluation. Issues discussed include different models of self and external evaluation, the importance of context, and the various ways in which a critical friend can support school self‐evaluation.     

Leading with teachers’ emotional labour: relationships between leadership practices,emotional labour strategies and efficacy in China

Emotional labour has been demonstrated to play a critical role in teaching and leading in the past decade. This study explored the relationships between leadership practices, emotional labour and teacher self-efficacy, with a focus on the mediating role of emotional labour strategies. A sample of 1026 teachers from 3 provinces in China participated in a questionnaire survey. The results show that leadership practices had a negative effect on surface acting and positive effects on deep acting, expression of natural felt emotion and all three aspects of teacher efficacy. Mediation analysis indicates that surface acting and expression of natural felt emotion significantly mediate the effects of leadership practices on teaching efficacy. Implications for school leadership and teacher development are discussed.     

AN EXAMINATION OF THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN OBSERVED AND SELF‐REPORTED CULTURALLY PROFICIENT TEACHING PRACTICES

A critical next step in advancing our understanding of teacher practices that can equitably engage and support learning in diverse classrooms is determining the effectiveness of culturally responsive interventions. Yet, quantitative measurement indicators of the effectiveness of culturally responsive teaching interventions are scarce. Most research relies exclusively on self‐reports, with limited attention to issues of social desirability, and few studies observe teacher practices. Data come from 142 K‐8 teachers in six schools who were assessed via the Assessing School Settings: Interactions of Students and Teachers (ASSIST), an externally‐conducted observation, and who also provided self‐report data of cultural responsiveness. Analyses indicated that teachers self‐reported higher rates of culturally responsive teaching strategies than were observed on the ASSIST. There were, however, significant associations between observations and teachers’ ratings of self‐efficacy. Findings suggest a need for additional research to develop and validate efficient, multi‐informant approaches for assessing cultural responsiveness in the classroom.     

Supporting Collaborative Self-Study: An Exploration of Internal and External Critical Friendships

ABSTRACT

This article outlines how a cyclic process of reflection and action was strengthened by the role of an external critical friend in a collaborative self-study. As three teacher education practitioners, two of us participated in the collaborative self-study, acting as internal critical friends to each other, while the third added an external layer of criticality. We both coached the university football team through one playing season: planning, coaching and reflecting collaboratively. Examination of the collaborative self-study identified two essential elements that supported our learning. The collaborative self-study was supported by a cyclic process of reflection, planning and action, and this foundational layer with review and deliberation to support the critical reflection contributed to learning and practices, both as coaches and as teacher education practitioners. A second layer of collaboration, in conjunction with an external critical friend, added to the depth of critique. While the role of critical friend is not new to self-study, analysis of data from both layers of critical friendships is useful in exploiting the structures and methods used throughout the study to contribute to individual and collaborative learning. This article presents the intricate details of the modus operandi – the repetitive cycle of action and reflection at the foundational layer, and the additional review and deliberation with an external critical friend in the second layer.     

Personal and collective perceptions of social support: Implications for classroom engagement in early adolescence

The present study uses multilevel modeling to understand early adolescents’ individual and class-level perceptions of social support in relation to their behavioral and emotional engagement in math and science. To capture individual relationships, we examined students’ self-perceptions of classroom social satisfaction, best friend quality, and teacher-student relatedness. Between classrooms, we considered collective perceptions of peer and teacher support. Participants were 761 fifth (n = 412) and sixth grade (n = 349) students nested within 44 classrooms who were 52% female and ethnically diverse. Results indicated that both peer and teacher relationships are important for early adolescents’ behavioral engagement, but teachers play a primary role in shaping emotional engagement toward subject-area content. Moreover, both individual and classroom-level indicators of perceived support explained variation in children’s engagement outcomes, highlighting the complex nature of classroom social relationships that necessitate teachers’ consideration.     

BOOK REVIEW

Abstract

This paper draws on established teacher education programmes at the Universities of Bath and Canberra in order to contrast different approaches to environmental education contained in secondary science teacher training courses in the two countries. The paper begins with an examination of the context, purposes and approaches of the two courses, leading to a critical review and a discussion of pertinent developmental issues within teacher training programmes and the relationship between science education and environmental issues.     

Burnout,Self‐efficacy,and Successful Intelligence among Chinese Prospective and In‐service School Teachers in Hong Kong

This study assessed the three components of burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, and reduced personal accomplishment), perceived self‐efficacy, and the three triarchic abilities (analytical, synthetic, and practical) of successful intelligence in a sample of 267 Chinese prospective and in‐service teachers in Hong Kong. The aim was to explore and examine the contribution of the blending or integration of the triarchic abilities to the three components of teacher burnout and perceived self‐efficacy. While there were subtle gender and teaching‐experience differences, the general findings suggested that the triarchic abilities, especially practical abilities, could independently contribute to teachers’ sense of personal accomplishment as well as perceived self‐efficacy. The interactive combination of the triarchic abilities could be most important in contributing negatively to emotional exhaustion. The implications of these findings for interventions to combat teacher burnout and enhance job engagement are discussed.