Pre-service teachers’ cultural and teaching experiences abroad

This study investigates Turkish pre-service teachers’ experiences related to a two-month international teaching and cultural experience in the United States of America. In total, 289 graduate students from Turkey participated in a collaborative project from 2001 to 2010. The experience included an orientation week, six weeks of student teaching in a high school, seminars and projects at Iowa State University and cultural visits. The data were collected through a pre-service teacher questionnaire and their reflective journals. The results showed that pre-service teachers perceived the international teaching experience helped them develop professionally and personally. Through cross-cultural exchanges with their mentors along with other students and their community, the pre-service teachers expanded their knowledge of a new culture and adapted to a new working environment.     

Underwhelmed and playing it safe: newly qualified primary teachers’ mentoring and probationary-related experiences during induction

Framed within the burgeoning policy and research literature on teacher induction internationally, this paper focuses on the mentoring and probationary-related experiences of nine newly qualified primary teachers in the Republic of Ireland, during the course of their initial year of workplace practice, post-graduation. Gleaning newly qualified teachers’ (NQTs’) perspectives on these matters is opportune, as the Teaching Council’s new model of induction entitled Droichead (bridge in Irish) is envisaged to become the sole induction and probation route for all NQTs. Transacted during the 2010/2011 school year, when the induction and probationary arrangements in place were those that the Droichead initiative is intended to replace, a three-cycle, individual interview design facilitated continuing contact with each NQT. Selected, representative interview data are utilised to illustrate the dynamics of NQTs’ experiences of mentoring and probationary-related processes. Empirically based findings establish, firstly, beginner complicity in the transaction of narrowly conceived mentoring support; secondly, enamorment of the reifications of initial teacher education-phase teaching practice when negotiating probationary processes; thirdly, the valuing of techniques that respond to immediate, probationary-related requirements over more complex forms of practice; and fourthly, the inevitable and essential interconnectedness of mentoring and probationary processes. The paper concludes with implications for the design and implementation of induction programmes.     

Pre-service teachers’ experiences of ICT in daily life and in educational contexts and their proto-technological pedagogical knowledge

Many pre-service teachers are members of the net generation and are expected to be familiar with different ICTs, yet several studies have indicated that they are not necessarily able to use them for teaching and learning. The notion of teachers’ technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK) is central to this concern. In this study we use the responses of 146 pre-service teachers to open-ended questions about the experiences and knowledge of ICT and pedagogy they brought with them when they entered university teacher training. The data were analysed qualitatively with content analysis based on an integrative framework generated from a number of theoretical perspectives. Derived categories and subcategories were used to construct a framework for ‘proto-TPK’ as a basis for establishing a starting point for the coordinated development of TPK with students in their university training and early careers.     

Professional learning during a schools–university partnership Master of Education course: teachers’ perspectives of their learning experiences

An extensive body of research has indicated the benefits of collaborative, contextualised and enquiry-based learning for teachers’ professional development and school improvement. Yet professional learning is also known to be constrained by a number of factors, including the organisational limitations of schools, conflicting cultural practices and wider political demands. Schools–university partnerships have been developed to overcome some of these difficulties by transcending particular school contexts and offering alternative theoretical and practical perspectives. The complex combination of motivations, backgrounds and working contexts in such partnership work calls for attention to the individual and collective learning experiences of those involved, including the ways in which school and university contexts are, or could be, effectively bridged. This paper focuses on understanding the learning experienced by a cohort of teachers and school leaders involved in a two-year schools–university partnership Master of Education (M.Ed.) course in England. A mixed group of 15 experienced primary and secondary teachers and school leaders reflected on their learning at five points of time during and shortly after completing their M.Ed. course. Qualitative analysis of the group’s interview responses and reflective writing led to the identification of six related aspects of personal and professional learning experience: being a learner; learning as part of professional practice; widening repertoire; changing as a learner; personal growth; and critically adaptive practice. The identification and visual representation of these aspects of experience emerging within the group offers useful insight into teachers’ perspectives on learning in school and university contexts and their experiences of progression over time. We conclude that more explicit and central attention to the professional and personal learning elements of schools–university partnerships can help to resolve some of the binary ‘theory–practice’ tensions that have been extensively discussed in relation to partnership programmes and teacher professional development. There is a need to acknowledge variation in teachers’ learning experiences within schools–university partnerships, bearing in mind the ongoing nature of this reflective process with each new group of school and university colleagues. Analysis of participants’ learning experiences in school and university contexts also draws attention to the wider structures, values and cultures that influence, and are influenced by, schools–university partnership work.     

Context characteristics and their effects on students’ situational interest in chemistry

ABSTRACT

Many studies in science education acknowledge the positive effects of context-based learning on students’ interest and attitudes. However, little is known about the design criteria of contextual situations generating these effects and how facets of students’ situational interest are affected while learning in a contextualised setting. This paper ties in with this initial situation and reports results of two projects analysing the influence of context characteristics on students’ situational interest, referring to contexts as task parameters in the first project and as learning activities in the second. In the first project, everyday related and unique contexts are compared, and the effects of different contextual topics on student learning are investigated. Particularly, regarding the feeling- and value-related valence of situational interest, the results of different studies will be compared and interpreted. The second project investigated structures of interest related to activities along an adapted version of the ‘RIASEC’-model for different content areas and age groups. The chosen contents were embedded in personal as well as societal and professional context settings. Finally, we summarise the relevance of the different models, results and instruments to better understand different notions of interest and outline implications for further studies about teaching that improves student learning.     

Inverse function: Pre-service teachers’ techniques and meanings

Researchers have argued teachers and students are not developing connected meanings for function inverse, thus calling for a closer examination of teachers’ and students’ inverse function meanings. Responding to this call, we characterize 25 pre-service teachers’ inverse function meanings as inferred from our analysis of clinical interviews. After summarizing relevant research, we describe the methodology and theoretical framework we used to interpret the pre-service teachers’ activities. We then present data highlighting the techniques the pre-service teachers used when responding to tasks that involved analytical and graphical representations of functions and inverse functions in both decontextualized and contextualized situations and discuss our inferences of their meanings based on their activities. We conclude with implications for the teaching and learning of inverse function and areas for future research.     

Pre-service teachers in Germany’s pluralistic scholarship system and their motivations for becoming teachers

Germany has a unique scholarship program for highly talented students. The present study identifies differences between supported and non-supported pre-service teachers in this program and focuses on their motivations. A survey of N = 703 pre-service teachers (n = 279 supported) forms the basis of the analysis. Using a non-parametric data preprocessing approach (matching individuals), differences in motivations to become a teacher were modelled in these two balanced groups. The results show significant differences between supported and unsupported pre-service teachers in terms of their motivations for becoming teachers; however, there are no differences after propensity score matching and consideration of confounding variables. The findings indicate that a closer look at the subgroups of pre-service teachers is needed, and the results are therefore relevant to research on teacher education and the support of highly talented pre-service teachers. Future research should account for longitudinal approaches and the scholarship programs’ impact.     

Teaching anxieties revealed: pre-service elementary teachers’ reflections on their mathematics teaching experiences

Over the last 50?years, there has been ample research dedicated to mathematics anxiety in contexts of teaching and learning. However, there has been less attention focused on pre-service teachers’ anxieties about teaching mathematics in classroom settings. This study analyzed pre-service teachers’ reflections at the conclusion of an elementary mathematics field experience in order to determine common themes surrounding anxiety-related events based on mathematics practice-teaching experiences. Through qualitative analysis of pre-service teachers’ reflections using open and axial coding, three categories and ten themes surrounding elementary pre-service teachers’ anxiety-related events based on mathematics practice-teaching experiences emerged. Some of the themes presented were ones that increased pre-service teachers’ anxieties for teaching mathematics, whereas other themes reflected aspects of the field experience that decreased anxiety for teaching mathematics. Based on the themes revealed in this study, suggestions for strategies and materials that could be developed for university mathematics methods courses are discussed. Novel perspectives for considering mathematics teaching anxiety, such as locus of control and future time perspective, are shared.     

Pre-service teachers’ and teacher-educators’ experiences and attitudes toward using social networking sites for collaborative learning

Extensive use of social networking sites by students and teachers makes educators and researchers to think whether they can be incorporated in instructional process to facilitate students’ learning. This survey-based study records and examines Pakistani pre-service teachers’ and teacher-educators’ current uses of Facebook, and their attitudes toward using Facebook for collaborative learning, and to see if there is a significant relationship between participants’ intensity of Facebook use and their attitude toward instructional use of Facebook. Results of the study indicated that pre-service teachers’ and teacher-educators’ motives for their current Facebook use are mainly limited for social purposes. Pre-service teachers’ use of Facebook is more intensified than the use of Facebook by teacher-educators. Further, pre-service teachers showed more positive attitudes toward using Facebook for collaborative learning than the attitudes of their faculty. Findings also indicated a positive relationship between participants’ Facebook intensity and their attitudes toward its use for collaborative learning.     

Intensity and content of private tutoring lessons during German secondary schooling: effects on students’ grades and test achievement

Private supplementary tutoring is a widespread phenomenon. However, evidence that private tutoring has positive effects on academic achievement or about the specific conditions of successful private tutoring is rare. Adapting Carroll’s (1963) model for school learning to private tutoring, we expected to find positive effects of tutoring duration, tutoring intensity, and students’ motivation to attend private tutoring. In a sample of eighth-grade students in German secondary schools (N = 8510, 18.6% currently being tutored), we conducted regression analyses with multiple covariates and did not find a positive main effect of private tutoring attendance in any of the school subjects examined. Moreover, within the subsamples of tutored students, we were not able to identify positive effects of tutoring duration, tutoring intensity, tutoring content (such as a focus on homework completion, test preparation, or study behavior), or students’ motivation to attend private tutoring. Given these disillusioning findings, we primarily derive suggestions for future research.

     

Neither fish nor fowl: Exploring seconded and contracted teachers’ experiences of the university sector

While seconded and contracted teachers make a significant contribution to education faculties there is limited research regarding their experiences, needs and supports. Accordingly, interviews were conducted with five seconded and three contracted teachers in an Australian regional university and interpreted within a qualitative, interpretative framework. Themes that emerge from the study highlight the contrast between university and school cultures, issues around identity, the ways in which teaching is viewed, research activity for second/contracted teachers, positives and negatives around secondment, and the phases through which seconded and contract teachers move during their employment at university. Recommendations regarding the role and expectations of seconded and contracted teachers conclude the paper.     

Teacher characteristics and contextual factors: links to early primary teachers’ mathematical beliefs and attitudes

This study examines how various teacher characteristics and contextual factors are related to early primary teachers’ beliefs about mathematical teaching and learning and teachers’ attitudes toward their own learning of mathematics. A total of 396 early primary teachers across Nebraska participated in the study. Teacher characteristics and contextual factors were grouped into four sets: teacher professional background, teacher mathematical knowledge for teaching, teaching contexts, and students’ experiences. Multiple regression analyses were conducted with each set of predictors separately, as well as with all four sets together. The results showed significant relationships between teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching and teacher-centered beliefs, motivation in learning mathematics, and anxiety toward learning mathematics. Teacher certification level, the number of college math courses taken, and perceived support from colleagues and administrators were also related to some aspects of teachers’ mathematical beliefs and attitudes. The findings suggest the potential role of teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching in improving teachers’ mathematical beliefs and attitudes.     

Supporting school teachers: primary teachers’ conceptions of their responses to diverse sexualities

Teachers experience a range of situations in the primary school context where students talk about, share ideas and use words and actions that might be described as non-heteronormative in character. This article reports on teachers’ experiences of the ways in which they respond to actions and events they see as non-heteronormative. It identifies six different ways in which teachers conceptualise their pedagogical responses to the situations they encounter: (1) being nonchalant, (2) avoiding a response, (3) being uncertain, (4) maintaining home and school boundaries, (5) protecting students’ well-being and (6) embracing non-heteronormative sexualities. Teachers’ responses to these events are important in that their actions may affect how students interpret and understand the world. Primary school teachers will benefit from support in knowing how to respond appropriately when faced with a scenario or situation that is non-heteronormative in character.     

Content-area reading comprehension and teachers’ use of instructional time: effects on middle school students’ social studies knowledge

Reading and Writing - We examined the influence of teachers’ use of instructional time on students’ learning within the context of a randomized controlled trial investigating the...