Seeing the students behind the stereotypes: The perspectives of three preservice teachers

Abstract

Stereotypes are a particularly insidious factor in the formation of pre‐and in‐service teachers’ images of students. Teachers who rely on stereotypes rather than try to see the students behind them run the risk of letting cultural and individual biases work to their own disadvantage and to the disadvantage of the next generation of high school students. This article describes a project called Teaching and Learning Together that brings preservice teachers into direct dialogue with high school students with the goal of helping preservice teachers learn to attend to high school students and analyze the pedagogical implications of that attention prior to undertaking teaching responsibilities.     

Wellbeing: How we make sense of it and what this means for teachers

In this paper, the authors discuss their grounded research carried out with teachers about the wellbeing of teachers. They explore the importance of making the concept of wellbeing more intimate and consider hedonic and eudaimonic ways of looking at wellbeing. They present a model of layered reflection which illuminates key factors that have an impact on the wellbeing of teachers.     

Seeing,grasping and constructing: pre-service teachers’ metaphors for ‘understanding’ in religious education

ABSTRACT

Despite its centrality to most, if not all educational endeavours, what is meant by understanding is highly contested. Using Religious Education (RE) in England as a case subject this paper examines pre-service secondary school teachers’ construals of understanding. It does so by employing conceptual metaphor theory to analyse their linguistic discourse. Specifically, it examines the metaphors employed by participants in a series of focus group discussions (FGD) and provides important insights into how understanding is conceptualised by these pre-service teachers who are preparing to enter the RE profession. The metaphors employed by these pre-service teachers (‘understanding is SEEING’; ‘understanding is CONSTRUCTING’; ‘understanding is GRASPING’), focus on the dynamic and developmental nature of understanding (rather than on the outcomes) and reveal subject specific ways of thinking and practicing. This paper argues that each of the three conceptual metaphors employed by participants suggest particular ways of acting towards understanding with significant implications for teaching and learning in RE.     

Locking ourselves in: National standards for the teaching profession

The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards has begun work in the U.S.A. to create a nationwide program to recognize and certify good teachers and to improve the status of the profession. Its most pressing goal is the development of standards and assessment procedures for the 1993 implementation of a voluntary program of “advanced professional certification” for elementary and secondary school teachers. This article examines the specific discourse of the National Board in the areas of professionalization, standards, assessment, and certification. It also explores the possible general effects and meanings of the Board's effort and some of the responses that can be made to them by educators. In spite of any intensions to the contrary, it is argued that the Board's program will ultimately institute more controls on teachers, further distance “professional” from laypersons, and inhibit collaborative efforts among school people in their local contexts.     

Teaching the teachers: emotional intelligence training for teachers

A growing body of research in recent years has supported the value of emotional intelligence in both effective teaching and student achievement. This paper presents a pre–post, quasi-experimental design study conducted to evaluate the contributions of a 56-h “Emotional Intelligence” training model. The model has been developed and studied in an attempt to address educators’ growing needs to practice and implement “emotionally intelligent” learning environments. One hundred eighty-six teachers from ten elementary schools in Israel participated in this study. Findings indicated an increase in emotional intelligence and empathic concern from the beginning to the end of the course. Further regression indicated that both expression and regulation of emotions predicted empathy at the end of the course. Participants’ reflective assignments indicated an increase in self introspection, emotional awareness, emotional regulation and understanding others.     

Connecting the dots: An exploration of how pre-service special education teachers make sense of disability and diversity

Although teacher education standards address preparing candidates to serve diverse learners, minimal guidance is available concerning specific program components and their influence on candidates' growth and development. Through constant comparative analysis of end-of-semester reflections, this exploratory, qualitative study investigated preservice special educators’ developing perceptions about disability and cultural and linguistic diversity following field experiences aligned with courses. Participants reported a growing awareness of themselves, students they encountered, and the intersectionality between diversity and disability. Further, their insights reflected recognition of the combined influence of coursework, fieldwork, and opportunities for supported reflection. Implications for research and program development are offered.     

Preparing preservice teachers to make instructional decisions: An examination of data from the teacher work sample

The purpose of this American study was to examine student teachers’ ability to make instructional decisions as they engaged in teaching. We examined the narrative accounts provided by 150 student teachers within their teacher work samples (TWSs). Results indicated that most student teachers were able to implement some aspects of instructional decision making, such as noting a specific difficulty with student learning and making an on-the-spot adjustment in their instruction. However, other elements of instructional decision making were less likely to be implemented. For example, student teachers relied on a limited range of formative assessment strategies and instructional modifications, and very few provided a sound rationale for their choice of modification. These results suggest that novice teachers may benefit from more opportunities to reflect and critique upon authentic learning experiences as they complete their teacher preparation programs. Finally, the TWS appears to represent a viable method for examining the instructional decisions of student teachers.     

Scandalous stories and dangerous liaisons: when female pupils and male teachers fall in love

The Sexual Offences Act, 2003 criminalised all sexual activity in England and Wales between teachers and pupils under 18, irrespective of the fact that the general age of consent is 16, and even if the parties concerned were in a consensual relationship. Accounts of pupil–teacher romantic and sexual relationships are usually presented, in the media, through a discourse of scandal and exploitation. This paper draws on accounts of heterosexual attraction and consensual sexual relationships between female secondary school pupils and their male teachers as stories that have been told, by the people involved, in a positive fashion. The paper considers the ways in which sexual activity and identity are controlled and regulated through discursive practices and invites questioning of orthodoxies and norms.     

Learning to read in composite (multigrade) classes in New Zealand: teachers make the difference

This study examined why students in composite, as compared to single-year, classes in New Zealand elementary schools show slightly lower reading performance. Using a multiple case study design, we compared the ranges of students’ reading abilities and the nature of teachers’ groupings, as well as other aspects of instruction, in pairs of composite and single-year classes drawn from each of nine elementary schools. Contrary to our expectations, we found little evidence of a greater range of abilities in composite than in single-year classes, little evidence of less homogeneous ability groups for reading in composite classes, and little evidence that teachers of composite classes had difficulty catering for the needs of individual students. Composite classes do not appear to contribute to lower achievement, at least as far as reading is concerned. Whether a class is composite or single-year matters less than the nature and quality of instruction in the classroom, whatever the within-class variability in achievement.     

The learning styles neuromyth: when the same term means different things to different teachers

Although learning styles (LS) have been recognised as a neuromyth, they remain a virtual truism within education. A point of concern is that the term LS has been used within theories that describe them using completely different notions and categorisations. This is the first empirical study to investigate education professionals’ conceptualisation, as well as means of identifying and implementing LS in their classroom. A sample of 123 education professionals were administered a questionnaire consisting both closed- and open-ended questions. Responses were analysed using thematic analysis. LS were found to be mainly conceptualised within the Visual-Auditory-(Reading)-Kinaesthetic (VAK/VARK) framework, as well as Gardner’s multiple intelligences. Moreover, a lot of education professionals confused theories of learning (e.g., behavioural or cognitive theories) with LS. In terms of identifying LS, educators reported using a variety of methods, spanning from observation and everyday contact to the use of tests. The ways LS were implemented in the classroom were numerous, comprising various teaching aids, participatory techniques and motor activities. Overall, we argue that the extended use of the term LS gives the illusion of a consensus amongst educators, when a closer examination reveals that the term LS is conceptualised, identified and implemented idiosyncratically by different individuals. This study aims to be of use to pre-service and in-service teacher educators in their effort to debunk the neuromyth of LS and replace it with evidence-based practices.

     

Student-centredness: the link between transforming students and transforming ourselves

It is widely accepted in the higher education literature that a student-centred approach is pedagogically superior to a teacher-centred approach. In this paper, we explore the notion of student-centredness as a threshold concept and the implications this might have for academic staff development. We argue that the term student-centred in the Rogerian sense implies a focus on the person of the student and is deeply resonant with Barnett's assertion that the emergent being of the student is as important as the development of skills and knowledge. To facilitate transformative learning in higher education an academic must know how to value the person of the student in the learning process. Academic staff development initiatives need to work with the person of the academic and take into account the level of personal development required for each academic to be able to facilitate this kind of learning.     

增创新优势实现新跨越 --关于钦州师专的改革与发展

我国师范教育体制正由三级师范向二级师范过渡。钦州师专迎来了新的发展机遇 ,我们必须抓住机遇 ,增创联合优势、政策优势、区位优势、独家优势 ,真抓实干 ,加快发展 ,实现新跨越。     

We make the road by walking together: New teachers and the collaborative and context-specific appropriation of shared social justice-oriented practices and concepts

This study examined the work of a collaborative group of six new United States-based social studies teachers from the same social justice-oriented teacher education program (SJOTEP). Shared practices and concepts introduced previously in the SJOTEP were developed and appropriated to their classrooms and schools in consideration of the local context, through the collaborative problem-solving process of the group. It is argued that SJOTEPs and TEPs committed to issues of diversity, democracy, inclusion, and/or equity should be collaboration-based, teach a coherent and consistent social justice-focused curriculum, and provide post-graduation collaborative support and research it.     

Emotional responses to documentary viewing and the potential for transformative teaching

This paper examines the relationship between specific documentaries and white student teachers’ emotional responses to their viewing as part of a postgraduate teacher education course on educational equality. Documentaries are considered in terms of features (including elements of text), form (including stylistic conventions) and function in order to evaluate those elements most important in involving students emotionally. It argues that certain documentaries have the pedagogic potential to transform student thinking via the evocation of particular emotions which act to disturb white hegemonic practices, attitudes and cognitions. However, given that emotion is understood as integral to the operationalisation of whiteness, students’ emotional responses are analysed from a critical whiteness perspective to reveal emotion as also potentially obstructive to student transformation. Hence, the paper shares the pedagogic decisions taken to capitalise on those emotional responses conducive to transformed student understandings and to stymie those which act as investment in whiteness to impede student development. Finally, it is argued that a conceptual lens is vital for understanding the relationship between documentaries and emotional responses in order that transformed thinking is enabled.