The body and pedagogy: beyond absent,moving bodies in pedagogic practice

Following the corporeal turn in social theory, this paper explores how the body is implicated in pedagogic practice and leaning. Focusing on the body has usually been recognised as part of the regulative rather than instructional discourse in schools. Work has begun to redress the mind–body imbalance through the ‘corporeal device’ developed from Bernstein’s ‘pedagogic device’, the fundamental relay through which social inequalities are reproduced in schools. To properly recognise the way bodies act as pedagogic relays requires a robust understanding of persons as multi-sensorial acting beings. Examples for choreographic pedagogy are used to illuminate the complex and multimodal features of instructional discourse and to suggest how the moving body could be enlisted to enhance students’ access to formal academic discourses and better understand why some young people fail to achieve in schools.     

Didactic closure: Professionalization and pedagogic knowledge in Finnish teacher education

This article concerns the kind of symbolic and strategic value that science-legitimated pedagogical knowledge has in the professionalization of teacher education. The aim is to try to understand certain peculiarities in this body of knowledge through studying the history of the “science of teaching” and of the professionalization of teacher education in Finland. The conclusion is that there are at least three professionalist drifts that produce and reproduce a kind of “decontextualized pedagogic discourse” in Finnish teacher education: the pursuit of science legitimation, loyalty to state educational reforms and a striving for distinction from rival disciplines. The analysis shows that, at least up to the present day, the science-legitimated knowledge system for teacher education has served as a very successful strategy in the struggles on the field of Finnish higher education.     

Posthumanist ethical practice: agential cuts in the pedagogic assemblage

With researchers funnelled into lucrative research practices that value fast scholarship, we explore ethical practice as an ethico-onto-epistemological project. Through collective biography, diffractive choreography, and poetry, we map systems of entrapment that manifest power relations in the academy. We argue the posthumanist ethical practice is an intra-active project in higher education – involving rich material, social, political and intellectual entanglements. Posthumanist ethical practice rejects dualisms of body/mind, nature/culture and human/non-human. It evokes creativity to generate new vocabularies for challenging anthropocentric ‘exceptionalism’. Mapping relations in posthuman assemblages can involve agential cuts that evoke ethical practice as affective encounters. Agential cuts give permission for pedagogic storying where there is ontological connectedness. As academics, we are immersed in assemblages where posthumanist education research and practice is a rich, embodied, and connected process. Particular consideration is given in this article to affectivity and the value of pedagogic performance in education research.     

Developing and articulating pedagogic principles: A case study of early childhood teacher trainees learning to use pedagogic documentation techniques

ABSTRACT

This research examines the development and articulation of pedagogic principles and the process of using pedagogic documentation techniques by early childhood teacher trainees in a university teacher training program (BA Primary Education leading to Qualified Teacher Status) in London, England. The study draws on the perspectives of students in the second year of the teacher training program, and the tutor for the module, as well as documentary analysis of 14 pedagogic documentation panels that were produced by the teacher trainees. The research demonstrates how the development and articulation of pedagogic principles is enabled by the reflective and collaborative practice of photography, dialogue, narrative, and metaphor. Findings can be used to better understand how teacher trainees engage with pedagogic principles while they learn how to use the techniques of pedagogic documentation.     

Gender and Education: public policy and pedagogic practice

This paper serves two purposes. The first is an examination of a public policy, the Queensland Department of Education's Equal Opportunity Policy for Girls and Boys (1981) and the Implementation Guidelines (1988) for that policy within the context of the pedagogical practices of one secondary school. The second purpose is to answer a criticism often levelled at structural theories of education. This criticism centres around the inability of structural theories to account for the real life experiences of teachers and students. Bernstein's (1986) theory of Pedagogic Discourse and Fernandes’ (1988) work on Resistance theory are applied to three levels of educational practice; public policy, school practices and the everyday experiences of a group of female students. Through this analysis, movement towards a more satisfactory explanation of the intersection of gender and education is made.     

Transformational practice: critical teacher research in pre-service teacher education

This article traces the experiences of three pre-service teachers as they engaged in teacher research as part of their teacher education program and considers how teacher research might disrupt dominant paradigms that aim to de-contextualize teaching and offer one-size-fits-all solutions to address inequities. In particular, the article examines: the role of the teacher’s personal and academic history in the design of their teacher research projects; how their research worked to disrupt and complicate classroom cultures and practices; and the ways in which the pre-service teachers interpreted their research in light of new contexts during their first year of teaching. This work has critical implications in an era when teacher education programs are under attack, including: the value of drawing on pre-service teachers' lived experiences as an entry point into inquiry; creating highly localized inquiries; and positioning novice teachers as knowledgeable practitioners who are able to share research with colleagues.     

The social construction of pedagogic discourse in physical education teacher education in Australia

Abstract

Once the exclusive domain of teacher education, physical education in Australian tertiary institutions has during the last twenty years evolved into a series of discipline‐based fields concerned with human movement studies, leisure studies and sport science that have begun to feed new vocational opportunities in the sport, exercise and leisure industries. Concomitant with these changes in the social organization of knowledge in tertiary physical education has been a realignment of school physical education programmes, particularly in the senior school curriculum. Inevitably, the once sole focus of physical education in tertiary institutions on teacher education is now being forced to reinvent itself in light of these dynamic changes in the social organization of school and university knowledge. Following the work of Bernstein, Goodson and others, this article analyses current policy and practice in physical education teacher education and identifies several future scenarios. The first part of the article provides an historical overview of the emergence of new forms of tertiary knowledge in physical education from the mid‐1970s until the present. The second part provides a similar overview of developments in school physical education with a focus on senior school and matriculation physical education during the same period. The third part analyses the current state of affairs in the social organization of knowledge for physical education teacher education. In the fourth part, a series of questions is raised concerning relationships between knowledge in physical education teacher education, school physical education and university forms of the field through the presentation of several future scenarios. The article concludes with several proposals for policy development concerned with physical education teacher education programmes.     

The children's centre teacher role: developing practice in the private,voluntary and independent sector

This study assessed the impact of the role of the teacher in two children's centres in England and identified some of the supporting and limiting factors that influenced outcomes. The teachers worked across several settings in the private, voluntary and independent (PVI) sector, with the aim of enhancing early years practice and practitioner confidence. A conceptual framework was devised to model the impact of the teacher role based on Leithwood and Levin (2005 Leithwood K, Levin B. 2005. Assessing school leader and leadership programme effects on pupil learning. DfES Research Report 662. http://www.dfes.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/RR662.pdf (accessed December 2006) [Google Scholar]). Teachers were found to bring vital professional knowledge and experience to the role and delivered their methods through a range of leadership styles as identified in the literature. Teachers were successful in developing practice and staff confidence in settings; this also impacted positively on outcomes for children. However, success was dependent on a number of moderating factors, including sector‐related factors such as the qualifications of staff. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

Focusing the gaze: teacher interrogation of practice

Within an Australian context of diminishing opportunities for equitable educational outcomes, this paper calls for teacher engagement in a ‘politics of resistance’ through their focused gaze in relation to the ways in which they are positioned in their everyday practice. Our belief is that the resultant knowledge might equip teachers to see more clearly the managerial and economic rationalist discourses that constrain them in their pursuit of more equitable educational outcomes. Through the interpretative lenses of feminist poststructural theory, the paper presents snapshots of the practice of three Australian teachers. These snapshots, along with an analysis of them, highlight pedagogy as a political activity that is partial, interested and potentially oppressive. It is not argued that reflection alone will challenge inequities in educational outcomes for the diverse range of students, but that teacher interrogation of practice might better position teachers to exert their voices and take action in the challenging and complex times associated with neo‐liberal reforms. The politics of resistance argued for here proposes an awareness and action beyond the micro‐politics of the classroom to alliances that work towards transformation of inequities within economic and social power relations.     

Power,prestige and pedagogic identity: a tale of two programs recontextualizing teacher standards

Worldwide there has been a range of initiatives in the area of standards for teachers as part of a discourse of professionalism. In Australia there are a plethora of standards: state and territory frameworks, generic and subject‐specific, systemic and cross‐systemic, for pre‐service, beginning and experienced teachers. Little has been written as to how teacher education programs are responding to the standards agenda. This paper positions standards as integral to the recontextualizing field (Bernstein, 2000 Bernstein B 2000 Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: theory, research, critique (Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield)  [Google Scholar]) for teacher educators and their programs. Using Bernsteinian concepts of fields, identities and framing, we compare the responses of two physical education teacher education programs to their state's standards imperatives. The authors conclude that the academic orientation of the university, together with the framing of the standards, affect the degree of programmatic change it will undertake in response to the changes in teacher certification standards.     

Formative assessment in higher education: Moves towards theory and the enhancement of pedagogic practice

The importance of formative assessment instudent learning is generally acknowledged, butit is not well understood across higher education.The identification of some key features offormative assessment opens the way for adiscussion of theory. It is argued that thereis a need for further theoretical developmentin respect of formative assessment, which needsto take account of disciplinary epistemology,theories of intellectual and moral development,students' stages of intellectual development,and the psychology of giving and receivingfeedback. A sketch is offered of the directionthat this development might take. It is notedthat formative assessment may be eitherconstructive or inhibitory towards learning. Suggestions are made regarding research intoformative assessment, and how research mightcontribute to the development of pedagogicpractice.     

初探《学记》的教学论思想对现代教育工作者的启示

《学记》集我国古代教育思想之大成。本文从教学论的角度,挖掘其中对当前实施素质教育、创新教育具有借鉴意义的思想精华。     

Between work and learning: on pedagogic practice and interstitial space

In this paper I develop a response to a continuing problem in work–learning research, the connections between education, learning and work. These connections are commonly conceived in terms of the concept of transfer, integration or boundary crossing. Thinking these connections in this way, I claim, serves to consolidate a unitary, stable and fixed idea of the relationship between learning in educational institutions and work and inadvertently reduce its complexity. Drawing on empirical data collected over the course of qualitatively exploring the links between a problem-based program of teacher education (‘learning’) and the practice of participants in this program upon initial employment in schools (‘work’), and deploying actor network theory, I trace new sorts of associations between work and learning and propose a relational conception of their connection. Challenging the common counter-positioning of work and learning, empirical analysis reveals their mutual constitution and partial connection in practices, here, of a predominantly pedagogic and spatial/material kind. Practices that occupy interstitial spaces have a particular resonance with regard to challenging this counter-positioning and unsettling the hierarchies of value which often arise from it.     

Deliberate practice in teacher education

Deliberate practice is increasingly recognised as necessary for professional development. This paper sets out to explore in what ways student teachers’ learning activities in a teacher education programme can be characterised as deliberate practice. Based on an in-depth exploration of 574 learning activities, our results highlight the different ways in which activities in teacher education programmes can be designed, the different motivations students have to engage in them repetitively, and different ways in which feedback can be organised, within contextual constraints posed by all professional environments. Results also indicate that self-improvement is not the only motivation for engaging in deliberate practice for student teachers, as pupil improvement is also considered important. These results support a context-specific operationalisation of deliberate practice and provide starting points for teacher education programmes to promote deliberate practice in their curriculum.     

Becoming a teacher: encouraging development of teacher identity through reflective practice

Models of learning to teach recognize the important relationship between university and school settings. The roles that educators in each setting play in the development of effective beginning teachers are not discrete. Rather they complement and support one another. Building upon existing literature, and utilizing recent data, this paper challenges teacher educators to consider how pre‐service teacher core beliefs and perceptions affect the dynamics of learning to teach and the establishment of a teacher identity. To facilitate these, it is argued that a consultative mentoring model that acknowledges individuality is more effective in the growth of teacher identity than the more traditional supervision model that focuses mainly on socialization. Reflective practice is promoted as crucial and its development is the responsibility of all teacher educators—both at university and in the schools.