On not becoming ‘a mere empirical existence’: exploring ‘who’ and ‘what’ narratives in pre-service English teachers’ writing

Standards-based reforms of education favour narrow forms of teacher professional learning tied to generic standards and pre-determined, measurable outcomes. In high-stakes accountability-driven environments, in schools and initial teacher education programs, educators are rarely encouraged to inquire into their work and professional identities through narrative writing. This article describes and analyses an assessment task in a pre-service teacher education course wherein students explore dialogic forms of critical autobiographical writing as part of an ongoing process of examining and clarifying their views and values about English teaching. Drawing on Cavarero, we argue that the writing these preservice teachers do provides a space for them to negotiate ‘what’ and ‘who’ narratives as they journey to become English teachers. Their writing productively grapples with generic ‘what’ stories such as what standards documents attempt to tell about English teaching, and the ‘unrepeatable uniqueness’ of ‘who’ stories developed out of their individual cultural, educational and linguistic difference.     

What do we know and where do we go? Formative assessment in developing student teachers’ professional learning of teaching science

In the context of teacher education, it could well be suggested that assessment activities that build on formative interactions between student teachers and teacher educators might offer new windows into better understanding teaching and learning. This paper presents findings from a study into a primary science teacher education initiative that seeks to build the foundations on which 24 primary science student teachers, through the use of formative assessment of their science teaching and learning, can begin developing their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). In the project, formative assessment consists of activities used by teacher educators to stimulate interactions, self- and peer-assessment in order to provide insights into how student teachers develop their PCK during a semester. Content Representations (CoRes), were used as a tool to unpack the student teachers’ approach to teaching a science topic and the reasons for that approach. The results indicate that the use of CoRes, together with subsequent self-assessment and formative interactions with teacher educators and peers, do have the potential for PCK development for student teachers. The results further highlight the need for developing reliable and valid tools for capturing and assessing student teachers’ PCK in pre-service teacher education.     

An assessment framework for inclusive education: integrating assessment approaches

Teachers committed to inclusive education have the potential to revolutionise pedagogical and assessment practices within regular classrooms simply because students with high needs challenge traditional assumptions about what it means ‘to learn’ and ‘to assess’. This creates opportunities for teachers to find creative ways to ascertain what and how a child learns, and how these assessment results can be communicated to the child, parents, the school and funding bodies to enable further learning. This paper explores diverse assessment practices including criterion-based, normative, ipsative and self-assessment, with both formative and summative functions, reported as being used by teachers in New Zealand who teach students with high needs. These multiple approaches can be integrated into learning stories to ‘narrate’ student learning. An assessment framework is introduced to support teachers to appreciate the functionality of an integrated assessment approach to document student learning and outcomes, arguably a framework applicable for all learners.     

The potential of student narratives to enhance quality in higher education

University policies are increasingly developed with reference to students’ learning experiences, with a focus on the concept of the ‘student voice’. Yet the ‘student voice’ is difficult to define and emphasis is often placed on numerical performance indicators. A diverse student population has wide-ranging educational experiences, which may not be easily captured within the broad categories provided by traditional survey tools, which can drown out the rich, varied and gradual processes of individual development. There is no single tool that can be used to measure students’ experiences. This paper draws on findings from four narrative inquiry studies, carried out in the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, to illustrate how a narrative approach could be used to complement performance indicators. This provides a richer context for educators’ understanding of students’ experiences and for supporting and setting institutional agendas.     

Developing glocally informed diversity and equity discourses: examining inequity via autobiographical reflection

This study responds to the need for glocally informed discourses on diversity and equity that draw upon internationally situated, local narratives to contribute to larger analyses. Such work is vital so that cross-national educational discourses do not become infused with PISA score comparisons or globally dominant perspectives alone. This local qualitative case study employs narrative inquiry with observation and document analyses to examine one accomplished multicultural teacher educator’s US-based practice. This study demonstrates the benefit of engaging teachers in autobiographical reflection as a supportive precursor for appreciating and learning from students’ diverse backgrounds, and critically analyzing societal inequities, such as the institutionalized use of inaccurate or incomplete text-based narratives. Promising practices are offered for how teacher educators across international settings might help teachers to navigate complex personal and institutional spaces while working to ‘reconstruct society toward greater equity in race, class, gender, and disability’.     

Exploring university-based teacher educators’ teaching beliefs and practice: a Hong Kong study

This study explores two higher education-based language teacher educators’ teaching beliefs and how they implemented their beliefs in classroom practice. Drawing on data from in-depth interviews and classroom observation, the findings revealed the teacher educators’ multiple and complex beliefs, which were derived from their past experiences and continued to be shaped and transformed through their professional work. The study also shows that while the participants tried to act in accordance with their beliefs in their teaching of teachers, they encountered some contextual obstacles (e.g. the ‘publish-or-perish’ system) which resulted in the gap between their beliefs and practice. Through their continuous reflections and agentive work, the teacher educators tried to close the gap and facilitate their students’ learning to teach. This study concludes with some implications for current teacher education and higher education on how to promote language teacher educators’ cognitive learning and continuous development.     

Redefining professional identity: the voice of a language teacher in a context of collaborative learning

Following a narrative and biographic approach, in this study, we present the case of an in-service language teacher and her professional learning trajectory in the context of the project ‘Languages and education: constructing and sharing training’. This project aimed at the construction of a collaborative teacher education context for learning and transformation of experiences, views and practices in language education, and involved teachers, teacher educators and researchers. Based on a single case study, the analysis tries to disclose the teacher’s discursive displacements as hints of professional transformation while she reinterprets the learning taking place in the collaborative education process. The signs of change are visible in the way she constructs meanings regarding her professional identity, re-identifies her mission as a language teacher and reconsiders her professional identity. Finally, we reflect upon how collaborative teacher education scenarios may foster teachers’ personal professional learning and renewed self-images.     

Teacher Educators: hidden professionals?

The pace of change in today's society means that there is an ongoing need for teachers to learn, have new knowledge and use new pedagogical approaches to meet the needs of their pupils. For many teachers, this requires redefining their identity as teachers and what ‘teaching’ means in 21st century learning environments. These changes also require teachers to be supported in learning to ‘teach’ in different ways that are relevant to their own individual needs and to the contexts in which they work throughout their career. In this article, it is argued that a more integrated and collaborative approach to teacher education is needed with better understanding of those who take up the roles of teacher educator across a teacher's career. With a particular emphasis on ‘teacher educators’ working in school to support teachers' career-long professional learning it is argued that currently many do not recognise themselves as teacher educators nor are they recognised by those they work with as teacher educators. Drawing on an empirical study carried out with mentors in schools in Scotland, it is suggested that these teacher educators may be ‘unrecognised’ and remain ‘hidden professionals’ because of the identities they construct for themselves, the values and priorities that they or others attach to their roles or because of the institutional structures and cultures in which they work. It is concluded that it will be difficult to recognise and value these ‘hidden teacher educators’ and the distinctive contribution they can make to teachers' career-long professional learning without further clarification by them and others of the roles and responsibilities they hold.     

Understanding stories of professional formation during early childhood education and care practice placements

Narrative inquiry as a methodological approach enables us to examine how people represent their experiences and selves through storytelling (Chase, S. E. 2005. ‘Narrative Inquiry: Multiple Lenses, Approaches, Voices.’ In The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, edited by N. Denzin and Y. Lincoln, 651–679. London: Sage). To understand these constructions, other kinds of knowledge are required. Theories of social life, for example, help to interpret areas which narrative inquiry is good at revealing about human experiences such as the animation of temporality, sociality and place (Clandinin, J., V. Caine, A. Estefan, J. Huber, M. S. Murphy, and P. Steeves. 2015. ‘Places of Practice: Learning to Think Narratively.’ Narrative Works 5 (1). Accessed November 30, 2017. https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/NW/issue/view/1799). Drawing on interviews with practice educators and final-year undergraduate early childhood education and care (ECEC) students in North-West Ireland, this paper considers how narrative inquiry and education theories work together to illuminate key learning experiences of ECEC undergraduate students during 12-week practice placements. In this paper I attempt to show how two education theories – ‘Threshold Concepts’ and ‘Communities of Practice’ – shed light on the nature of these key learning experiences. The paper suggests that narrative inquiry offers an emancipatory research approach by uncovering human and reflective elements of learning journeys made by ECEC students during their practice placements.     

Self-assessment to incite learning in higher education: developing ontological awareness

Incorporating self-assessment tasks in higher education involves a conceptual shift of the function of assessment for both learners and teachers. Self-assessment is an innovative assessment initiative that foregrounds ontological knowledge and professional identity in higher education, especially where external professional bodies require additional competencies for learners to be work-ready. As a tool to develop learners’ metacognitive strategies, self-assessment challenges views around learning and assessment. The defined task that constitutes ‘self-assessment’ is considered for two key reasons. First, it is essentially a tool to reflect student-staff partnership in learning and assessment if students are positioned as agentic in the assessment process, and, second, it challenges the relationship between assessment and learning; no longer dichotomous, and more culturally relevant. This paper outlines the introduction of self-assessment over three years in a university postgraduate programme. Using cultural historical activity theory, a framework of analysis that recognises multiple networks of activity, the question ‘what constitutes a self-assessment task?’ is addressed. Results show that the development of self-assessment tasks needs to be considered in the learning-assessment nexus. While these forms of assessment initially unsettle students, they are designed to enable students to participate with an eye on their learning, not the grade.     

Narrative analysis: exploring experiences of observational drawing and dyspraxia

Narrative analysis offers a powerful and accessible means of understanding the ways in which individuals experience learning across a range of educational sites. Drawing on a recent study that explored ‘dyspraxic’ pupils' experiences of drawing from observation, this paper offers an insight into the potential that narrative analysis has for enhancing our understanding of the ways in which individuals experience complex contexts for learning, where the fields of art education, ‘special’ education and inclusion intersect. I argue here that a narrative approach can enhance our understanding of pupils' experiences of learning by a capacity to resist the compartmentalization of experience. The ‘natural’ drive to use narrative as an interpretive procedure for explaining departures from the ‘norm’ is also discussed, with the concepts of ‘breach and exception’ offering a useful frame for exploring the spaces between centres of practice in art education and the potentially ‘de-centred’ ‘dyspraxic’ learner.     

Addressing contradictions in teachers’ practice through professional learning: an activity theory perspective

ABSTRACT

This case study focuses on the professional learning of 38 K-9 teachers who engaged in a professional development (PD) programme in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) through collaborative action research (CAR). Through the lens of CHAT or Cultural-Historical Activity Theory, the author examined what teachers were learning, the contextual factors that influenced their learning and classroom practice, and the outcomes of this PD initiative. The changing activity system of the teachers is described, as well as how they addressed contradictions in their practice. Addressing these contradictions resulted in an expansion of their object and professional growth. The study contributes to a growing body of research in teacher education which applies CHAT as a conceptual framework to understand teacher professional learning and how interactions among activity system components influence teachers’ development and practice.     

Formative assessment in Confucian heritage culture classrooms: activity theory analysis of tensions,contradictions and hybrid practices

Formative assessment has recently become a preferred assessment strategy in educational institutions worldwide. However, it is not easy to implement in Asian classrooms, because local cultures and institutional constraints potentially hinder the practice. This one-semester study aimed to use the ‘third space’, as the core of the third generation of activity theory, as a frame to capture how Vietnamese teachers took into account both traditional practices and contemporary influences to transform formative assessment practices to make them feasible in their classrooms. Participants were 2 lecturers and 250 students from two college classes in Vietnam. The results showed that Vietnamese students’ conceptions of learning were heavily influenced by examinations and their traditional learning culture. Consequently, the teachers needed to transform the initiative to align with these features in Vietnamese classrooms. When the revisions were made, the students were evidenced to achieve a growth in learning, change their beliefs about learning and develop both self-learning and collective learning.     

Do different routes to becoming a special educator produce different understandings of the profession and its core concepts?

There are multiple routes to becoming a special educator in Norway. In recent years, bachelor's degree programmes have offered an alternative to the traditional path in which special education coursework is taken as a part of teacher education. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether these different programmes produce different understandings of the special education profession and its core concepts. We surveyed 27 bachelor students and 36 teacher education students using open-ended questions concerning their future goals and expectations and the concepts of ‘inclusion,’ ‘learning disability,’ and ‘special educator’. Teacher education students were more likely to: (a) view inclusion from a broad perspective, emphasizing a sense of belonging and community, (b) define the concept of learning disability from a categorical perspective, and (c) perceive special educators as essentially ‘expert’ teachers for children with special needs. Bachelor’s degree students also emphasized special educators’ role in supporting individuals with special needs, yet were more likely to apply a relational perspective when describing the concept of learning disability.     

What Works in the Architecture Studio? Five Strategies for Optimising Student Learning

Good teaching requires pedagogical dynamism: a willingness to vary one’s teaching approach relative to the context (and cohort) at hand, and to any new challenges that may arise from that context. This requires that teachers obtain a broad knowledge of teaching strategies and tactics. Given the demands of contemporary higher education, finding the time to obtain this knowledge can pose a challenge to full‐time academics. This is exacerbated in the case of part‐time and practitioner‐teachers who often work in varying degrees of isolation from the communities of learning to which they contribute. An analysis of the teaching practices of eight high‐performing practitioner‐teachers, alongside data obtained from 74 students, within a master’s‐level architectural course at a large Australian university, has been used to delineate five strategies for optimising student learning within the architecture studio. These include: setting up a challenge that clearly articulates the role of the student within it; early and frequent assessment tasks to assist students in rapid skill development and reflective practice; communicating clear expectations around performance; facilitating a strong peer culture; and enhancing motivation via high expectations. This article details the tactics by which these strategies can be achieved. This article delivers directly applicable advice for architectural educators, but it also provides practical insight into the specifics of architectural teaching that may assist educators working in other disciplines.     

Are we serious about enhancing courses? Using the principles of assessment for learning to enhance course evaluation

A series of workshops with educators at Birmingham City University about enhancing student involvement in course evaluation prompted us to consider the principles of assessment for learning as an approach to enhancing the quality and value of this evaluative activity. We focus on student enhanced learning through effective feedback which is a model designed to support the integration of ‘feedback’ and ‘feed-forward’ as a social practice in higher education. In the same way that dialogue between student and educator is now viewed as an essential part of student development we suggest that this approach should apply equally to the development of courses. In this paper we outline the principles of the model – reflection, transparency and developmental dialogue, and set out the case for using the approach to facilitate greater collaboration between students and educators to create a framework to facilitate shared ownership of course enhancement.     

Assessment for learning: Why assessment does not always support student teachers’ learning

Numerous studies have dealt with the importance of assessment for learning (AfL) in higher education, arguing that AfL helps to promote students’ learning and supports them in becoming self-directed learners. The majority of the recent literature focuses mainly on the role of individual aspects of AfL. Less attention has been paid to the interrelation of different aspects of AfL. The current study argues that AfL combines authentic assessment tasks given to students, feedback from teacher educators, peer assessment and self-assessment. The aim of the current study is to understand student teachers’ experiences of AfL practices in higher education, focusing on the reasons why student teachers do not always find the practices supportive. The study conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 student teachers and analysed them using an inductive content analysis method. The findings indicate that student teachers have had some experiences with individual aspects of AfL. A critical finding is that, when teacher educators continually dominate in the assessment process, summative assessment remains the principal way of assessing student teachers, thus hindering the supportive role of other AfL practices. The current study also finds that learning in higher education is still quite grade-centred, which affects student teachers’ learning.     

Insights into teacher learning about pedagogy from an international group of teachers of students with severe intellectual disabilities

This article examines teacher professional learning about pedagogy for teachers of students with severe intellectual disabilities within broader teacher education and pedagogical frameworks for this group of learners. The article presents and discusses findings from a USA–England research project, involving classroom observations and interviews with nine teachers of students with severe intellectual disabilities from four specialist public school settings, intended to explore teachers’ pedagogical decision-making and learning. The theoretical lens of situated learning and the conceptual lens of evidence-based practice are used to contextualise and examine the teachers’ views about the what, how and when they learn about pedagogical approaches and strategies. Teachers emphasised the situated and interactional nature of their learning, particularly highlighting the personal responses of students and their relationship with these students. They use this knowledge and understanding to adapt evidence-based strategies and programmes and inform their pedagogical decisions. This affords the concepts of ‘situated generalization’ and ‘practice based evidence’ an influential role in how teachers engage in the process of pedagogical decision-making. An implication for teacher educators is the need to support teachers in making connections of new pedagogical understandings and skills with the individual learning profiles and responses of their students with severe intellectual disabilities.