Teaching inclusive religious education impartially: an English perspective

The article draws on experience of teaching, teacher education and qualitative research related to an impartial approach to inclusive religious education (including pupils from families who identify with or do not identify with religion or belief groups), in publicly funded schools in England. Such religious education is considered to be intrinsically worthwhile and instrumentally important in contributing to pupils’ personal and social development. The approach considered is hermeneutical, bringing reliable information into relationship with knowledge and experience of pupils and teacher through active learning, including dialogue. Qualitative research on student and early career teachers suggests that appropriate skills and attitudes supporting an impartial approach can be developed, facilitating a relationship of trust between teacher and students. A condition is the development of teachers’ knowledge and understanding of the stances of pupils in their classes. However, some student teachers or teachers with very firmly held views find it very difficult to adopt an impartial approach. On the basis of examples from qualitative research, it is argued that good quality teacher education can assist in developing appropriate skills and attitudes for those wishing to take an impartial approach. Further research, ideally involving partnership between researchers and practitioners, is recommended.     

Three Approaches to Teacher Training and the Role of Religious Education as a Professional Subject

Beginning with the classic dilemma in teacher training of the relationship between theory and practice, the view is taken that the most appropriate starting point is practice, followed by reflection upon practice. School experience is seen as central, rather than peripheral, to teacher training. There are, however, different levels, characteristics and structures of reflection upon experience. Three levels and types of approach are identified: the curriculum process approach, the teacher‐role approach and the personalised approach. These are described in relation to three different courses of training and the strengths and weaknesses of each are considered. General issues regarding the nature of a professional subject, the relationship of a professional subject to education studies and the relationship of a professional subject to school experience are discussed and exemplifications offered in terms of religious education.     

美国师范教育演进历程中的实践教学变革及其启示

美国师范教育的发展基本上是与其整个国家经济、政治、社会、文化的发展历程同步推进的。其中的实践教学从师范教育开始之初的起步和规范到二战之后的重视与提高,再到当前的延长与研究,每一次的变革都是为了提高教师队伍的质量。针对我国师范教育实践教学中目前存在的问题,可以根据实际情况对之进行借鉴。     

Teaching Islamic education in Finnish schools: A field of negotiations

The challenges of contemporary multicultural societies have resulted in changing aims for religious education and the necessity to adjust teacher education accordingly. The processes of negotiation related to the coexistence of different religious and cultural groups are intertwined in the Finnish curriculum for religious education. This case study examines three Islamic education teachers who negotiated intra- and inter-religious tensions as well as tensions between societal and religious orientations of education. Through their ideological, pedagogical and interpersonal negotiations teachers can mediate the contested practices of Islam as well as the ideals of liberal democracies and contribute to the emergence of Finnish Islam.     

Putting textbooks to work: empowering religious education teachers

In 2002 a paper entitled Writing Church‐sponsored Religious Education Textbooks by Engebretson was published in the British Journal of Religious Education. This paper reported on and analysed some aspects of the development, by the Catholic Archdiocese in Melbourne, Victoria, of a series of religious education textbooks to be used in all Catholic schools in the Archdiocese. The paper contextualised the series, entitled To Know, Worship and Love, in the field of literature on textbooks in the classroom. It discussed some local issues that had led to the decision to produce religious education textbooks, explained and justified the choice of content for the middle secondary books, and discussed the presentation of the books. In the final section of the paper, it was indicated that future papers would report on the evaluation of the series and its implementation, as a three‐stage research project was completed. The first stage of the research project collected responses from teachers and Religious Education Co‐ordinators (RECs) to the Years 7 and 9 books, that is those books written for students of 12 and 14 years respectively. This paper discusses a significant finding that emerged from this stage of the research, that is the relationship between textbook use and level of qualifications and experience in the teaching of religious education. This major finding is of interest in relation to a range of educational issues in religious education, including the role and use of resources, the mandation of resources by Church hierarchies, creativity and flexibility in teaching religious education, teacher confidence and experience and the important issue of content knowledge. Further papers will explore evaluations of the Years 8 and 10 books, and overall issues that have emerged from this Archdiocesan curriculum project.     

What constitutes becoming experienced in teaching and learning?

In this paper, we attempt to address one of the central questions for teachers and teaching: how is it that teachers are able to see and act appropriately in concrete circumstances? To do so, we examine the ontological meaning of experience in teacher education. The discussion is anchored in the concrete particulars of a grade 5 art lesson. Our intent is to show the dynamic processes involved in becoming experienced as a teacher and to draw connections between experience and practical wisdom (phronesis). Thus, we argue that phronesis is not so much a form of knowledge as it is dynamic experience. We argue for the development of what John Dewey called educational experience in teacher education, and in particular its dynamic edge: the making of wise and practical judgments. We assert that such action is made possible, not so much by translating (unsituated) theory into practice through the deployment of specialized technique, or by inducing general, abstract propositions from concrete particulars, but primarily from being mindfully embodied. The primary task for teacher education then becomes to help prospective teachers be in touch, intimately related with the processes of actual experience, such that they learn to be open to their experience, to be radically undogmatic—in touch with self, others, and the character of the circumstances in which they find themselves.     

对技术时代中的教师素养的分析与批判

当今是一个崇尚技术的时代 ,教师职业也不可避免地带有浓重的技术主义特色。教学的技术、技艺成了教师的生命线 ,相对而言 ,职业理想与信念、价值追求等就成为次要甚至是无足轻重的了 ;由于技术和教师职能专业化的加强 ,教师的教育使命感和整体教育效能感下降 ,呈现出“业有专攻而胸无大志”的状态 ;同时 ,由于职业规范的限定 ,教师在满足规范伦理要求的同时 ,渐渐失去了对内在美德的追求。这些特征一方面反映了整个技术时代人被技术与技术性思维所规训的现状 ,另一方面也昭示出教师职业的某些危机 ,这些危机需要我们加以重视和改造     

基于数字故事的教育叙事可视化研究

教育叙事是以叙事、讲故事的方式展开对现象的思索和问题的研究,是将客观过程、真实体验和主观阐释有机融为一体的教育经验的发现和揭示的过程。探讨基于数字故事教育叙事的研究现状、内涵及其设计和制作过程,并构想其未来的发展,是实现教育叙事可视化,促进教师隐性知识显性化、教师专业发展和社会性知识建构的重要途径。     

Preservice science teachers reflect on their practicum experiences

The practicum provides an opportunity for preservice teachers to apply knowledge and skills in actual classroom settings. Thus, it serves as a central component of virtually all teacher education programmes. This study focused the views of 16 preservice science teachers on their practicum experiences. Individual interviews were made to construct a picture of practicum as experienced by the preservice science teachers. Group seminar sessions, and written reflections were also utilised to confirm and support data from the interviews. The findings based on data gathered indicate that preservice science teachers were not exposed to environment that reflected their expectations toward learning outcomes. It is essential to provide conditions of a quality experience to preservice science teachers during their teacher education programmes in order to prepare preservice teachers to teach science effectively.     

Changing students’ and teachers’ concepts and constructs of knowledge in RE in Greece

ABSTRACT

Based on a qualitative research (2012–15) this paper is concerned with the identification of concepts and constructs of knowledge in RE. It is based on participative enquiry and educational action-research methodology. Over a three-year period, the researcher, teachers and the students of a High School in one of the most difficult social, economic and pedagogic environments in Greece collaborated and the resulting data were analysed by a team of independent researchers using quantitative and qualitative techniques. Findings point to the consideration of knowledge in education as an experience in which the content (what) of education is as important as the process (how). RE teaches an additional invaluable language with different religious meanings of concepts, which facilitates students’ communication with self and others, and offers an interpretation of the world. Such religious literacy is essentially provided at school in the framework of multi-literacies and is a result of an intersubjective process of the interconnection between thinking, reflection and action on what the curriculum positions on the top of the didactic triangle (content, teacher, student). In that process, to ‘know what I know’ and to provide ‘events with meaning’ based on experiential learning and its principles, is of inestimable value.     

Practice Makes Practice: Learning to Teach in Teacher Education

In this article, we argue that teaching is and should be a central element to learning to teach, particularly as teacher education once again turns toward practice. From this perspective, we must elaborate how such a shift addresses the need to bridge the gap between knowledge for teaching and knowledge from teaching, between theory and practice, and among university courses and fieldwork. If the intent of such a shift is to fundamentally change the preparation of teachers, we argue that it requires teacher education programs to do more than increase the amount of time candidates spend in clinical field placements. It requires, we argue, that teacher educators engage in simultaneous innovation in three related, but distinct aspects of program design and implementation: organizational structures and policies, content and curriculum, and teacher education pedagogy. Without such dynamic engagement, the practice-turn will go the way of many past reforms in teacher education—it will be symbolic but not significant or meaningful.     

论实验型教学专业课程体系建构的三大策略

实验型教学专业课程体系,是现代教师教育改革与研究中新兴的一种课程模式,以教师专业发展为目的,以内容教育学知识为基础,以实验课程与教学为核心,人们正在通过开发优质实验促进课程整合与开展专题研究等策略加以建构。     

Outcomes of primary teacher education in Finland: an exit survey

Seven final year cohorts of Finnish pre-service primary teachers (N = 384) were given an exit survey, which measured their estimated attainment of knowledge and experience in the 10 domains of professional activity considered critical for new teachers in the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) standards. The results indicated that the profile of the graduates was uneven, showing low levels of satisfaction in the fields of special education and cooperation but high levels of satisfaction in the fields of reflective practice and planning. The satisfaction with the estimated knowledge and experience achieved was divided into three components of pedagogic, instructional and complex skills satisfaction. The central role of teaching practice was considered to be reflected in the results. The areas of low satisfaction were those in which the amount of teaching practice in the teacher education curriculum was considered insufficient to generate enough experience. This was especially so in the field of special education and in meeting the diverse needs of students. The 10-item INTASC scale showed sufficient psychometric qualities. The results are also discussed in terms of the suggested exceptional quality of Finnish teacher education.     

Student Evaluation in Co‐operative Learning: teacher cognitions

Abstract

This paper concerns recognition of the authority of teachers’ personal practical knowledge. An Australian teacher reports on her three‐and‐a‐half‐year collaborative study with a Canadian junior high school teacher. The research follows a line of research on teacher knowledge (Elbaz, 1983; Clandinin, 1986; Connelly & Clandinin, 1988; Clandinin & Connelly, 1995) informed by Dewey's (1938) philosophy of education based on experience. Narrative inquiry (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990) is the methodology guiding the study. A summary of five papers on teacher knowledge emerging from the study is presented. These papers show how the research knowledge is constructed as the researcher and collaborating teacher examine their narratives of experience as a means to articulating their understandings of curriculum and teacher knowledge. This dissertation research argues for recognition of teachers’ personal practical knowledge as knowledge and for recognition of collaborative research as educative for teachers. The implications of this research concern teachers authoring their development and the ways in which teachers’ knowledge is systemically denied.     

What Islamic school teachers want: towards developing an Islamic teacher education programme

In the 70 year history of Islamic schools in North America, there is yet to be an accredited teacher education programme to train and professionally equip Islamic school teachers with an understanding of an Islamic pedagogy. Arguably, there has been an imbalance of energy placed on curriculum development projects over the considerations of teacher training. From my experience working as a teacher trainer/education consultant for Islamic schools for the past 10 years, it is evident that the underlying assumption for many school administrators is that a State/Ministry certified teacher who is Muslim will know how to teach ‘Islamically’. The aims of this paper are to first establish some semblance of what it means to teach Islamically or, more accurately, to teach through an Islamic pedagogy. From this framework, the crux of the paper is to present findings from a series of focus groups with Islamic school educators about their teacher training needs. The findings of this study establish the need for a formal teacher education programme in Islamic pedagogy within an established faculty of education. Such a programme would achieve three major ends in cultivating the stewardship of Islamic schools in North America: 1. Define and establish Islamic education as a valid and relevant pedagogical model that can contribute to the broader discourse of alternative, faith-based education;

2. Standardise the pedagogy and curriculum of Islamic schools based on the principles of education in Islam and to make both contextually relevant;

3. Contribute to raising the standards of Islamic schools through a teacher education programme at credible faculties of education where ongoing research and development will also be supported.

     

Religious studies,religious education and the aims of education

This article interacts with a recent article by Denise Cush and Catherine Robinson in which they call for a new dialogue between religious studies in universities and religious education, and identify a number of developments in religious studies that have implications for the practice of religious education in schools. Cush and Robinson are representative of an influential body of opinion among religious educators that looks to religious studies for inspiration. It is argued that they, along with others, fail to appreciate the difference between the aims of religious studies and those of religious education and that this unrecognised difference leads them both to engage uncritically and superficially with the history of post-confessional religious education and to fail to recognise that the roots of some of the weaknesses in contemporary religious education can be traced to the influence of religious studies over it. Showing that religious education has (and is required to have) a different set of aims from religious studies (though some aims may be held in common) alerts us to its distinctive nature, and this in turn facilitates a clearer understanding of its role in schools, which can serve both to direct and to evaluate educational outcomes.     

Accountability in Partnership or Partnership in Accountability: Initial teacher education in Northern Ireland

This paper analyses accountability and partnership in Initial Teacher Education for the primary school sector in Northern Ireland. In considering teacher education, the paper focuses on three higher education institutions: Stranmillis University College, St Mary's University College and the University of Ulster. Of the three institutions, the Roman Catholic Church maintains St Mary's University College while the other institutions have no religious affiliations. The paper focuses on the reform of teacher education within the British Isles and sets Northern Ireland into a context of a system of teacher education which has developed new patterns of accountability. Three sources of evidence are used to analyse accountability; firstly the perception of schools that are partners in Initial Teacher Education; secondly, the views of the Education and Training Inspectorate who are responsible for accrediting teacher education in Northern Ireland; and thirdly, the views of the three university schools of education. The paper will demonstrate how teacher education in Northern Ireland is simultaneously similar to, and different from, teacher education in the rest of the developed world. It will illuminate the dimensions of accountability in the primary school sector and show how in Northern Ireland this is heavily segregated by religious denomination.     

当代美国教师教育课程思想的三种价值取向分析

学术取向、专业取向、社会(公正)取向共同构成了20世纪80年代以来美国教师教育课程思想的三大价值取向。专业取向教师教育课程思想以教育学科为中心,相信教育科学研究和教学知识基础的作用,在教育研究和专业评判的基础上,致力于建立专业教师队伍。学术取向教师教育课程思想以通识教育、任教科目为中心,通过教师掌握其知识结构,并把其注入教师教育课程中,完善教师的知识体系,促使教师形成良好的教育判断力。社会取向教师教育课程思想是在美国面对日益多元化的教学环境下,把教师当做转化型知识分子,赋权增能,以社会重建、改造为中心,实现教育和社会公平。三大价值取向的思想体现出了融合与多元模式的思想特征和发展趋势,构成了当代美国教师教育课程思想的基本图景。     

Ways to prepare future teachers to teach science in multicultural classrooms

Roussel De Carvalho uses the notion of superdiversity to draw attention to some of the pedagogical implications of teaching science in multicultural schools in cosmopolitan cities such as London. De Carvalho makes the case that if superdiverse classrooms exist then Science Initial Teacher Education has a role to play in helping future science teachers to become more knowledgeable and reflective about how to teach school students with a range of worldviews and religious beliefs. The aim of this paper is to take that proposition a step further by considering what the aims and content of a session in teacher education might be. The focus is on helping future teachers develop strategies to teach school students to think critically about the nature of science and what it means to have a scientific worldview. The paper draws on data gathered during an interview study with 28 students at five secondary schools in England. The data was analysed to discover students’ perceptions of science and their perceptions of the way that science responds to big questions about being human. The findings are used to inform a set of three strategies that teachers could use to help young people progress in their understanding of the nature of science. These strategies together with the conceptual framework that underpins them are used to develop a perspective on what kinds of pedagogical content knowledge teacher education might usefully provide.