The potential of teaching schools in enabling student teacher learning for the teaching profession

In 2011 the Integrated Strategic Planning Framework for Teacher Education and Development in South Africa was promulgated. This framework proposes the establishment of teaching schools to strengthen pre-service teacher education. This study arises from this initiative. A generic qualitative study was undertaken to explore the views of research participants from selected teacher education institutions and schools in South Africa on the potential of teaching schools to enable student teacher learning for the teaching profession. The key findings are that teaching schools can potentially make a distinctive contribution towards enabling student teacher learning for the teaching profession through student teachers experiencing good teaching in a model environment and through coordinating experiences in coursework and at the school. The discussion of the findings points to the distinctive potentialities of teaching schools for strengthening teacher education. The notion of hybridity and third space is invoked as a heuristic to shed light on the developing of a true collaborative relationship between the teacher education institution and the teaching school for enabling student teacher learning for the teaching profession.     

Teacher professionalism: why are we still talking about it?

It is now more than 10 years after the publication of the monograph, The Activist Teaching Profession, which, at the time, could be described as a call to action for the teaching profession. I reflect here on how far has the profession progressed in responding to that call to action. The idea of a ‘call to action’ could be seen to born out of industrial rather than professional discourses: 10 years ago different factors were shaping teachers’ professional practice and identity and a call to action was a metaphor and a strategy to mobilize teachers. In this paper, I identify the factors that are still influencing and shaping the teaching profession and argue that different times require different responses and that current thinking and debates around teacher professionalism circulate around professional learning. In this paper, I argue that the time for an industrial approach to the teaching profession has passed. I make the case for systems, schools and teachers to be more research active with teachers’ practices validated and supported through research.     

Teacher education graduates’ choice (not) to enter the teaching profession: does teacher education matter?

In an era of recurring teacher shortages, Flanders struggles with a considerable proportion of teacher education graduates who do not enter the teaching profession. This study identifies the predictors of teacher education graduates’ choice on job entry (teaching profession or not). A prospective research design with two data collection phases is adopted. Student teachers (subsequently graduates) (N = 217) of integrated teacher training for secondary education were surveyed shortly before as well as shortly after graduation. Results of chi-squared and t-tests indicate that gender, initial motivation for teaching, mentor support, teacher education preparation, teacher efficacy, learner-oriented beliefs, performance in teacher education, and employment opportunities show differences (at 1% level) between graduates who entered and those who did not enter the teaching profession. Results of the subsequent logistic regression validate the importance of teacher education (i.e. mentor support) – beside initial motivation and labour market factors – to explain graduates’ decision on job entry.     

Supporting the kindergarten–primary school transition in Hong Kong: reform in a teacher training programme

ABSTRACT

The conflicting education values in Hong Kong kindergartens and primary schools pose various challenges to kindergarten teachers in providing pupils with a smooth transition to primary school which requires collaboration from schools and families. This study explored these challenges as well as the benefits of a professional teacher training programme. In-service teachers (N?=?35) and tutors (N?=?2) engaged in the module ‘The Social and Emotional Aspects of Teaching and Learning’ participated in this study. The trainees’ weekly reflective journals throughout the 22-week module were subjected to documentation analysis. Group interviews with the in-service teachers and individual interviews with the tutors were conducted on completion of the module. Findings reveal a gap between teacher training and providing pastoral care for pupils through supporting the social and emotional aspects of their families in Hong Kong, and indicated that traditional beliefs associated with the teaching profession should be widened. Meanwhile, counselling knowledge and skills should be contextualised and integrated into teacher training programmes.     

Challenging and Appropriating Discourses of Power: Listening to and Learning from Early Career Early Childhood Teachers of Color

ABSTRACT

The racial mismatch between teachers and students has become a salient issue in efforts to counter the historical failure of children of Color in American (pre)schools. To address this mismatch, scholars have argued for the critical need to recruit and retain teachers of Color. In this article, we propose that to successfully prepare teachers of Color so that they remain committed to the profession, we must learn from their experiences during their preservice preparation and their first years of teaching. Against the backdrop of normative institutional discourses shaping teachers and teaching, we sought to learn from the ways in which six early career early childhood teachers of Color reconciled their preservice teacher education experiences, identities, and beliefs about education with the construction of their identities as teachers. To do so, we asked: How do the discursive spaces of early childhood teaching and teacher education shape the practices, beliefs, and identities of early childhood teachers of Color during their teacher education programs and within their three first years of teaching? Through Critical Narrative Analysis of in-depth interviews, we sought to unveil the discourses that shape and are shaped by the experiences of early career early childhood teachers of Color. Findings indicate that instead of being colonized by institutional discourses and oppressed by others' perceptions, to remain in the profession, these early career early childhood teachers challenged and appropriated institutional discourses, reauthoring them agentively. Implications underscore the responsibility of teacher education programs in preparing teachers of Color to negotiate the ever-so-normative discursive space of early childhood teaching and teacher education, if they are to enter and remain in the profession.     

Taking a Return to School: Using Self-Study to Learn about Teacher Educator Practice

The work of teacher educators is complex and multifaceted and requires knowledge of pedagogy and practice in both schools and teacher education institutions. This complexity, combined with calls for teacher educators to work in close partnership with schools, sees some in teacher education working in hybrid roles and across the boundaries of schools and universities. Drawing on a self-study conducted over a one-year return to teaching, I explore my return home to teach in a secondary school and I examine the continuing impact of this experience on my practice as a teacher educator. Using the concept of tensions as a conceptual framework to analyse the data I explore three tensions in this article: (1) teacher as technician versus teacher as pedagogue; (2) challenging versus being responsive to other’s views of learning; and (3) teacher versus teacher educator identity. I explore how a return to teaching in school and the tensions I experienced enabled me to develop my practice and understandings as a teacher educator. I argue that rich professional learning can result from using self-study to examine teacher educator practice, particularly for teacher educators working in hybrid roles and partnership contexts.     

教师发展学校是教师专业发展的应然选择

教师发展学校是在合作建设、研究的基础上,旨在促进教师与学生共同发展的一种组织形式,是促进教师专业发展的新途径,具有主动参与性、合作研究性、实践生成性、专家引领性等特点;教师发展学校开展的一系列的教育教学活动,如教师之间相互合作、分享经验的合作传记、提升教师科研能力的行动研究以及提高教师业务素质的校本培训等,这些都是促进教师专业发展的有效途径。     

The Interactions of Conceptions of Teaching Science and Environmental Factors to Produce Praxis in Three Novice Teachers of Science

One strategy for implementing learner-centered teaching is through the preparation of teachers and their induction into the profession. This article presents case studies of three secondary science teachers that follow them from their science teacher education program that advocated teaching for conceptual change as one approach to learner-centered teaching into their first years of teaching. The article’s purpose is to describe the teachers’ initial conceptions of teaching science carried over from their teacher preparation program, and how they integrated those conceptions with the environmental influences of their classrooms and schools to produce praxis. Data were collected from the participants in several different ways during the participants’ pre-service year and during their first year or two of teaching: Observation of the participants’ teaching; related interviews with participants; and their action research journals. As they approached the end of their first or second year of teaching, all three teachers demonstrated increased levels of confidence in their teaching competence, both in their classroom performance and their places in their departments and schools. None of them had, however, fully implemented conceptual change teaching approach that was the specific goal of their teacher preparation program.     

Changes of Chinese exchange teacher candidates’ professional beliefs in the ‘reciprocal learning in teacher education and school education between Canada and China’ project

ABSTRACT

This article is based on the empirical research involving Chinese exchange teacher candidates from Southwest University in China who participated in the Reciprocal Learning in Teacher Education and School Education between Canada and China (RLTESECC) project and studied at the University of Windsor. These teachers conducted classroom observation in Canadian schools from 2010 to 2016. The research study explores changes in Chinese teacher candidates’ beliefs about their professional life, which was promoted by the project, inspired by the Teachers’ Change Model proposed by F. A. J. Korthagen and based on the concept of Reciprocal Learning as collaborative partnerships between and among cultures. A two-stage research design was guided by the Grounded Theory approach (Charmaz, 2006). The findings reveal that the reciprocal learning project created an environment, which was conducive to exchange teacher candidates’ professional development and especially introduced new perspectives to teachers’ understanding of their profession in four areas: 1) teaching, 2) learning, 3) researching and academic writing and 4) professional social life.     

Book Reviews

ABSTRACT

Each year an overwhelming number of students apply to join teacher training courses to become primary school teachers in Brunei Darussalam. This article analyses some of the factors that teacher trainees find attractive in the teaching profession. Among 25 factors listed in a questionnaire, the factors concerning more opportunity to further education through the BA Education course received the highest score. Other factors considered important were classified under various categories such as status of teaching, salaries, conditions of service and benefits. Under these categories, it was revealed that teacher status, respect by community and salaries were among the dominant factors that influenced teacher trainees’ attraction to teaching. The article concludes with implications for the teaching profession in Brunei Darussalam particularly in issues pertaining to continuing education for teachers.     

关于专业发展学校研究的几个问题

当前教师/ 专业发展学校0研究中, 出现了几个有冲突的术语概念。深入的考察和清理表明, 术语/ 教学专业0或/ 教育专业0比/ 教师专业0更具合理性, / 教学专业化0包含了/ 教师专业化0; / 教师发展学校0则容易流于抽象而空洞的/ 教师发展0, 因而应该修正为/ 教师专业发展学校0,以回归/ 专业发展学校0并促进真正而具体化的/ 教师专业发展0; / 专业发展学校0的价值取向不是/ 教师为本0, 而是/ 学习需要定向0; 深化/ 专业发展学校0研究的思维方式, 需要超越/ 封闭割裂0而走向/ 开放整合0。     

The global teaching profession: how treating teachers as knowledge workers improves the esteem of the teaching profession

To better understand the status of the teaching profession, we present a conceptual framework outlining the 4 domains of knowledge-worker professionals: professional benchmarks, professional discretion, room for promotion, and workplace conditions and use the TALIS 2013 survey data to show that these domains exist globally and vary within countries. Across more than 30 school systems, we address the question: To what extent does the level and type of professionalism afforded to individual teachers shape their perceptions of the esteem of their profession? The strongest domain traits that correlate with feeling valued as a teacher are teachers’ satisfaction with their working conditions, involvement in school decision making, and the chance to be recognized for good work. This framework shapes an actionable set of concepts that policymakers can use to address attraction and retention to the profession system-wide and that school leaders can use to improve working conditions in their own schools.     

Why some graduating teachers choose not to teach: teacher attrition and the discourse-practice gap in becoming a teacher

ABSTRACT

Teacher attrition is a perennial problem in many countries around the globe. With attrition especially pronounced amongst early career teachers, efforts to retain and sustain these teachers have highlighted the importance of effective mentoring and support programs within schools. However, less is known about the perceptions and experiences of graduates of initial teacher education (ITE) programs who choose not to enter the teacher profession, therefore not benefiting from such mentoring and support, and subsequently being lost to the profession, potentially forever. Therefore, this paper reports on a qualitative case study that investigated the reasons why one group of graduates from an ITE program in Hong Kong chose not to teach. Using in-depth interviews and grounded in a theory of teacher identity construction, the results reveal how the participants struggled to construct their preferred professional identities, in particular during a teaching practicum, and the role this played in their decision not to enter the teaching profession. Implications for how teacher educators can better support preservice teachers as they struggle to construct their professional identities are considered and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Retelling herstory: to be a female Bedouin teacher differently

The aim of this article is to contribute to the discussion on education in Palestinian/Bedouin society in the Negev in Israel and it proposes the narrative of female trainee teachers as the basis of an analysis of the changing status of Bedouin women and their community. The academic discourse on teaching in Bedouin society ignores the potential existence of an alternative discussion outside the dichotomous area of ‘traditional and modern’ and/or ‘Jewish and Bedouin’. Bedouin society in the Negev constitutes a particularly interesting case for a meaningful study of the perception of teaching, chiefly because education has already become a significant practice in the life of a community that seeks integration into Israeli society. The teaching profession gives Bedouin women from the Negev a relatively new opportunity to integrate into education and employment and by so doing they reconstruct a new educational discourse.

Il’il: When we were little, we used to laugh about me—hmm—a teacher. Me with pupils, and I’d teach them, like the teacher who used to teach us, with a little board, and I write for them and they are my pupils, as it were, and I give them tests and all sorts. And I love the profession very, very much because I love the pupils…

Nura: I loved learning but this isn’t the profession that I want to study—to be a teacher … You can help someone in this profession. I see myself going in that direction … First of all, you have to give, to impart something to the children in front of you, who have come to learn. You have to give to these children, to be conscientious. You don’t just come. You haven’t chosen the profession because you wanted to, but you have to cope with it.     

A Turkish profile of prospective elementary school teachers and their views of teaching

This study explores the characteristics and perceptions of those currently entering elementary teacher education in Turkey. A questionnaire consisting of fixed-response, Likert-style and open-ended questions was administered to all entry level elementary teacher education students (n=381) enrolled in the Faculty of Education of Selcuk University during the 2001–2002 academic year to seek information about their background characteristics, past and preferred elementary schooling experiences, reasons for choosing elementary teaching as a career, and perceptions of elementary teaching as a profession. Results indicate that significant differences exist between male and female prospective elementary teachers’ preconceptions of the teaching profession. Implications for preservice teacher education and further research are discussed.     

Passion for teaching: A perspective for South African teachers

Abstract

This article reports on an investigation into passion for teaching, a complex and demanding profession. Three relevant themes emerged: (1) choosing teaching as a profession; (2) growing the passion for teaching; and (3) sustaining passion for teaching. An interpretive study was conducted during which fieldworkers (Bachelor of Education and Training Level Four students) collected the data in the three months of their teaching practice at schools. These fieldworkers qualitatively interviewed 48 teachers at schools where they were placed. According to the findings, the majority of teachers interviewed indicated that extrinsic motives were dominant determinants for teachers to choose teaching as a profession. This means that the majority of participants probably had less passion for teaching as a result of circumstances in their environment or their passion diminished because of a less sense of enduring efficacy. Based on the findings, a framework is proposed that is flexible to accommodate the different realities. It was created to recommend how to sustain a passion for teaching.     

教师专业发展方式论

本文论述了教师专业发展的三种方式：教师个体的自我学习、反思和研究,教师同伴的互助提高,专业人士的指点引领。三种发展方式的责任主体不同,显示的意义也不尽相同。教师个体的学习、反思、研究是教师专业发展的基础,显示了教师个体专业发展的自觉。教师同伴互助需要学校建设起良性的团队文化和教研文化,显示着教师职业的专业组织特点。专业人士的指点引领则更多依靠教师任职学校和教师培养培训机构、教育行政主管部门有计划、有组织的介入,它显示着社会为教师专业发展承担起了应有的责任。     

The Token Teacher: representations of professional educators in school governing bodies

ABSTRACT

This paper, drawing on data from a four‐year study of the governing bodies of 10 English schools, is concerned with the way in which lay members of governing bodies tend to downgrade the voice of professional educators, in particular the elected teacher governor(s). It is argued that the teacher governor's position is often undermined by a fundamental ambivalence on the part of many lay governors regarding the desirability of teacher involvement, the implication being that only lay governors, by virtue of possessing a ‘non‐partisan’, ‘common sense’ perspective on education, can act in the best interests of all concerned with the school. The questioning of teachers’ competence in the context of school governing bodies can be seen as part of a wider ‘discourse of derision’ surrounding the teaching profession. The discourse of derision can, however, take many forms and is capable of being resisted and replaced with alternative discourses.     

“Look Out for the Football Players and the Frat Boys”: Autoethnographic Reflections of a Gay Teacher in a Gay Curricular Experience

This article draws upon the history of teacher education to provide an introduction to 4 competing pedagogical philosophies. These 4 philosophies battled for control over curriculum for teachers during the period from 1890 to 1930. I begin by defining curriculum for teachers to include the liberal, the professional, and the experiential dimensions. Then, I identify 4 interest groups that sought to gain power over curriculum for teachers. I categorize these interest groups as the traditionalists, the integrationists, the technicians, and the romantics. Then, I explain how leading individuals from each interest group answered questions regarding human nature, the purpose of schooling, and curriculum for teachers. Finally, I argue that education schools should revitalize the integrationist tradition within pedagogical philosophy. This view has been forgotten for nearly 50 years, and the profession of teaching has suffered because of it.