Developing pre-service teacher knowledge using online forums: supporting confident and competent teaching practices

ABSTRACT

This small study examines how one group (n = 59) of first-year undergraduate students developed their knowledge through co-construction using an online forum as a platform as part of a three-year Initial Teacher Training (ITT) programme. Professional dialogue at the online interface supported them to cope with the challenges they faced during teaching practice. The data showed that there were gains in student subject and pedagogical knowledge, observed to a greater extent among the peripheral learners. The data presented provide an alternative view from that published in the existing literature about the size and type of both peripheral and core online interactions that were useful in building the confidence and competence of students in the role of teachers in a primary classroom. Ultimately, the online knowledge exchange among peripheral participants provided agency in learning over actions and the ability to cope during teaching practice. This was corroborated by student self-assessment using post-online reflective brainstorms. Sixty-four per cent of the students concluded that they would use this new subject and pedagogical knowledge when in school as part of their teaching practice.     

培养创新理念鼓励大胆探索 --浅谈在信息技术课教学中开展创新教育的尝试

培养21世纪的信息技术人才和造就具有"创新精神和实践能力"的建设者,是当代教育的神圣使命.要完成这一使命,教师首先必须改革传统的教育观,要让学生从传统的被动接受知识的模式中解放出来,不做知识的奴隶,而是成为主动学习、积极摄取,能驾驭自身学习活动的主人.基于"信息技术学科应该以任务驱动的方式,采取重自主、重环境、重实践、重创新为特点的教学模式进行教学"的认识,我们以培养学生创新精神和实践能力为目标,开展了"培养创新理念,鼓励大胆探索"的创新教育尝试.本文就:创新教育需要创设孕育创新精神的教学环境和人文环境;创新教育需要以具有创新观念和重实践运用的教学方法体系和教学模式来保障;创新教育需要以充分的实践作基础并通过实践实现创新等方面的问题,浅谈开展创新教育的做法和体会.     

What motivates higher education educators to innovate? Exploring competence,autonomy, and relatedness – and connections with wellbeing

ABSTRACT

Background: High quality tertiary teaching is important for maximising the impact of tertiary education for students, employers and society, as well as for institutional reputation and accountability. Varied interpretations exist regarding what counts as ‘innovative’ tertiary teaching.

Purpose: This study sought to explore the deeper drivers of motivations of tertiary educators to initiate and implement teaching innovations.

Method: Drawing from the data from semi-structured interviews from a wider study into innovative teaching in a tertiary education institution in Aotearoa New Zealand, we analysed the rationale of 13 expert tertiary educators for teaching in novel ways. The framework for analysis was based on Self-Determination Theory: data were analysed in relation to three basic psychological needs known to impact on motivation and wellbeing – competence, autonomy and relatedness.

Findings: Our analysis suggests that tertiary educator motivation to innovate in their teaching is related to feelings of all three needs. Findings suggest that innovative pedagogical change was linked to educators’ need for feelings of competence in relation to subject area content, pedagogy and developing student competence. Enhancing autonomy for the educators themselves, or for their students, was also an important factor motivating innovative practice. Developing relatedness between students, between themselves and students, and between students and society were reported as motivations for innovative teaching. Some teaching innovations were motivated by the educator’s desire for greater personal or student wellbeing.

Conclusions Educators’ motivations for being innovative in their tertiary pedagogical practice encompassed content, pedagogical, personal and social dimensions. None reported that their innovation was motivated by institutional policy or expectations. The reported challenges to innovative teaching practice, including institutional structures and processes, lack of access to specific technologies, and the time needed to develop and implement changed practice, indicate that educators must be strongly committed to making change in their practice to sustain the effort required.     

Being in Authority,Being an Authority: Disrupting students'/teachers' practices in literacy education

This is the second case study situated within my teaching of two undergraduate courses in the college of education of a large American university. It interrogates social forms that construct pedagogic and literate authority relations between preservice English education students and their teachers. It illustrates how teachers and students can negotiate engagement in critical literacy practice by constructing instructional circumstances that allow preservice teachers to question the kinds of practices that thwart the various aims of critical literacy and pedagogy. This study narrates a "critical incident" as a form of "practice-as-inquiry research", using field-notes, tape recordings, and interviews to describe four moments within the span of an activity that takes its historical antecedent in the work of I.A. Richards. The interpretation and analysis is informed by Pierre Bourdieu's reflexive sociology. The paper argues that teachers' disciplinary and pedagogical knowledge should not be undervalued or denied because with this knowledge comes an ethical responsibility to shape educative experiences for students that open them up to reflection and critique.     

Provoking contingent moments: Knowledge for ‘powerful teaching’ at the horizon

Background: Teacher knowledge continues to be a topic of debate in Australasia and in other parts of the world. There have been many attempts by mathematics educators and researchers to define the knowledge needed by teachers to teach mathematics effectively. A plethora of terms, such as mathematical content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, horizon content knowledge and specialised content knowledge, have been used to describe aspects of such knowledge.

Purpose: This paper proposes a model for teacher knowledge in mathematics that embraces and develops aspects of earlier models. It focuses on the notions of contingent knowledge and the connectedness of ‘big ideas’ of mathematics to enact what is described as ‘powerful teaching’. It involves the teacher’s ability to set up and provoke contingent moments to extend children’s mathematical horizons. The model proposed here considers the various cognitive and affective components and domains that teachers may require to enact ‘powerful teaching’. The intention is to validate the proposed model empirically during a future stage of research.

Sources of evidence: Contingency is described in Rowland’s Knowledge Quartet as the ability to respond to children’s questions, misconceptions and actions and to be able to deviate from a teaching plan as needed. The notion of ‘horizon content knowledge’ (Ball et al.) is a key aspect of the proposed model and has provoked a discussion in this article about students’ mathematical horizons and what these might comprise. Together with a deep mathematical content knowledge and a sensibility for students and their mathematical horizons, these ideas form the foundations of the proposed model.

Main argument: It follows that a deeper level of knowledge might enable a teacher to respond better and to plan and anticipate contingent moments. By taking this further and considering teacher knowledge as ‘dynamic’, this paper suggests that instead of responding to contingent events, ‘powerful teaching’ is about provoking contingent events. This necessarily requires a broad, connected content knowledge based on ‘big mathematical ideas’, a sound knowledge of pedagogies and an understanding of common misconceptions in order to be able to engineer contingent moments.

Conclusions: In order to place genuine problem-solving at the heart of learning, this paper argues for the idea of planning for contingent events, provoking them and ‘setting them up’. The proposed model attempts to represent that process. It is anticipated that the new model will become the framework for an empirical research project, as it undergoes a validation process involving a sample of primary teachers.     

Effects of dental students’ training using immersive virtual reality technology for home dental practice

ABSTRACT

Observation training of home dental practice is easily influenced by the site and time, and differences in learning content are likely to occur among students. The aim of the present study is to prototype virtual reality (VR) teaching material for home dental practice to provide dental students with the chance to observe patients receiving home dental care. The VR teaching material was created before the study, using a patient’s home as the medical treatment scene, and practical training was then conducted using this VR teaching material with dental students. To examine its educational effectiveness, 101 dental students, who attended practical training between June 2018 and January 2019, responded to survey questions before and after watching the VR teaching material. They took a comparative examination, based on the questionnaire results, using text mining and hierarchical cluster analysis. Two variables were tested: changes in self-confidence regarding knowledge of home dental practice (knowledge confidence) and changes in self-confidence regarding treatment assistance (assistance confidence). There was a significant increase in student’s knowledge confidence and assistance confidence scores (p < .001). Moreover, hierarchical cluster analysis indicated a change in the cluster before and after they watched the VR teaching material. Given that VR teaching material makes it possible to conduct home observation training for a variety of reasons, such as lack of available facilities or patient reservation issues, the findings indicate that VR teaching material can supplement dental students’ training in home dental practice.     

Education of Teachers in the Field of Teaching Natural Science Is Lagging behind the Requirements of the Inclusion of Pupils with Special Needs

ABSTRACT

In this theoretical study, we combined two approaches regarding the education of teachers in the field of teaching pupils with special needs with focus on teaching natural science topics, in Slovenia and in the Part of Northern Cyprus, respectively. We analysed syllabuses for different study programmes for teachers in primary schools in selected faculties in Slovenia. We focused on the specific content in those subjects, which are developing competences of students to be able to teach natural science topics, in particular physics topics, in primary schools in the adequate way, so the pupils with special needs can achieve the same goals as the other pupils. In addition, we included some accents regarding the children with special needs from approach to this topic at Near East University. We find out that the integrated content in the study programmes for the requirements of the inclusion of pupils with special needs in primary school is not sufficient or the inclusion in primary schools is planned too broad, if we take into account the current state of knowledge of the students in this specific field.     

Perspectives of ‘STEM education and policies’ for the development of a skilled workforce in Australia and India

ABSTRACT

In an increasingly competitive world, it has been proved that invention, development, and profusion of new technologies through science and technology are the fundamental source of economic progress. Australia, which is one of the world leaders in education and India, which has the capacity to produce the highest number of young skilled manpower to lead the world, both understand the current situation and have signalled their commitment to restoring the national strategy for STEM education. The proposed study focuses on a comparative understanding of the interplay of inclusive policies, government’s initiatives, knowledge gap from the literature and potential future challenges that Australia and India could face in STEM education at the school level. The question we asked is: what are the important inferences and best practices in STEM education that can be mutually beneficial to broaden the Strategic Partnership? It is identified that the governments of both the countries are determined to utilise the young population to train them as skilled workforce in order to meet the future demand of industries. Australia’s constructivist approach to education and the well-defined system of vocational training outperform India, which is still following the traditional approach. However, Australia has failed to engage students adequately in STEM and needs to revisit the efficacy of the current education model, while India needs to espouse the well-defined Australian framework, which could help to enhance quality infrastructure, curriculum, constructivist teaching and transparent policy implementation. In addition, both the nations must work hard to attract bright students in the teaching profession in order to promote a conducive environment for scientific learning.     

An analysis of student teachers' understanding of integration of science and technology activities

Abstract

The research reported on in this article was conducted to determine if student teachers enrolled in a Bachelor of Education programme at a South African University are able to integrate science and technology in their teaching. The participants were a cohort of students registered for a course aimed at preparing them to teach grades 4 to 6 in the primary school. The theoretical framework applied in the study is Rogan's Zone of feasible Innovation (ZFI) which uses the analogy that curriculum strategies are good when they proceed just ahead of current practice. Students' understanding of integration of two learning areas was compared to their knowledge base. The findings suggest that students who have very little knowledge of science and/or technology have difficulty in understanding what the scientific and technological processes mean and without this understanding are unable to integrate science and technology effectively in their teaching. It is recommended that the B.Ed programme at this university focuses more on providing opportunities for students to acquire sound knowledge of the two disciplines before attempting any form of integration.     

“What Do I Do Now?”

ABSTRACT

Recent advances made by medicine and psychiatry in the development of practice guidelines and evidence-based interventions are spreading to social work and other helping professions. As the movement toward evidence-based practice grows, more demands for the use of tested interventions will be placed on practitioners. In this paper, we argue that social work practice education must change to respond to this demand. Specifically, evidence-based interventions must be incorporated into the teaching of the middle phase of social work practice more than it is now. Social work training has traditionally relied on untested interventions that have come from the tacit knowledge of accumulated practice wisdom. Although tacit knowledge has an important place in social work practice, instructing students about evidence-based, empirically derived interventions provides them with critical knowledge and skills they will need to enter the competitive world of social work practice. Moreover, this approach amplifies the importance of launching practitioners with skills of evidence-based thinking; that is, the identification, evaluation, and selection of interventions with demonstrated effectiveness.     

Exploring the pedagogical features of integrating essential competencies of scientific inquiry in classroom teaching

ABSTRACT

Background: As inquiry-based instruction is not universally implemented in science classrooms, it is crucial to introduce instructional strategies through the use of contextualized learning activities to allow students with different background knowledge and abilities to learn the essential competencies of scientific inquiry and promote their emotional perception and engagement.

Purpose: This study explores how essential scientific competencies of inquiry can be integrated into classroom teaching practices and investigates both typical and gifted secondary students’ emotional perception and engagement in learning activities.

Sample: A case teacher along with 226 typical and 18 gifted students from a suburban secondary school at Taiwan participated in this study.

Design and methods: After attending twelve 3-hour professional development workshops that focused on scientific inquiry teaching, the case teacher voluntarily developed and elaborated her own teaching activities through the discussions and feedback that she received from workshop participants and science educators. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through activity worksheet, questionnaire, video camera, and tape recorders. Frequency distribution, Mann-Whitney U test, and discourse analysis were used for data analyses.

Results: Case teacher’s teaching activities provide contextual investigations that allow students to practice making hypotheses, planning investigations, and presenting and evaluating findings. Students’ learning outcomes reveal that typical students can engage in inquiry-based learning with positive emotional perception as well as gifted students regardless of their ability level. Both gifted and typical students’ positive emotional perception of and active engagement in learning provide fresh insight into feasible instructions for teachers who are interested in inquiry-based teaching but have little available time to implement such instructions into their classrooms.

Conclusions: The results of our work begin to address the critical issues of inquiry-based teaching by providing an exemplary teaching unit encompassing essential scientific competencies     

Academic work in the information age: a speculative essay

Abstract

Both campus-based universities and distance teaching universities are highly bureaucratised organisations that have eroded the traditional autonomy of the academic and created environments in which education is dehumanised. Developments in telecommunications and computer-based communications open up the possibility of creating new forms of interactive universities that can operate globally, irrespective of the place of abode of either students or staff. Exploiting these possibilities to advantage will require the development of new social relations, and in particular of different cash relationships between academics, students, and validating or licensing authorities that will, in many ways, mirror the artisanal organisation of the twelfth-century university. Such interactive universities will, however, be well suited to meet the lifelong learning needs of mobile knowledge workers.     

Developing an instrument for assessing students’ concepts of the nature of technology

Background: In Bangladesh, a common science curriculum caters for all students at the junior secondary level. Since this curriculum is for all students, its aims are both to build a strong foundation in science while still providing students with the opportunities to use science in everyday life – an aim consistent with the notion of scientific literacy.

Purpose: This paper reports Bangladeshi science teachers’ perspectives and practices in regard to the promotion of scientific literacy.

Sample: Six science teachers representing a range of geographical locations, school types with different class sizes, lengths of teaching experience and educational qualifications.

Design and method: This study employed a case study approach. The six teachers and their associated science classes (including students) were considered as six cases. Data were gathered through observing the teachers’ science lessons, interviewing them twice – once before and once after the lesson observation, and interviewing their students in focus groups.

Results: This study reveals that participating teachers held a range of perspectives on scientific literacy, including some naïve perspectives. In addition, their perspectives were often not seen to be realised in the classroom as for teachers the emphasis of learning science was more traditional in nature. Many of their teaching practices promoted a culture of academic science that resulted in students’ difficulty in finding connections between the science they study in school and their everyday lives. This research also identified the tension which teachers encountered between their religious values and science values while they were teaching science in a culture with a religious tradition.

Conclusions: The professional development practice for science teachers in Bangladesh with its emphasis on developing science content knowledge may limit the scope for promoting the concepts of scientific literacy. Opportunities for developing pedagogic knowledge is also limited and consequently impacts on teachers’ ability to develop the concepts of scientific literacy and learn how to teach for its promotion.     

新书推荐阅读课堂教学初探——以阿来新作《瞻对》的推荐阅读为例

大力推进学生的课外阅读是语文新课改的亮点之一,但学生的课外阅读往往被理解为对经典名著的阅读,对新出版的优秀书籍方面的课外阅读往往被漠视、无视,导致当代文化竟然成了当代中学生的盲区的奇怪现象。为此,笔者把新书的推荐阅读作为动态的课程进行研究和实践:先引导学生了解和新书有关的信息,再精心选择用于新书推荐的文本材料,利用现代新信息技术,创设浓烈的新书阅读的氛围,以此充分激发学生阅读新书的兴趣;同时,教师应全程指导学生阅读新书,时刻关注学生的新书阅读动态,随时做好激励、指导工作,让学生的新书阅读始终在有趣而又得法中顺利进行。     

Learning about energy: how pupils think in two domains

Abstract

Three strategies for teaching and learning about photosynthesis are described and criticized on the grounds that none of them promotes understanding of photosynthesis as a carbohydrate‐producing process in a way which can be related to students’ prior knowledge. The ‘guided discovery’ strategy, which currently predominates in classrooms, involves experimental procedures which frequently distract students from the crucial aspect, i.e., starch production, but leaves their prior understandings largely undisturbed. An ‘element analysis’ strategy and a ‘meaning of plant food’ strategy are also assessed.     

Dual PowerPoint presentation approach for students with special educational needs and note-takers

Abstract

In higher education, supporting students with special educational needs (SEN) necessitates an understanding of these needs, additional teaching aids and innovative ideas. The teacher must be an integral part of this support process, and this is difficult for the majority of teachers, due to their lack of core understanding of SEN. However, teachers can focus on their core skills and content knowledge, and have immense alacrity to explore potential options to support their students with SEN. I decided to support my students with SEN by adapting my PowerPoint presentations according to their requirements. PowerPoint presentations usually provide concisely summarised information to students that often lead to confusion in their pre-lecture or post-lecture review. This lack of comprehensive subject information within PowerPoint presentations can have serious implications for students with SEN and their note-takers if no other teaching resources or aids are available to help them. Students with SEN and note-takers reported this concern to me at Aberystwyth University, UK. Consequently, I began to explore ways to make my PowerPoint presentations extra helpful for my students with SEN. After a review of best practices for students with SEN based on universal design for learning and a few trials, I developed a dual PowerPoint presentation (DPP), lecture handouts and comprehensive lecture notes. Subsequently, I successfully employed this approach in the delivery of some of the undergraduate modules of a BSc computer science programme. Feedback from students with SEN, note-takers and the student support department, and examination results showed the success and potential of this DPP approach.     

Surfing the waves of learning: enacting a Semantics analysis of teaching in a first-year Law course

Students’ ability to build knowledge, and transfer it within and between contexts is crucial to cumulative learning and to academic success. This has long been a concern of higher education research and practice. A central part of this concern for educators is creating the conditions that enable their students' deep learning, as this is an area of significant struggle for many students. Legitimation Code Theory, in particular the dimension of Semantics, is proving useful in examining the kinds of conditions that may be necessary for students to build disciplinary knowledge cumulatively over time. Using illustrative data from one case study, this paper suggests that the conceptual tools offered by Semantics can provide academic lecturers and academic development staff with a set of conceptual and analytical tools which can enable them to ‘see’ and understand the ways in which knowledge can be cumulatively acquired and used, as well as the possible gaps between what they are teaching and what their students may be learning. The hope is that these new insights will provide new directions for change in teaching and learning where these may be needed.     

Aretaic pedagogy: how we can transform the aesthetics of good teaching

Abstract

The article aims to introduce the epistemology of aretaic pedagogy as a refreshing paradigm of good teaching, situating at its centrality, instead of a knowledge-based perspective, a virtue-based approach to education. Its origins are in Aristotelian virtue ethics, which premise the acquisition of intellectual and ethical virtues as the highest good of the good life. Aretaic pedagogy is therefore constructed on the basis of the theory of virtue development and deliberates teaching as an ethical, virtue-driven practice. Its epistemological framework depends largely on three components: the notion of teaching as a practice, the embodiment of internal goods in teaching/learning and the harnessing of students’ private knowledge. Dialogue, beauty and play are proposed as the main internal goods within the students’ learning, which can act as key sources of their practice of virtues. As concerns a teacher’s pedagogical presence, it is argued from a dual professional prospect: the technological and the ethical. Therefore, a teacher is called to exercise a nexus of epistemic, technical, poetic and ethical virtues.