Pre-service teachers’ perceptions of the Internet and online courses: the case of an American Pacific Island University

Offerings of online courses continue to increase in higher education settings, as institutions attempt to meet students’ (and faculty members’) increasing demands for online access. How do pre-service teachers perceive online education? This paper reports the results of a questionnaire-based survey addressing this issue. The questionnaire focused on the degree to which teacher candidates consider the Internet useful for coursework, and their level of preparedness for taking online courses. The participants were pre-service teachers (N = 237) enrolled in education foundation courses at the University of Guam. This paper discusses educational implications of the results, and makes recommendations for future research. The results from this study may guide teacher education and its efforts to optimise online courses and, at the same time, support the University’s commitment to ensure that teacher education prepares its pre-service teachers to apply and integrate technology in their own future teaching.     

河北北方学院职前数学教师职业认同状况调查研究

采用问誊调查方法,对河北北方学院职前数学教师职业认同状况进行了调查,剖析其认同度不高的主要原因,一是对教师职业缺乏必要的了解,二是教师对教育类课程认同度不高。建议高师院校严把学生入学关,不断改革教学内容与教学方法,加强相关教师与中小学的沟通,增加职前教师教学实践机会。     

A case study of early career secondary teachers’ perceptions of their preparedness for teaching: lessons from Australia and Spain

This paper presents an international comparison of Australian and Spanish secondary teachers’ perceptions about the effectiveness of their pre-service education and their learning as in-service teachers. It aims to identify, firstly, the extent to which beginning teachers believe they are prepared for their careers through their teacher training and, secondly, what teachers have learned as practicing teachers. A qualitative case study was conducted to uncover whether similar issues raised by early career teachers were identified in different contexts. Data were collected through interviews with secondary teachers (N = 11) from Australia and Spain in their third year of full-time teaching. Findings suggest similar positive perceptions towards their practicum experiences, transition to beginning teachers and professional development. However, differences were found in their early career experiences regarding professional learning and their development of identity. Implications of the study are discussed by identifying strategies to improve pre-service education for secondary teachers.     

职前教师的专业身份建构——基于西方关于职前教师专业身份的实证研究的报告

目前教育研究领域的一个重要转变是教师的专业身份开始成为教育研究的重要议题和分析工具。然而过往的研究多聚焦于在职教师,未能对教师教育情境中的专业身份的萌芽和塑形过程进行充分探讨。本文以职前教师专业身份为主题,对西方近年来相关实证研究进行系统检索和分析,具体从职前教师专业身份的构成、特征、发展过程及其影响因素等四个方面对研究发现进行分析和归纳,为学界探索教师教育如何支持和促进职前教师专业身份发展提供思路。     

Student teachers’ indirect complaining in learning groups

This article focuses on indirect complaining in teacher education. The phenomenon of complaining in educational situations has not been examined as a process before. In this study complaining was examined in naturally occurring learning group sessions, which were videotaped and analysed through Conversation Analysis (CA). The purpose of this study is to describe the beginning of complaints and find ways to handle situations including complaining. The data comprise 26 pedagogically focused discussions that included indirect complaining. These were categorized into four classes: discussions which produced accounts, advice‐giving discussions, discussions expressing different viewpoints, and discussions mainly expressing affiliation. Discussions in the first three categories can be seen as investigative: in these discussions student teachers produced explanations or new interpretations of complained situations, or gave advice to correct the complained situation. Hence, although complaining is defined as having at least two negative elements (there must be something wrong in the complained‐of situation, and the stance of the complainer towards it must be negative), there was also something positive in the processes of the discussions that included complaining, namely investigation. When the second turns of the discussions including indirect complaining were studied, it was observed that invitations to define the complained‐of situation seemed to engender investigative discussions, whereas like‐mindedness or further complaint as the second turn seemed to engender discussions expressing affiliation. An invitation to define the complained‐of situation is suggested as a tool for developing complaints into investigative discussions.     

Everyday life and everyday learning: the ways in which pre-service teacher education curriculum can encourage personal dimensions of teacher identity

This article presents and discusses the findings of a research project, the main objective of which is to identify curriculum components that promote personal development as a nuclear part of teacher professional identity formation through pre-service teacher education. Curriculum is viewed as an ecological scenario with different subsystems and both as formal and informal. Identity formation is conceived as an ever-provisional result of a double transaction: the biographical one and the relational one. The curricula of four different historical periods of pre-service teacher education in Portugal and the professional identity of teachers trained within them were characterised through collection and analysis of documents and biographical narratives. Crossing results from the four periods, the quality of school climate emerges as an important variable to the quality of the teachers’ identity. The lifelong learning ethos seems to emerge when the training curriculum connects everyday learning with everyday life, namely by urging the students’ involvement in school life, peer learning activities and peer and teacher educators’ informal learning activities.     

Development of Pre-Service Mathematics Teachers' Professional Knowledge and Identity in Working with Information and Communication Technology

This paper describes the workundertaken in a course in communication andinformation technology in a pre-service programfor secondary school mathematics teachers. Thiscourse aimed to help pre-service teachersdevelop a positive attitude regarding ICT anduse it confidently. It focused on theexploration of educational software and of theInternet's potential as a means of research andproduction of web sites. We discuss how thepre-service mathematics teachers evaluate theirwork concerning their commitment, difficultiesthey found, learning they identified, andpersonal relationship. We also analyse theeffects of the course on the development oftheir professional knowledge and identity.     

Emotional identification with teacher identities in student teachers’ narrative interaction

The paper suggests that narrative interaction in student teacher peer groups is an important context for emotional identification with culturally available teacher identities. It addresses issues pointed out as problematic in research on teacher identity formation: focus on the individual and the underestimation of context. A positioning analysis of narrative interaction in a conversation between two student teachers depicts the ways in which they express and negotiate feelings related to out loud reading. The results show that this approach can be a complement to the extensive body of knowledge on the place of emotions in teacher identity formation as it shows how emotions are negotiated among student teachers in a way that challenges the predominant focus on individual students’ expressions of emotions.     

职前教师教育中的“用电影教”——意义、主题与过程的分析

职前教师教育项目所进行的教学改革,多是针对传统的“传递取向教学法”的不足而设计的,“用电影教”即为改革举措之一。“用电影教”能使教学适应职前教师的认知特点,促进教育理论与实践的联结,为职前教师的思考和讨论提供“催化剂”,并发展其技术品性。在职前教师教育中,“用电影教”可用于教授诸多学习主题,在教学过程上具有一定的灵活性,但也遵循一些共性的要求。对职前教师教育中的“用电影教”进行研究,能够为职前教师教育的教学法改革提供参考。     

A case study of beginning science teachers’ subject matter (SMK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of teaching chemical reaction in Turkey

This paper describes a case study focusing on the subject matter knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and beliefs about science teaching of student teachers in Turkey at the start of their university education. The topic of interest was that of teaching chemical reactions in secondary chemistry education. A written test was developed which used the research literature on potential student misconceptions with regard to different aspects of chemical reactions. Thirty beginning science student teachers were tested, with an additional eight interviews from the student teachers in the same sample. The interviews focused on student teachers’ views about how to best teach chemical reactions in lower secondary chemistry classes. The results revealed deficits in the subject matter knowledge of the student teachers. It also became obvious that the teachers in this sample held very traditional and teacher-centred beliefs when it came to chemistry teaching at the secondary level. Their teaching attitudes were geared mainly towards the acquisition of facts by pupils, and often ignored the development of process-oriented skills. Implications for science teacher education are discussed.     

Science Education in Early Childhood Teacher Education: Putting Forward a Case to Enhance Student Teachers' Confidence and Competence

New Zealand is moving towards increased qualification requirements for early childhood educators. There is an underlying assumption that there is a correlation between quality early childhood education, teacher qualifications and quality practices in teaching and learning. Two fields of literature, early childhood pedagogy and science specific pedagogy, are reviewed briefly to provide a framework with which to consider why student teachers' attitudes, misunderstandings and misconceptions in science can limit their ability and willingness to create quality teaching and learning opportunities. The study reported in this paper highlights, in general, that early childhood student teachers' subject knowledge in science was poor. It also emerged that the student teachers were unaware of how little they knew and how this might affect their ability to provide appropriate science experiences for young children.