Just add hours? An assessment of pre-service teachers’ perception of the value of professional experience in attaining teacher competencies

This study compared pre-service teachers’ perceptions of their professional competencies at two campuses of a large regional teacher education university, where one campus provided students 22% more hours of professional placement in schools and related educational settings. Students who had experienced more hours in schools and such settings were more positive about their, ability to apply their knowledge of students and how they learn, classroom management, professional knowledge and practice, and community engagement; however, when students felt well supported during professional experience, such differences diminished. Additional hours were not associated with pre-service teachers’ perceptions of their ability to apply subject content and teaching; plan, assess and report; and effective student communication. Researchers argued that this pointed to the crucial role of good classroom mentors in teacher professional experience but also the value of students’ tertiary teacher education in preparing them for classroom teaching.     

Sources of shifts in pre-service teachers’ patterns of attention: the roles of teaching experience and of observational experience

A key requirement of successful initial teacher education is the development of professional vision, which includes shifting attention to features of the situation relevant to the specialized goals of teaching. Existing research hints at the value of targeted video-based courses in the development of professional vision, but often raises questions about the sources of shifts in the pattern of attention. We argue that existing work makes it difficult to distinguish whether shifts seen across video interventions are the results of the intervention, teaching experience, or methodological issues with the unbalanced use of videos in the data collection in these studies. Our first study suggests pre-service teachers’ teaching practice experience does not notably affect attention, but that choice of video does. Our second study addresses the methodological issues and suggests that we may discount different or unbalanced videos as a source of the shifts in the pattern of attention. Finally, by introducing a new synthesis of the results in the literature, we identify a previously hidden key distinction between studies and suggest reasons why different studies have shown different results in this area.     

The influence of teacher education on mentor teachers’ role perception in professional development schools

Apprenticeship and professional development schools (PDSs) are two models for teacher education. The mentors that are the focus for this research completed their initial teacher training through one of these models and now mentor in PDSs. The paper reports on how the way in which they were trained as student teachers influenced their role perceptions. The findings suggest that mentor teachers who were trained via the PDSs model have a broader conceptual understanding of their role perception.     

Don’t let me forget the teacher I wanted to become

This article reports findings from a study of 14 beginning teachers in their first year of teaching in primary schools. By the end of the first year, half were reconsidering their long-term commitment to teaching. The study found they were considering leaving because they were struggling to be the teachers they had envisaged being. One reason for this was the lack of alignment between the supports offered to them, and their own visions of good teaching. The consequences of misaligned supports for beginning teachers are discussed, along with suggestions for the ways in which mentoring and induction programs can better support beginning teachers to be the teachers they wish to be.     

Teachers’ experience from a school-based collaborative teacher professional development programme: reported impact on professional development

The aim of this study was to find out how science teachers who have participated in a one-year school-based collaborative teacher professional development programme, perceive the programme’s impact on their professional development. Constant comparative analysis was used on data from three schools to generate the findings in this study. The results indicate that participating teachers perceived a clear effect on their teaching practice and ways of thinking about teaching science. In addition, the findings identify a positive effect on the teachers’ attitudes towards collaboration. The article further discusses how reflection seems to contribute to the teachers’ professional development.     

Beyond the ‘good teacher’: guiding pre-service teacher reflections on culturally diverse students

This article explores how reflective practice may be facilitated among pre-service teachers preparing to teach in culturally diverse classrooms. The significance of the mentor teacher’s ability to reveal her/himself as a reflective practitioner in order to promote student reflection is well documented. The article specifically addresses one teacher educator’s approach to offering mentor support with a focus on reflective practices related to cultural diversity. She explores how her ethnographic doctoral study on the classroom participation of adult South Sudanese students in different Australian learning environments has informed her own practice as a teacher, and ways in which her teaching philosophy and values were influenced by the sustained reflection needed to complete the study. By making explicit an aspect of her reflective practice, she aims to add to the growing body of literature on how to engage pre-service teachers meaningfully in reflection on their own classroom practice, especially in relation to teaching to diversity.     

Datafying the teaching ‘profession’: remaking the professional teacher in the image of data

This paper explores how data-driven practices and logics have come to reshape the possibilities by which the teaching profession, and teaching professionals, can be known and valued. Informed by the literature and theorising around educational performativity, the constitutive power of numbers, and affective responses to data, it shows how different US educators experienced, and came to embody, new forms of numbers-based accountability. Drawing on interviews with teachers, and school- and district-level leaders, as well as relevant school-based documents, it is argued that such data are now both effective (i.e. they change ‘what counts’ within the profession) and affective (i.e. they produce new expectations for teachers to profess data-responsive dispositions over actual educative practices). This prevalence and use of data have combined not only to change teaching into a ‘data profession’, but also to change teachers into ‘professors’ of data.     

Defining the ‘good mother’ and the ‘professional teacher’: parent–teacher relationships in an affluent school district

This article examines the challenges of parent–teacher relationships in an affluent school district, drawing on 30 in‐depth interviews of mothers and elementary school teachers in the USA. Professional women who have put their careers on hold to care for their children are apt to define being a good mother in terms of the academic achievement of their children. This results in extreme amounts of involvement and advocacy in their child's education, even when such actions have questionable effects on the larger school population. Enhancement of ‘good mothering’ was found to be done at the expense of teacher professionalism. A small number of entitled‐minded mothers were able to make a large impact not only on teacher job satisfaction but on the climate of the entire school due to their extensive networks, levels of advocacy, and critical examination of school processes.     

Prospective teachers’ teaching experience: teacher learning through the use of video

Background: Future teachers need to observe, interpret and analyse teaching during the initial teacher education period. The use of videoed teaching and learning in teacher education promotes reflection, and analysing videos of teaching is helpful in learning effective classroom practices that prospective teachers mostly do not have the chance to observe during fieldwork experiences. The analysis of videos of teaching can be seen as a way to enhance the development of prospective teachers’ professional vision, which, in turn, improves instruction. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine prospective teachers’ reflections on video examples depicting their own teaching experiences. It aimed to create a professional development environment to facilitate the prospective teachers’ reflection on their own videos and those of their peers to improve their professional vision. Sample: This study was conducted with over 200 (in 31 groups) third-year prospective mathematics teachers in a university in Western Turkey. The student teachers, receiving training to teach first- to fourth-grade elementary school pupils, were taking a teaching methods course. Design and methods: In the first week of the semester, the student teachers, working in groups, were assigned mathematics topics to teach the elementary school pupils. During the semester, each group prepared by trying out their activities in front of other student teachers in other groups. At the end of the semester, one student teacher from each group presented a short lesson related to their mathematical topic to the elementary school pupils. This lesson was videotaped, then later it was watched and discussed by the student teachers. Of the student teachers who undertook the teaching in the videos, 22 volunteers agreed to be interviewed. All groups of student teachers provided written reflections on their experience. Selected videos of the class discussions about the videos of teaching were also used for triangulation. The data were analysed to identify the issues the prospective teachers reflected upon. A content analysis technique was employed. Results: The data indicated that the prospective teachers were able to reflect on several issues related to effective teaching, connect their theoretical knowledge to their practice and consider issues related to pupil learning and difficulties. Conclusion: The findings suggested that the use of video, together with discussions between the student teachers, had the potential to create promising learning opportunities for prospective teachers.     

From LSA to teacher: the value of classroom experience in shaping a ‘teacher’ identity

Routes into teacher training have expanded in recent years, accompanied by a growing interest in schools ‘growing their own’ teachers from amongst support staff. However, little attention has been paid to their transition to the role of teacher. This article investigates influences on identity development and the extent to which personal values are reconciled with professional demands and socially constructed facets of educational practice. Participants were nine staff in one secondary school for pupils with moderate learning difficulties who had undertaken the transition from LSA (learning support assistant) to teacher. Qualitative data were obtained through an online survey and focus group discussion. Findings show that extensive opportunities to experiment with provisional and possible selves, immersion in educational discourse, classroom agency and staff collaboration engender a ‘teacher’ self-concept and positive motivations for LSA career development, and that self-esteem and self-efficacy are strengthened by how an individual’s values align with those of the setting in which they work. Findings may inform school leaders as to the value of training teachers ‘in-house’ and support career development decisions of LSAs, a pathway of potential significance given the current pressures on teacher recruitment and retention.     

Teachers’ and teacher educators’ lives: the role of emotion

This paper reports research which focuses on ways of enhancing understandings by teachers of the key role that emotions play in their personal professional growth. It combines the narrative, autobiographical accounts of teachers attending part-time masters degree programmes in England (Continuing Professional Development and School Improvement) and Northern Ireland (Personal and Social Development) with an interrogation of the underlying values which affect the practices of their tutors. It reveals the effects of powerful and often unacknowledged interaction between personal biography and professional and social contexts upon teachers in schools and higher education.     

‘Elite’ career-changers and their experience of initial teacher education

This study explores the motivation of ‘high-status’ professionals to change career and enter teaching, and their experience of undertaking initial teacher education (ITE) programmes in England. The study builds on previous research which found that career-changers are disproportionately more likely to fail to complete their ITE studies, and that those who do complete the transition into teaching frequently experience frustration with some aspects of induction and often feel undervalued by their new colleagues. The participants in this study were largely positive about most aspects of their ITE experience, and felt their professional background enabled them to be resilient when faced with the challenges of transitioning from being an expert in one domain to novice in another. However, they report variable experiences of mentoring, and for some, a sense of their previous experience being under-appreciated by ITE tutors and schools. The study also finds little evidence of personalisation built into ITE programmes to take account of the distinctive needs of career-changers. This paper concludes that the current policy focus adopted in England and in many other countries on entry quality may detract from the more fundamental issue of ensuring ITE programmes provide the flexible and personalised professional learning environments that enable a diverse range of entrants to flourish.     

The effect of student teaching experience and teacher beliefs on pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy and intention to use technology in teaching

The student teaching experience has been considered important in establishing pre-service teachers’ beliefs and attitudes towards their teaching. However, few studies have investigated the effect of student teaching experiences as an educational intervention for increasing technology integration – especially pre-service teachers’ pedagogical beliefs as an internal barrier to technology integration. Thus, this study examined how technology-centred student teaching experiences differently affect pre-service teachers with different teaching beliefs with regard to self-efficacy and intention to use technology. Participants were 55 pre-service teachers in a student teaching practicum. The findings revealed that technology-centred student teaching experiences increased pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy regardless of their teacher beliefs. Additionally, pre-service teachers with traditional teacher beliefs had a low level of intention at the outset but significantly increased their intention after experiencing technology-centred student teaching; however, those with constructivist teacher beliefs showed no meaningful differences in their intention levels. Implications for teacher education and the limitations of this study are discussed.     

Don’t we care?: the ethics and emotional labour of early years professionalism

This paper argues that early childhood education and care (ECEC) has a legitimate aspiration to be a ‘caring profession’ like others such as nursing or social work, defined by a moral purpose. For example, practitioners often draw on an ethic of care as evidence of their professionalism. However, the discourse of professionalism in England completely excludes the ethical vocabulary of care. Nevertheless, it necessarily depends on gendered dispositions towards emotional labour, often promoted by training programmes as ‘professional’ demeanours. Taking control of the professionalisation agenda therefore requires practitioners to demonstrate a critical understanding of their practice as ‘emotion work’. At the same time, reconceptualising practice within a political ethic of care may allow the workforce, and new trainees in particular, to champion ‘caring’ as a sustainable element of professional work, expressed not only in maternal, dyadic key‐working but in advocacy for care as a social principle.     

‘To be professional is a never-ending journey’: Indonesian early childhood practitioners’ views about the attitudes and behaviours of a professional teacher

Focus group discussions with 21 degree-qualified early childhood education teachers in South Sulawesi, Indonesia, and individual follow-up interviews with 10 volunteer participants, were conducted to investigate the teachers’ perspectives on early years professionalism. Thematic analysis of the data identified the key elements that made up the teachers’ understandings about professionalism in early childhood practice. This included the idea that the attainment of professionalism was a life-long journey towards achieving an ideal image, that of a role model, or guru. We argue that the notion of role model was a complex one that not only reflected the teachers’ aspirations to achieve ‘a better classroom’ and better pedagogical outcomes for children, but also a broader aspiration to become a better person defined through a number of attitudes – ways of thinking and being – and behaviours that were socially valued within the teachers’ community and work context.     

Exploring pre-service school counselling teachers’ learning needs: perceptions of teacher educators and student-teachers

Drawing on the dual perspectives of teacher educators and student-teachers, this research explores the complex learning needs of pre-service school counselling teachers (SCTs) in China. Relying on data from in-depth interviews and relevant curriculum documents, the findings of the study demonstrate four critical needs of SCTs, namely, developing a strong knowledge foundation with research competence, linking theories with practice in specific institutional and socio-cultural contexts, seeking social support and emotional guidance, as well as constructing a sense of vision and agency. However, due to a linear curriculum structure as well as various contextual obstacles (e.g. the exam-oriented system and potential social bias), the learning needs of student-teachers were not sufficiently addressed in the pre-service teacher education programme. The study argues for a recursive, integrative and context-specific teacher education curriculum in which student-teachers can be afforded rich practical opportunities and sufficient social and emotional support in the process of learning to teach.