Shifting the reflective focus: encouraging student teacher learning in video-framed and peer-sharing contexts

Since many studies that use video to support teacher learning are situated in strongly guided contexts and encourage particular kinds of thinking, we still know very little about how more loosely guided contexts can support teachers to think about the dilemmas of practice associated with their own goals by reflecting about video. This study explores how video-based and peer-based reflections about one’s own and others’ practices both indicate and guide the development of teachers’ change-directed thinking when they are sequenced before supervisor feedback. Six secondary preservice teachers reflected about peer-evaluated mini-teaching and videotaped field-based teaching in the prestudent teaching term and then about videotaped teaching alone, with peers, and alone again with supervisor feedback in the student teaching term. These reflections were coded by their subject, degree of reform-mindedness, and tendency toward three foci (player, stance, and source). Patterns in their ‘higher focus’ codes across the three reflective resources during student teaching showed how teachers were developing the goals they espoused in the fall term. Teachers situated their learning in contexts where the degree of scaffolding matched their degree of readiness for change, which was better characterized by their tendency toward subjects and foci that were less ‘one-sided’ than by their tendency toward only reform-minded (standards-based) thinking. While teachers whose reflections were intermediately different from the peer group were better supported by it, most teachers found direct support from the self-video and/or peer-video contexts to advance change-directed thinking associated with their own goals for teaching. The findings reveal not only how goal-related teacher learning can be powerfully supported with loosely guided video-framed contexts, but also how the diversification and/or expansion of teachers’ reflections across the categories used in this study provide robust indicators of both the content and efficacy of their change-directed thinking.     

The Experiences and Personal Religious Beliefs of Egyptian Science Teachers as a Framework for Understanding the Shaping and Reshaping of their Beliefs and Practices about Science‐Technology‐Society (STS)

This research investigates the role of experience in relation to teachers’ beliefs and practices. The study adopted a social‐cultural constructivist perspective using an interpretive approach. The research was guided by teachers’ interpretations of their experiences related to teaching science through Science‐Technology‐Society (STS) issues. These interpretations are re‐interpreted to find meaningful conceptual categories (grounded in the data) from which to build a model to understand the influence of experiences within socio‐Islamic culture on teachers’ beliefs and practices. Data was collected from ten teachers using interviews and observations. The findings of this study suggest that it was mainly teachers’ personal religious beliefs and experiences that shaped their beliefs and practices. The research also led to a model, constructed on the basis of the data analysis, which suggests an explanation of how teachers’ personal religious beliefs and experiences influence their beliefs and practices.     

El profesor como práctico reflexivo en una cultura de colaboración

The aim was the reconstruction of a school curriculum in reflective teaching situations within a co‐operative culture. Two working assumptions were considered: (a) teacher development was based on teacher thinking and (b) school organisation followed a co‐operative culture paradigm. The process features were: (a) university team consisted of external advisers; (b) school curriculum and classroom instruction were reviewed by school teachers; (c) case study as a research approach; (d) ethnographic techniques to collect data; (e) data analysis by a computer program; (f) teachers’ reflective cycle to reconstruct practice; and (g) teachers’ portfolios: narrative vignettes, etc. Findings showed: (a) a collaborative process school‐university; (b) teachers’ thinking and attitudinal change; (c) mobilisation of teachers’ talents and values to work together: (i) teacher dyads to reflect on teaching; (ii) advisers’ writing narrative vignettes; (Hi) collegial coaching; and (iv) curriculum materials designed by teachers. Two conclusions can be accepted: (a) teachers’ pedagogical practical knowledge showed diversity of their implicit theories to design action; and (b) teachers’ grounded theory confirmed that the educational action was based on a co‐operative and reflective culture.     

教师如何应用技术开展反思?--论思维可视化技术支持下的反思性思维影响因素模型

反思性思维是决定教师专业发展水平的关键,国内外已有的研究仅对反思性思维的外在表现形式,即教学反思,进行了研究,内容主要集中在教学反思的影响因素和促进策略方面,所得出的影响因素缺乏理论性和系统性,所提出的促进策略无理论根基且可操作性不强。思维可视化技术可帮助教师表征头脑中的思考过程,它与反思性思维的运作机制具有较好的契合点。据此,针对已有研究的不足,采用文献研究法、德尔菲法、理论分析法和结构方程模型法,构建了思维可视化技术支持下的教师反思性思维影响因素模型。该模型建立在影响因素的关系结构基础之上,具有较强的可操作性,它体现了非智力因素和思维可视化技术工具,对问题解决导向的反思过程发挥作用的具体方式。之后,对模型进行两轮行动研究:第一轮从反思日记、反思动机影响因子和教师的反思动机类型等方面搜集相关数据;第二轮从反思日记中统计教师在反思的各环节,运用思维可视化技术工具各功能的频次,从而完善思维可视化技术工具所发挥的具体作用。最终,经过行动研究完善后的影响因素模型,为教师提供了可操作性的程序。     

Profile of South African secondary-school teachers’ teaching quality: evaluation of teaching practices using an observation instrument

The need for quality teaching is reflected in the poor performance of students in international tests. Teachers’ practices and contextual factors could contribute to substandard quality of teaching in South Africa. Several studies indicate that successful learning is largely dependent on the teachers’ practices in class. The focus of the present research was to profile the effective teaching practices of 424 secondary-school teachers in the Gauteng Province, South Africa. Teachers were observed by trained observers using a valid and reliable observation instrument measuring six domains of effective teaching practices. Results showed that teachers find it difficult to differentiate in class and to activate learning. Additionally, teachers with more than 15 years of teaching experience scored lower than teachers with less experience, in all six teaching domains. Presumably, experienced teachers may lack motivation and/or insufficient training in implementing interactive and differentiated teaching methods that are needed for effective teaching practices.     

Personal Teaching Efficacy and Its Sources: Student teachers’ perceptions

Teachers’ confidence in their ability to perform the actions that lead to student learning is one of the few individual characteristics that predicts teacher practice and student outcomes. Teachers and especially student teachers need strong efficacy beliefs in order to continue teaching during in‐service education. The current study explores the factors that precede student teachers’ beliefs of teaching efficacy and determine their conviction that they can influence instructional strategies, classroom management, and students’ engagement. In the study 198 fourth‐year students from two primary education departments in Greece completed a Teacher Efficacy Sources Inventory and a Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale. It was found that self‐perceptions of teaching competence, personal characteristics, and motivation for teaching were contributory factors to teaching efficacy. The search for this type of information from student teachers is based on the assumption that feedback from students comprises a substantive factor in relation to the evaluation and improvement of teacher training programmes.     

A joyous lifeline in a target-driven job: teachers’ metaphors of teaching poetry writing

Drawing on Vygotsky’s notion, developed by Bruner, of learners growing into ‘the intellectual life of those around them’, this paper reports on a small-scale questionnaire survey of teachers’ thinking about poetry writing and their instructional practices of teaching it. Thirty-three teachers, with a range of teaching experience and service, took part in the study. This paper presents, analyses and evaluates the central metaphor of ‘freedom’ used by teachers. This presents poetry writing instruction in four contrasting ways: as freedom to explore personal creativity; as a site of integrated thinking; as a rejection of ‘formulaic writing’; and as freedom from curricular ‘directives’. The paper argues that these metaphors indicate considerable personal investment by teachers of poetry and that they consider the teaching of poetry writing to have impact as much on themselves as on pupils.     

Teacher educators' professionalism in practice: Positioning theory and personal interpretative framework

This study connects to the international call for research on teacher educator professionalism. Combining positioning theory with the personal interpretative framework, we examined the relationship between teacher educators' positioning and their teacher education practices. The interpretative analysis of qualitative data from twelve experienced Flemish teacher educators revealed three teacher educator positionings: a teacher educator of ‘pedagogues’, a teacher educator of reflective teachers, and a teacher educator of subject teachers. Each positioning constitutes a coherent pattern of normative beliefs about good teaching and teacher education, the preferred relationships with student teachers, and valuable methods and strategies to enact these beliefs.     

Burnout,Self‐efficacy,and Successful Intelligence among Chinese Prospective and In‐service School Teachers in Hong Kong

This study assessed the three components of burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, and reduced personal accomplishment), perceived self‐efficacy, and the three triarchic abilities (analytical, synthetic, and practical) of successful intelligence in a sample of 267 Chinese prospective and in‐service teachers in Hong Kong. The aim was to explore and examine the contribution of the blending or integration of the triarchic abilities to the three components of teacher burnout and perceived self‐efficacy. While there were subtle gender and teaching‐experience differences, the general findings suggested that the triarchic abilities, especially practical abilities, could independently contribute to teachers’ sense of personal accomplishment as well as perceived self‐efficacy. The interactive combination of the triarchic abilities could be most important in contributing negatively to emotional exhaustion. The implications of these findings for interventions to combat teacher burnout and enhance job engagement are discussed.     

BEING A CONSTRUCTIVIST TEACHER EDUCATOR: AN INVITATION FOR DIALOGUE

This article is part of a larger exploratory study that followed preservice early childhood teachers through their program and into their first year of practice, giving voice to their understandings of quality teaching and learning, and insight into the ways their preservice program prepared them for the challenges of teaching in diverse settings. Analyses of our graduates’ first-year interviews revealed participants’ perceptions on those elements of the program which best guided their decisions in practice, such as reflective thinking about their daily work and child observation and inquiry. Findings support the importance of engaging in differentiated instruction, reflective practice, and collaboration through a variety of experiences in the field, and illuminate everyday practices that bring richness to teaching and learning in early childhood education. Emergent questions about the best ways to provide quality early childhood teacher preparation are discussed in relation to the dilemmas early childhood teachers face in the current educational landscape.     

“That's more like how they know me as a person”: one primary pre‐service teacher's stories of her personal and ‘professional’ digital practices

In contributing to debates about how student‐teachers might draw from personal experience in addressing digital literacy in the classroom, this paper explores the stories that one primary student‐teacher told of her digital practices during a larger study of the role of digital literacy in student‐teachers' lives. The paper investigates the ‘recognition work’ this student‐teacher did as she aligned herself with different discourses and notes how themes of ‘control’ and ‘professionalism’ seemed to pattern her stories of informal and formal practices both within and beyond her professional education. The paper calls for further research into how student‐teachers perceive the relevance of their personal experience to their professional role and argues for encouraging pre‐service and practising teachers to tell stories of their digital practices and reflect upon the discourses which frame them.     

Experiential learning in doctoral training programmes: fostering personal epistemology through collaboration

There has been increasing recognition for the need to reform doctoral training practices to foster students’ personal epistemology. This study describes the design and evaluation of a learning experience designed to help students understand the scholarly publication process. Firstly, this study discusses the design of the learning experience, describing the collaborative process of writing an interdisciplinary publication using both online and face-to-face learning. Secondly, this study evaluates the effectiveness of the learning experience by examining students’ reflections. We show that participation in the learning experience helped students to develop their academic writing proficiency, collaboration and teamwork, intercultural competence, and ability to engage in reflective practice. Importantly, we show that each student also created more individualised knowledge, gaining insight into how they and others think. This study, therefore, demonstrates that personal epistemology can be fostered through collaboration in a doctoral writing group context.     

Engaging students in reflective writing: an action research project

ABSTRACT

Due to limited exposure to the reflective genre, students experience cognitive, psychological and linguistic issues that prevent them from producing proficient reflective pieces. This study investigated how these issues could be addressed through modelling, the 6 + 1 traits writing rubric and blended learning. The study reports on the experiences of 37 participants in the fourth year of secondary schooling at an all male school in Trinidad and Tobago. Change in a regional examination syllabus which introduced a focus on the reflective mode and reflective writing had implications for teaching and learning. Through one cycle of a practical action research project using an embedded quasi-experimental design, an intervention to address cognitive, psychological and linguistic issues was implemented. Quantitative data were collected using a pre- and post-test and a Writing Attitude Survey (WAS). Qualitative data were gathered through student journals and students’ formative writing assessment artefacts. The intervention succeeded in positively changing students’ dispositions towards reflective writing, developing students’ reflective writing and addressing text organization issues. This research is significant for teachers and students where intentional reflection and reflective writing are competencies that can enhance critical thinking and metacognition and potentially lead to personal, intellectual and professional development.     

Teaching Practice Stasis: racism,sexism and school experience in initial teacher education

This paper is concerned with the school experience component of initial teacher education (ITE). School experience (or teaching practice, as it is more commonly known) is widely recognised as particularly influential in the professional socialisation of student teachers. I draw on recent field‐work which I have carried out in order to explore some of the tensions and contradictions which characterise both my own and others’ experiences of working in ITE. By using aspects of ‘race’ and ‘gender’ as ‘sociological indicators’ I seek to discover the extent to which school experience can play a part in the preparation of teachers who are reflective, critical and enquiring. The conclusions I reach are not encouraging. Teaching practice is characterised by ‘stasis’, a strong tendency for those most closely involved to avoid conflict or confrontation. Even mild criticism of existing classroom practices is avoided. To the extent that approaches to the appraisal of practising teachers are based on similar ‘supervisory’ models, the implication is that the effect will not be the ‘development’ or ‘improvement’ of practice so much as the reinforcement of existing practices, whether good or bad.     

La Formation par la Recherche: un espoir pour une rénovation des pratiques éducatives

While reforms in education are relatively easy to achieve at a superficial level (structures, statements of objectives) more far‐reaching attempts which seek fundamental changes in teacher attitudes and behaviour are more difficult to achieve because of the teacher's professional autonomy. A strategy found to be effective in Suisse romande has involved teachers closely in the work of educational researchers. The strategy, known as ‘interactive observation’, fulfils three functions: to bring order into the teacher‐learning process, to improve understanding, and to advance in‐service training. The creative and reflective roles demanded by this participation in research makes it easier for teachers to analyse, and where necessary modify, their own professional practices.     

Assessing reflective thinking: pre‐service teachers’ and professors’ perceptions of an oral examination

This paper investigates the role questioning occupies in an oral examination as it relates to King and Kitchener’s theory of critical, reflective thinking. Pre‐service teachers’ experience of sitting an oral examination and professors’ reflections on conducting the assessment in a small liberal arts university are considered. Findings from this research reflect upon the learning process in an oral examination and review the relationship between the examiners’ probing questions and the assessment of reflective thinking in pre‐service teachers.     

Teaching interactive practices and burnout: a study on Italian teachers

The purpose of the present study was to analyse the role played by teaching interactive practices (measured through a self-report Likert scale) in predicting teacher burnout, after controlling for school grade (primary vs. secondary school) and teaching experience. Participants were 282 Italian teachers equally distributed between primary and secondary schools. Teaching interactive practices were investigated through a purpose-built questionnaire concerning teacher- versus student-centred practices. Burnout was studied using the Maslach Burnout Inventory in its three-dimensional—Emotional Exhaustion, Low Personal Accomplishment and Depersonalization—Italian version. An explorative factor analysis on the questionnaire displayed three dimensions of teaching practices, namely student-centred practices focused on flexibility, student-centred practices focused on participation and teacher-centred practices. The main results showed that, irrespective of school grade and teaching experience, the adoption of interactive practices favouring students’ participation negatively predicted burnout; on the contrary, teacher-centred practices and flexibility positively predicted it. The result implications for educational processes and teacher training are discussed in the conclusion.