Between Tradition and Progress: Oldenburg University's Model Plan for Comprehensive Teacher Training

Since early 1974, a pilot project for integrated teacher training has been in progress at Oldenburg University. This is currently the only extensive teacher training reform which exist in the German Federal Republic.

All plans for this integrated training program are designed to provide training normally encompassed by the traditional two‐stage programm.

The integrated training program includes:

- studies in the areas of education and social science;

- studies in two major subjects which are later to be taught at school;

- practical studies and activities.

The new model leads to the following degrees:

- nine semesters of study for a Certificate of Qualification for primary and lower‐level secondary school;

- eleven semesters for a Certificate of Qualification for higher‐level secon dary school and the education of exceptional children.

Theoretic training in major subject areas and related didactic training as well as education and social studies take place chiefly in the form of projects. A basic assumption is that interdisciplinary projects which are practice‐ and problemoriented permit a highly desirable integration of theory and practice on the whole.

In the project, contact teachers are an essential link between field practice at school and academic training at the university. Contact teachers are under contact to the university for an extended period of time (generally three years). In place of remunation, their teaching loads are reduced by ten hours per week.

In 1978/79 the project will be put to the test as the first generation of students prepares for State Board Examinations.     

Aspects of Intercultural Education and Curriculum Decision‐making

This article presents an analysis of intercultural education from the viewpoint of the dynamics of agenda building as a political process. In this analysis, particular attention is given to the theoretical and ideological assumptions on which the concept of intercultural education is based. The author contends that the employment of this concept serves the purpose of issue containment within the arena of conflict where educational policy alternatives are determined.

     

Developments in the Concurrent and Consecutive Training of Secondary School Teachers

The paper focuses upon the two major routes into teaching in England. One is the concurrent route, 3 or 4 years in duration, which students enter at 18+. The second is the consecutive route, a one year course taken after graduation. Radical change in the pattern of teacher training in England has led to the concurrent route now being associated almost exclusively with primary teaching. The consecutive route is almost the only pattern for secondary teaching and is an equal alternative for primary. In the decisions which led to this situation the importance of the actual degree programme, BA or BSc has been held to be significant in terms of the necessary knowledge base from which a teacher must operate.

>One year PGCE courses have undergone major change in the last decade. They have become increasingly functional with an emphasis on meeting a student's ‘early concerns’. Both education studies and method studies have been re‐thought but a major change has been to establish the notion of school experience as the structural core of the course. Practical training for classroom skills has intensified.

The BEd course after a period in which course programmes were interlocked with diversified BA/BSc schemes has now become increasingly a four year concurrent model, thus abandoning the proposed changes of the James Report. Education Studies has been re‐thought in ways similar to the PGCE and school experience likewise has taken on still more significance and can even contribute to honours classification. The main subject has been made increasingly ‘professional’ and the degree has looked more and more to meet the generalist needs of secondary schools. This latter trend has, however, been overtaken by events.

In both courses more attention is being given to such key concerns as multi‐cultural education, children with learning difficulties, literacy and numeracy, the new technology and the re‐think of the curriculum necessitated by unemployment and recession.     

The Accomplishment of Divergence

The situated development of South Asian communities in the UK has led to the growth of a number of schools in which ‘ethnic minority’ pupils form a majority. Such a situation throws into higher relief issues and concerns surrounding cultural transmission and encounter, and communicative competence.

This paper recounts some of the principal findings of research in which the teaching staff of a large 9‐13 middle school were interviewed individually regarding their perceptions of their South Asian pupils. The school has an almost wholly South Asian intake and is situated near the centre of a large northern city.

The teachers’ markedly deficit view of their charges is detailed and this is followed by an explanation of their constructions in microsociological terms. A model is presented which clarifies the processes by which close intercultural interaction seem to accomplish worlds as divergent.

The author teaches children with special educational needs at the school in which the study was undertaken.     

Patterns of Teacher Education in Italy

An outline of the organisation of education in Italy stresses its characteristics as a centralised system supported by consultation with grass‐roots levels. Local coordination should be ensured by the so‐called ‘Organi Collegiali’ (participatory bodies).

The system is aware of the need to promote a real change in the pedagogical‐educational approach to teaching and learning, and recent reforms have implemented structural innovations and have required changes in the teachers’ roles and functions.

The new professional profile of the teacher points out the need for initial and in‐service education and training; given the insufficient provisions available, in 1979 the Ministry of Education, in cooperation with OECD, has initiated a project for introducing PRESET pilot projects in a number of Italian universities.

The MPI/OECD Project has gone through a four‐phase preparation process, including a background report, a national seminar, feasibility studies, planning of pilot projects.

The basic ideas were to improve the scientific/cultural and methodological preparation of teachers: curricula of study must ensure an appropriate balance between scientific knowledge in a subject‐matter or in a discipline area and educational studies. Teaching practice is considered as essential all through the course of study.

Starting November 1983 the University of Bologna will start a PRESET course of study for primary school teachers as a joint activity between the Faculty of Education and the Faculty of Sciences.

Other projects are on study at other universities.     

The Way Men Act: dominant and subordinate male cultures in an inner‐city school

Focusing on sex/gender relations in an inner‐urban single‐sex school, the paper examines the cultural position and development of ‘the three friends’, a group stigmatised as ‘poofs’ and subordinated within a youth cultural hierarchy dominated by the school's sporting heroes, especially ‘the footballers’.

Power relations within the hierarchy are analysed as effects of intercultural articulations between boys’ friendship and ethnic groups and the institutional power of the school mediated through the cultures of teachers and other staff. Dominant views of appropriate male behaviour trade on essentialist, sexualising interpretations of unorthodox male practices, attributing them to homosexuality. More moderate views, represented by ‘the handballers’, offer family misfortunes as explanations for the ‘problems’ of the three. Teachers’ responses vary from support for the dominant view, through sponsorship of psychological therapy to positive intervention on behalf of the three.

The development of a positive and relatively autonomous culture, based on theatrical prowess, illustrates the politics of cultural struggle and suggests strategies for educational intervention in the processes of youth intercultural articulation.     

Steps to promote open and authentic dialogue between teachers and school management

Purpose: School principals must determine educational policies and make information-based decisions. Teachers have authentic information that they do not transmit in full to the principals. A theoretical model was tested that explains the factors behind this disconnection in communication.

Design: Four hundred and forty-five teachers completed questionnaires that examined a variety of aspects of reciprocal relations between teachers and school management.

Findings: The model explains 44% of the variance in authentic teacher–principal communication. The principal’s communication pattern with teachers, with two sub-components, represents a dominant factor in teacher willingness to share information. Leadership style represents only an indirect factor.     

Understanding argumentation about socio-scientific issues on energy: a quantitative study with primary pre-service teachers in Spain

Background Argumentation is an important discourse process in science that needs to be taught and learned as part of a repertoire of strategies to support the acquisition of scientific literacy. Research in science education indicates that beliefs or perceptions and the epistemological orientations of teachers influence their approaches to science teaching.

Purpose The paper aims to illustrate primary pre-service teachers’ understanding of argumentation based on a study using quantitative methodology. In particular, it aims to illustrate how these teachers view quality of arguments and teaching strategies related to argumentation in the context of a socio-scientific issue on energy.

Sample 332 pre-service teachers enrolled in a university teacher education programme in Spain were investigated. Many studies on argumentation have been conducted with small sample sizes of teachers. Hence, given the sample size, the study provides findings that are likely to be generalisable.

Design and methods A questionnaire was administered to the participants. The design of the questionnaire was guided by some existing analytical tools which were adapted for primary education purposes in the context of socio-scientific issues. This adaptation is novel in that the questionnaire items can potentially be used as diagnostic questions to assess primary teachers’ understanding of argumentation.

Results The results suggest that pre-service teachers had difficulty in understanding arguments and different pedagogical strategies to promote argumentation in classroom. For example, they did not understand the role and the meaning of warrants in scientific arguments and their understanding of the use of different kind of strategies is limited to debates, open discussions and experiments. The age range of the participants and the length of teaching experience had no impact on the quality of their understanding of argumentation.

Conclusions Pre-service science teacher education will benefit from incorporation of more robust and lengthy sessions on argumentation. For example, sessions could focus on quality as well as structure of arguments in science and more diverse pedagogical strategies to support argumentation in science lessons, such as the use of writing frames and presentations.     

Teacher Education and Change: the first decade of IT

The article examines the rapid growth in the educational uses of information and communication technologies. Three phases in this use are identified, and the current phase is seen as especially problematic in the light of current technological developments.

The author sees the challenge to the classroom teacher as essentially a pedagogic and even cultural one, but this is not confined to microcomputers alone. The notion of technology convergence is a very powerful one, and the author describes a project for which he is currently responsible and which introduces into teacher education the element of collaborative distance learning via electronic networks.     

Teacher Education in Denmark

The paper describes the national roots of Danish teacher education, its position as being regulated by parliamentary legislation, and lists the types of institutions giving teacher education for various school forms.

It concentrates on teacher education for the main school, Primary and lower Secondary, age range 6‐16, which is given in colleges of education, whose entrance qualifications are the same as those of universities.

It goes on to describe the legal basis and practical functioning of this type of teacher education, giving information about overall aims and objectives, and curricula in the concurrent Danish system. The democratic agents regulating the education on the local as well as national level are described. Subsequently, it describes the relationship between theory and practice, and after this Danish teacher education is placed in the European picture.

Finally, the paper describes aspects of Danish teacher education as seen from the writer's position as subject area manager for English.     

The relationship between emotional competence,classroom climate and school achievement in high school students / La relación entre competencia emocional,clima de aula y rendimiento académico en estudiantes de secundaria

The aim of this study is, on the one hand, to find out if differences exist in emotional competence and secondary school students’ perceptions of classroom climate according to gender and educational level and, on the other hand, to analyse the relationship between emotional competence, classroom climate and school achievement in secondary school students. The study advances the hypothesis that emotional competences and classroom climate are mediators in school achievement. For this purpose, 420 students from secondary and further education were selected with an average age of 14.29 ± 1.52.

In emotional competence, the results showed differences according to gender and educational level, while in classroom climate, differences were only found according to educational level. The mediational analysis showed that classroom climate is an influential variable in the predictive value of emotional competence in relation to school achievement. Likewise, emotional competence acts as a mediating influence on classroom climate and school achievement. This study thus highlights the need to implement training processes to help teachers to promote positive socio-emotional contexts and programmes to develop students’ emotional competence, which will improve their school achievement.     

Whatever it takes! Using a component theory approach with public secondary school principals ‘doing schooling differently’

Purpose: The research seeks to capture the ‘special character’ of schools as seen through the eyes of the Principal and to introduce alternative understandings of ideological praxis’ to challenge and unsettle the dominant ideology and logics of secondary schooling with consequent school design implications in South Australia.

Design/methodology/approach: Using an ideological framework based, the research focussed on the common shared understandings across each school pertaining to each ideology. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews and analysed through interpretive and hermeneutic processes.

Findings: The findings show the tensions, subtleties and nuances of two dominant and competing ideologies: a dominant discourse of individual schooling purpose for student mobility and economic productivity and an emerging public purposes ideology of education for good citizenship, sustainable futures and the public good. The dominant neoliberal public policy ideology and the associated historical design logics of conventional schooling is challenged and reconstituted by the experience, expertise, courage, determination and moral purpose of the principals in this research.

Originality/value: This article opens specific ideological understandings held by the Principals that have moved all of the schools towards pedagogical excellence and a repurposing of their organisations for the students’ sake.     

Using grounded theory and action research to raise attainment in,and enjoyment of,reading

This paper describes a small‐scale, qualitative research project that critically reflects on the process and impact of using both grounded and action research to enhance attainment and enjoyment of reading, in such a way as to raise awareness at an individual and whole school level. The purpose of the project was to ascertain if the selected research methodology has the potential to provide a framework for the process of embedding new practice in schools.

A primary school was selected as a case study and a systematic, constructivist grounded theory methodology used in order to examine the school in relation to its success in meeting the needs of the school community in the attainment and enjoyment of reading. The research design involved the gathering of multiple sources of data by conducting a series of solution focused interviews, direct observation, and teacher assessments of reading within the school.

The interviews were coded and theoretical questions developed from the data. These were reflected back, on an ongoing basis, to the participants and the whole staff during service training. The questions and theory progressively emerged throughout the period of the research. The findings identify a number of constraints pertinent to the school which include issues such as time constraints and lack of personal involvement in the process of embedding initiatives. Key issues within the primary school involve leadership style, management and communication.

Initial findings suggest that this is an effective approach to raising individual awareness across the school and has the potential to affect whole school functioning if used as a long‐term process. It is a particularly enriching method for educational psychologists to use to facilitate a reflective problem‐solving approach which keeps ownership and responsibility within the school.     

The classroom observation protocol for socioscientific issue-based instruction: development and implementation of a new research tool

Background: For the past decade, science educators have been exploring the use of Socio-scientific Issues (SSI) as contexts for science teaching and learning, and research indicates that doing so can support significant learning gains. However, research related to how teachers take up the practice of SSI-based instruction is far more limited, due in part to a lack of tools for use in this kind of research.

Purpose: The focus of this research is development and testing of a new classroom observation protocol specifically designed for SSI-based instructional contexts.

Design and methods: Development of this SSI-Observation Protocol (SSI-OP) took place in four distinct phases: review of existing protocols and SSI-based instruction frameworks, writing and revision of protocol items, initial testing of the draft protocol, and soliciting feedback from SSI experts.

Sample: Following the four stages of SSI-OP development, we progressed to a series of field tests. The field tests were conducted with three different samples. The first sample was an experienced (10 + years) high school biology teacher and one of her honors biology classes. The second sample consisted of seven Turkish Pre-service Science Teachers (PST) participating in a science methods course. The third sample included two Thai PST from a field experience course embedded within a teacher education program.

Results: The final version of the protocol addressed five dimensions of SSI-based instructional activities: focus of instruction, teaching moves, role of teacher, role of students, and classroom environment.

Conclusions: The SSI-OP could be used in a variety of ways for research including documentation of current practices, impacts of professional development and/or curricula on teaching practices, and changes in teaching over time. We offer the SSI-OP as a new tool with the potential to contribute to science teacher education and research that may advance the teaching and learning of science through SSI.     

Teacher and student reflections on ICT-rich science inquiry

Background: Inquiry learning in science provides authentic and relevant contexts in which students can create knowledge to solve problems, make decisions and find solutions to issues in today’s world. The use of electronic networks can facilitate this interaction, dialogue and sharing, and adds a new dimension to classroom pedagogy.

Purpose: This is a report of teacher and student reflections on some of the tensions, reconciliations and feelings they experienced as they worked together to engage in inquiry learning. The study sought to find out how networked ICT use might offer new and different ways for students to engage with, explore and communicate science ideas within inquiry.

Sample: This project developed case studies with 6 science teachers of year 9 and 10 students, with an average age of 13 and 14 years in three New Zealand high schools. Teacher participants in the project had varying levels of understanding and experience with inquiry learning in science. Teacher knowledge and experience with ICT were equally diverse.

Design and Methods: Teachers and researchers developed initially in a joint workshop a shared understanding of inquiry, and how this could be enacted. During implementation, the researchers observed the inquiry projects in the classrooms and then, together with the teachers, reviewed and analysed the data that had been collected.

Results: At the beginning of the project, some of the teachers and students were tentative: inquiry based teaching supported by ICT meant initially that the teachers were hesitant in letting go some of the control they felt they had over students learning, and the students felt insecure in adopting some responsibility for their own learning. Over time a sense of trust and ease developed and this ‘control of learning’ balance moved from what was traditionally accepted, but not without modifications and reservations.

Conclusions: There is no clear pathway to follow in moving towards ICT-supported science inquiry in secondary schools. The experience of the teacher, the funds of knowledge the students bring to the classroom, the level of technological availability in the school and the ability of the students are all variables which determine the nature of the experience.     

A theoretical understanding of the literature on student voice in the science classroom

Background: Incorporating student voice into the science classroom has the potential to positively impact science teaching and learning. However, students are rarely consulted on school and classroom matters. This literature review examines the effects of including student voice in the science classroom.

Purpose: The purpose of this literature review was to explore the research on student voice in the science classroom. This review includes research from a variety of science education sources and was gathered and analyzed using a systematic literature review process.

Design and methods: I examined articles from a variety of educational journals. I used three key terms as my primary search terms: student voice, student perceptions, and student perspectives. The primary search terms were used in conjunction with qualifiers that included science education, science curriculum, student emergent curriculum, student centered curriculum, and science. In order to be included in the literature review, articles needed to be published in peer-reviewed, academic journals, contain clearly defined methods (including quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods), include research conducted in K through 12 classrooms, include the term ‘student voice’, and focus specifically on science. I included articles from a variety of science classrooms including general middle school science, science-specific after-school programs, secondary science classrooms in a variety of countries, and physics, biology, and aerospace classrooms. No restrictions were placed on the country in which the research was conducted or on the date of the research.

Conclusions: The results of the literature review process uncovered several themes within the literature on student voice. Student voice research is situated within two main theoretical perspectives, critical theory and social constructivism, which I used as the main themes to structure my findings. I also identified subcategories under each main theme to further structure the results. Under critical theory, I identified three subcategories: determining classroom topics, developing science agency, and forming identities. Under social constructivism, I discovered four subcategories: forming identities, incorporating prior knowledge and experience, communicating interest in topics and classroom activities, and improving student–teacher relationship. The research supports that allowing students a voice in the classroom can lead them to feel empowered, able to construct their own meaning and value in science, demonstrate increased engagement and achievement, and become more motivated. I conclude students should be allowed a voice in the science classroom and to continue to ignore these voices would be a disservice to students and educators alike.     

Practical Experience in Teacher Education: the Norwegian case from a mid‐Norwegian perspective

After numerous debates and discussions over the last century Norway decided in 1992 to extend the half year GCE‐course at the universities to a one year study. Due to this decision it was for the first time written National Guidelines for these kinds of studies.

This paper seeks to show how this change is carried out at one of the four universities in Norway—the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. The author presents this reform under the heading practical experience in Teacher Education. This is done because the National Guidelines for Norway underline that all theory in the GCE‐studies must be school‐based. Practical classroom experience is, in other words, supposed to be the starting point for all theory being taught as a part of the GCE‐program.

This paper also tries to view the Norwegian change in the GCE‐course from international trends within teacher education.