Knowledge relations and epistemic infrastructures as mediators of teachers' collective autonomy

This paper examines how teachers' knowledge relations and the profession's epistemic infrastructure shape collective autonomy. Professionals' autonomy derives partially from their responsibility for a specific knowledge base. This responsibility is currently challenged by educational policies and complex knowledge landscapes. Existing research has shown how epistemic policy instruments impact teachers' autonomy. However, less attention has been paid to how professional autonomy is informed by teachers' knowledge relations, and to collective, rather than individual, aspects of teachers' autonomy. Implications include how teachers can define the role of knowledge resources in professional work, and how the profession can navigate epistemic and political landscapes.     

Developing a professional vision of classroom practices of a mathematics teacher: views from a researcher and a teacher

The term professional vision points to the many nuanced ways professionals see. This paper traces the development of a professional vision of a researcher and a teacher looking at classroom practices. The researcher’s interest was to capture and study notable aspects of the teacher’s practice. Through a coding scheme, disparate classroom events were organized and analyzed to yield a researcher’s professional vision of the teacher’s practices. For the teacher, through reviewing the video records of his own classroom practices, his professional vision provided a basis for him to reflect and develop professionally. Leveraging on the work of the researcher, he initiated and transformed his own practices. Their collaboration yielded a mutually informed development of professional vision of classroom practices. In juxtaposing the two developments, the researcher and the teacher’s views can be contrasted, their distinctive interests highlighted and common grounds explored. Some implications for developing professional vision are drawn, and it is in the common grounds of the teacher’s professional development and seeing with a goal of enhancing of student learning that hold some promise of a mutual interest in developing a professional vision of classroom practices.     

Regions and their relations: sustaining authoritative professional knowledge

The development and iteration of a body of professional knowledge appropriate to the demands of practice is a central concern of studies of professional education and work. This article concentrates on Bernstein’s notion of the ‘region’ of professional knowledge, identifying regions as complex socio-epistemic entities into which forms of knowledge are appropriated and transformed to meet the requirements of practice. In order to better understand the constitution of professional knowledge, there is a need to conceptualise how knowledge is recontextualised between regions, disciplinary ‘singulars’, and professional practice. Two variables, proximity and dominance, are introduced to illustrate how relations between regions, singulars and practice may vary, with implications for what is recontextualised into regions. In some professions, there are pressures for greater proximity between regions as a consequence of changes in work practices, while in others there is the potential for the dominance of recontextualisation processes by market and bureaucratic logics. It is suggested that actors within regions need to find ways to maintain authority over professional knowledge while avoiding the risks of control by bodies ill-equipped to maintain knowledge validity. The analysis provides a lens through which to view developments in the knowledge bases of professional, or professionalising, occupations, and concomitant changes in professional education.     

The content and implementation of shared professional knowledge in early childhood education

Drawing on the sociocultural view, shared knowledge is regarded as a basis for interdependent working and multi-professional learning in early childhood education. Shared professional knowledge can be seen as a central element in successful collaboration facilitating individual and collaborative professional learning. This study aims to investigate the content and implementation of shared professional knowledge in an early childhood context. Video-taped data were collected using a stimulated recall method from the two participating teachers. The results show that the content of shared professional knowledge was related to two areas in the teachers’ professional knowledge: professional self and professional tasks. In addition, the shared professional knowledge varied according to the teachers’ work contexts. This study offers new knowledge on early childhood education practices and teacher education, considering multi-professional collaboration, and shared learning.     

Practicalising theoretical knowledge in student teachers' professional learning in initial teacher education

This paper reports the findings collected from a four year longitudinal study aiming to investigate the professional learning of student-teachers in Bachelor of Education programmes. Four case studies which suggest a typology of ways of practicalising theoretical knowledge with one extreme as the testing out of teaching approaches mainly to find out their practicality in the school context to the other extreme whereby the student-teacher sought to work out a schema or personal theory were identified. Influences from the campus-based and the field-based components of the teacher education programme are drawn. The paper ends with implications for initial teacher education.     

Transformational leadership,professional learning communities,teacher learning and learner centred teaching practices; Evidence on their interrelations in Mozambican primary education

This study examines the routes via which transformational leadership, professional learning communities and teacher learning lead to more learner centred teaching practices. By means of structural equation modelling (path analysis with latent variables) a conceptual model was tested, using questionnaire data from 518 teachers in 95 Mozambican primary schools. The data analysis shows that the effect of transformational leadership on teaching practices is substantial but indirect, running via professional learning communities and teacher learning. All in all, the impact of professional learning communities on teaching practices is particularly strong. Its effect is both direct and indirect, running via teacher learning. The findings show the relevance of the concepts transformational leadership and professional learning communities in an African context.     

高职学生社会实践与专业素质教育结合研究

要使高职院校学生社会实践与专业素质教育更好的结合,需要明确认识社会实践对专业素质教育的重要性.要对学生进行专业素质教育,需要从学生顶岗实习、职业技能培养、职业性较强的社会实践活动和校企合作基地入手.     

Aspects of the professional identity of preschool teachers in Greece: investigating the role of teacher education and professional experience

In this paper, we present the results of a research programme we developed to investigate the professional identity of preschool education teachers in Greece. Our aim was to investigate parameters affecting not only the creation but also the reform of professional identity and to highlight potential differences in terms of professional identity. Contemporary approaches to professional identity – developed since the 80s – raise issues related primarily to participatory processes, reflection, autonomy and emancipation. Teachers’ professional identity is gradually developed through an ongoing process of three interrelated and complementary steps: (a) pre-service teacher education, (b) vocational integration and (c) exercise of professional duties and in-service training. We interviewed 20 teachers on their professional identity. We chose two categories of teachers based on two criteria: (a) their studies, and (b) their professional experience in the field. Tentative findings showed that professional experience was more important than studies in the construction of their professional identity. Professional identity also relates to both their professional experience and the dominant beliefs about early childhood education.     

The lack of professional knowledge in values education

The aim of this study is to investigate teachers’ perceptions of their practice of values education, and to explore their degree of professionalism in this matter. Qualitative interviews with 13 teachers have been conducted and analysed by a comparative analysis. According to their view, values education is (a) most often reactive and unplanned, (b) embedded in everyday school life with a focus on students’ everyday behaviour in school, and (c) partly or mostly unconsciously performed. Furthermore, professional knowledge appears to be missing in the domain of values education among these teachers.     

高等职业教育面临知识经济的挑战

进入21世纪,高等职业教育面临知识经济的挑战.其一,知识经济社会需要大量的实用型技术人才;其二,知识经济要求高等职业教育培养更高层次的人才;其三,知识经济要求高等职业教育不断改进创新.     

Teacher agency and professional learning in cross-cultural teaching contexts: Accounts of Chinese teachers from international schools in Hong Kong

This study examined how teacher agency shaped professional learning in cross-cultural teaching contexts. Interviews with 14 Chinese language teachers showed that teacher agency varied in different dimensions of professional learning. Social suggestions, power relations, teachers' professional and social positioning and the imposed identity and social roles in the school contexts interacted to shape teacher agency. The findings suggest both creating school cultures and structures that value and share diverse discursive and pedagogical practices and managing teachers' professional identity and self-positioning to enhance teachers' agency to engage in mutual learning and remaking of their work practices.     

Teacher educators developing professional roles: frictions between current and optimal practices

This article reports on a study of the professional learning of Flemish teacher educators. In the first part, an exemplary survey was conducted in order to compile an inventory of the existing types of education initiatives for teacher educators in Flanders. An electronic survey was then conducted in order to identify the professional needs of teacher educators in Flanders. The third part of the study focused on how the professional learning of teacher educators can evolve throughout their careers. This topic was examined by organising focus groups with teacher educators at two international conferences for teacher educators. Flemish teacher educators devote considerable attention to professional learning, and they are able to meet their needs through the broad range of existing courses and programmes offered within the educational system. Nevertheless, there is still room for improvement in the alignment of professional learning with the needs and career stages of teacher educators.     

A computer-supported method to reveal and assess Personal Professional Theories in vocational education

This article introduces a dedicated, computer-supported method to construct and formatively assess open, annotated concept maps of Personal Professional Theories (PPTs). These theories are internalised, personal bodies of formal and practical knowledge, values, norms and convictions that professionals use as a reference to interpret and acquire knowledge, and to direct their behaviour, and which vocational students are expected to develop. Monitoring the development of PPTs and assessing their quality are difficult as they are, essentially, mental schemes. Traditional methods, such as semi-structured interviews and concept mapping, are either too labour-intensive to be used in an educational setting or are not able to reveal their full quality. The study presents a new method which is valid, reliable and easy to use in education and which reveals the quality in a way that is comparable to or better than interviews.     

学前教育专业大学生专业承诺与学习倦怠研究

采用大学生专业承诺量表和学习倦怠量表对285名学前教育专业大学生专业承诺和学习倦怠状况及关系进行测量,结果表明学前教育专业大学生的专业承诺水平一般,而学习倦怠水平较高,且存在显著的性别差异和年级差异;学前教育专业学生的专业承诺与学习倦怠有显著负相关;情感承诺是其学习倦怠的重要预测变量。可以通过赋予学生专业选择自主权、提高学生专业认同感以及制定科学合理的学前教育专业教学计划提高其专业承诺水平,消除其学习倦怠心理。     

Understanding narrative relations in teacher education

The use of stories in teacher education is ubiquitous; yet, the question regarding how stories help teachers make sense of their professional lives is more complex than it first appears. The authors draw from Adriana Cavarero's understanding of narrative relations as the political site where one's unique singularity is revealed in the desire to have one's story told. They compare her insights to Judith Butler's resignification of injurious speech, examining both positions as they apply to a beginning teacher's efforts to become the professional she admires. It is suggested to teacher educators that they use stories from practice to foreground the tension between a teacher's life and her life-story. By understanding the irresolvable tension of desire to have one's story told, a teacher has a better chance of recognising her own vulnerability and that of her students, and of teaching at the starting place of ethics.     

Redefining what it means to be a teacher through professional standards: implications for continuing teacher education

This article connects with an international debate around the place of professional standards in educational policy targeted at enhancing teacher quality, with associated implications for continuing teacher education. Scotland provides a fertile context for discussion, having developed sets of professional standards in response to a recent national review of career-long teacher education. That review called for a reprofessionalisation of the teaching profession and the revision of the standards was an element of this process. Scotland is utilised as a lens through which one country’s response to international trends is viewed, with a focus on ‘teacher leadership’ and ‘practitioner enquiry’ as policy endorsed sets of practices. The analysis demonstrates the complex and contested nature of these terms and the tensions posed between the need to meet professional standards as part of teacher education and aspirational dimensions of the current policy project of reprofessionalisation. The article concludes by considering the implications for continuing teacher education.     

Examining professional learning and the preparation of professionally competent teachers in initial teacher education

The relative contributions of higher education and schools, and hence the conceptual and practical aspects of ITE, to student teachers’ professional learning have been an issue of concern in teacher education. This article reports a mixed-methods study showing the relationship between student teachers’ engagement with the practical and conceptual aspects of a Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) Programme in Hong Kong and different facets of their perceived professional competence. One hundred and thirty-two student teachers participated in the quantitative survey of whom seven were interviewed. The findings reveal that experiences associated with learning the pragmatic facets of professional practice were more valued by student teachers compared to learning the conceptual aspects of ITE. Yet, in terms of relationship with professional competence, student teachers’ engagement with the practical aspects of ITE was related to competence in classroom teaching, whereas their engagement with the conceptual aspects contributed to their mastery of professional knowledge, competence in classroom teaching and competence in interacting with stakeholders. The study illuminates the distinctive contributions of schools and higher education in ITE. While acknowledging the important role of schools in providing a setting for practical work, this study affirms the distinctive contribution of higher education in equipping student teachers with practical and conceptual tools in the preparation of professionally competent teachers.     

Unpacking the roles of the facilitator in higher education professional learning communities

ABSTRACT

Facilitators are central for the success of professional learning communities (PLCs). Yet, their specific roles in supporting teacher learning remain still largely underexplored. To address this gap, the current multiple case study examines the roles of 4 university PLC facilitators, the strategies they used to support teacher learning, and the challenges they experienced in their work. Data were collected through in-depth interviews and document analysis of facilitators’ reflective journals and annual reports. Our findings revealed that the roles of PLC facilitators must continuously adapt to the needs of the community. Facilitators’ tasks ranged from organizing group work and supporting community building to generating opportunities for teacher learning by stimulating reflection and by providing access to relevant resources and continuous feedback. Challenges associated with their roles included time limitations, the need to avoid the image of experts, and keeping a critical stance whilst building a close relationship with the PLC.     

浅谈高职教育与相关教育的关系

随着社会经济和科学技术的迅速发展,社会对它本身所需求的人才结构不断提出新的要求,也即对教育结构、教育类型、教育层次提出了新的要求。本将高职与普通高等工程教育、中等职业技术教育、成人高等教育、高等专科教育从培养目标、教学计划、招生对象、人才类型等方面的关系加以论述。