Preparing Community-Engaged Teachers

The goals of teacher education must evolve beyond the teaching of strategies and methods toward a process for beginning teachers' critical interrogation of their social locations and the ways they engage with the realities of teaching and learning. One way that this is accomplished is by incorporating opportunities for community engagement beyond classroom walls in ways that employ teaching practicum experiences in K–12 classrooms. This article describes one teacher educator's experiences preparing secondary English and literacy preservice teachers enrolled in a Teaching Writing Course where students participate in the coordination and facilitation of a community writing event for local middle and high school students. Preservice teachers witnessed writing instruction and youth writing practices that thrived in an educational partnership among multiple stakeholders, including students, parents, teachers, administrators, university professors, and community youth liaisons. Then I share examples of students' reflections post-Writing Our Lives experiences to demonstrate their emerging understanding of the role of community engagement in their development of teacher identities.     

Hope as Work--Student Teachers Constructing Their Narrative Identities

This article examines how student teachers construct their teacher identities by using (auto)biographical stories. Teacher identity is seen as a narrative process and teaching as a certain kind of practice, in which hope is a significant part. The inquiry is based on 35 essays written by students. The analysis includes five different stages of reading. The students are aware of the moral roots of teachers' work, its joys and predicaments, and struggle to make sense of the different narratives they hear about teachers' work. Although student teachers consider hope as an important part of teaching, they at the same time 'apologise' for having such an 'unrealistic view'. The results prove that (auto)biographical stories are a powerful tool for making the moral dimensions of teachers' identities visible. The results also challenge teacher educators and administrators of education to support student teachers to keep up their prospects of hope.     

Teachers' views on citizenship education in secondary education in The Netherlands

In 2005 the Dutch Minister of Education proposed making it compulsory for all schools in The Netherlands to stimulate active citizenship and social integration. Teachers must give these educational goals a tangible form in their practice. What are the teachers' views on citizenship education? Concepts of citizenship education and the teacher's role in it may differ widely, and very different perspectives on values and value development are possible. This article addresses how teachers view citizenship education. We present the results of a survey conducted among a representative sample of Dutch secondary schools. The results show that teachers make clear choices in the importance they attach to certain values. Teachers want students to acquire skills to analyse, communicate and reflect on values, and they want to stimulate the development of certain values. The chosen values relate to different types of citizenship. School level, school subject and the age of the teachers make a difference to the importance teachers attach to different values.     

Vocational teachers' gendered reflections on education,teaching and care

In this article, we discuss teachers' reflections on the relation between teaching and care in the two most gender-segregated sectors of vocational upper secondary education in Finland, namely Health and Social services and Transport and Technology. We first discuss the concepts around education, teaching, taking care for and caring about students, using theoretisations of care and feminist pedagogies. Using teacher interviews and field notes, we then analyse teachers' ambivalence about care work in the context of teaching, placing special emphasis on care as a gendered task, and then discuss the ‘moral panic’ or ‘worry speech’ about young people in vocational education from the perspective of caring about. The findings are reflected through earlier studies in lower secondary schools. We argue that even if teachers in vocational education, especially male teachers, tend to feel awkward about caring work, they cannot avoid it, and they do care about their students and regard care as a general responsibility.     

Experienced teachers' knowledge of teaching and learning of models and modelling in science education

This article reports a study of the knowledge of experienced science teachers in the context of a reform in science education in The Netherlands. The study focused on a major goal of the reform, that is, improving students' knowledge and abilities in the field of models and modelling in science. First, seven teachers of biology and chemistry were interviewed about the teaching and learning of models and modelling in science. Next, a questionnaire was designed consisting of 30 items on a Likert-type scale. This questionnaire was completed by a group ( n = 74) of teachers of biology, chemistry and physics. Results indicated that the teachers could be grouped in two subgroups, who differed in terms of their self-reported use of teaching activities focusing on models: one sub-group applied such activities substantially more often than the other sub-group. This distinction appeared not to be related to the teachers' subject, or teaching experience. Moreover, the use of teaching activities seemed only loosely related to the teachers' knowledge of their students, particularly, students' views of models and modelling abilities. Implications for the design of teacher education are discussed.     

National identity and its relationship with teachers' historical knowledge and pedagogy: the case of Taiwan

National identity is one of the most important forms of ideology that affects human behaviours. Yet, the issue of whether it influences history teachers' subject matter knowledge or teaching practice is overlooked most of the time. With regime change in Taiwan, history curriculum and textbooks are no longer dominated by a China-centred narrative; more Taiwanese history is included in the curriculum. Given the fact that the Taiwanese are split on the issue of national identity, it is important to understand if and how teachers vary in their historical knowledge and instruction. This study examines the issue by investigating the relationships between Taiwanese junior high school history teachers' national identities, their subject matter knowledge and teaching practices. The result indicates that teachers' national identities significantly relate to their historical knowledge and conceptions about history, but bear no relationship to their teaching approaches. Pro-independence teachers have significantly more knowledge in both Taiwanese and Chinese histories and have better conceptions about the nature of history, but they do not necessarily choose to provide students multiple perspectives and interpretations. The implications for democratic citizenship education and teacher education are discussed.     

Professional autonomy versus managerial control: The experience of teachers in an english primary school

This article examines the relationship between primary teachers' professional autonomy and the increasing managerial control over teachers' work. It considers how the education policies of successive Conservative and New Labour administrations in Britain have tightened central control over education undermining teacher discretion and directly impacting upon the labour process of the professionals concerned. The research was undertaken in an English primary school and data gathered in a variety of contexts including observations of the teachers in classrooms and the staff room, a governors/parents meeting, informal conversations and a series of semi-structured interviews with staff. The study explores how teachers make sense of the managerial culture in education, and how this is reconciled with their ideas about teaching and learning, and their professional interests and individual career aspirations. Structuration theory (Giddens, 1976, 1979, 1984) is used as a theoretical framework to explore whether there is conflict between teachers' professionalism and the new managerialism and examine how primary teachers make sense of this inextricable relationship.     

Fast Kids,Slow Kids,Lazy Kids: Framing the Mismatch Problem in Mathematics Teachers' Conversations

Abstract

This article examines the social nature of teachers' conceptions by showing how teachers frame the “mismatch” of students' perceived abilities and the intended school curriculum through conversational category systems. This study compares the conversations of 2 groups of high school mathematics teachers addressing the Mismatch Problem when implementing equity-geared reforms. Although East High teachers challenged conceptions that were not aligned with a reform, South High teachers reworked a reform mandate to align with their existing conceptions. This research found that the teachers' conversational category systems modeled problems of practice; communicated assumptions about students, subject, and teaching; and were ultimately reflected in the curriculum. Because East High teachers supported greater numbers of students' success in advanced mathematics, this study considers the relation between teachers' understandings of student learning and the success of equity-geared math reforms. In addition, this study contributes to the understanding of how teacher conceptions of students are negotiated and reified in context, specifically through interactions with colleagues and experiences with school reform.     

Can cooperating teachers help student teachers develop a vision of education?

Abstract

Research in teacher education is increasingly concerned with teachers' visions of education and their sense of calling, mission, and professional identity. Interviews with outstanding cooperating teachers focused on exploring their beliefs on teacher vision, and what makes a good teacher. The teachers were also asked to discuss their beliefs on whether vision—and the independence of spirit that a strong vision is thought to foster—is relevant in their work with student teachers. The teachers revealed a strong sense of why they teach and shared goals around several themes. They also maintained that reflection is key to developing a vision of education. Teacher education programs can support these teachers' views of quality education by developing conceptual frameworks that foster reflection and the development of a vision for education, particularly in the student teaching experience.     

A review of pedagogy related to information and communications technology

Abstract

This article reviews research on pedagogies associated with the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in primary and secondary schools. We propose a framework for examining pedagogical practices based on an analysis of the nature of pedagogy as revealed in the literature. In the light of this framework we discuss empirical evidence of the use of different types of ICT in different subjects and phases of education. We identify pedagogical issues associated with ICT use and their implications for teachers' pedagogical reasoning and practices. The evidence suggests that new affordances provided by ICT-based learning environments require teachers to undertake more complex pedagogical reasoning than before in their planning and teaching that incorporates knowledge of specific affordances and how these relate to their subject-based teaching objectives as well as the knowledge they have always needed to plan for their students' learning. In addition the research shows that teachers' beliefs about the value of ICT for learning and the nature of successful learning environments are important in teachers' pedagogical reasoning     

Epistemological framing and novice elementary teachers' approaches to learning and teaching engineering design

As engineering learning experiences increasingly begin in elementary school, elementary teacher preparation programs are an important site for the study of teacher development in engineering education. In this article, we argue that the stances that novice teachers adopt toward engineering learning and knowledge are consequential for the opportunities they create for students. We present a comparative case study examining the epistemological framing dynamics of two novice urban teachers, Ana and Ben, as they learned and taught engineering design during a four-week institute for new elementary teachers. Although the two teachers had very similar teacher preparation backgrounds, they interpreted the purposes of engineering design learning and teaching in meaningfully different ways. During her own engineering sessions, Ana took up the goal not only of meeting the needs of the client but also of making scientific sense of artifacts that might meet those needs. When facilitating students' engineering, she prioritized their building knowledge collaboratively about how things work. By contrast, when Ben worked on his own engineering, he took up the goal of delivering a product. When teaching engineering to students, he offered them constrained prototyping tasks to serve as hands-on contexts for reviewing scientific explanations. These findings call for teacher educators to support teachers' framing of engineering design as a knowledge building enterprise through explicit conversations about epistemology, apprenticeship in sense-making strategies, and tasks intentionally designed to encourage reasoning about design artifacts.     

Teaching students with autism spectrum disorder in mainstream post-primary schools in the Republic of Ireland

This qualitative study explored teachers' perceptions of the inclusive education of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at the post-primary level, specifically those with Asperger syndrome. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight mainstream teachers in the Republic of Ireland. One of the main findings of the study was that the teachers' implicit model of inclusion was more consistent with integration than with inclusive education. Although systemic barriers to inclusive education were identified, the teachers' focus tended to be on managing within the system rather than on bringing about systemic change. Mainstream post-primary education was endorsed by teachers for their students with ASD, despite perceiving that these students were unhappy and socially excluded. The teachers were confident in teaching students with ASD, primarily as a result of their experience. The implications of the study for teacher educators and future researchers are discussed.     

Redefining “Immigrants” Through Diaspora: Educational Experience of 1.5-Generation Chinese Youth in Cupertino

Through the intersection of diaspora and immigrant education, this article investigates how Chinese youth perceive their experience of being immigrant and 1.5-generation in and out of school. The fieldwork was conducted in Cupertino, California, in 2013–2014. In total, 11 students were chosen to participate in the research. It combines an ethnographic approach with narrative inquiry. The findings discuss how the youth’s multiple identities were an interplay with their cultural imagination and practices on two various levels: their concept of “home” and their longing for flexible citizenship. This article suggests the framework of diaspora to capture the process of immigration not as an uprooted directional trajectory but rather a complex space where immigrants from a range of backgrounds come to forge their multiple identities in a globalized context. Perspectives from the youth will enable us to critically redefine the term immigrant in the context of transnationalism and globalization.     

Teachers' assessment of students' research skills

Today, teachers are expected to develop complex skills, such as research skills, in their students while implementing new views on learning and teaching and using authentic assessment strategies. About these new assessment strategies there is much debate and teachers are vulnerable in using them. We studied upper secondary education natural and social science teachers' practices using two surveys and two rounds of expert panel judgement on teacher‐submitted assessment‐related material and information. Our study shows that there are grounds for concern regarding the clarity of teachers' assessment criteria, the consistency between teachers' goals, assignments, and criteria, and the validity and acceptability of teachers' assessment practices. The extent to which it is justifiable to judge teachers' assessment practice by professional quality criteria is discussed, and suggestions are given as to the main quality criteria for formative and summative assessment and as to ways in which teachers could improve their assessment practices.     

Newcomer refugee and immigrant youth negotiate transnational civic learning and participation in school

This article analyses the perspectives and experiences of refugee and immigrant secondary school students in the USA who are from the Democratic Republic of Congo to examine the interplay between identity and civic education, and broader socio-political discourses around immigration and inclusion. Data are drawn from a 2-year qualitative study that took place between 2016 and 2018, and included interviews, field notes from classroom observations and recordings of classroom discourse in high school civics classes. Findings are analysed through anthropological framings of citizenship and provide important insight into how marginalisation in one context is experienced in another—how refugee and immigrant youth’s socially conscious identities in resettlement contexts can be borne out of personal and familial histories that transcend geographical borders. In so doing, it showcases how civic learning can involve a dialogic process of self-representation and representation of group memberships. This research emphasises these youth’s inherent agency and resistance to single-story narratives about their lives. It concludes with implications for teachers and learners on incorporating active, critical and participatory transnational citizenship education into the classroom.     

African-American early childhood teachers' decisions to refer African-American students

Existing literature regarding European-American teachers' referrals of African-American students for special education programs is abundant. However, literature that explains African-American teachers' referrals of African-American students, in their own voices, is limited. This qualitative study examines the influences guiding African-American teachers' decisions to refer African-American students for special education programs. It uses, as a conceptual framework, several researchers' investigations of influences guiding teacher praxis. From these collective works, a conceptual model was developed as a ''teachers' decisions to refer'' perspective that served as a framework for examining influences that may have guided the participants' referral decisions. Findings revealed that African-American teachers have a collective teacher way of knowing and that socially constructed images of race and gender influenced their referral decisions. Additionally, participant interviews revealed that African-American teachers tended to refer based on the need to find assistance for students with special needs.     

A comparison of student perceptions of Dutch physics teachers' interpersonal behavior and their educational opinions in 1984 and 1993

According to the literature, in the 1980s the intended science curriculum exhibited a worldwide movement toward a curriculum for all, with a more contextually embedded approach. In writings about science teaching pedagogy, a trend can be observed to consider seriously students' conceptions, based on the premises of constructivism. This article examines consequences of these trends for teacher behavior and concludes that classes should become more student centered. In terms of the model for interpersonal teacher behavior (Wubbels & Levy, 1993), teachers must give their students more responsibility and act in a more understanding way. It is to be expected that teachers' beliefs and opinions have to change before this trend can be implemented in the classroom. We have therefore tested whether teachers' opinions about objectives and content of physics education, on the one hand, and the implemented curriculum, particularly teachers' interpersonal behavior, on the other, display the same trend observed in the intended curriculum. In 1984 and 1993, data on students' perceptions of their teachers' behavior were gathered from ninth-grade students of a random sample of Dutch physics teachers. Data on the teachers' self-perceptions of their behavior and their opinions about physics education also were included. The results show that teachers were more in favor of realistic teaching content in 1993 than in 1984, a shift that is in line with the trend in the intended curriculum. Students' perceptions indicated clearly that Dutch teachers behaved less dominantly and more cooperatively in 1993 than in 1984. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 34: 447–466, 1997.     

Preservice Teachers' Attitudes Toward Inclusion and Toward Students with Special Educational Needs from Different Ethnic Backgrounds

Drawing on social cognition frameworks, we experimentally examined preservice teachers' implicit attitudes toward students with special educational needs (SEN) from different ethnic backgrounds and preservice teachers' explicit attitudes toward inclusive education. Preservice teachers (N = 46) completed an evaluative priming task and questionnaires. Results showed indifferent implicit attitudes toward students with SEN with immigrant backgrounds and positive implicit attitudes toward those without immigrant backgrounds. Furthermore, participants reported a high motivation to act without prejudice toward minorities but held less favorable explicit attitudes toward inclusion of students with SEN, especially students with behavioral problems. Differential patterns of implicit and explicit evaluations could bias teachers' interactions with students. Findings are discussed with respect to implications for educational practice and research.     

Chinese and US Middle-School Science Teachers' Autonomy,Motivation, and Instructional Practices

This study examined Chinese and US middle-school science teachers' perceptions of autonomy support. Previous research has documented the link between teachers' perceptions of autonomy and the use of student-oriented teaching practices for US teachers. But is not clear how the perception of autonomy may differ for teachers from different cultures or more specifically how motivation factors differ across cultures. The survey measured teachers' motivation, perceptions of constraints at work, perceptions of students' motivation, and level of autonomy support for students. Exploratory factor analysis of responses for the combined teacher sample (n?=?201) was carried out for each of the survey assessments. Significance testing for Chinese (n?=?107) and US (n?=?94) teachers revealed significant differences in teachers' motivation and perceptions of constraints at work and no significant differences for perceptions of students' motivation or their level of autonomy support for students. Chinese teachers' perceptions of constraints at work, work motivation, and perceptions of student motivation were found to significantly predict teachers' autonomy support. For the US teachers, teacher motivation was the only significant predictor of teachers' autonomy support. A sub-sample of teachers (n?=?19) was interviewed and results showed that teachers in both countries reported that autonomy was important to their motivation and the quality of science instruction they provided to students. The primary constraints on teaching reported by the US teachers related to materials and laboratory space while the Chinese teachers reported constraints related to the science curriculum and standards.     

Troubling identities: teacher education students' constructions of class and ethnicity

Working with diverse student populations productively depends on teachers and teacher educators recognizing and valuing difference. Too often, in teacher education programs, when markers of identity such as gender, ethnicity, ‘race’, or social class are examined, the focus is on developing student teachers' understandings of how these discourses shape learner identities and rarely on how these also shape teachers' identities. This article reports on a research project that explored how student teachers understand ethnicity and socio‐economic status. In a preliminary stage of the research, we asked eight Year 3 teacher education students who had attended mainly Anglo‐Australian, middle class schools as students and as student teachers, to explore their own ethnic and classed identities. The complexities of identity are foregrounded in both the assumptions we made in selecting particular students for the project and in the ways they constructed their own identities around ethnicity and social class. In this article we draw on these findings to interrogate how categories of identity are fluid, shifting and ongoing processes of negotiation, troubling and complex. We also consider the implications for teacher education.