Grounded design of web-enhanced case-based activity

Cases have been used in education through a variety of methods, such as case written analysis, case discussion, and case development. Recent case definitions and uses have extended their traditional uses. In case-based reasoning, cases are considered to represent knowledge, and the use of cases is integral to an individual’s problem-solving process. Case-based activity (CBA) builds on CBR research and theory, emphasizing the transition of novices toward experts’ reasoning and applications. The purpose of this paper is to present the theoretical assumptions and principles for designing grounded, web-enhanced CBA. Findings from recent implementations and implications for design are presented.     

Reflection as situated practice: A memory-work study of lived experience in teacher education

The aim of this paper is to understand whether student teachers enact reflection differently as they encounter different situations within their teacher education programme. Group memory-work was used to generate and analyse five participants' memories of learning to teach. Three different discursive contexts were identified in the students' stories and each demonstrates that students reflexively enact reflection in relation to the discursive nature of the context. The analysis also reveals that critical reflection is possible, but that further attention must be paid to considering how it can be sustained in contexts outside of teacher education.     

Situated case-based knowledge: An emerging framework for prospective teacher learning

While the use of situated cognition theory in teacher education programmes has the potential to teach prospective teachers, research on teacher knowledge and learning from a situated perspective has been slow to emerge in reference to prospective teacher education. In this paper, we present a situated case-based knowledge framework to explain the development of prospective teachers’ knowledge and beliefs. The framework includes conceptual case knowledge, strategic case knowledge, and the shared identities and beliefs of practicing teachers. In addition, we summarize findings from a study wherein the situated case-based knowledge framework was applied to support prospective teachers’ learning, as well as discuss implications for research and practice.     

Situated learning theory and the pedagogy of teacher education: Towards an integrative view of teacher behavior and teacher learning

Lave and Wenger have greatly influenced existing views of learning and teaching, but relatively little has been written about the implications for the understanding of teacher behavior and teacher learning, and for the pedagogy of teacher education. Based on their work, a three-level model of learning is used to analyze the friction between teacher behavior in practice and the wish to ground teachers' practices in theory. Supported by empirical data on teacher learning and brain research, this model reconciles the situated learning perspective with traditional cognitive theory, and leads to concrete implications for the pedagogy of teacher education.     

Understanding teacher learning in secondary education: The relations of teacher activities to changed beliefs about teaching and learning

In this study, relations between learning activities of teachers and changes in their beliefs were examined. Thirty-four teachers in Dutch secondary education were asked to complete a questionnaire regarding their beliefs about teaching and learning on two occasions. They were also asked to report on learning activities that they undertook. Teachers who had changed their beliefs in a direction congruent with the aims of recent educational reforms often reported experimentation with colleagues' teaching methods. Teachers who changed their beliefs in a direction that was not congruent with the reform often reported experimentation with alternative methods due to discontent with the effectiveness of current methods.     

Transforming traditional models of initial teacher education through a mandatory experiential learning programme

This paper reports on the impact of a compulsory credit-bearing experiential learning (EL) block embedded into an initial teacher education (ITE) programme in Hong Kong. Student teachers engage in extended participation with community-based projects, aimed at enhancing their understanding of real-world environments, expanding their capacity to integrate theory and practice, and broadening their global outlook. The projects include community placements in Hong Kong, as well as regional learning opportunities. Qualitative data from a hundred participants reveal important outcomes in terms of pedagogical development, students’ understanding of diverse others and enhanced reflective practices. The paper attends to global changes in education.     

Rethinking the use of video in teacher education: A holistic approach

Video case studies are commonly used in teacher training programmes, usually to develop one specific area of competence. The need for an integrative model that meets diverse learning objectives and competences led to a study on how to effectively use videos to guide student-teachers towards professional development. The analysis of case studies helped develop a four-pronged holistic proposal that places student-teachers in the role of both teacher and learner allowing the co-construction of teaching knowledge and the acquisition of digital competences and media literacy. This article outlines the pedagogical scheme and provides qualified evidence that supports arguments for its basis.     

Demonstrating a situated learning approach for in-service teacher education in rural India: The Quality Education Programme in Rajasthan

Recent educational policy in India has repositioned elementary school teachers as active, reflective practitioners, not just ‘deliverers’ of syllabus material. This article examines innovations in teacher support in Rajasthan's government schools through the ‘Quality Education Program.’ Drawing on qualitative research of collaborative learning processes, the paper discusses two support strategies used by the program: professional dialogic interactions and modeling of pedagogic strategies, which paralleled introductory or developmental phases within a ‘collaborative apprenticeship model’ of teacher professional development. In doing so, the paper outlines the potential of situated, collaborative approaches for Indian in-service teacher education and education development reform, more broadly.     

Teachers learn about student learning assessment through a teacher education process

This study aims to understand the extent to which university professors adopt new pedagogical voices in their learning assessment practices through a teacher education process. Participants (N = 32) were interviewed before and after the teacher education process, and data were analysed using qualitative and quantitative methods. The results of the study demonstrated, first, that teachers renamed their educational discourse about learning assessment significantly, increasing it in assessment for learning practices, particularly in the themes of timing and agents, and reducing it in all themes referred to the assessment of learning practices. And second, three clusters of faculty were identified, which differed in terms of the way they merge both learning assessment practices: professors with a slight prevalence of the assessment for learning conceptual voice, professors with a slight prevalence of the assessment for learning practical voice, and professors with a strong prevalence of the assessment for learning voice.     

Using a meta-analysis activity to make critical reflection explicit in teacher education

This paper describes how the development of critical reflection in student teachers has been made an explicit part of a teacher education programme. Using a rubric presented by Ward and McCotter, (2004) and supported by an online discussion forum, the rubric was used in a meta-analysis activity where students identified the quality of critical reflection in their lesson evaluations. The evidence suggests that the activity can result in a qualitative improvement in the nature of critical reflection. The intervention also appeared to generate a growing acknowledgement by students that writing lesson evaluations, is a valuable process which can enhance their practice.     

The promise of experiential education in teacher education: transforming teacher beliefs and practices

Building from the theories of Dewey and Kolb and Fry, we sought to examine the impact of experiential education in teacher education on teacher beliefs and practices. The teacher education model described in this article sets out to challenge the seduction of the apprenticeship of observation and create an opportunity for in-service teachers to re-imagine their teaching in concrete and transformative ways. Immersed in a weeklong experiential residency in either the mountains or at a local environmental education farm, the teachers in the study were challenged physically, intellectually, socially, and emotionally in and through the experience. The experiential work ultimately led to changes in teacher participants’ beliefs and practices related to teacher and student roles and potentialities. Although challenges exist for this type of practice in K-12 classrooms and in teacher education, experiential education has a significant potential to change the way teachers think about and act in their practice.     

From assistant teacher to teacher: challenges and pathways in situated pre-service teacher education

Vocational pathways to Higher Education have a key role in opening teacher education to under-represented groups but bring with them particular challenges. Teacher educators need to address the challenges faced by these learners, of not only connecting their learning but also challenging their knowledge, and doing so in an invested work environment. This paper shares my experiences as a teacher educator working with two groups of Indigenous and non-Indigenous para-professional pre-service teachers in remote and urban Central Australia. I identify four key role-shifting challenges individuals face in developing their professional practice and locate them in two interdependent areas: social sphere challenges arising out of the situated learning setting of professional experience, and those occurring in the personal sphere of professional identity. I suggest that the new ways of mentoring and the development of student’s reflexive capacity needed to address these challenges can best be mobilised by re-positioning the role of professional identity at the centre of both professional experience and academic learning.     

Learning to plan self-controlled physical education: Good vs. problematic teaching examples

Educational research assumes reflection on teaching examples to have positive effects on pre-service teachers' professional development. The role of teaching quality in such examples is unclear, however. In a field experiment with a pre-post-design, we taught “planning self-controlled learning” to 83 undergraduate pre-service physical education teachers and assigned them to three conditions: they either reflected on good teaching or problematic teaching examples or they compared both types of examples. We found that the comparison of examples supported their instruction planning more than reflecting good or problematic teaching examples only. In addition, comparing examples changed the pre-service teachers' beliefs.     

Rethinking vocational education: a case study in care

The authors explain how development of employability and educational interest might be enhanced by a radically different division of labour between FECs (Further Education Colleges) and the institutions in which students live and work. They argue that, rather than looking for ways in which FECs could teach vocational knowledge in a more relevant way, the role of FECs might be to develop students’ educational interest through analytical reflection on their life and work. The authors tried out these ideas with 25 adult returners to formal education who hope to secure jobs as professional carers. The theoretical perspective known as situated learning is contrasted with one which implies that transfer of learning from classroom to workplaces is relatively unproblematic and that cognitive operations are relatively unaffected by culture.     

A complex dynamic systems perspective on teacher learning and identity formation: an instrumental case

ABSTRACT

Scholars have called for new conceptualisations of teachers’ learning that capture the complex, contextualised, and dynamic nature of professional growth. In this article, we describe the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI) that portrays teacher learning as inseparable from the complex and dynamic processes by which teachers form their professional identities. The model depicts theoretical and procedural learning about teaching as integrated with other ontological and epistemological beliefs, self-perceptions and self-definitions, purpose and goals in teaching, and perceived action possibilities that constitute the teacher’s professional role identity. After describing the DSMRI, we demonstrate its application with an instrumental case of a science teacher who participated in a professional development (PD) institute designed to foster learning and motivation for implementing student-centred, inquiry-based instruction. DSMRI-guided analysis of pre-, mid-, and post-institute interviews highlighted the role of pre-PD role identities of learner and teacher in the teacher’s PD experiences, which, in turn, fostered both new alignments and new tensions in the teacher’s role identity that promoted an overall change towards a more student-centred teacher role identity. The article demonstrates the utility of the DSMRI for conceptualising teachers’ learning as contextualised and dynamic identity formation processes.     

Teachers' views on and use of printed materials in a distance learning teacher education course

Despite the heavy emphasis on online learning in recent years, print is still an important medium for course delivery in distance education. Distance educators have argued that, with the incorporation of appropriate access structures, distance learning materials can be self‐instructional and interactive. This study aims to explore the extent to which students on a distance teacher education course considered that the print materials had achieved the course objectives, and how they made use of the in‐text access structures. The results indicate that, although teachers on the course agreed that the materials were able to achieve the course objectives, the extent to which they made use of the access devices varied considerably.     

Facilitating social learning in teacher education: a case study

It is increasingly recognised that social learning by teachers can stimulate professional development. In this study, we search for the social behaviour patterns which can act as a catalyst for professional development, with an explicit focus on student teachers’ learning. Based on the ‘Dimensions of Social Learning (DSL) Framework’, including 4 dimensions and 11 indicators of social learning, the present study explores the social configuration of one network of primary teachers (n?=?12), student teachers (n?=?12) and teacher educators (n?=?2). Two research questions guide this exploration: (1) What patterns of social behaviour in teacher networks are likely to lead to professional learning? (2) What network facilitation guidelines can be discerned to assist teachers and teacher educators wishing to optimise student teachers’ professional development? Data collection consisted of video recordings, reflective notes and semi-structured interviews with network members. The findings paint a picture of how social learning in teacher networks is related to the group’s social configuration. Observation criteria and student facilitation guidelines are suggested to support professional development within teacher networks. For each dimension in the DSL Framework, one point of attention is discerned to optimise students’ learning in teacher networks.     

Learning and collaboration in pre-service teacher education: Narrative analysis in a service learning experience at Andalusian public schools

In this article we take up the task of presenting and analyzing a Service Learning experience developed in a class of the major in Primary Education Teaching at the University of Malaga, in Andalusia, Spain. It consists of a narrative analysis of autobiographical texts –final reports and online interviews – produced by pre-service teachers. We aimed to understand how participants learned about the teaching profession throughout their trajectory in the project. The results indicate pre-service teachers (1) learn by feeling, (2) learn by belonging, (3) learn by placing action in a social perspective, and (4) learn by sharing experiences with others.     

Student and teacher perceptions of learning and teaching: a case study

Exploring student and teacher perspectives on approaches to learning and teaching reveals interesting insights and new understandings for practice by involving the two key groups of participants in the learning and teaching story. Do students understand and experience learning and teaching similarly or differently from the way teachers intend them to? This paper describes the findings of a study that explored perceptions of learning and teaching in one discipline of an Australian dual-sector university from both a student and staff perspective. Teachers’ conceptions of teaching are also explored and provide extra insight and understanding of the approach to learning and teaching taking place. Key findings of this multifaceted study employing a case study with a mixed method approach include a difference between students’ and teachers’ perceptions of approaches to learning and teaching. Implications for broader practice are highlighted and explored.     

Designing and implementing a case-based learning environment for enhancing ill-structured problem solving: classroom management problems for prospective teachers

This design-based research study is aimed at two goals: (1) developing a feasible case-based instructional model that could enhance college students’ ill-structured problem solving abilities, while (2) implementing the model to improve teacher education students’ real-world problem solving abilities to deal with dilemmas faced by practicing teachers in elementary classrooms. To achieve these goals, an online case-based learning environment for classroom management problem solving (CBL-CMPS) was developed based on Jonassen’s (in: Reigeluth (ed.) Instructional-Design Theories and Models: A New Paradigm of Instructional Theory, 1999) constructivist learning environment model and the general process of ill-structured problem solving (1997). Two successive studies, in which the effectiveness of the CBL-CMPS was tested while the CBL-CMPS was revised, showed that the individual components of the CBL-CMPS promoted ill-structured problem solving abilities respectively, and that the CBL-CMPS as a whole learning environment was effective to a degree for the transfer of learning in ill-structured problem solving. The potential, challenge, and implications of the CBL-CMPS are discussed.