Qualifying online teachers—Communicative skills and their impact on e-learning quality

Worldwide there is an increasing demand for educational institutions to offer part of their educations online and mixed mode. For institutions to comply with these demands, it is necessary to prepare teachers (and other members of the staff), to fulfil their responsibilities within the virtual environment. Teachers must be able to organize their courses pedagogically according to different conditions, i.e., subject domains, group sizes, variations within communication and interaction. Teachers must acquire knowledge and skills in handling Information and Communication Techniques (ICT) as well as pedagogical possibilities and constraints inherited in the software available. Several studies demonstrate that technical obstacles are easier to overcome than lack of communication skills. Also the consequenses of communication breakdowns tend to create serious problems that technology cannot solve. These problems concern how teachers function satisfactory as mediators and coaches in collaborative, knowledge sharing virtual environments. For example, how teachers support their students in becoming online-students and how they facilitate complex discussions on difficult topics. This is a big challenge for everybody involved in e-learning, and the challenge is not met by offering introductory courses for university teachers. Based on basis of a recent examination of concrete actions and strategies for the future within 11 Danish universities, the auther argues that there exists a severe mismatch between the organisational expectations and strategies and the competence-evolving activities that the same organisations offer to their staff. A recent case study of a university pedagogy course on e-learning for university teachers demonstrates and identifies some of the consequences of the mismatch. Finally the author suggests strategies to meet the demands of the future online university.     

Teaching history on the border: teachers voice their views

The overall objective of this investigation was to explore the views of border history teachers on a wide variety of issues that influence their instructional approaches, curricular content choices, and capacity to teach history more effectively. More specifically, the focus was on identifying factors that affect their ability to utilize culturally relevant pedagogy and to integrate into their classroom instruction elements of the local border community, and of the Latin American, Latino, and Mexican American experience. Findings confirmed that structural factors such as mandated curriculum standards, adopted textbooks, and high-stakes tests all serve to limit the teachers’ ability to integrate the Latino and minority experience into their classroom narrative. Although most teachers expressed support for the inclusion of Latino history, in actual practice they reported having insufficient time, training, or resources to adequately do so. The implications that Latino curricular exclusion has for students on the border are also discussed.     

Service learning and literacy tutoring: Academic impact on pre-service teachers

How does service learning impact content acquisition? Undergraduate pre-service teachers participating in a literacy tutoring service-learning experience are compared with pre-service teachers engaged in self-selected and independently directed tutoring sessions. The findings of this study support previous assertions that service-learning positively influences student academic achievement. The data gathered provide evidence that this positive influence is related to several design features. Specifically, the value placed on the service increased student motivation to learn course content. The frequency and variety of opportunities to reflect coupled with academic goals being embedded into the actual service experience strengthened connections between service and academic content.     

Exploring the impact of coteaching on pre-service music teachers

This study describes and analyses how coteaching affected undergraduate music education preservice teachers (PSTs). During an 8-week school placement, coteaching was used as a means of creating a reciprocal professional learning arrangement involving PSTs and primary school teachers. The theoretical framework draws on the Russian concept of obuchenie, which is a dialectical process of mutual adaptation between student and teacher. Music education PST participated as subject expert/pedagogy novice, while generalist classroom teacher occupied the role of pedagogy expert/music novice. Findings relate to the acquisition of four aspects of teacher professional agency, subject or content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, curricular knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge. A thematic analysis was undertaken using data from interviews, PST reflective journals, observations, lesson plans, and researcher field-notes. In comparison with the traditional school placement, there was a radical improvement in the development of professional agency amongst the coteaching cohort.     

Tools for pedagogical inquiry: the impact of teaching thinking skills on teachers

This paper explores the idea of thinking skills approaches as tools for pedagogical inquiry and in so doing seeks to develop the link between the promotion of inquiry‐based learning, which is a central tenet of thinking skills, and inquiry‐based teaching as an approach to professional development and school improvement. The first part of the paper examines the impact of teaching thinking skills on teachers by drawing upon a systematic review of research evidence. The second part of the paper sets the characteristics identified in the context of research into teachers’ development and considers the contribution of a pedagogy based on thinking skills approaches to continuing professional development.     

Mathematics-related anxiety and attitudes: examining the impact among Latina preservice teachers

The purpose of this study was to investigate mathematics-related anxiety and attitudes among Latina preservice teachers. Three sections from the Inventory of Mathematics Attitudes, Experience, and Self Awareness were administered to preservice teachers enrolled in a curriculum and instruction mathematics course during the 1st semester of a 2-semester credential program. Pre- and postsurvey data were examined among female students. There were significant differences on 5 statements that suggest positive perceptions about mathematics and 5 statements that suggest negative perceptions about mathematics. We discuss strategies to reduce mathematics anxiety and address attitudes in preservice teachers.     

Gender and emotions in relationships: a group of teachers recalling their own teachers

This narrative inquiry analyses the memories of a group of female teachers telling about their own teachers. We ask how gender and emotions are intertwined to teacher–student relationships. Gender was present in the stories where the teachers described being a schoolgirl in relationship with a teacher and told about their teachers as women and men. The collective process of recalling evoked the emotions experienced as students, but these emotions were also interpreted in the present context. When recalling, the teachers were reconstructing the past in the light of the present and the future. The article highlights the significance for teachers reflecting on their own educational histories.     

Primary advisory teachers: Their value and their prospects

The article explores the issue of teacher autonomy in relation to its potential for freedom or control. It examines the concept of empowerment as applied to education, arguing that, although it is traditionally cast as a means of achieving autonomy, an alternative approach sees empowerment as part of the disciplinary apparatus of late modern governance. In exploring these issues, the article covers ideas such as critical education, the reflective practitioner and personal effectiveness from the view of teacher autonomy as emancipatory; and self-surveillance, disciplinary regimes and pedagogic identity from the perspective of control. The article concludes that the appeal of teacher autonomy to the profession must be tempered by the recognition that it has the ability to both liberate and deceive.     

Education students and their teachers: comparing views on participative assessment practices

Beliefs about the validity and merit of self‐, peer‐ and group‐assessment practices are presented from 213 pre‐service primary teachers and 30 staff who teach them. Both groups were surveyed using comparable items. A subset of seven staff participated in semi‐structured interviews. Staff were far more supportive of peer‐ and self‐assessment practices than their students with both groups indicating modest support for group assignments. While pedagogical factors best represent the staff support for engaging students in assessment of their own and their peers’ work, several staff in interviews revealed that their high level of support for peer‐assessment was closely linked to a time‐saving factor. Peer‐assessment was more often used than self‐assessment while both practices were reported to have increased over the past two to three years. These findings are consistent with the reported increase in participative assessment practices in higher education generally. An important implication of this research is that in order to optimise the use of participative assessment, staff need to better prepare their students by modelling and communicating their reasons for adopting such practices.     

Instructional development for teachers in higher education: impact on teaching approach

Although instructional development for teachers has become an important topic in higher education, little is known about the impact it has on daily teaching practice. The lack of systematic programme evaluation is an ongoing concern. In this study we investigate by use of a quasi-experimental design, the impact of an instructional development program for beginning university teachers on their teaching approach. Quantitative pre-test as well as post-test data were assembled from 20 experimental teachers and 20 control teachers. At the post-test qualitative data were gathered too: 17 teachers of the experimental group and 12 teachers of the control group were interviewed. Paired t-tests and analysis of covariance with the pre-test scores as a covariate showed some effect of instructional development on teaching approach. The analysis of the qualitative data sustained this result. Our results reveal the influence of instructional development on teachers’ teaching approach being slightly different for teachers belonging to distinct disciplines. Several interpretations and perspectives for further research are discussed.     

Religious belief: the main impact on the perception of the nature of science on student teachers

This study aims to examine the affect of the degree of religiosity of student teachers, and their nationalism and scientific background on their perception of the nature of science (NOS). First year Arab and Jewish religiously observant, traditional and secular students in Israel (101 in number) with different scientific backgrounds participated in the study. The students completed a closed questionnaire with 35 statements that explored diverse aspects of the perception of the NOS. The findings show that previous scientific knowledge or belonging to the Jewish or Arab nation barely impacts the perceptions of the NOS. In contrast, religious belief, whether Jewish or Muslim, had significant impact. The more religious the students the greater weight they afforded culture and society versus science, and their support of the freedom of inquiry and of the tentativeness of science declined. The educational implications of the findings are discussed in view of the social increase in dogmatic religious belief alongside the unreserved exacerbated skepticism of every truth. Emphasis is placed on reinforcing the liberal dialogue approach that does not fear criticizing tradition, according to which it is possible to educate to critical thought without negating religious belief.     

The impact of instructional development in higher education: effects on teachers and students

This paper reviews a range of challenges and tensions experienced when using portfolios for learning as well as for summative assessment in the context of continuing professional learning in academic development programmes. While portfolios are becoming increasingly prominent, the details of how they are used are under-examined; they are often simply assumed to be an appropriate tool. However, it is important that, as practitioners, we are able to justify our own assessment practices and convey our expectations to our participants, who may be unfamiliar with the demands of a reflective portfolio. In this paper we explore some of the appeal as well as the difficulties of using portfolios, many of which arise from the fact that portfolios are often simultaneously used for summative and formative purposes. We suggest how the challenges sometimes experienced with portfolio assessment can be addressed by course conveners.     

Second-career teachers: Perceptions and mission in their new careers

This article explores why middle-aged individuals in Spokane, Washington, USA, left successful careers and entered the field of education and reveals their perceptions of the field of teaching. After a number of years in occupations that were successful and well-respected and offered considerably more salary, these mid-life career transitioners started a new career that they considered a 'vocation.' Three separate interviews each were conducted with seven second-career teachers and the themes and perceptions of these individuals which emerged are presented. The themes and perceptions discussed in this article are: life-changing events which prompted the participants to change careers; the differences and similarities noted between past careers and teaching; the challenges faced by the second-career teachers (students and administrators); and the common personal mission of all participants. The article also offers insights on how administrators can help these second-career teachers fit into the field of education by understanding their unique needs and abilities.     

Praising and correcting: prospective teachers investigate their teacherly talk

Despite recent calls for teachers to promote and increase students’ communication and discussion in their classrooms, prospective teachers have limited opportunities to explore issues of classroom talk during their teacher preparation programs. In this study, prospective teachers attending a mathematics methods course were encouraged to attend to and investigate their developing teacherly talk through a letter writing exchange with school students. This paper reports on their tendency to respond to the correct answers with praise and to supply the answers when students reached an incorrect result. It explores the ways in which they began to interrogate and problematize such practices and to consider alternative forms of teacher responses to students’ right and wrong answers. Features of the course's field-related experience and the teacher educators’ interventions that promoted and supported the preservice teachers’ investigations are also discussed.     

Preservice science teachers reflect on their practicum experiences

The practicum provides an opportunity for preservice teachers to apply knowledge and skills in actual classroom settings. Thus, it serves as a central component of virtually all teacher education programmes. This study focused the views of 16 preservice science teachers on their practicum experiences. Individual interviews were made to construct a picture of practicum as experienced by the preservice science teachers. Group seminar sessions, and written reflections were also utilised to confirm and support data from the interviews. The findings based on data gathered indicate that preservice science teachers were not exposed to environment that reflected their expectations toward learning outcomes. It is essential to provide conditions of a quality experience to preservice science teachers during their teacher education programmes in order to prepare preservice teachers to teach science effectively.     

关于"双师型"教师与"双师型"教师队伍的思考

"双师型"教师因为同时具备理论素养和操作能力而成为高职院校对理想教师的内在诉求,但双师型教师的有效供给不足,并潜藏着发展风险,因而形成双师型的教师队伍结构是高职院校教师队伍建设的必由之路。