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.     

Constructing Feminist Teachers: Complexities of identity

ABSTRACT This article explores the synergistic relationship between the construction of identities and teaching practices of those using feminist teaching in higher education classrooms. I propose that teachers do not construct their identities in isolation, but rather are strongly influenced by the expectations of other participants in the educative process. Through qualitative research data, I suggest that teachers and their practices are simultaneously objects and subjects in their fluctuating identity constructions as feminist teachers. Further, I explore how the existence of and attention to teachers' and students' identities can be used as a tool in teaching and learning processes.     

Teacher Educators: hidden professionals?

The pace of change in today's society means that there is an ongoing need for teachers to learn, have new knowledge and use new pedagogical approaches to meet the needs of their pupils. For many teachers, this requires redefining their identity as teachers and what ‘teaching’ means in 21st century learning environments. These changes also require teachers to be supported in learning to ‘teach’ in different ways that are relevant to their own individual needs and to the contexts in which they work throughout their career. In this article, it is argued that a more integrated and collaborative approach to teacher education is needed with better understanding of those who take up the roles of teacher educator across a teacher's career. With a particular emphasis on ‘teacher educators’ working in school to support teachers' career-long professional learning it is argued that currently many do not recognise themselves as teacher educators nor are they recognised by those they work with as teacher educators. Drawing on an empirical study carried out with mentors in schools in Scotland, it is suggested that these teacher educators may be ‘unrecognised’ and remain ‘hidden professionals’ because of the identities they construct for themselves, the values and priorities that they or others attach to their roles or because of the institutional structures and cultures in which they work. It is concluded that it will be difficult to recognise and value these ‘hidden teacher educators’ and the distinctive contribution they can make to teachers' career-long professional learning without further clarification by them and others of the roles and responsibilities they hold.     

Tools for the classroom? An examination of existing sociometric methods for teacher use

Despite the recent technical and theoretical advances in the investigation of children's social relations, the inherent complexity of these methods may prevent their easy integration into the classroom. A simple and effective tool can be valuable for teachers who wish to investigate students' social realities in the classroom. Therefore, the present study aims to identify an effective sociometric method for educator's use in the classroom. Nine separate sociometric categorisations were created from peer reports of grade one students (N = 748). Methods that have different collection methods (nominations or ratings) show surprisingly low agreement, unlike those with the same collection method. Methods based on peer nominations showed the strongest correlations with students' behavioural traits. Based on these results, we discuss the relevance and usefulness of such methods for use by classroom teachers in identifying students' social realities.     

The Challenge of Involving Students in the Evaluation Process

This article traces one teacher educator's efforts to engage a class of pre-service and in-service teachers in the evaluation process. It shows that this is both time-consuming and difficult. It confirms McLaughlin's (1991) assertion that teachers find it difficult to appraise carefully the criteria and standards used to evaluate themselves and their students' learning. It also suggests that there are dimensions of power-knowledge at play at the levels of individual teachers (including the lecturer) and the institution.     

The Interpretation and Implementation of Reform: A Case of Simon

This article is a study of a South African teacher educator's interpretations and approaches to implementing a constructivist approach to teaching. It examines his beliefs about teaching physical science to prospective teachers as it relates to his aligning his teaching with the new reform: outcomes-based education. The goals of the reform include emphasis on cooperative learning, a student-centered approach, and focus on teaching for conceptual understanding. Through observations, interviews, and documents (assignments for students, graded group assignments, and course outlines), I examined this teacher educator's interpretations and approaches to implementing constructivist curriculum and his understanding of the reform. The findings show that without confronting teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning, providing clear meaning of reforms, and facilitating in-depth professional development, the interpretation and implementation of reforms will be hindered.     

The challenge to professionals of using social media: teachers in England negotiating personal-professional identities

Social media are a group of technologies such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn which offer people chances to interact with one another in new ways. Teachers, like other members of society, do not all use social media. Some avoid, some experiment with and others embrace social media enthusiastically. As a means of communication available to everyone in modern society, social media is challenging teachers, as other professionals in society, to decide whether to engage with these tools and, if so, on what basis – as an individual (personally), or as a teacher (professionally). Although teachers are guided by schools and codes of practice, teachers as individuals are left to decide whether and how to explore social media for either their own or their students' learning. This paper analyses evidence from interviews with 12 teachers from England about their use of social media as to the challenges they experience in relation to using the media as professional teachers.. Teachers are in society’s spotlight in terms of examples of inappropriate use of social media but also under peer pressure to connect. This paper explores their agency in responding. The paper focuses on how teachers deal with tensions between their personal and professional use of social media. These tensions are not always perceived as negative and some teachers' accounts revealed a unity in their identities when using social media. The paper reflects on the implications of such teachers' identities in relation to the future of social media use in education.     

Professions and their Identities: How to explore professional development among (semi‐)professions

This article explores conditions for discussing what it means to be professional among teachers, pre‐school teachers, nurses, and social workers. From an epistemological point of view it explores how analytical strategies can frame in sufficiently complex ways what it means to be a professional today. It is assumed that at least four main issues must be dealt with in order to conduct a satisfactory analysis of professions and their identities. Firstly, it is of fundamental strategic importance that one makes explicit the epistemological point of departure from which one's analyses frame and describe the surrounding world. Secondly, one must qualify one's stance in relation to the sociology of professions. Thirdly, one must reflect a discourse on professions in the light of the extensive processes of individualisation in society. And, lastly, one must reflect a discourse on professions in light of the new administrative practices within the public sector.     

Suitable work for women? Roles,relationships and changing identities of ‘other adults’ in the early years classroom

This article explores some of the issues around the agenda for workforce reform as it applies to professionals who work in early years classrooms (4–7 year olds), who work alongside class teachers in supporting learning. Their changing roles, responsibilities and professional identities are examined through a small scale case study of four women, two nursery nurses and two teaching assistants, from an infants school in a suburb of Bristol. Their close professional and personal relationships with the six female class teachers with whom thery work are considered. Their stories are analysed for their significance as women whose levels of skill and dedication are undervalued in terms of career structure, salary and job security. Whilst contributing to the debates around the changing roles and the valuable work of teaching assistants, this research endorses the view that these professionals' voices are too often silenced in educational debates and in strategic decision making.     

Work-integrated learning skills: A comparison of teachers’ perceptions about the PGCE with those of student teachers in the Nelson Mandela Metropole

Abstract

The purpose of the Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) is to accredit a generalist educator's qualification that caps an undergraduate qualification. As an access requirement, student teachers are required to have appropriate prior learning which leads to general foundational and reflexive competencies. The PGCE qualification focuses mainly on developing practical competencies reflexively grounded in educational theory. Hence, the objective of this study was to investigate the perceptions of student teachers with those of their school mentors about the PGCE as a qualification to develop the students’ work-integrated learning (WIL) skills. The quantitative research method was used in this study. The target population comprised of student teachers who qualified with the PGCE at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) and their school-based mentors in the Nelson Mandela Metropole (NMM). Data was obtained by means of two structured questionnaires: one for the student teachers and the other for the mentors. The research design compared the perceptions of student teachers and their mentors regarding the classroom practice and performance of these students. The findings of this study based on these perceptions support the hypothesis that the PGCE at the NMMU contributes to the development of the WIL skills of student teachers in the NMM.     

Student Teachers’ Lay Theories and Teaching Identities: their implications for professional development

This paper provides a detailed analysis of student teachers’ lay theories of teaching, and teaching identities, and assesses their implications for student teachers’ and teachers’ professional development. Understanding the critically formative influences in student teachers’ lives and the extent to which these are reinforced, reproduced and recast in and through student teachers’ lay theories has major significance for initial teacher education and ongoing professional development of teachers. The paper draws together the threads of this analysis around issues of teaching identities, their formation, continuity, tenacity and openness to change and assesses, through a postmodern lens, their implications for professional development of student teachers, beginning teachers and experienced professionals.     

Teachers' Work with Documentation in Preschool: Shaping a Profession in the Performing of Professional Identities­

This article analyses how the teaching profession takes shape when policy demands on increased documentation in preschool is interpreted and enacted by teachers. The profession and professional identities take shape in the tension between two forms of professionalism: occupational professionalism, based on collegial authority, and organizational professionalism, regulated by policy, bureaucracy, and markets. Interviews with preschool teachers about documentation and parents highlight how different professional identities not only took form in the policy interpretation process, but also worked as arguments for ways of dealing with change. A major conclusion is that it would be a win-win situation for professionals, children/parents, and central/local authorities if the influence of occupational professionalism was strengthened through a revaluation of teachers' experiences and professional standards.     

Key workers and schools: meeting the needs of children and young people with disabilities

Across the world countries are advocating the education of children and young people with disabilities in mainstream schools. There is also increasing interest in developing effective coordination of the specialist services pupils with disabilities receive from different agencies. This is accompanied by growing recognition that such care coordination can positively influence the experience of inclusion for children and their families. However, while the literature of care coordination generally includes education as a core provider, there is little evidence on involvement of education professionals and the outcomes for children and schools. These issues are addressed by the findings reported here on the role of key workers in care coordination and their relationship with schools. The findings draw on interviews with professionals from seven key worker services across England and Wales, parents and carers who were recipients of these services and teachers in schools serving children supported by key workers. These interviews are part of a wider multi‐method study exploring the effectiveness and costs of different models of key worker services for disabled children. The data reveal the range of education and school issues addressed by key workers and the factors influencing their work with teachers. The benefits for children, families and schools of key worker involvement are identified and the implications for schools explored. Consideration is also given to the advantages and disadvantages of teachers themselves taking on the role of key workers. It is argued that key workers can improve home–school relationships, facilitate the contribution of teachers in inter‐agency working, enable mainstream schools to better meet the individual needs of pupils with disabilities and improve their inclusive practice.     

Critical pedagogies of place: Educators' personal and professional experiences of social (in)justice

Participating in the education system of a foreign country, or within a new political dispensation presents various challenges for teachers. Understanding the challenges that teachers face as a result of relocation to new geographical and political contexts urges analyzing the contexts, which influence teachers' personal and pedagogic identities. Drawing on Buell's (1995) insights on place and identity; and Fraser's (2008) conceptions of social justice, this paper explores how teachers from South Africa, India, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo reinvent their identities in order to enact their professional and personal lives within different geo-political and socio-cultural contexts.     

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.     

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.     

The personal and professional selves of teachers: stable and unstable identities

In much educational literature it is recognised that the broader social conditions in which teachers live and work, and the personal and professional elements of teachers' lives, experiences, beliefs and practices are integral to one another, and that there are often tensions between these which impact to a greater or lesser extent upon teachers' sense of self or identity. If identity is a key influencing factor on teachers' sense of purpose, self‐efficacy, motivation, commitment, job satisfaction and effectiveness, then investigation of those factors which influence positively and negatively, the contexts in which these occur and the consequences for practice, is essential. Surprisingly, although notions of ‘self’ and personal identity are much used in educational research and theory, critical engagement with individual teachers' cognitive and emotional ‘selves’ has been relatively rare. Yet such engagement is important to all with an interest in raising and sustaining standards of teaching, particularly in centralist reform contexts which threaten to destabilise long‐held beliefs and practices. This article addresses the issue of teacher identities by drawing together research which examines the nature of the relationships between social structures and individual agency; between notions of a socially constructed, and therefore contingent and ever‐remade, ‘self’, and a ‘self’ with dispositions, attitudes and behavioural responses which are durable and relatively stable; and between cognitive and emotional identities. Drawing upon existing research literature and findings from a four‐year Department for Education and Skills funded project with 300 teachers in 100 schools which investigated variations in teachers' work and lives and their effects on pupils (VITAE), it finds that identities are neither intrinsically stable nor intrinsically fragmented, as earlier literature suggests. Rather, teacher identities may be more, or less, stable and more or less fragmented at different times and in different ways according to a number of life, career and situational factors.     

Integrating the ontological,epistemological, and sociocultural aspects: a holistic view of teacher education

The three aspects of teacher change – ontological, epistemological, and sociocultural – are traditionally regarded as independent. Usually only the epistemological aspect is highlighted in formal teacher education. In this paper, I argue that a holistic and interdependent view of these aspects is needed. Thus, this paper aims to explore the process of teacher learning from a holistic perspective. Through deliberative discussions and selection, 13 ‘good’ teachers were interviewed in this study. The findings indicate that there may be a two-stage pattern (the II-VA model) that describes two different sorts of teachers. The first sort refers to those teachers who developed strong identities before beginning their teaching service and who tended to have a clearer educational vision which had a direct impact on their practices and professional development. As for the second sort, the teachers’ identities were vague in their first years of teaching, but their professional identities gradually developed within the referential community with affective and professional functions. These stages imply that we should replace ‘abstract theory’ with ‘subject reflection’ in the center of teacher education. Three kinds of reflection (theory-rationale, identity-integration and vision-accomplishment) are thus identified from a holistic view of teacher change.     

Preservice teachers' in‐the‐moment teaching decisions in reading

This study examines the types of in‐the‐moment teaching decisions 97 preservice teachers made while teaching reading and how their growing bodies of teacher knowledge influenced their abilities to think, know, feel and act like a teacher (Feiman‐Nemser, 2008 ). Findings indicated that the teacher educator's use of “metacognitive decision‐making” to promote a culture of identifying, drawing attention to, reflecting on and evaluating teaching decisions influenced the preservice teachers' abilities to think, know, feel and act like a teacher. These findings have implications for teacher education and for those who support novice teachers.