Encouraging teacher development through embedding reflective practice in assessment

Learning to become a teacher is a developmental process, part of which is learning to become a reflective practitioner. The authors have implemented a structured approach to developing the habits of critical reflection, the purpose of which is to guide their university students (who are pre-service teachers) to progress through the stages of teacher development and to facilitate self-motivated professional growth. Their attempts to incorporate into these pre-service teachers' learning the ‘practice’ part of reflective practice have included the development of different kinds of practical and applied tasks. In turn, their attempts to incorporate the ‘reflective’ part of reflective practice have involved the embedding in assessment activities of different scaffolds for metacognitive reflection. Their innovative processes of embedding reflection in assessment have been guided by Dewey's and Schön's views of reflection, their own views of the teacher education process, and Brookfield's conception of ‘critical lenses’ which can be used as a scaffold to structure professional growth and development.     

Negative student emotions and educator skill in experiential education: a taxonomy of classroom activities

Higher Education - Experiential teaching practices can provide transformative learning opportunities for students. However, thus far the experiential education literature considers...     

Using quality rating scales for professional development: experiences from the UK

The ECERS‐R and ITERS‐R are among two of the most widely used observational measures for describing the characteristics of early childhood education and care. This paper describes a professional development programme currently taking place in seven regions across England, designed to train local government staff in the application of the scales as tools for improving practice. While the scales offer a transparent and measurable means of assessing and improving quality, a number of differences between criteria presented by the scales and by national regulations, curricular guidelines and notions of quality have been identified.     

Integrating technology in a field-based teacher training program: The PT3@ASU project

The Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) initiative has funded various efforts to improve and enhance the technology preparation of preservice teachers. At Arizona State University, these efforts have focused on providing preservice teachers with opportunities to develop, implement, and evaluate their own instructional activities that utilize technology effectively and appropriately in authentic situations, to give them the myriad of tools necessary to integrate technology into teaching and learning activities. This paper focuses on the integration of these efforts into the field-based elementary education program, and discusses our formative evaluation of the field-based technology integration model, through the following questions: What are the preliminary successes of the model with regard to student perceptions, attitudes, and integration of technology into instructional activities? and What components of the model require additions or modifications?     

Preservice Elementary Teachers' Knowledge of Observable Moon Phases and Pattern of Change in Phases

The purpose of this study was to describe selected content knowledge held by 52 preservice elementary teachers about the observable phases of the moon and the monthly pattern of change in observable phases. Data were obtained from participants in a physics course before and after they received inquiry-based instruction designed to promote intentional learning of the cause of moon phases and the observable pattern of change in moon phases. Results indicated that, prior to instruction, most preservice teachers had major deficiencies in knowledge of observable moon phases and the pattern of monthly change in the phases. Fortunately, participants who completed the instruction were likely to show evidence of having addressed the deficiencies.