Preservice teachers perspectives and experiences teaching personal and social responsibility

ABSTRACT

Background: Pedagogical models have become an established component of physical education over the past several decades. One such model, the Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility model, has gained momentum in practice and research, though little is known regarding its use in preservice teacher training. The model follows a flexible format focused on teaching life skills (e.g. leadership) that can be applied in all lived ecologies. Occupational socialization theory provides insight into the pretraining and teacher education experiences of preservice teachers that shape their understanding and practice of physical education and associated pedagogical models.

Aims: The purpose of this study was to understand the influence of a sequence of methods courses and early field experiences on U.S. preservice teachers’ understanding and implementation of the teaching personal and social responsibility model with youth from a community affected by poverty.

Method: This study took on a phenomenological and social constructivist approach. Ten preservice teachers (9 males, 1 female) took part in the study. The participants were an average age of 22.10 years old (SD?=?4.38) and seven identified as White and three as Black. Each participant was enrolled in methods and early field experience coursework that provided scaffolded training in primary education in a community affected by poverty. Preservice teachers team-taught groups of 10–15 children twice a week along with one day committed to on-campus reflection. Data collection included autobiographical essays, critical incident reports, reflective journals, non-participatory observations and field notes, and semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed deductively through the lens of occupational socialization theory, and inductively as theory divergent trends were sought. Open and axial coding was completed with member checking throughout, resulting in a final set of themes and subthemes.

Findings: The preservice teachers initially struggled to connect with their students due to conflicting backgrounds, but the teaching personal and social responsibility model guided the relationship-building process. As the model was continuously utilized, more empathy and care were shown towards the children. Preservice teachers felt there was a lack of progression in positive behaviors but were able to empower youth and felt that the model was culturally relevant. Overtime, the students began to appreciate the affective domain despite the challenge of working in a community affected by poverty through frustration towards the larger system limiting any potential progress was present.

Conclusions: Subjective theories transitioned to include relationship building and life skills learning, likely because of the extended field experience and faculty support. The preservice teachers desire to connect with and teach the students well displays the connection between models-based practice and positive relationships. Preservice teachers’ knowledge of their students was limited as it was based on secondhand knowledge of youth, teacher educators, and school staff. Evidence indicates some cultural responsiveness development though there were also elements of a deficit model due to white privilege and class differences. Further work explicitly integrating a culturally relevant approach and social justice in teacher education programming should occur.     

Restorative Rhetoric and Social Media: An Examination of the Boston Marathon Bombing

This study analyzes Boston Mayor Thomas Menino’s rhetoric via Twitter following the Boston Marathon Bombing, exploring how a leader engaged in crisis communication using social media. Guided by restorative rhetoric, we examine how Menino included strategic communication (alleviate risk and restore public safety) and humanistic communication (focusing on the more substantive issues of crisis leadership) in his tweets. Our analysis is grounded in the five tenets of restorative rhetoric as a theoretical lens: initial reaction; assessment of the crisis; issues of blame; healing and forgiveness; and corrective action and rebuilding through a rhetorical vision. The findings demonstrate the utility of social media in aiding leaders as they provide critical information and guidance amid high uncertainty while also initiating the healing process, including fostering resilience.     

Affective Experiences of International and Home Students During the Information Search Process

An increasing number of students are studying abroad requiring that they interact with information in languages other than their mother tongue. The UK in particular has seen a large growth in international students within Higher Education. These nonnative English speaking students present a distinct user group for university information services, such as university libraries. This article presents the findings from an in-depth study to understand differences between the search processes of home and international students. Data were collected using an online survey and diary-interview to capture thoughts and feelings in a more naturalistic way. International students are found to have similar information search processes to those of home students, but sometimes face additional difficulties in assessing search results such as confusion when dealing with differing cultural perspectives. The potential implications for information service providers, particularly university libraries, are discussed, such as providing assistance to students for identifying appropriate English sources.     

Competencies and employer engagement

Using the UK experience as a template, this paper explores the concept of competencies as a viable bridge to employer engagement. In this context, the definition of competency coalesces into three primary interpretations (input, output and ‘behaviour’), leading to three applications: work related skill sets, standards and professionalism. These in turn, inform intersecting relationships — the link between employer skills needs and education (work-based learning), educational and workplace competency, and quality (accreditation of employer based training, and credit accumulation and transfer systems) and vocational competency (fit for practice, and fit for purpose). For each element, relevant models and indicative practice is presented. The paper concludes by offsetting competencies with employer engagement, and offers approaches (vignettes) to actively advance this critical agenda.     

Foreign Language Attainment of Children/Adolescents with Poor Literacy Skills: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Educational Psychology Review - This systematic review investigated how successful children/adolescents with poor literacy skills learn a foreign language compared with their peers with typical...     

How Science Teachers DiALoG Classrooms: Towards a Practical and Responsive Formative Assessment of Oral Argumentation

Journal of Science Education and Technology - We present lessons learned from an ongoing attempt to conceptualize, develop, and refine a way for teachers to gather formative assessment evidence...     

The Roles of Privacy and Trust in Children's Evaluations and Explanations of Digital Tracking

A “digital revolution” has introduced new privacy violations concerning access to information stored on electronic devices. The present two studies assessed how U.S. children ages 5–17 and adults (N = 416; 55% female; 67% white) evaluated those accessing digital information belonging to someone else, either location data (Study 1) or digital photos (Study 2). The trustworthiness of the tracker (Studies 1 and 2) and the privacy of the information (Study 2) were manipulated. At all ages, evaluations were more negative when the tracker was less trustworthy, and when information was private. However, younger children were substantially more positive overall about digital tracking than older participants. These results, yielding primarily medium-to-large effect sizes, suggest that with age, children increasingly appreciate digital privacy considerations.     

Becoming Teachers for Social Justice: Raising Critical Consciousness

This article shares processes and practices which foster students’ critical consciousness. Critical consciousness, the core of social justice teaching, is a heightened awareness of the world and the power structures that shape it. Teachers can become forces for equity and change by: challenging students to reflect critically on their beliefs and the sources of these beliefs; using text to guide students to look outwards and discover the perspectives and challenges of others; selecting texts purposefully to heighten student awareness of issues of power and equity; teaching students to read texts critically, listening carefully for the points of view of others often ignored or silenced; creating space for dialogue beyond text; and finally, making the world their classroom, blurring the boundary between schools and communities as students research the world and take steps toward change in ways that recognize and re-value our common humanity. Becoming teachers for social justice entails moving students through intentional processes and practices to foster critical consciousness in the hope of effecting change.     

Professional Conversations and Professional Growth

A professional development program for 18 teachers was conducted over a two-year period. The participating teachers taught in intermediate schools (students aged 11–13) and secondary schools. The teachers worked collaboratively to improve their mathematics teaching, with encouragement to reflect on their practice but with minimal instruction from the researchers. Results, as defined by change in teaching practices, beliefs, and reflections, and student achievement, indicated that the collaborative program was particularly useful for experienced secondary school teachers but less useful for intermediate school teachers. We concluded that this type of professional development was most useful for teachers who had sufficient knowledge of mathematics; these teachers were able to focus on pedagogy and to draw connections between aspects of the mathematics they taught, without recourse to a specialist's advice. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.