The teacher educator’s role as enacted and experienced in school-based development

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on teacher educators’ role and how it was enacted and experienced by teachers and leaders in a school-based development project. The arena for the teachers’ professional development was the school, and teacher educators at one teacher-education institution and three schools took part in the research. Teacher educators, teachers and school leaders were interviewed two years and two months after they formally took part in the project, for one year in a pilot program and afterward for three semesters. The findings show that the teacher educators enacted their roles differently, and that they realise that they should have collaborated more and coordinated their experiences from collaborations with teachers and leaders to learn from their experiences in school. The leaders and teachers were satisfied with the teacher educators’ lectures, but the teachers wanted more dialogue with teacher educators and felt that teacher educators should have helped them transform their knowledge into teaching actions in practice. Teacher educators taking part as supporters in teachers’ practice truly could infiltrate instruction and learning. The study demonstrates that culture, structure and content need to be coordinated to enhance school-based development.     

Rethinking the Role of Information Technology-Based Research Tools in Students’ Development of Scientific Literacy

Given the central place IT-based research tools take in scientific research, the marginal role such tools currently play in science curricula is dissatisfying from the perspective of making students scientifically literate. To appropriately frame the role of IT-based research tools in science curricula, we propose a framework that is developed to understand the use of tools in human activity, namely cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT). Accordingly, IT-based research tools constitute central moments of scientific research activity and neither can be seen apart from its objectives, nor can it be considered apart from the cultural-historical determined forms of activity (praxis) in which human subjects participate. Based on empirical data involving students participating in research activity, we point out how an appropriate account of IT-based research tools involves subjects’ use of tools with respect to the objectives of research activity and the contribution to the praxis of research. We propose to reconceptualize the role of IT-based research tools as contributing to scientific literacy if students apply these tools with respect to the objectives of the research activity and contribute to praxis of research by evaluating and modifying the application of these tools. We conclude this paper by sketching the educational implications of this reconceptualized role of IT-based research tools.     

'Include me out': a response to John Wilson

Complex cultural and historical forces are often neglected when the development of inclusive education in international comparative research projects are discussed. The purpose of this study was to analyse teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education by examining the ways in which cultural-historical factors in South Africa and Finland may impact on teachers’ attitudes. Data collection methods included the analysis of education policy documents and other relevant documents in countries, an open-ended question on teachers’ own definition of inclusive education and the results of the initial study on teachers’ attitudes to and concerns about inclusive education. A sample of 310 South African and 833 Finnish primary and secondary education teachers in mainstream and special education settings took part. An analysis of the data within a cultural-historical framework indicated that each country’s historical commitment to inclusive education and its attendant legacies about diversity in education have clearly mediated teachers’ views in both countries. As a result, we have been able to develop a deeper understanding of the complex local conditions, and the similarities and differences across national contexts in which inclusive education is implemented that could benefit both countries.     

Learning theories and assessment methodologies – an engineering educational perspective

This paper attempts to critically review theories of learning from the perspective of engineering education in order to align relevant assessment methods with each respective learning theory, considering theoretical aspects and practical observations and reflections. The role of formative assessment, taxonomies, peer learning and educational policy as regards promoting the learning of engineering is discussed. It is suggested that an integrated learning method in which cognitive levels, social factors and teamwork and behaviouristic elements are integrated will optimise the learning process on an engineering course. Moreover, assessment of learning should not be isolated from views of teaching and the learning methods employed by the university teacher.     

What teachers do: facilitating the writing process with feedback from EssayCritic and collaborating peers

The study provides an insight into how technology may affect teachers’ facilitating of the writing process which was examined and compared when Norwegian upper secondary school students wrote essays about English as a global language through multiple drafts with feedback received from the computer-based essay-critiquing system (EssayCritic) (target class) and from collaborating peers (comparison class). Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the teachers’ assistance drew on Galperin’s conceptualisation of learning. Findings reveal patterns in the teachers’ guidance in both conditions and outline the differences arising from the use of EssayCritic: by interacting with EssayCritic the teacher assisted the learners in completing the specific task, although little attention was paid to the development of their assessment for learning (AfL) skills. However, in the comparison class the teacher paid attention to the development of students’ AfL skills by emphasising the general approach to the analysis and the essential requirements of the essays. The study, therefore, raises questions about the need for practitioners’ awareness of whether the technology supports the development of, for example, AfL skills required in English writing classes.     

‘We set up a small world’: preschool teachers’ involvement in children’s imaginative play

Grounded in Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory, this paper examines how often teachers are involved in children’s imaginative play and discusses their beliefs about their role in supporting children’s imaginative play. To investigate this problem, video (65 hours of digital observations) and interview data (two hours and 30 minutes) of 60 children with 7 teachers from two preschools in Australia were analysed. Using Vygotsky’s [1966. “Play and Its Role in the Mental Development of the Child.” Voprosy Psikhologii 12 (6): 62–76] cultural-historical concept of play, and Kravtsov and Kravtsova’s [2010. “Play in the L.S. Vygotsky’s Nonclassical Psychology.” Journal of Russian and East European Psychology 48 (4): 25–41] conception of ‘subject positioning’ (being inside and outside of the play), it was found that despite the general importance of play, teachers’ involvement in developing children’s imaginative play appears to be minimal. The interviews showed that teachers’ beliefs about their role in children’s imaginative play are directly related to the distance of their physical proximity and understanding of the play narrative being enacted. This paper argues that focusing on teachers’ involvement in children’s play is an important but under-researched dimension of play-based pedagogies in early childhood education.     

Examining tensions in the socioscientific issues classroom: Students' border crossings into a new culture of science

In the socioscientific issues (SSI) classroom, students need to cross the border between the subcultures of science (i.e., school science vs. everyday science). Traditional school contexts tend to present science as positivistic knowledge and unshakable truth unaffected by sociocultural factors. In contrast, everyday science, including SSI, is more nuanced, context-based, socially and culturally embedded. Thus, learning in an SSI classroom requires students to make additional efforts to successfully navigate between the subcultures of science. The expected norms located within these two educational contexts can create academic and sociocultural tensions for students. It is therefore necessary to explore the tensions caused these differential norms in order to successfully implement SSI. Through the lens of cultural-historical activity theory, we attempted to identify possible tensions that originate by implementing SSI instruction in a setting where teachers and students are accustomed to traditional lecture-based classroom instruction. One hundred thirty ninth graders at a public middle school located in Seoul, South Korea, participated in SSI programs on genetic modification technology during seven class periods over three to 4 weeks. Data was collected by classroom observation, audio-taping while students participated in various types of discourse, and semistructured interviews. We identified four noteworthy phenomena including intolerance of uncertainty, scientism, a sense of rivalry, and reaching an expedient and easy consensus. By revealing and understanding these tensions and phenomena, we aim to help inform teachers (and teacher educators) recognize instructional clues that can change not only students' epistemological views and attitudes toward science and science classes, but also better navigate the norms of classroom culture.     

The dream deferred: Why multicultural education fails to close the achievement gap. A cultural historical analysis

Abstract

The authors critically examine multicultural education and its failure to address the stark differences that characterize student achievement in North America in terms of a praxis that would bring equity in learning or other developmental outcomes. Arguing that dismantling proportional group based inequality depends on the systematic reform of structures and policies currently perpetuating the correlation between children's ethnocultural and economic history and their school achievement, we draw from a cultural historical theoretical framework to outline how the multiple and complex factors influencing underachievement might be better understood and, moreover, effectively counteracted in ways that begin to reverse the rates of school failure for U.S. ethnic minority students, in particular U.S. English learners.     

Activity features of high school students’ science learning in an open-inquiry-based internship programme

Science internships where students work with scientists have been suggested to have many positive impacts on students’ science learning. However, little research has been conducted to investigate the types of interactions that are beneficial for the development of science knowledge through an authentic internship experience. The purpose of this study was to illustrate the key features of dynamic interactions and activities involved in an open-inquiry-based internship programme for high school students. Drawing on cultural-historical activity theory, we aimed to describe the features of the internship activity system in terms of the moments of subject, object, tools, community, rules, division of labour, and outcome. Our analysis suggests that the activity system of the university internship has unique features that promote optimal science learning opportunities. The implications of these unique features are discussed and suggestions are made to improve K–12 science education.     

Researcher intersubjectivity: a methodology for jointly building an interactive electronic early childhood quality involvement/rating scale

Researching quality in early childhood settings has been operationalized in many ways, within and across countries. Nevertheless, despite some consensus on what might constitute a universally recognized view of what is considered essential for young children’s development, there are strong indicators that locally developed assessment tools are likely to give more contextually relevant results. Yet, little appears to be known about how to develop localized tools for assessing quality, especially in culturally diverse research contexts. Further, it would seem that not much is understood about the ways researchers and research participants have worked together to achieve reciprocal outcomes. In drawing upon cultural-historical theory, this paper goes beyond the traditional binary of an emic–etic perspective and instead describes a dialectical model for creating conditions for generating research intersubjectivity. An example of how researchers and participants worked together to develop an interactive e-quality rating scale in Vietnam is presented with the research exchange methods of Dialogue through the technology, Capturing moments of localized quality, Community walk, and Research selfies. These methods together acted to underpin the methodology that foregrounds what we have termed research intersubjectivity.