Section archive - Instruction in Teacher Training
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Within a sociocultural framework, we use situated learning theory to explore the use of a coteaching approach during student teaching. Coteaching is a model for learning to teach where clinical educators and teacher candidates teach alongside one another and share responsibility for pupil learning. Teacher education programs have adopted this model for student teaching because there is evidence that coteaching supports pupil learning and coteacher learning. This study of coteaching in three teacher education programs, within the same university, examined opportunities afforded for teacher candidates’ development of growth competence, adaptive teaching expertise, and collaborative expertise. Data analysis from the nested, cross-case qualitative study enabled us to examine opportunities for candidate learning afforded by coteaching during student teaching, posit recommendations on using coteaching, explain the necessary conditions, and discuss the model’s current limitations.
Updated: Feb. 13, 2020
This report introduces a way of engaging preservice teachers in experiential learning activities to enrich their pedagogical content knowledge and skills. The framework suggested can be applied to instruction in a wide range of disciplines in different contexts. It calls on teacher educators to work on similar experiential learning initiatives to equip novice teachers with the necessary pedagogies and competence for their future careers.
Updated: Jan. 13, 2020
A tribute to ‘unsung teachers’: teachers’ influences on students enrolling in STEM programs with the intent of entering STEM careers
This narrative inquiry examines teachers’ influences on undergraduate and graduate students who enrolled in STEM programs and intended to enter STEM careers. Three National Science Foundation (NSF) scholarship grants sat in the backdrop. Narrative exemplars were crafted using the interpretative tools of broadening, burrowing, storying and restorying, fictionalisation and serial interpretation. Three diverse students’ narratives constituted the science education cases: one from teacher education, another arising from cyber technology and a third involving cyber security. The influence of the university students’ former teachers cohered around five themes: 1) same program-different narratives, 2) in loco parentis, 3) counter stories, 4) learning in small moments, and 5) the importance of the liberal arts in STEM education. The students’ narratives form instructive models for their siblings and other students pursuing STEM degrees and careers. Most importantly, the multiperspectival stories of experiences capture the far-reaching impact of ‘unsung teachers’ whose long-term influence is greatly underestimated by the public.
Updated: Dec. 12, 2019
Construction of educational knowledge with the Mapuche community through dialogical-kishu kimkelay ta che research
This paper reports the development of a Mapuche education programme in the context of indigenous demands and claims in relation to education, specifically the Bafkehce Mapuche community who live in the Araucanía Region of Chile. The central objective defined was to systematise, jointly with the indigenous community, the components defined as educational knowledge in order to generate a Mapuche education. The study was approached using the dialogical-kishu kimkelay ta che methodology, developed jointly with a Maci (responsible for ceremonies), two Kimches (sages), a Gütancefe (bone-setter), Mapuche teachers, and undergraduate teaching students and academics. The results show epistemic and gnoseological categories which differ from the westernised Chilean categories of education, thus allowing a Mapuche education programme to be generated in order to establish a dialogue between educational knowledge in the indigenous context and in the Chilean western context.
Updated: Dec. 04, 2019
“Learning the Ropes”: Pre-service Arts Teachers Navigating the Extracurricular Terrain Extracurricular Terrain
This article presents findings from a study into the value of a pre-service teacher production as a form of professional development, from both the technical and personal development perspectives. Thirty pre-service secondary Arts teachers participated in the production. Through focus-group interviews, participants indicated the benefits of building technical understanding as well as personal benefits of engaging in an ensemble experience. All spoke of the potential transferability of what they learned to their future teaching practice. Given that Arts teachers are expected to facilitate extracurricular activities as part of their professional work, this article advocates the importance of examining ways in which rich experiences such as the production examined here should be formally embedded into pre-service teacher training courses.
Updated: Nov. 18, 2019
This paper explores the benefits of coteaching a philosophy and ethics subject for final year Australian primary preservice education students. It depicts the learning experiences of two early career academics, who were the coresearchers and coauthors of this article. A third author acted as a critical friend who facilitated reflective discussion around their coteaching practices. The coteachers adopt the living theory methodology to investigate collaborative coteaching as an effective model of instruction in higher education through a case study of their own practice. The primary data sources include both coteachers’ weekly journals, an interview discussion with a critical friend, informal conversations and student surveys. The main themes emerging from the data include: the evolution of the coteaching relationship, practitioner learning and the viability of coteaching as an effective pedagogical tool. The findings illustrate the potential benefits of collaborative coteaching, particularly within the teacher education field.
Updated: Nov. 17, 2019
A Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) approach to pre-service teacher professional experiences in Australia: organisational friendships
This study explored how students (pre-service teachers) benefit from the support of having a peer with them during their first professional experience in preschool contexts, utilising a PAL (Peer Assisted Learning) approach. International students at a large Australian University were interviewed as part of this qualitative study. The authors found that peer engagement facilitated the development of friendships and social support among participants. This study extends conceptions of organisational friendships beyond managerial imperatives and peer relationships are highlighted as supportive, not competitive, engagements. The PAL approach highlights the benefit of collaborative professional learning.
Updated: Oct. 07, 2019
The author studies the implementation of a Massive Open Online (MOOC) initiative which involved two distinct teacher education institutions at higher education institutions (HEIs), and where the implementation was led by a governmental body. Her aim was to see in what ways this initiative changed the teacher education involved, in terms of institutional organisation and pedagogics. Based on interviews with stakeholders from the government and from the two HEIs, she found that the process of implementing and piloting the MOOC faced various sorts of resistance. Her study might serve as a contribution to researchers and practitioners involved in development and running MOOCs as cross institutional initiatives, in that it addresses the diversity of challenges new study models are facing within HEIs.
Updated: Sep. 12, 2019
A comparison of student teacher learning from practice in university-affiliated schools in Helsinki and Johannesburg
In a comparative study of student teachers in Finland and South Africa, the researchers aimed to capture students’ views of how and what they had learned from practice in two university-affiliated primary schools. With data from survey questionnaires, the authors found that students in the two customized programmes accentuated different domains of teacher knowledge. The newly established teaching practice school in Johannesburg afforded closer integration of university and school practicum experiences for students than the well-established school in Helsinki. The authors conclude that an innovative teacher education model can be re-invented in a significantly different context and also add new dimensions to the original.
Updated: Sep. 12, 2019
Organizing physics teacher professional education around productive habit development: A way to meet reform challenges
In this paper, the authors argue that the link between intentional decision making and actual teaching practice are teacher’s habits (spontaneous responses to situational cues). Teachers unavoidably develop habits with practical experience and under the influence of knowledge and belief structures that in many ways condition the responses of teachers in their practical work. To steer new teachers away from developing unproductive habits directed towards “survival” instead of student learning, the authors propose that teacher preparation programs (e.g., in physics) strive to develop in preservice teachers strong habits of mind and practice that will serve as an underlying support structure for beginning teachers. They provide examples of physics teacher habits that are to be developed during the program, propose mechanisms for the development of such habits, and outline possible future research agendas around habits.
Updated: Sep. 12, 2019