Teacher praxis in the generation of students' questions in primary science

This thesis examined the praxis of a group of highly regarded primary teachers who encouraged their students to generate, clarify and use investigable questions in science. The findings revealed the importance of a teacher's beliefs, understanding of the nature of questioning, and pedagogical reasoning about teaching and learning in science.

S(t)imulating learning : pedagogy, subjectivity and teacher education in online environments

Australian higher education increasingly relies on flexible modes of delivery as a means of attracting and retaining students in a highly competitive global education market. While education is among those disciplines that have been most actively involved in the shift from face-to-face to online learning and teaching, the transition for many teacher educators is fraught with tensions and contradictions. For some, teaching online is seen as primarily a cost-cutting exercise on the part of universities, and has little to do with improving the quality of student learning. For others, the online environment offers multiple pedagogic possibilities that have yet to be fully explored. Yet others consider online environments as problematic, posing challenges to pedagogic and peer relationships that are generally seen as integral to 'good' teaching. This paper draws on an empirical study of teacher education faculties in five Australian universities, and analyses excerpts from interviews about learning and teaching with teacher educators, educational designers and faculty management. We argue that understanding how teacher educators constitute learner and teacher subjectivities through their beliefs about and approaches to pedagogy is crucial to the future of online tertiary education. In particular, we consider how teacher educators' attitudes toward and approaches to online learning and teaching are predicated on their perceived subject positions as either 'stimulating' or 'simulating' particular kinds of learning interactions.

Music teaching is more than telling : attitudes and beliefs of Australian pre-service teachers

Pre-service teachers’ views are often confronted at tertiary level in regards to theories of teaching and learning which can through discussion and reflection change their perceptions and their understanding of classroom practice. Tertiary educators are challenged to develop positive attitudes and beliefs about education to their pre-service students if music education is to be valued in all educational settings. Drawing on educational perspectives on teaching, this article investigates the myriad of influences that shape pre-service teachers’ attitudes and beliefs about music teaching and learning. Between 2005-2009 final year music teacher education students from Deakin University and Monash University (Melbourne, Australia) participated in a research project entitled Intercultural attitudes of pre-service music education students. This article draws on the 2008 cohort interpersonal and affective attributes regarding what they thought makes a good teacher and how they would see themselves as future music teachers. Whilst the findings provide important insights into Australian pre-service teachers they also hold similar significance for teacher education in general. I contend that continued research with our students can only help us as tertiary educators to prepare our students to be effective teachers.

Digital oral feedback written assignments as professional learning for teacher educators : a collaborative self-study.

Allan Luke (2008) uses a “pedagogical economy where literacy education is taken as a cultural gift”. This paper reports on the digital oral feedback provided to pre-service teachers in a literacy unit and explores the pedagogical gift this feedback is to the teacher educators marking this work. Rather than mark their written work as individual lecturers, we collaboratively read the assignment and recorded the sound file of the conversation around each assignment. We then participated in another conversation with a critical friend, which enabled us to explore the impact of this form of assessment on our professional identities as teacher educators. We found these conversations provided a rich context for our professional learning about ourselves as teacher educators, as well as specific content knowledge we both brought to the teaching of this unit. We found we were working as a team to provide more in-depth feedback of the assessment criteria for each assignment than we did with written feedback. Through this dialogical feedback we were able to construct the pre-service teachers' assignments as an important textual gift in our collaborative professional learning about assessment, and in exploring our beliefs and practices as teacher educators.

Telling stories: my work as a literacy intervention teacher

This text is a “narrative inquiry” (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000) in which the author presents an account of her experiences as an English teacher working in an Australian public secondary school. The author explores the ways in which her beliefs as an English teacher conflicted with her role as a Literacy Co-ordinator/teacher and how — even though she may have consciously questioned and resisted performing certain ideological work, such as administering standardised tests and sorting students into remedial groups — there was still a sense in which government policies mediated her professional practice, transforming it into something with which she remained deeply at odds. The author's aim was not just to provide an empirical account of how students and teachers experienced these literacy initiatives, but to capture the dominant ideology that is shaping education at the current moment. This is done by examining the Victorian government school publication, Education Times, specifically to demonstrate how the rhetoric of this official publication shaped the author's professional practices and knowledge as an English teacher. Through this narrative the author interrogates taken-for-granted understandings about what counts as “knowledge” in an age of increasing accountability.

How school and university supervising staff perceive the pre-service teacher education practicum: A comparative study

This paper reports on research conducted in two Australian universities to evaluate factors that are perceived to significantly impact on the professional experiences of pre-service teachers during practicum. Contextualised within teacher education programs in an urban university in Tasmania and a regional university in Queensland, the particular focus of this paper is the beliefs and experiences of school and university supervising staff members regarding the efficacy of the practicum in enabling students to integrate into practice the knowledge and skills they have acquired in their university coursework. Findings generated from the comparative analysis of both mixed methods studies revealed some differences but predominantly a number of similarities between the perceptions of the two samples of school practitioners and university staff members towards practicum. Three key findings are presented and discussed in this paper.

School practitioners’ perceptions of the pre-service teacher education practicum: a comparative study

The importance of strong school-university partnerships in bridging the so-called theory- practice gap in pre-service teacher education has been well established in the literature. The experiences of pre-service teachers during practicum have in particular been shown to be enhanced where there are strong links between the two educational sectors. This paper draws from research conducted in two diverse Australian pre-service teacher education programs to evaluate factors that are perceived to profoundly impact on the professional experiences of pre-service teachers during practicum. The particular focus of this paper is the beliefs and experiences of school practitioners and university staff members regarding the efficacy of the practicum in enabling students to enact theory in practice. A mixed methods approach was adopted for both studies, one of which was located in an urban university in Tasmania, the other in a regional university in Queensland. Findings generated from the comparative study of both programs revealed some differences but predominantly a number of similarities between the perceptions of the two samples of school practitioners and university staff members towards practicum. Three key findings are presented and discussed in this paper.

Towards understanding epistemological assumptions of history teacher educators: my experience with phenomenological enquiry

This paper draws upon the methodological aspect of my thesis project completed in June 2007. At the center of the research problem was the question: How do history teacher educators (HTEs) in Bahir Dar University comprehend the sources and nature of historical knowledge? Phenomenological approach to research was employed in an attempt to explicate invariant structures of their epistemic assumptions of history as a school subject. Accordingly, with six purposefully selected educators as research participants, in the two-month time field work, in- depth interview and essay questions for personal text were used to gather qualitative data. Then, the data were analyzed thematically using an adapted six-phase model and interpretive themes emerged as findings of the study. And it was learnt that the educators have a very muddled conception and unquestioned assumptions on the nature and sources of historical knowledge. With this, also phenomenological enquiry, with difficulties and rewards of its own, was found to be an appropriate strategy to understand personal meaning and beliefs of the educator with regard to disciplinary knowledge of history. The paper, therefore, describes the way I employed phenomenological research approach to understand the case, and presents my personal experience of it as a beginner education researcher.

On-line collaborative learning for in-service teacher education

This article brings some of the results of a study that analyzes a hybrid course for in-service teachers in the Project Teletandem Brazil: foreign languages for all. In this project, Brazilian teachers of Spanish as a foreign language took part in a blended tandem learning course, communicating via videoconferencing with Uruguayan teachers of Portuguese as a foreign language. The aim of the study was to verify Brazilian teachers' concepts and beliefs concerning language and culture and how the teletandem interactions affected them. After the interactions, teachers' views of culture seemed to also incorporate aspects of culture as an interpersonal process, instead of the factual and static view which was previously predominant. Therefore teacher education programs must consider the possibility of conjugating theory and reflective practice through the use of videoconference tools in order to allow teachers to experience culture rather learn facts about it. © 2011 ACADEMY PUBLISHER.

The Caring Teacher: A Multiple Case Study That Looks at What Teachers Do and Believe about Their Work With At-Risk Students

Caring teachers have been identified as a critical component of successful interventions with at-risk students, however just what constitutes a caring teacher is less well understood. Specifically, what are the behaviors, characteristics, and beliefs of caring teachers, and how are they impacted by the contexts within which they work? The purpose of this multiple case study was to understand more about caring teachers who work with at-risk students in secondary schools located in a Midwestern city and thereby to add complexity to the literature. Two middle school teachers and two high school teachers were recruited to participate. They were observed on multiple occasions and interviewed twice. The data from these observations and interviews were initially analyzed case by case; the cross case analysis based on the results from the individual case resulted in 6 themes that were present across the four cases. The following themes were identified: the role of relationships, perspective on at-risk students, providing opportunities for students to develop a positive sense of themselves, the value of a positive classroom experience for both students and teacher, negotiating power, and flexibility. Implications of this research for psychologists, educators, and policy makers, as well as future research are also discussed.

Teacher emotions in the classroom: Associations with students’ engagement, classroom discipline and the interpersonal teacher-student relationship

The present study explores teacher emotions, in particular how they are predicted by students’ behaviour and the interpersonal aspect of the teacher-student relationship (TSR). One hundred thirty-two secondary teachers participated in a quantitative study relying on self-report questionnaire data. Based on the model of teacher emotions by Frenzel (2014), teachers rated their experienced joy, anger and anxiety during classroom instruction (dependent variable). Students’ motivational behaviour (= engagement), socio-emotional behaviour (= discipline in class) and relational behaviour (= closeness; interpersonal TSR) were assessed as the independent variables. Teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs served as a control variable. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that the interpersonal relationship formed between teachers and students was the strongest predictor for teachers’ joy (positive relation) and anxiety (negative relation), whereas lack of discipline in class best predicted teachers’ anger experiences. Students’ engagement also proved a significant predictor of teacher emotions. The results suggest that interpersonal TSR plays a particularly important role in teachers’ emotional experiences in class.

Preservice Teacher Preparation in Meeting the Needs of Gifted and Other Academically Diverse Students

The issue of how to respond to the diverse academic needs of students is one of the central challenges of teaching. This project studied how preservice teachers develop an awareness of the needs of academically diverse learners and how they intend to implement and/or modify instruction to meet those needs. Participants all came from one university. As part of the design of the study, the participants were surveyed to investigate (a) their attitudes and beliefs towards academically diverse learners; (b) the teaching practices they would utilize in response to academic diversity in their classrooms; and (c) the confidence they have in their abilities to identify and address these various needs in their classrooms. Several strategies including activities to enhance creativity, cooperative learning, individual instruction, problem-solving activities, and projects were considered noteworthy for the ratings by the preservice teachers as appropriate for all students. Small differences were found based on the preservice teachers' year of placement in the School of Education, indicating that as students progress through this program, they may learn more about different techniques and when and for whom they are appropriate; however, differences across groups were not statistically significant. Results also indicated that across the different years in the program, preservice teachers did not have very high or very low confidence in addressing these issues in their own classrooms. Each grouping fell around the middle level of confidence.

Don’t Let Me Down: An Autoethnography of an Urban Teacher

Students in urban schools who are negatively impacted need stability and continuity the most. However, at least half of new teachers leave their profession within five years. In order for this situation to change, support is needed for new teachers and encouragement is needed for experienced teachers. The purpose of the study is to offer a first-hand description of factors that affect the profession of teaching and especially teachers who may be wondering how to stay in teaching for more than five years. Veteran teachers gain the opportunity to reflect, validate, and (probably) celebrate their own journey through this profession. This autoethnography uses my experience of a 29-year veteran teacher, who started with an alternative teaching license, to mirror what researchers have identified as key factors for sustainability and how they affected my continued commitment to teaching in urban schools. The following questions framed the study: 1. Why did I choose teaching as a career? 2. What supportive factors contributed to my decision to continue teaching in an urban school rather than leave the profession? 3. What internal and external struggles have I encountered in teaching and what strategies did I use to overcome them? 4. What beliefs and experiences led to my steadfast commitment to teaching in an urban setting? 5. How do I define success as an urban teacher? 6. What are the implications of my story for urban education? This autoethnography involves data collection and in-depth analysis of documents and artifacts that were generated during my teaching career as an urban educator. These documents and artifacts come from both internal and external sources. The study’s implications reach beyond teachers and include two sub-groups: teacher education programs and school administrators. The implication for teachers is the importance of a two-fold support system in order to thrive: first teachers need spiritual support and second they need to surround themselves with likeminded teachers. The implications for teacher education programs include making pre-service teachers aware of the realities of urban settings and provide them with resources, which could help overcome the attrition rate. Additionally, pre-service teachers need to know how to form credible relationships with their students. This study also reveals the important role that school principals play in the success of their teachers. First, principals are responsible for creating a positive school climate that promotes a professional learning community. Second, they need to establish relational trust in their building. Third, they need to nourish their staff both physically and emotionally. Finally, the implications of autoethnography for teachers and researchers are also discussed.

Beliefs, practices, and interactions of teachers in a Japanese high school English department

This study reveals the school culture and the teachers' professional development activities in a Japanese high school learning environment. Furthermore, it documents the relationships among the context, teachers' beliefs, practices, and interactions. Using multiple data sources including interviews, observations, and documents of teachers from an English department, this yearlong study revealed these English as a Foreign Language teachers lacked many teacher learning opportunities in their context. The study revealed that teacher collaboration only reinforced existing practices, eroding teachers' motivation to learn to teach in this specific context. The study provides evidence to teacher educators about inservice teachers and their learning environment and the significance of the relationships between the two entities. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.