Education Commons^™

Tuning Into Podcasts: Collaborative Research Into The Value Adding Nature Of Podcasts In Teacher Education, Maria T. Northcote, Linda Marshall, Eva Dobozy, Paul Swan, Paula Mildenhall

Maria Northcote

Digital pedagogy has become an increasingly viable, popular and effective component of higher education teaching and learning at Edith Cowan University and elsewhere. Components of digital pedagogy are diverse with new examples, such as podcasts, regularly being created, released for use and adopted in educational, recreational and business contexts. Consequently, university students use much of this technology both in their employment and recreational lives. This study explored processes of using and developing the students’ existing technological skills within their university studies. This paper documents the processes and findings of a collaborative research project that was implemented across six units of …

Threshold Concepts And Attitudes In Mathematics Education: Listening To Students' Past, Present And Projected Stories, Maria T. Northcote

Maria Northcote

The process of becoming a skilled and confident mathematics teacher can be strongly influenced by the teacher's attitudes to both mathematics and mathematics teaching. Investigations into the attitudes of pre-service teachers have shown that teachers' attitudes directly influence their teaching practices and, subsequently, their students' learning experiences. Teachers' understanding of mathematical content and concepts also impact on the quality of teaching. Hence, the identification of threshold concepts and attitudes associated with teaching mathematics can be beneficial to pre-service teachers and their students. By understanding the concepts associated with teaching mathematics to young children, pre-service teachers come to transcend their lack …

Teaching With Technology: Up, Up And Away With Parachutes In Primary Mathematics, Maria T. Northcote

Maria Northcote

In a teacher education institution just north of Sydney, a lecturer asked her students about their most vivid memories of learning about mathematics in their primary school years. By far, the most easily recalled positive experiences of mathematics involved some form of physical activity or the use of hands-on resources:

One day the teacher organised for us to have a pizza party. The pizzas were divided into even pieces and we learned about fractions.

I loved the way my teacher got us to use the things she found around her house in the classroom - . She'd bring them into …

Pre-Service Teachers' Reflections On Critical Incidents In Their Professional Teaching Experiences, Peter W. Kilgour, Maria T. Northcote, Wendi Herman

Maria Northcote

Pre-service teachers typically engage in a series of professional development experiences throughout their teacher education courses. These periods of learning enable them to develop as reflective practitioners under the mentorship of experienced school teachers. After these periods of intense learning, sometimes characterised by pedagogic epiphanies, they frequently report extreme experiences of success or failure which influence perceptions of their future teaching career. This study aimed to capture final year pre-service teachers' reflections of critical incidents in their past professional experience by especially focusing on their worst lesson experience. The qualitative research approach incorporated elements of critical incident research design from …

Engaging In Deep Cultural Learning Through The Intersection Of Multiple Contexts, Maria T. Northcote, Peter W. Kilgour, Daniel Reynaud, Phil Fitzsimmons

Maria Northcote

The type of learning that takes place in teacher education courses typically results in pre-service teachers developing a mixture of knowledge, skills and values that enable them to become effective teachers in schools in the future. During their journey to become qualified teachers, pre-service teachers typically engage in coursework and experiential-based learning.

By engaging in coursework experiences, an overseas practicum and an overseas study tour, students experienced a range of reflection-promoting activities and contexts during which they broadened and deepened their understanding of cultures other than their own.

Using a cross-case analysis approach, the data gathered in these three cases …