Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

Storying Our Journey: Conversations About The Literary Canon And Course Development In Secondary English Education., Elsie L. Olan, Kia Jane Richmond

Journal Articles

Olan and Richmond present preservice English teachers’ stories about having little experience with canonical texts they are asked to teach in their field experiences.

From Swan To Ugly Duckling? Mentoring Dynamics And Preservice Teachers’ Readiness To Teach, Mahsa Izadinia

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This study focuses on two preservice teachers who experienced significantly different mentoring relationships in their two placements during a one-year teaching degree in a university in Western Australia. Data were collected through three rounds of semi-structured interviews, reflective journals and classroom observations. The findings indicated that mentor teachers’ mentoring styles considerably informed the preservice teachers’ perceptions of themselves as teachers and facilitated or inhibited their professional development. Implications for practice include teacher education programs invest more time and rigour in selecting and preparing mentors for their crucial role.

The Role Of Teachers In Identifying And Supporting Homeless Secondary School Students: Important Lessons For Teacher Education, Monica Thielking, Louise La Sala, Paul Flatau

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Young people entering homelessness often do so while still at school. This study explores Australian teachers’ and other student support staff perspectives of the experiences of students who are running away from home, the barriers to student help-seeking, and how local youth services can best support secondary schools to provide necessary services to keep students at school and at home or in some other form of safe and secure accommodation. The study revealed that although teachers and student support staff report awareness that student couch surfing exists; there are a range of barriers which prevent a student from seeking help. …

The Complexity Of Practicum Assessment In Teacher Education: An Examination Of Four New Zealand Case Studies., Karyn M. Aspden

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Practicum is a key element of initial teacher education (ITE) programmes, designed to support the professional growth of student teachers. Practicum is also a key point of assessment, leading to a determination of the student’s professional growth and their readiness to teach and enter the teaching profession. This study sought to understand the way in which the assessment of practicum was enacted and experienced within New Zealand early childhood ITE programmes. Case study methodology was used to explore the experiences of practicum triads from four participating institutions. Data included recordings of triadic assessment meetings, post-assessment interviews with the student teachers, …

How Well Prepared Are Australian Preservice Teachers To Teach Early Reading Skills?, Linda J. Meeks, Coral R. Kemp

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Preservice early childhood and primary teachers from teacher preparation institutions across five Australian states were surveyed regarding their perceptions of preparedness and ability to teach early reading and spelling skills, as well as their knowledge of components of early reading, such as phonemic awareness, alphabet knowledge and early spelling patterns. Surveys were conducted in the final year of the teacher training courses and targeted students attending teacher education institutions providing teacher training in the area of early literacy. Although preservice teachers generally rated themselves as prepared to teach early reading, most demonstrated minimal to very poor knowledge of the components …

Validation Of The Malaysian Version Of The Teacher Education Program Coherence Questionnaire, Pauline Swee Choo Goh, Qismullah Yusuf

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The main purpose of this study was to validate a Malay Language version of a 30-item teacher education program coherence questionnaire. Two different samples of preservice teachers completed the Malay translation of the questionnaire. Exploratory factor analysis (N=220) showed four types of perceived program coherence which had good internal consistency ranging from 0.79 to 0.86: ‘Opportunity to enact practice’, ‘Opportunity to analyze practice’, ‘Opportunity to connect ideas across courses’ and ‘Coherence between courses and practical experience’. The confirmatory factor analysis (N= 234) provided support for a four-factor model. In addition, an analysis of criterion validity of the four types of …

Active Learning And Self-Regulation Enhance Student Teachers’ Professional Competences, Päivi Virtanen, Hannele M. Niemi, Anne Nevgi

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The study identifies the relationships between active learning, student teachers’ self-regulated learning and professional competences. Further, the aim is to investigate how active learning promotes professional competences of student teachers with different self-regulation profiles. Responses from 422 student teachers to an electronic survey were analysed using statistical methods. It was found that the use of active learning methods, such as goal-oriented and intentional learning as well as autonomous and responsible group work, are strongly and positively related to the achievement of professional competences. To develop the best competences, student teachers need high learning motivation and excellent self-regulation strategies. The mean …

Illness As Teacher: Learning From Illness, Joanne Yoo

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This article is a conceptual exploration into the value of illness, bodies and embodied practice in teacher education. It draws on my reflections and practitioner accounts of poor health to investigate the potential to learn from illness. I position myself in this discussion as a non-tenured academic who experiences the challenges of her uncertain work environment through her body. I examine the functionalist approaches that devalues the body and explain how the disruptions triggered by illness can enable individuals to create more authentic professional narratives. This paper explores the author’s growing awareness of illness, its impact and learning opportunities. Finally, …

Pre-Service Teachers’ Reflections: The Influence Of School 1:1 Laptop Programs On Their Developing Teaching Practice., Susan Blackley, Rebecca Walker

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Throughout Australia, many government and non-government schools have implemented a one-laptop-per-student (1:1) policy. Whilst there was initial interest in the implementation of these programs, little has been done to track the uptake of digital learning technologies afforded by access to the laptops. This study examined pre-service teachers’ reflections on their experiences with 1:1 laptop programs in their secondary schooling. The lens for this reflection was their consideration of their aspirational teaching practice. Qualitative data were collected from two successive cohorts (2014 and 2015) of the first year of a Bachelor of Education course. The objectives of the research presented in …

School Leaders’ Perspectives On Educating Teachers To Work In Vulnerable Communities: New Insights From The Coal Face, Lynette Longaretti, Dianne Toe

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Classroom teacher quality can significantly impact student learning outcomes. Increased access to skilled teachers in low socioeconomic status (SES) schools could substantially improve the learning outcomes and engagement levels of young people.

The National Exceptional Teaching for Disadvantaged Schools (NETDS) programme is a university based Teacher Education programme that has been implemented by Deakin University in the Geelong/Werribee area. It seeks to prepare high achieving pre-service teachers (PSTs) to teach in low SES school settings.

This project investigated the views of school leadership teams in low SES schools including their views of an exemplary teacher, and the understandings and skills …

Becoming Exceptional: Exploring Selves And Assemblages In The National Exceptional Teaching In Disadvantaged Schools Program, Jo Ailwood, Margot Ford

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This paper explores the work of ‘becoming exceptional’ amongst a group of preservice teachers taking part in the National Exceptional Teaching for Disadvantaged Schools program (NETDS). The NETDS program is directed towards mentoring and supporting outstanding preservice teachers to transition into the schools where they can make a significant difference. For us, as teacher educators leading the teaching of our University’s NETDS program, the most important questions became ones of self and transformation for the participating preservice teachers. To begin these explorations we make use of concepts provided by Deleuze and Guattari, and expanded upon by Braidotti; the …

Thinking With/Through The Contradictions Of Social Justice In Teacher Education: Self-Reflection On Netds Experience, Keita Takayama, Tiffany Jones, Rose Amazan

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Improving teacher quality has become the hallmark of Australian education reform with a plethora of measures introduced in teacher education to improve future teachers’ instructional competencies. This policy focus has also changed the discussion of strategies for addressing disadvantages in schools; improving teacher quality, as opposed to addressing structural inequalities in the system and larger society, has become the “solution.” This paper looks at the National Exceptional Teaching for Disadvantaged Schools (NETDS), which aims to channel high performing teacher education students to disadvantaged schools. Using the taxonomy of conservative, liberal and critical approaches to education reform, the …

Any Time, Any Place, Flexible Pace: Technology-Enhanced Language Learning In A Teacher Education Programme, Jocelyn M. Howard, Adèle Scott

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Ongoing developments in e-learning, improved internet accessibility and increased digital citizenry provide exciting opportunities to integrate effective classroom pedagogies with online educational technologies, creating mixed-mode courses to enhance student engagement and facilitate greater autonomous learning. This research examines pre-service teacher education students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of experiential and digitally-mediated tools which take them beyond the constraints of traditional lecture-type delivery. Quantitative and qualitative results from distance and face-to-face cohorts show the value the students ascribe to tools employed in a modified language course. These are discussed in relation to reported changes in students’ proficiency in the target language and …

Perceived Social-Ecological Barriers Of Generalist Pre-Service Teachers Towards Teaching Physical Education: Findings From The Get-Pe Study, Brendon P. Hyndman

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Identifying and understanding the perceptions of pre-service teachers (PSTs) is vital to informing teaching practices. The purpose of the ‘Generalist Entry into Teaching Physical Education’ (GET-PE) study was to investigate Australian generalist PSTs' perceptions of the barriers to teaching physical education (PE) classes. A social-ecological model framework (SEM) was uniquely applied as the conceptual framework for the GET-PE study to analyse, explore and understand the multiple levels of barriers perceived by the generalist PSTs. A myriad of SEM level barriers were perceived by the generalist PSTs (n=71) at the intrapersonal level (knowledge gaps, physical abilities, reduced confidence), interpersonal level (community …

An Investigation Into The Self-Efficacy Of Jamaican Preservice Teachers For Working In Inclusive Classrooms, Sharon A. Anderson Morgan

Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this applied dissertation was to examine changes in the self-efficacy of preservice teachers on completion of a special needs course and to determine whether there is a correlation between self-efficacy and several demographic variables. Studies conducted in several countries revealed that, despite participation in a special needs course, preservice teachers often expressed low levels of confidence for the inclusion of students with special needs in their general education classrooms. Because there is not much research in the Caribbean on this subject, this study sought to further explore this issue within a different cultural context. The case study, …

Evaluating The Attitudes Of Preservice Teachers Toward Multicultural Competence, Angela D. Marshall

Theses and Dissertations

Changes in the ethnicity of the student population across the nation necessitated a change in teacher education curricula. This explanatory, sequential, mixed-method study examined how a group of preservice teachers viewed the importance of multicultural competence before and after student teaching. Specifically, an evaluation of preservice teachers’ attitudes about their own multicultural preparedness was made prior to and after being given full responsibility for an ethnically diverse classroom.

The study employed quantitative and qualitative measures to assess preservice teachers’ levels of multicultural competence as well as their awareness of self-perceptions of multicultural competence that contribute to attitudes toward teaching an …

How Master Teachers Conceptualize Student Engagement: A Comparison Of Theoretical And Practitioner Perspectives, Andrew D. Baker

Theses and Dissertations

Over the past twenty years, an increasing amount of research has been devoted to the study of student engagement within the field of educational psychology. This led to a growing body of research touting the benefits of engaged learning—from increased student achievement to more positive school experiences for learners. However, the literature is characterized by competing theoretical frameworks and multiple definitions of the construct of student engagement. Additionally, few works seek to capitalized on the expertise of classroom teachers to hone and develop what is known about engagement from the theoretical perspective.

The current study used qualitative methodology to observe …

Making A Case For Case-Based Teaching In Data Literacy, Derek R. Riddle, Jori Beck, Joseph John Morgan, Nancy Brown, Heather Whitesides

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

Building on a study conducted by the authors, this article provides strategies for teaching data literacy and outlines the case-based teaching method as an effective way of developing data-literate teachers.

Shifting Pedagogy For Adolescent Refugees With Limited Or Interrupted Formal Education: A Case Study Of The Professional Experiences Of A Secondary English Literacy Development Teacher, Stephanie Ledger

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In recent years, there has been a large influx of refugees into settlement countries worldwide. In Canada, this displaced population includes many adolescent students of limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE). Consequently, secondary school teachers are challenged to meet the print literacy needs of SLIFE within traditional ESL instructional settings.

The literature reveals an urgent desire and need for the use of early literacy instructional practices to address the print literacy needs of SLIFE. Despite this acknowledgement, many ESL/ELD secondary school educators are reluctant to shift their pedagogy from traditional ESL to early literacy pedagogy (Dooley, 2009; Dooley & Thangaperumal, …

Poetry Is Powerful: High School Students And Pre-Service Teachers Develop Literacy Relationships Through Poetry, Susanne L. Nobles, Amy Price Azano

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

Teaching poetry can serve as a roadblock for many English teachers who lack confidence with the genre. Likewise, high school students struggle reading poetry and creating their own poetic works. In an effort to provide an authentic learning experience for our students, we created a semester-long, collaborative poetry project between our high school and college students. This manuscript provides details about the goals, processes, and takeaways for both groups of participants. The high school students were two classes of freshman-level English students who practiced developing critical literacy skills while reading, reciting, and writing poetry. The college students were pre-service English …

Developing Preservice Writing Teachers’ Professional Judgment: Design Conjectures For Supporting Equitable And Rigorous Writing Instruction, Britnie Delinger Kane

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

To meet the composition demands of the future, secondary students in the United States will need more rigorous and more equitable writing instruction. They will need opportunities to inquire into and frame authentic problems. They will need to communicate for a variety of audiences and purposes, and they will need access to a variety of linguistic and literary forms. In turn, secondary teachers will need improved preparation for teaching writing. This conceptual review outlines what intellectually rigorous and equitable writing instruction looks like, arguing that teaching writing in these ways requires that teachers deploy substantial professional judgment. I then rely …

Self-Study Of A Supervisor Making Connections In An Integrated Instructional Third Space In Elementary Mathematics And Field Experience, Katie Arndt

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Too often teachers see mathematics as a culturally neutral subject. Teacher educators need to be aware of their own practice and how it impacts the facilitation of preservice teacher learning, in particular in relation to elementary mathematics and culturally responsive teaching. This qualitative self-study focused on understanding a teacher educator’s enactment of an espoused platform in an integrated instructional third space of an elementary field experience and an elementary mathematics methods course in relation to culturally responsive teaching and mathematics. The research questions guiding this self-study were: (1) In the context of the selfstudy, to what extent do I enact …

What Kind Of Teacher For Our Citizens? A Book Review Of What Kind Of Citizen? Educating Our Children For The Common Good, Tony Decesare

Democracy & Education

Westheimer’s central argument in What Kind of Citizen? Educating our Children for the Common Good is that the current climate around public education—marked, in general, by standardization in our schools—is not conducive to the development of thoughtful and critically engaged public citizens. Westheimer demonstrated convincingly that schools—in response to recent education reform and, in some cases, pressure from parents and other education stakeholders—have increasingly emphasized individual goals at the expense of educating children for the common good. Furthermore and related, in this age of standardized testing, school curricula have become more narrowly focused on achievement in math and literacy at …

Informal Technology Coaching: Using Pre-Service Teacher Field Experiences To Support K-12 Flipped Classroom Instruction, Antoinette P. Bruciati, Maria Lizano-Dimare

Education Faculty Publications

This paper describes a pilot field experience component that is part of an online graduate level course in educational technology for pre-service teacher candidates. As part of the field experience, teacher candidates develop a model lecture video and learning activity screencast that are used to coach certified teachers in the methods for “flipping” their classrooms. The field experience is used by course instructors to determine the ability of their teacher candidates to plan technology-enhanced learning experiences, deepen their content knowledge, and improve their abilities to select and use developmentally appropriate technologies. Certified teachers benefit through informal coaching by pre-service teacher …

Trouble With The Edtpa: Sliding From Teaching To Preparing For The Test, Stephanie Cronenberg, Dori Johnson, Alexis Jones, Stacey Korson, Natasha Murray, Michael Parrish, Marilyn Johnston-Parsons

Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education

This paper was written by a group of instructors responsible for preparing 100 elementary/middle school licensure students for the edTPA portfolio assessment. It is an analysis of our experiences doing so in the pilot year. The edTPA is a performance assessment required for teacher licensure. We considered this assessment to have significant advantages over a multiple choice test and we debated for a year how best to implement it. Our plan was to integrate what they needed to know into our courses rather than to prepare them directly for the test. We approached this with a positive attitude but emerged …

Say That The River Turns: Social Justice Intentions In Progressive Public School Classrooms, Beatrice Fennimore

Occasional Paper Series

Fennimore confronts the deficit-based talk prevalent in many schools serving marginalized students in “Say that the River Turns.” She argues that teaching for social justice begins by replacing deficit-based talk with clearly articulated intentions that subsequently transform into actions.

Supporting Candidates In High Needs Settings, Janet Lorch

Faculty Publications

This presentation is based on two years of data from an Urban Teacher Residency of Masters of Arts in Teaching for Elementary Education. Teacher candidates are placed in residencies in Chicago Public Schools.

No Shortcuts On The Journey To Learning For Students Or Teachers, Alison Coviello, Susan Stires

Occasional Paper Series

Despite the generally held view that children in low-performing, under-served schools have "deficits" teachers in such schools often have very different experiences. Students can succeed in all areas of schooling and beyond. But for this to happen, teacher education institutions need to provide teacher candidates with background information and knowledge about instruction, so they can see and support the strengths of students in high-needs schools.

Preparing Teachers For High-Need Schools: A Focus On Thoughtfully Adaptive Teaching, Arlene Mascarenhas, Seth Parsons, Sarah Cohen Burrowbridge

Occasional Paper Series

Differentiated instruction, or thoughtfully adaptive teaching, helps teachers successfully meet the needs of students in under-served schools. Teacher education institutions can do their part by forming partnerships with high-needs schools so teacher candidates can gain experience in a supportive environment. Along with providing a solid grounding in pedagogy, teacher education programs need to help candidates develop their own vision of teaching. Vision is seen as a way for teachers to remain true to their core values, and as a way to stay focused on how to do the best for all of their students.

Experiences Of Agricultural Education Preservice Teachers Engaging In Critical Friendships, Sable Sellick

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Like educators in other disciplines, agricultural education preservice teachers must find ways to improve as teachers using methods such as reflection or peer observation. Critical friendship combines both, promoting reflection through the use of a critical friend who observes an individual’s teaching and provides constructive criticism to help the individual advance their practice. This qualitative study sought to use the critical friendship concept to assist agricultural education preservice teachers in reflecting on their teaching techniques. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups; one group selected a critical friend in agricultural education, and the other group selected a critical …