scholarly journals Dialoguing with teacher-educators, valorizing teacher innovations

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 451-466
Author(s):  
Vijaya Sherry Chand ◽  
Samvet Kuril ◽  
Anurag Shukla
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Teacher Training ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Educational Innovation ◽  
Collaborative Action Research ◽  
Provincial Government ◽  
Academic Context ◽  
Teacher Education Department ◽  
Training Programmes

This article describes the educational innovation fairs (EIF), a large-scale collaborative action research initiative undertaken by an academic institution and the teacher-education department of a provincial government in India over a three-year period (2015 to 2017). The EIF initiative primarily sought to help teacher-educators in 26 sub-provincial teacher training institutes (STTIs) realize the potential of teacher-generated innovations to enrich the teacher training curriculum in the state-run schooling system. It required teacher-educators to identify and validate innovative teacher-generated work, that was then displayed for two days in a year in a public exhibition visited by a large number of teachers. Case studies of the displayed work were then sent to schools and used in teacher training programmes. The EIF experience indicates the importance of setting the political and academic context carefully if action research is to take off in the public education system. Second, the policy adaptation that is inevitable in such a system implies an understanding of the deviations that might be considered tolerable. Finally, the partners need to jointly reflect on and consciously plan their post-collaboration individual trajectories during the collaboration itself, for the outcomes of action research have to be embedded in an evolving research agenda aimed at continuous improvement.

scholarly journals Educating the Educators: Technology-Enhanced Mathematics Teaching and Learning

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-72
Author(s):  
Leong Chee Kin
Keyword(s):  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Educational Innovation ◽  
Continuing Professional Development ◽  
Teaching Quality ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
Southeast Asians ◽  
Use Of Technology ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Training Programmes

Educational research has shown that teaching quality is one of the most important factors in raising student achievement. There is a compelling need for educators to keep abreast of the important developments that are taking place in educational arena. One of the educational areas that has massive development is the use of technology to enhance teaching and learning especially in mathematics. This development needs professional developmentamong educators. Being a regional science and mathematics education centre, the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation Regional Centre for Education in Science and Mathematics (SEAMEO RECSAM) has always been cognizant of the importance of these developments. Its training programmes are planned to incorporate these developments for in-service teachers, teacher educators and ministry of education mathematics officers. As the Centre's mandate aims to ensure that these participants from Southeast Asians countriesas well as those from outside the region are equipped with emerging educationaltechnology tools which can enhance teaching and learning of mathematics. This paper will share the Centre’s experiences in continuing professional development among mathematics teacher, teacher educators and officers from the ministry of education on educational innovation and technology.

scholarly journals Teaching for Diversity with UDL: Analysing Teacher Competence

2021 ◽  
pp. 241-277
Author(s):  
Suvi Lakkala ◽  
Outi Kyrö-Ämmälä
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Inclusive Education ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Universal Design For Learning ◽  
Collaborative Action Research ◽  
Teacher Competence ◽  
Teacher Skills ◽  
Design For Learning ◽  
Heterogeneous Classes

AbstractThis chapter is a description of collaborative action research on teacher competence in the context of inclusive education and universal design for learning (UDL). Our goal was to analyse what kinds of professional competencies teachers need when they are implementing UDL in heterogeneous classes. The action research was carried out as a case study together with two co-teachers and a class teacher, who implemented UDL in their heterogeneous classes. As a theoretical framework for teacher competence, we used the multidimensional adapted process (MAP) model of teaching, developed by Finnish researchers and teacher educators. We identified several teacher skills that are needed when the UDL approach is applied. According to our results, the most overarching necessary competence was the teachers’ cognitive skills. Applying UDL required the ability to flexibly transform one’s own teaching and learning situations. Furthermore, the teachers’ social skills appeared as an important attribute as their pupils were highly heterogeneous with diverse needs, and the teachers needed to collaborate with many other professionals and parents. Also, each teacher’s personal orientation, such as values, beliefs and ethics, played a crucial role in UDL while the teachers shared a common set of values, striving towards inclusive education.

Reconciling collaborative action research with existing institutions: insights from Dutch and German climate knowledge programmes

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catrien Termeer ◽  
Arwin van Buuren ◽  
Joerg Knieling ◽  
Manuel Gottschick
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Action Research ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Collaborative Action Research ◽  
Adaptation To Climate Change ◽  
Collaborative Action ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Many

Researchers and policymakers increasingly aim to set up collaborative research programmes to address the challenges of adaptation to climate change. This does not only apply for technical knowledge, but for governance knowledge also. Both the Netherlands and Germany have set up large-scale collaborative action research (CAR) programmes for the governance of adaptation to climate change. Despite the collaborative designs, the initial enthusiasm, the available resources and the many positive outcomes, both programmes encountered several stubborn difficulties. By comparing both programmes, this paper explores the difficulties researchers encounter, analyses the underlying mechanisms and presents some lessons. It found that many difficulties are related to the tensions that exist between the assumptions underlying the new collaborative trajectories and the logics of the existing policy and research institutions. These institutional misfits are decisive to explain ultimate difficulties and successes. Furthermore, the paper concludes that risk aversion, stereotyping and scale fixation strengthen institutional misfits; and that these misfits persist due to lacking bridging capabilities. We suggest some lessons that can help to resolve the difficulties and reconcile CAR into existing institutions: organize the knowledge arrangement as a collaborative process; construct boundary objects as focal point for collaboration; and invest in bridging capabilities.

scholarly journals PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ PRIOR EXPECTATIONS AND THEIR ACTUAL EXPERIENCES OF TEACHING MATHEMATICS DURING PEDAGOGICAL INTERNSHIP IN ZIMBABWE

2020 ◽  
Vol 78 (6) ◽  
pp. 983-999
Author(s):  
Chipo Makamure
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Training ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Teaching Mathematics ◽  
School Based ◽  
Mathematics Knowledge ◽  
Training Institutions ◽  
Training Programmes ◽  
Depth Interviews

Pedagogical internship (PI) is an important component of teacher training programmes in Zimbabwe. It is envisaged to give student teachers experience in the classroom. However, the variation between the theoretical expectations of pre-service teachers (PST) and their actual experiences in the field has been a relational lacuna in academic research in Zimbabwe. This research sought to address this by presenting data on the relation between college PSTs’ expectations about teaching mathematics and their actual experiences during PI in Zimbabwe. The study shares findings from a mixed methods study that employed two questionnaires completed by 120 PST before and during PI respectively, and a third questionnaire administered to school-based mentors. The researcher also conducted in-depth interviews with a few selected PSTs and teacher educators to elicit their views about the PSTs’ practices. The results show that there is, indeed, a conflictual relationship between the PSTs’ expectations of teaching mathematics and their experiences in the classroom. PSTs showed a consistent anticipation that they would sail through PI without many difficulties, but this expectancy turned out to be idealistic and impractical. The research also established that PSTs’ expectations about teaching mathematics prior to PI can influence their field practices, hence, determining their opportunities to learn to teach the subject. It is recommended that teacher training institutions organize programmes for PSTs before PI to prepare and acquaint them fully with the skills that are needed to face challenges of teaching that may otherwise come as a shock during PI. Keywords: expectations of teaching, field experiences, mathematics knowledge, pedagogical internship (PI), pre-service teachers (PSTs)

scholarly journals Action Research to Enhance Quality Teaching

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
HAMADA Hacène
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Teacher Training ◽  
Educational Innovation ◽  
Reciprocal Relationship ◽  
Quality Teaching ◽  
Improve Quality ◽  
Usual Practice ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
Innovation Potential

Quality teaching is and will remain a challenge for procedural educational innovation, as it is both the target objective and the vehicle of change. The main contributor to this process is always the teacher who has to adhere to the process of change for the purposes of developing his/her own career and improving the quality of teaching. This study aims to determine how action research would improve quality teaching in pre-service and in-service teacher training, and shed light on the reciprocal relationship between action research and innovation. In this paper, action research is considered as a constant independent variable that can enhance the dependent variables of pre-service / in-service teacher training and quality teaching requirements. The latter are supposed to be two purposes of innovation. Innovation is, thus, performed as the usual practice of innovative teachers who take risks of improving quality teaching in a methodological procedure according to their teaching contexts. The study attempts to answer the following questions: What is quality teaching and how does it impact innovation within the quality teaching assurance framework? What is action research and how does it help teachers improve their research and innovation potential? What does the ENS programme course provide as qualitative training to improve quality teaching and innovation? And, What are the results achieved, so far, at the ENS Constantine? We will illustrate the whole procedure with a specific example of teacher training at Ecole Normale Supérieure of Constantine.

Creating a local food procurement community of practice: The Alberta Flavour Learning Lab

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Anne Beckie ◽  
Leanne Hedberg ◽  
Jessie Radies
Keyword(s):  
Community Of Practice ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Food System ◽  
Local Food ◽  
Provincial Government ◽  
Local Foods ◽  
Social Infrastructure ◽  
City Region ◽  
Physical Scale ◽  
Common Framework

In order for local food initiatives (LFIs) to have a transformative effect on the larger food system, greater levels of economic, organizational and physical scale are needed. One way for LFIs to reach the scale necessary to generate a more significant impact is through increased institutional procurement of local foods. But how do people and organizations come together to generate the social infrastructure required to shift food purchasing practices and processes? This field report shares the story of an innovative community of practice consisting of institutional food buyers, large-scale distributors, regional retailers, processors, producers, researchers, municipal and provincial government representatives within the Edmonton city-region that formed for the express purpose of “creating a positive community impact by getting more local foods on more local plates”. In describing the formation and first three years of the Alberta Flavour Learning Lab we examine the unique characteristics of this community of practice that has aided the development of a common framework for learning, understanding and joint action. In addition to the accomplishments to date, we also discuss the challenges faced by the Learning Lab and the strategies used to overcome them.  

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