Exploring the impact of expert guidance from school-based mentors on student teachers’ professional learning

PRACTICE ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Colin Forster ◽  
Tracey Wire ◽  
Rachel Eperjesi ◽  
Ruth Hollier ◽  
Emma Howell ◽  
...  
ReCALL ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Euline Cutrim Schmid ◽  
Volker Hegelheimer

AbstractThis paper presents research findings of a longitudinal empirical case study that investigated an innovative Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) professional development program for pre-service English as Foreign Language (EFL) teachers. The conceptualization of the program was based on the assumption that pre-service language teachers learn better in situated contexts (Egbert, 2006). Therefore, a key component of the program was the development of school-based research projects, in which the student teachers needed to design, implement, and evaluate technology-enhanced EFL lessons in collaboration with in-service teachers. Data were collected via field notes, video recordings of lessons, academic research reports produced by the pre-service teachers, and in-depth interviews with the pre-service and in-service teachers. Our findings indicate that the field experiences provided professional learning opportunities that supported the student teachers’ development as CALL practitioners. The participating pre-service teachers especially emphasized the important role played by school-based experiences in allowing them to use technology in authentic language teaching scenarios and to evaluate the impact of technology on language teaching and learning. The paper concludes with a discussion of important principles and guidelines that should underlie and inform such collaborative efforts and a summary of the implications of the findings for the design of CALL pre-service teacher education programs.


2014 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 248-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bill Ussher ◽  
Wendy Carss

Relationships between teachers, children and university lecturers must be positive, productive and professional to optimise the learning and development of student teachers in school-based experiences. The limited research into these ‘high stakes’ relationships mostly explores alternative approaches. This paper explores the perceptions of student teachers and associate teachers as they consider the value of an alternative practicum supervision approach. The lecturers supervised and mentored the student teachers in all of their practicum experiences. Findings indicate a clear preference for this approach, mostly because of reduced stress, especially in the final practicum. The lecturer was a stable influence with a greater depth of knowledge of the student’s learning journey. The later visits were future-focused, identifying next steps in developing both strengths and weaknesses. There are some current examples of this approach, but these participants suggest that it should be common practice because of the value of the professional conversations that occurred.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisbeth Amhag

The aim of this study is to contribute knowledge about what characterizes students' capabilities to reflect on and self-assess their professional development during four school based vocational training courses in distance higher education. What abilities and challenges appear in their written reflections and self-assessments with critical incidents about a situation, incident, or issue in their log journals, as well as in their discussions online. face-to-face (F2F), supported by a mobile learning hub (MLH) with both mobile and blended activities? Theoretically, the study is based on five major levels of reflection: reporting, responding, relating, reasoning and reconstructing. The results from a group of students' representative excerpts demonstrates the importance of letting student teachers have agency and mediate their subjective experiences during practical vocational training in progression, supported by mobile and blended tools, to understand and make sense of experience in relation to self, others, and contextual conditions for personal and professional learning.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Jerome ◽  
Victoria Brook

Purpose In 2016, the National Standards for School-based Initial Teacher Training (ITT) Mentors were published in England. The purpose of this paper is to critique these standards through a comparison of how others have framed and defined the role of the mentor, drawing on equivalent standards already published in nursing (2008) and social work (2012). Design/methodology/approach An analysis of three sets of professional standards was conducted by adapting the “constant comparison” approach in which the researchers sought to combine a form of inductive coding with comparison across the texts. This enabled the identification of a number of common themes and omissions across the three sets of standards. Findings The analysis revealed the ITT mentor standards provide a comparatively limited account of the role of the mentor, particularly in relation to the process of assessment, the power dynamics between mentors and student teachers, and the school as an institutional site for professional learning. Originality/value The study’s originality lies in the inter-professional comparative analysis, which revealed a number of potentially contentious issues not immediately apparent from a close textual analysis of the ITT mentor standards.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maged Almadi

<p>School-based professional development is an appropriate way of tailoring professional development both to the needs of the individual teacher and of the school. Lesson Study (LS) is one of the models of school-based professional development. It is a professional learning method that is based on collaboration amongst teachers, in order to improve their professional development and students’ outcomes. The Saudi Ministry of Education, since 2015, started a pilot project that utilized the LS in certain Saudi schools in different regions to meet professional learning needs. The purpose of this study is to understand the impact of LS as a model adopted for the professional development of teachers by Primary Schools in Riyadh region in Saudi Arabia. The study utilised a quantitative research method based on an online survey to collect data from four selected elementary schools in the Riyadh region. SPSS software was used to analyse the questionnaire responses. Overall, the results for this study identified that LS serves as an effective tool for teachers’ professional development and that most of the teachers have positive perception towards using the LS model as a tool for improving teachers’ content knowledge.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ganna Rozhnova ◽  
Christiaan H. van Dorp ◽  
Patricia Bruijning-Verhagen ◽  
Martin C. J. Bootsma ◽  
Janneke H. H. M. van de Wijgert ◽  
...  

AbstractThe role of school-based contacts in the epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 is incompletely understood. We use an age-structured transmission model fitted to age-specific seroprevalence and hospital admission data to assess the effects of school-based measures at different time points during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands. Our analyses suggest that the impact of measures reducing school-based contacts depends on the remaining opportunities to reduce non-school-based contacts. If opportunities to reduce the effective reproduction number (Re) with non-school-based measures are exhausted or undesired and Re is still close to 1, the additional benefit of school-based measures may be considerable, particularly among older school children. As two examples, we demonstrate that keeping schools closed after the summer holidays in 2020, in the absence of other measures, would not have prevented the second pandemic wave in autumn 2020 but closing schools in November 2020 could have reduced Re below 1, with unchanged non-school-based contacts.


RELC Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 003368822095247
Author(s):  
Loc Tan Nguyen ◽  
Jonathan Newton

The role of teacher professional learning (TPL) in assisting teachers to teach pronunciation in English as a second/foreign language (ESL/EFL) contexts has received little attention. The study reported in this paper extends this line of research by investigating how six EFL teachers at a Vietnamese university transform and integrate the pronunciation pedagogical knowledge they received from a TPL workshop into teaching practice. It then examines the teachers’ perceptions of the impact of the workshop on their knowledge gains and pronunciation teaching skills. Data were collected from seven lesson plans designed by the teachers, video recordings of 24 subsequent classroom observations, and six individual semi-structured interviews. The study adopted a content-based approach to qualitative data analysis. The findings show that the teachers were all able to translate TPL into classroom practice of pronunciation teaching. The findings further show that workshops designed and implemented in accordance with research-based TPL principles can be effective for promoting teachers’ knowledge of pronunciation pedagogy and refining their pronunciation teaching skills. The study has implications for ESL/EFL teachers’ professional development in pronunciation teaching.


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