Insights from a Bourdieusian lens

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adeline Yuen Sze Goh
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Training ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
Workplace Learning ◽  
Training Programme ◽  
Practical Significance ◽  
Theoretical Point ◽  
Legitimate Peripheral Participation ◽  
Learning Context ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Trainee Teachers

Purpose – This paper aims to extend the workplace learning literature by conceptualising the relationship between college-based and workplace learning, through critically examining how trainee teachers learn when they enter an initial teacher training programme. Design/methodology/approach – This paper draws on the findings of a completed research study which explores how individuals learn to become a vocational and technical teacher (VTE) in Brunei. The research comprises a qualitative study of a group of student teachers enrolled on a one-year teacher training programme that consists of a combination of college-based and workplace learning. This approach argues that it is necessary to look beyond demarcating what is formal and informal learning. Findings – From a theoretical point-of-view, Bourdieu's theoretical tools can be used to extend Lave and Wenger's notion of legitimate peripheral participation in understanding how individuals learn in a learning context. This approach provides us with a way to think of learning as relational to the individuals. That is, learning is influenced by the roles and practices of each individual, even within the same learning context. Thus, to label the college-based learning as formal and workplace learning as informal is unhelpful in understanding this relationship. Practical implications – Understanding that roles and practices in different learning sites such as college and workplace influence learning has practical significance for teacher training organisations wanting to focus on learning issues and opportunities for the development of trainee teachers. More specifically, such an understanding also acts as a reminder to teacher training organisations of the importance of considering learning within a teacher training programme as a whole, rather than focusing only on the practices within each of the learning sites. Originality/value – This paper highlights the importance of roles and practices in relation to particular situations which are often overlooked in the learning literature. In addition, the paper focuses on both college-based and workplace learning in order to understand learning within a vocational and technical teacher training programme.

scholarly journals Trainee Teachers' Perspectives on Microteaching

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 108-118
Author(s):  
Yam Nath Adhikari
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Training ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Training Programme ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Teaching Career ◽  
Trainee Teachers ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Practice Teaching

 Microteaching is one of the most recent innovations in teacher training programme. It is used as a professional developmental tool for pre-service or in-service teacher training courses. Microteaching seems a good technique to train trainee teachers, when he/she has to perform his/her teaching either in practice or real life. The objective of this research was to explore perspective of trainee teachers towards microteaching. The sample size of the study consisted of 40 trainee teachers of B.Ed. from Prithvi Narayan campus, Pokhara. The informants were selected purposively. By taking their consent, I visited the school and distributed the questionnaire, where the student-teachers were practising in practice teaching. A set of close-ended questionnaire was used as the data collection tool. The data were presented in percentage and analyzed and interpreted descriptively. The results reveal that microteaching plays a vital role to improve the trainee teachers’ pedagogical skills, competencies, build self-confidence, make positive attitudes towards teaching life by limited sources and within minimum available facilities, provide valuable teaching experiences, and make them aware of the benefits. Further, microteaching deals with the emerging challenges that will happen in the real teaching career of the trainee teachers. All the respondents put their positive perspectives on microteaching although microteaching is not seriously taken by the practitioners. This study implies that microteaching is necessary for trainee teachers to prepare themselves in a better way for upcoming teaching career.

Second-career teachers’ workplace learning and learning at university

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Keck Frei ◽  
Mirjam Kocher ◽  
Christine Bieri Buschor
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Workplace Learning ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Career Change ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The University

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine career-change student teachers’ practice-based learning in teacher training, with a special focus on the support they received. Design/methodology/approach This study is based on a qualitative content analysis of 15 group interviews, including 58 career-change student teachers and focuses on their learning at university and the workplace. Findings This paper indicates that career-change student teachers’ learning is task-related and based on interactions. It benefits from the support provided by actors at the university and workplace. Their learning is highly self-regulated and built on skills from prior professional and life experience. However, behaviourist learning and trial-and-error learning strategies are more often mentioned than constructionist learning and goal-oriented learning. Practical implications The findings underline the fact that universities and schools can enhance career-change student teachers’ learning by providing professional support, helping them to form links between experience from their prior profession, as well as their knowledge acquired at the university and experience from the workplace. Originality/value Until now, few studies have addressed workplace learning in teacher education. The present study aims to address this lack. Moreover, the study shows how career-change student teachers deal with the challenge of bridging the gap between theoretical and practical knowledge acquired during practice-based teacher education.

Teacher trainees’ information sharing activities and identity positioning on Facebook

2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 244-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fredrik Hanell
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Teacher Training ◽  
Identity Development ◽  
Information Sharing ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Science Studies ◽  
School Teacher ◽  
Training Programme ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Content Type

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to extend the knowledge of how identity is connected to information sharing activities in social media during pre-school teacher training. Design/methodology/approach An ethnographic study is performed where 249 students at a Swedish pre-school teacher-training programme are followed through participant observations from November 2013 to January 2014, and from September 2014 to January 2015. The material produced includes 230 conversations from a Facebook Group used by 210 students and several teachers, field notes and transcribed interviews with nine students. Comparative analysis is used to analyse the Facebook conversations to identify ways of positioning identity and engaging in information sharing activities. Interviews with students are analysed to contextualise and validate the findings from the online interactions. Findings Three identity positions are identified: discussion-oriented learner, goal-oriented learner and customer-oriented learner. The way a student commits to others, to ideas and to a career choice affects their identity positions and information sharing activities. Results suggest that information sharing with social media should be understood as a powerful device for identity development in pre-school teacher training. Research limitations/implications This study is designed to provide detailed accounts with high validity on the expense of a high degree of representativeness. Originality/value No previous library and information science-studies have been presented that explore the relationship between the identity of learners and the information sharing activities in which they engage, in the context of social media or in relation to teacher training.

scholarly journals Beginning teachers’ perceptions of mentors and access to communities of practice

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 317-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha Shields ◽  
Megan Murray
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Training ◽  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Beginning Teachers ◽  
Initial Teacher Education ◽  
Legitimate Peripheral Participation ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Teachers Perceptions ◽  
School Based

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore beginning teachers’ perceptions of the role of the mentor in the early stages of developing a professional identity. The beginning teachers in the authors’ study are defined as having been awarded qualified teacher status at the end of an initial teacher education programme or having completed their first term as a new teacher with responsibility for a class of pupils. Design/methodology/approach The research design was a qualitative, inductive study. The concepts of communities of practice, legitimate peripheral participation and power dynamics within a community underpinned this study. The data set was collected over a period of 18 months, through six focus groups and 40 questionnaires with beginning teachers across 34 schools altogether. The data set was analysed using interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA). Findings The findings indicated that the ways in which mentors use their power to recognise (or not) the legitimacy of beginning teachers as being part of the school community influences the development of beginning teachers’ professional identities. The thematic analysis of the data indicated the different types of support that mentors may provide: “belonging”, “emotional”, “pedagogical” and “space”. Research limitations/implications Further research into how mentors perceive their role in supporting new entrants into the profession is needed. Originality/value These findings are pertinent in England, as the increase in school-based initial teacher training provision will intensify the role of school mentors. These findings will be of value to other countries that are moving towards an increase in school-based teacher training.

Lesson study and the development of teacher’s competences

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Encarna Soto Gómez ◽  
María J. Serván Núñez ◽  
Angel I Pérez Gómez ◽  
Noemi Peña Trapero
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Training ◽  
Lesson Study ◽  
Explicit Knowledge ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Daily Practice ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Theoretical Point ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Teaching Context ◽  
Dialectical Relationship

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show, from a theoretical point of view, the promising relationship between the processes generated by Lesson Studies (LS) and the development of practical thinking in in-service teacher training, derived from two pieces of research. Design/methodology/approach – The authors propose broadening the focus of LS in order to not only improve the “lesson” or “teaching” – in short, practice – but also to reconstruct and improve the practical knowledge of teachers. The core issue of the paper is the discussion about the relationship between the practical knowledge, the knowledge that every teacher uses in his or her daily practice, theories-in-use, mostly unconscious, and the conscious and explicit knowledge, practical thinking, explicit theory, they use to describe and justify their practice. Findings – Knowing our practical knowledge intuitive Gestalt, and building a new conscious and informed way of thinking is not enough, we need to build through systematic new practice a new way of doing, a new way of perceiving, interpreting, taking decisions and acting, coherent with our new theories. LS reinforces these two complementary movements: the practical theorizing movement, the reflexion on action to discover the implicit believes, habits, attitudes and emotions underlying the practice, and the experimentation of the new theory to form the new habits, beliefs, attitudes and emotions that support the development of a new form of teaching. This second movement needs more time and adequate teaching context, confirming the long spiral cycle of LS. Originality/value – With emphasis on the dialectical relationship between practical theorizing and the experimentation of theory, this paper could set out a new approach for LSs as a method of teacher training which can improve practice through the reconstruction of the practical thinking of those involved.

scholarly journals Effects of data feedback in the teacher training community

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-50
Author(s):  
Tamar Tas ◽  
Thoni Houtveen ◽  
Wim Van de Grift
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Training ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Teaching Quality ◽  
Teaching Skills ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Academic Year

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to answer the question, what progress student teachers make during one academic year, while being trained in a professional learning community, using objective classroom observation, using lesson preparation templates that match their developmental stage and stage-focused mentor feedback. Design/methodology/approach The teaching skills of the student teachers (n=101) were measured at the start and at the end of the academic year. For the measurements, the standardized and psychometrically tested International Comparative Analysis of Learning and Teaching observation instrument is used. Findings The student teachers achieved a small growth on the basic teaching skills and a medium growth on two of the three advanced skills for teachers. Research limitations/implications Because of the lack of a control group, causal conclusions cannot be made. This research provides knowledge on the actual observed level of teaching skills of student teachers trained in a close collaborating professional learning community. Originality/value Little is known about the actual growth of observable teaching skills of student teachers in elementary education. Teacher training colleges and internship schools in the Netherlands are in search of better ways to collaborate more closely in order to improve the quality of teaching of their student teachers. These findings can inspire teacher training communities to improve their own teaching quality and the teaching quality of their student teachers.

scholarly journals How different reflective learning activities introduced into a postgraduate teacher training programme in England promote reflection and increase the capacity to learn

2018 ◽  
Vol 105 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-73
Author(s):  
Melissa Jane Hannah Mantle
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Training ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
Learning Strategy ◽  
Action Learning ◽  
Training Programme ◽  
Reflective Learning ◽  
Learning Activities ◽  
Training Institution ◽  
Education Student ◽  
Learning Sets

Student teachers in England are expected to learn from experience in order to become reflective practitioners and to achieve Qualified Teacher Status. This study is a qualitative project studying whether and how different reflective learning activities introduced into a postgraduate teacher training programme promote reflection and increase the capacity to learn. It takes an interpretative approach, generating qualitative data on the reflection of students and the most effective learning methods. The study took place over a one-year period in one teacher training institution. The data arose from Post Graduate Certificate of Education student teacher responses to different reflective learning activities and subsequent interviews followed by an evaluation of the effectiveness of the overall learning strategy. Of the four activities used to promote reflective learning (discussion groups, action learning sets, journals and interviews), the action learning sets had the most impact on the student teachers’ ability to reflect. The implication for initial teacher training programmes is that providers need to recognise the importance of oral reflection within a communal setting.

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