Strengthening practicum conversations: Enhancing professional learning and development through returning lecturer supervisions

2014 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 248-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bill Ussher ◽  
Wendy Carss
Keyword(s):  
Student Teachers ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Learning And Development ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Depth Of Knowledge ◽  
Practicum Supervision ◽  
School Based ◽  
Learning Journey ◽  
Practicum Experiences ◽  
University Lecturers

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.

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 ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Student Teachers ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
School Based ◽  
The Impact

School-Based Professional Development Programs for Beginning Teachers

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Madalińska-Michalak
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Teacher Education ◽  
Beginning Teachers ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Professional Education ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Learning And Development ◽  
Quality Teachers ◽  
High Quality ◽  
School Based

School-based professional development for beginning teachers must be seen as a dynamic identity and decision-making process. Teachers as lifelong learners from the beginning of their career should be able to engage in different forms of teacher education that enable them to progress their learning and development in ways that are relevant to their own individual needs and the needs of their schools and pupils. Teacher individual professional learning is necessary but not sufficient for sustainable change within groups in school and within school as an organization. It is helpful to consider three elements. First, note the importance to schools of recruiting and developing high-quality teachers. Teachers are among the most significant factors in children’s learning and the quality school education, and the questions why and how teachers matter and how teacher quality and quality teacher education should be perceived require serious considerations from academics, policymakers, and practitioners. Second, understand teacher education as career-long education, and problematize the issue of teachers and coherent professional development within schools, asking key questions including the following: “how do schools create effective opportunities for teachers to learn and develop?” Third, focus on the particular journey and the needs of beginning teachers because their early career learning and development will have an impact on retention of high-quality teachers. It is important that coherent lifelong professional education for teachers is planned and implemented at the level of education systems, individual schools, teaching teams, and individual teachers.

Collaborative research projects in the technology-enhanced language classroom: Pre-service and in-service teachers exchange knowledge about technology

ReCALL ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Euline Cutrim Schmid ◽  
Volker Hegelheimer
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Development Program ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
School Based ◽  
The Impact

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.

scholarly journals External mentoring for new teachers: mentor learning for a change agenda

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 178-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Daly ◽  
Emmajane Milton
Keyword(s):  
School Improvement ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
New Teachers ◽  
Early Career ◽  
First Year ◽  
Early Career Teachers ◽  
Learning And Development ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Career Teachers

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to report on a qualitative study of the learning and development of 70 external mentors during the first year of their deployment to support early career teachers’ professional learning as part of a national initiative aimed at school improvement in Wales. Design/methodology/approach The study adopted a narrative methodology that elicited accounts of external mentors’ learning experiences that were captured as textual data and analysed using an inductive approach to identify: first, the manifest themes that appeared at declarative level, and second, the latent (sub-textual) themes of external mentor learning and development. Findings Four key themes emerged that indicate the complexity of transition to the role of external mentor in high-stakes contexts. From these, eight theoretically-informed principles were derived which support mentors to embrace uncertainty as essential to their learning and development, and to harness the potential they bring as boundary-crossers to support the development of new teachers. Research limitations/implications The study investigated the first year of a three-year programme and worked with one form of qualitative data collection. The research results may lack generalisability and a longitudinal study is necessary to further explore the validity of the findings. Practical implications The eight principles provide a foundation for mentor development programmes that can support ambitious goals for mentoring early career teachers. Originality/value The study addresses the under-researched area of the learning and development of external mentors at a national scale.

scholarly journals Music Student Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Seminar Experience: An Exploratory Study

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-25
Author(s):  
Christopher M. Baumgartner ◽  
Kimberly H. Councill
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Student Teaching ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Safe Place ◽  
Teachers Perceptions ◽  
Music Student ◽  
Group Interviews

The purpose of this study was to examine music student teachers’ (MST) perceptions of their student teaching seminar. MSTs immersed in their P -12 placements and the accompanying seminar at three state universities in the Midwest served as focus group participants. Through analysis of focus group interviews and course documents, we focused on MSTs’ perceptions of seminar purpose, structure, content, and assessment methods. Overwhelmingly, MSTs perceived the seminar as a professional learning community and a “safe place,” and they appeared to prefer frequent seminar meetings. While some MSTs felt more time per seminar was needed, others expressed difficulty in focusing after a full day of teaching. High-stakes teacher performance and portfolio assessments were a major focus of seminar content. We recommend incorporating activities into the seminar that support continued pedagogical growth and socialization into the profession.

scholarly journals Student Reflections and Self-Assessments in Vocational Training Supported by a Mobile Learning Hub

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisbeth Amhag
Keyword(s):  
Student Teachers ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Mobile Learning ◽  
Vocational Training ◽  
Subjective Experiences ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
School Based ◽  
Self Assessments ◽  
Training Courses ◽  
Student Reflections

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.

scholarly journals Nature of Teaching: What Teachers Need to Know and Do

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 37-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bethel T. Ababio
Keyword(s):  
Student Teachers ◽  
Head Teachers ◽  
Teachers College ◽  
College And University ◽  
School Based ◽  
Service Coordinators ◽  
Everyday Classroom ◽  
University Lecturers ◽  
Nature Of Teaching

Improving the quality of what happens in schools and preparing pupils/students for life in the 21st Century requires the highest quality of teaching. This article therefore focuses on professional classroom competences that every professional teacher should possess. It explores various scholarly definitions of teaching and time-tested principles of teaching and the classroom strategies available to teachers which when used judiciously will best assist pupil/student learning. The article will be useful for practicing teachers, student teachers, college and university lecturers, school-based in-service coordinators, advisory teachers and school mentors and head teachers. Though the prime aim of this article is to provoke discussion on the nature of teaching, its additional aim is to help the afore-mentioned stakeholders in the teaching enterprise reflect on their current practice and encourage them to ask questions about everyday classroom events.

scholarly journals Critiquing the “National Standards for School-based Initial Teacher Training Mentors” in England

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Jerome ◽  
Victoria Brook
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Training ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
National Standards ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Initial Teacher Training ◽  
School Based ◽  
Comparison Approach

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.

scholarly journals Webfolio: An online learning community to help link university studies and classroom practice in preservice teacher education

2004 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Reesa Sorin
Keyword(s):  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Classroom Practice ◽  
Work Samples ◽  
Authentic Classroom ◽  
University Lecturers ◽  
Professional Teaching

<span>The Webfolio project was developed at James Cook University to extend students' professional learning beyond what is taught in lectures or gleaned through the practicum. Through web based case studies, early childhood and primary preservice teachers explored topics of professional significance to their growth as teachers. Each case study included a range of media, such as: work samples; audiotaped conversations; links to websites; telephone and in person professional opinions from practising teachers, principals, social workers and welfare agents; and online discussion with other participants, including students, teachers and university lecturers.</span><p>Case studies were based on authentic classroom situations; ones which student teachers may never encounter during their practicums, therefore requiring them to immerse themselves in the professional world of teaching into which they were moving. There were no single, correct solutions; rather learners were encouraged to reflect, imagine and develop multiple and often non-traditional solutions. This exploration was supported within a learning community, where participants were positioned as co-learners, scaffolding each other's learning while building links to the professional world. These links may assist in bridging the gap that some neophyte teachers feel when beginning their professional teaching careers.</p>

School-based professional learning and development

2020 ◽  
pp. 38-48
Author(s):  
Peter Grootenboer ◽  
Christine Edwards-Groves ◽  
Karin Rönnerman
Keyword(s):  
Professional Learning ◽  
Learning And Development ◽  
School Based
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