“My Fish Died and I Flushed Him Down the Toilet”: Children Disrupt Preservice Teachers’ Understandings of “Appropriate” Picture Books for Young Children

2018 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 343-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerryn Dixon ◽  
Hilary Janks
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
South African ◽  
Curriculum Design ◽  
Picture Books ◽  
Picture Book ◽  
Children’S Views ◽  
Effective Use ◽  
The Relationship

Although the literature on picture books is extensive, very little work focuses on how they are integrated into teacher education curricula. We contend that effective use of these resources requires an understanding of the relationship between preservice teachers’ conceptions of children and of picture books. Second-year South African undergraduate preservice teachers were asked to review 12 picture books of their own choosing, discuss some of these books with children, and write reflections on what they learnt from the children’s responses. Two hundred and thirty picture-book reviews and 62 reflections were analyzed. The data show that preservice teachers’ criteria for choosing books were disrupted by children’s views. We conclude by considering our own assumptions about our students and the implications for teacher education curriculum design.

scholarly journals Where the Wild Things Are

2003 ◽  
Vol 48 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 128-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Riitta Oittinen
Keyword(s):  
Picture Books ◽  
English Language ◽  
Picture Book ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Visual Images ◽  
Forthcoming Book ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Classical Picture

Abstract Translating picture books is a many-splendored thing: it includes not only the relationship between the verbal and the visual (images and other elements) but also issues like reading aloud and child images. In the following, while mainly concentrating on the visual, I will deal with the other questions as well, as they all interact and influence each other. My starting point is translating as rewriting for target-language audiences – we always need to ask the crucial question: “For whom?” Hence, while writing children’s books is writing for children, translating children’s literature is translating for children. (See Hunt 1990:1, 60-64 and Oittinen 2000.) The reasons why I take such a special interest in translating picture books are twofold: cultural and national as well as individual. In Finland, we translate a lot: 70-80% of all the books published for children annually are translations. From the perspective of picture books, the number may be even higher (and 90% of the translations come from the English language; see Rättyä 2002:18-23). Moreover, being an artist and translator of picture books makes me especially keen on the visual as a translation scholar as well. As a case study, I have chosen Maurice Sendak’s classical picture book Where the Wild Things Are and its translations into German, Swedish and Finnish. At the background of my article is my book Translating for Children (2000) as well as my forthcoming book Kuvakirja kääntäjän kädessä on translating picture books. Due to copyright reasons, I only have picture examples from illustrations of my own.

Elementary Preservice Teachers and Questioning Strategies in Mathematics

2019 ◽  
pp. 60-65
Author(s):  
Sandra Browning
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Education Program ◽  
Teacher Education Program ◽  
Field Experiences ◽  
Inservice Teachers ◽  
Questioning Strategies ◽  
Elementary Preservice Teachers ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Cognitive Rigor

Research has demonstrated an interest in the relationship between teachers’ questioning strategies and children’s ability to reason and learn (Baroody & Ginsburg, 1990; Buschman, 2001; Fennema, Franke, Carpenter & Carey, 1993). Helping preservice teachers develop effective questioning strategies is an important component of a teacher education program. This session describes an exploration designed to determine if EC-6 preservice teachers can (a) recognize effective questioning strategies when observing inservice teachers and (b) use Hess’s Cognitive Rigor Matrix to analyze the level and effectiveness of their own questioning strategies during field experiences.

scholarly journals Online supplementary mathematics tuition in a first-year childhood teacher education programme

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Fonseca ◽  
Nadine Petersen
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
South African ◽  
Content Knowledge ◽  
Primary Schools ◽  
Intermediate Phase ◽  
First Year ◽  
Intervention Programme ◽  
Common Content

This study reports on an intervention that was aimed at improving the content knowledge of first-year intermediate-phase education students at a South African university. The study gives some insight into preservice teachers’ perceptions of an online programme for the development of mathematics common content knowledge for teachers of mathematics in the intermediate grades. The effectiveness of the intervention programme was analysed according to Shapiro’s evaluation criteria for intervention research. The findings show that there has been a positive shift in preservice teachers’ common content knowledge but that there is much room for further development. The student teachers found the programme to be of great benefit with regard to the development of their mathematics knowledge as well as their confidence as future teachers of mathematics. The findings highlighted their disturbingly limited knowledge of mathematics content knowledge and pointed to the responsibility of teacher education departments at universities to implement sufficient maths content courses that will address the status quo of poor mathematics teaching in South African primary schools. The authors conclude that the students need to spend much more time on ‘catching up’ before they become teachers.

scholarly journals Akilak’s Adventure by D. Kigjugalik Webster

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Public Libraries ◽  
Picture Book ◽  
Extended Family ◽  
Reading Level ◽  
Upper Elementary ◽  
University Of Alberta ◽  
Children's Book ◽  
The University ◽  
The Relationship

Kigjugalik Webster, Deborah.  Akilak’s Adventure.  Inhabit Media, 2016.This is a first children’s book from Deborah Kigjugalik Webster, who grew up in Baker Lake, Nunavut.  It is a story of a little Inuit girl navigating the tundra by herself to reach her uncle’s camp.  As the child walks, she is joined by a caribou, who mysteriously knows her grandmother’s saying, “Your destination did not run away, you will reach it soon.”  The conversation between the two is about people changing into animals, but Akilak in the end decides to remain a person.   The story is deceptively simple.  On the surface, children will understand it as a little girl’s adventure.  However, it encompasses several important aspects of Inuit culture:  the relationship between grandparent and child, the importance of extended family support, the prominence of animals and the stories of people taking the shape of animals, the distance of travel across the tundra and the related concept of taulittuq or the sense of moving but not getting closer to your destination.Charlene Chua’s artwork is charming. Each two pages are an image with text overprinted on one page, often shaped to fit around parts of the image.  The images are simple and cartoon-like, but good representations of the tundra and its creatures.  While this is mainly a picture book with an intended audience of children ages 5 to 7, the reading level is upper elementary, so younger children will definitely need an adult to read it to them.Akilak’s Adventure would be an excellent addition to public libraries and elementary school libraries.Highly Recommended:  4 stars out of 4Reviewer:  Sandy CampbellSandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines.  Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give. 

scholarly journals Unfolding Layers of Meanings: Visual-Verbal Relations in Just Ask—A Children’s Picture Book

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ika Lestari Damayanti ◽  
Nicke Yunita Moeharam ◽  
Firly Asyifa
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Picture Books ◽  
Picture Book ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Visual Thinking ◽  
Visual Texts ◽  
Visual Thinking Strategies ◽  
Thinking Strategies ◽  
Verbal Relations ◽  
The Relationship

Studies in the field of semiotics and children’s literature have described the relationship between the verbal and visual texts in picture books as both complex and subtle. These relationships are named differently across theories, yet they still note two possibilities, whether they support or are against each other in conveying meanings to the readers. This study seeks to explore the relations between visual-verbal modes depicted in a children’s picture book entitled Just Ask (author/illustrator by Sotomayor Lopez, 2019), viewed from the perspective of multimodality as proposed by Unsworth (2006). The analysis between the visual and verbal modes in the picture book is focused on ideational concurrence and ideational complementarity. The results indicate that meanings in Just Ask are negotiated through verbal and visual texts which may be complementary or have divergent relationships to one another. It is through such strategy that the suggested theme of the picture book, in this case accepting diversity, is consistently conveyed to the targeted readers.  Since picture books are used vastly in EFL/ESL classrooms to enhance students’ reading experiences, this study may help teachers develop students’ ability to make meaning from verbal and visual texts and inspire their visual thinking strategies.

Tracing the Development of Reflective Competence in Multi-Sited ITE Involving Telecollaboration

2018 ◽  
pp. 288-315
Author(s):  
Victoria Antoniadou
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Learning Environment ◽  
Cognitive Change ◽  
Initial Teacher Education ◽  
Multimodal Interactions ◽  
Quantitative Measurements ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter illustrates the process and outcomes of developing reflective competence according to three preservice teachers who participated in a multi-sited learning environment, involving integrated telecollaboration. The learning environment fused together university, virtual and school sites. An ethnographic multiple case study with quantitative measurements was employed to analyse the year-long trajectory of the preservice teachers' learning to reflect. We gathered audio-visual data from beginning to end of the year, indicating participants' growing ability to reflect on their own practices, and leading cognitive change and transformation of classroom practices. By tracing multimodal interactions sequentially, we were able to extract guidelines for creating useful collaborative artifact ecologies in Initial Teacher Education and discuss the relationship between reflection, cognitive development and different personality traits. Based on our findings, we empirically substantiate the argument that reflective competence can indeed trigger transformation in Initial Teacher Education.

scholarly journals GERARD SEKOTO’S PREVIOUSLY UNPUBLISHED CHILDREN’S BOOK, SHORTY AND BILLY BOY: THE WORK OF A SOUTH AFRICAN IN PARIS

Mousaion ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 48-59
Author(s):  
Elwyn Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Picture Books ◽  
Picture Book ◽  
High Standard ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
Central Interest

Shorty and Billy Boy (2013) is a children’s picture book that has been edited and published from the original created by the artist Gerard Sekoto in Paris in 1973. This article evaluates it as a picture book and places it in the context of South African English picture books, concluding that it is of a high standard. Secondly, the book is examined for its South African content, since the nature of Sekoto’s continued ties with his mother country is of central interest in the study of his art. Thirdly, the article evaluates the contribution of the book to Sekoto studies by examining the editorial apparatus that is appended to the book. Its scholarly standard is shown to be poor. The article concludes by placing the book in the context of Sekoto’s life and work.

scholarly journals NATIONAL IDENTITY AND THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE OTHER: NEW ZEALAND CHILDREN RESPONDING TO SOUTH AFRICAN PICTURE BOOKS

Mousaion ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 92-127
Author(s):  
John Mckenzie
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Theoretical Model ◽  
South African ◽  
Picture Books ◽  
Formal Education ◽  
Picture Book ◽  
Context Of Learning ◽  
Source Of Information

The issue of national identity is a central concern for learners both in terms of formal education (social studies) and personal pleasure (sports). This study adopted a theoretical model of how national identity can be envisaged by middle school learners, and through an intensive week’s case study, demonstrated both the strengths and potential problems of using picture books as a source of information about a nation state. Having self-reflected on their own sense of national identity, a class from a provincial town in New Zealand (NZ) were given the opportunity to explore over 85 educational readers/trade picture book titles sourced from South Africa (SA) (plus other texts from Africa that were locally available) and attempt to define what it is to be a South African. Prior knowledge was factored in the findings and the results were compared to a South African class’s perceptions using the same theoretical model. This article draws a tentative conclusion as to the presences and absences of which South African national identity features can be located whilst reading the two types of fictional texts. Additionally the article proposes that the methodology can be replicated in the classroom in the context of learning as inquiry.

Co-creating the Psychological “White Picket Fence”: Three Gay Couples’ Relationship Reconfiguration

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Prevan Moodley ◽  
Francois Rabie
Keyword(s):  
Grounded Theory ◽  
South African ◽  
Gay Couples ◽  
Core Category ◽  
Picket Fence ◽  
Open Relationship ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Porous Boundaries

Many gay couples engage in nonmonogamous relationships. Ideas about nonmonogamy have historically been theorised as individual pathology and indicating relational distress. Unlike mixed-sex couples, boundaries for gay couples are often not determined by sexual exclusivity. These relationships are built along a continuum of open and closed, and sexual exclusivity agreements are not restricted to binaries, thus requiring innovation and re-evaluation. Three white South African gay couples were each jointly interviewed about their open relationship, specifically about how this is negotiated. In contrast to research that uses the individual to investigate this topic, this study recruited dyads. The couples recalled the initial endorsement of heteronormative romantic constructions, after which they shifted to psychological restructuring. The dyad, domesticated through the stock image of a white picket fence, moved to a renewed arrangement, protected by “rules” and imperatives. Abbreviated grounded theory strategies led to a core category, “co-creating porous boundaries”, and two themes. First, the couple jointly made heteronormative ideals porous and, second, they reconfigured the relationship through dyadic protection. The overall relationship ideology associated with the white picket fence remained intact despite the micro-innovations through which the original heteronormative patterning was reconfigured.

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