Social agency and ecoliteracy: Seeds of change for teacher education in uncertain climate futures

2020 ◽  
pp. 54-60
Author(s):  
Sara Tolbert ◽  
Glynne Mackey ◽  
Richard Manning ◽  
Bronwyn Hayward ◽  
Hūhana-Suzanne Carter
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Citizenship Education ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
Social Agency ◽  
Justice Research ◽  
Ecological Citizenship ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Place Based Education

In this article, we discuss the importance of developing the skills of ecological citizenship for teachers and students. In particular we consider how we can support teaching practice to develop the skills of social agency and ecoliteracy. We argue that these skills are essential for building teacher and student capabilities to co-create regenerative futures on a warming planet. In this discussion we reflect on our experiences as educators and researchers invested in place-based education, sustainability, climate justice research, democracy, and citizenship education. We highlight some of the tools and approaches that we have used in supporting both preservice teachers, and children, to learn these skills of ecological citizenship.

Equitable Teaching and the Core Practice Movement: Preservice Teachers’ Professional Reasoning

2020 ◽  
Vol 122 (11) ◽  
pp. 1-40
Author(s):  
Britnie Delinger Kane
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Student Teacher ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Student Thinking ◽  
The Core ◽  
Collaborative Analysis ◽  
Core Practice

Background/Context The Core Practice movement continues to gain momentum in teacher education research. Yet critics highlight that equitable teaching cannot be reduced to a set of “core” practices, arguing that such a reduction risks representing teaching as technical work that will be neither culturally responsive nor sustaining. Instead, they argue that preservice teachers need opportunities to develop professional reasoning that takes the specific strengths and needs of students, communities, and subject matter into account. Purpose This analysis takes up the question of how and whether pedagogies of investigation and enactment can support preservice teachers’ development of the professional reasoning that equitable teaching requires. It conceptualizes two types of professional reasoning: interpretive, in which reasoners decide how to frame instructional problems and make subsequent efforts to solve them, and prescriptive, in which reasoners solve an instructional problem as given. Research Design This work is a qualitative, multiple case study, based on design research in which preservice teachers participated in three different cycles of investigation and enactment, which were designed around a teaching practice central to equitable teaching: making student thinking visible. Preservice teachers attended to students’ thinking in the context of the collaborative analysis of students’ writing and also through designed simulations of student-teacher writing conferences. Findings/Results Preservice teachers’ collaborative analysis of students’ writing supported prescriptive professional reasoning about disciplinary ideas in ELA and writing instruction (i.e., How do seventh graders use hyperbole? How is hyperbole related to the Six Traits of Writing?), while the simulation of a writing conference supported preservice teachers to reason interpretively about how to balance the need to support students’ affective commitment to writing with their desire to teach academic concepts about writing. Conclusions/Recommendations This analysis highlights an important heuristic for the design of pedagogies in teacher education: Teacher educators need to attend to preservice teachers’ opportunities for both interpretive and prescriptive reasoning. Both are essential for teachers, but only interpretive reasoning will support teachers to teach in ways that are both intellectually rigorous and equitable. The article further describes how and why a tempting assumption—that opportunities to role-play student-teacher interactions will support preservice teachers to reason interpretively, while non-interactive work will not—is incomplete and avoidable.

scholarly journals English as a Second Language and English as a Foreign Language Preservice Teacher Cognitions: Research Insights from around the World (2005-2021)

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mustapha Chmarkh
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Preservice Teacher ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Field Placements ◽  
Efl Teacher ◽  
Education Coursework

This review examined English as a Second Language (ESL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) preservice teacher cognition studies spanning a 17-year period (2005 to 2021). The main objective was to explore the nature and development of preservice ESL and EFL teacher cognitions as they relate to their teacher-education coursework and teaching practice. Findings indicate that preservice ESL/EFL teacher cognitions are complex, multifaceted, recursive, and frequently related to their experiences as language learners. Although studies included in this review were conducted in different international contexts, the findings were consistent: there is a need for supportive and comprehensive preservice-teacher preparation that accounts for three factors. (1) Valuing preservice teachers’ beliefs as language learners, (2) facilitating preservice teachers’ negotiation of newer beliefs resulting from teacher education coursework, and (3) preparing them to negotiate tensions in their interactions with their mentors in field placements. This paper concludes by discussing pedagogical implications for teacher education programs.

Preparing Teachers to Formatively Assess

2020 ◽  
pp. 89-116
Author(s):  
Timothy A. Boerst ◽  
Meghan Shaughnessy ◽  
Rosalie DeFino ◽  
Merrie Blunk ◽  
Susanna Owens Farmer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Teacher Preparation ◽  
Education Program ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Teacher Education Program ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Interpretive Skills ◽  
Initial Preparation ◽  
Mathematics Problem

To engage in formative assessment, preservice teachers (PSTs) need to develop skill with the practice of interpretation. The initial preparation of teachers would benefit from having a sense of the interpretation skills brought by PSTs to teacher preparation. We articulate the nature of interpreting as a teaching practice including: articulating inferences, sampling evidence, developing and applying guiding criteria, and monitoring and redressing bias and distortion. We use a teaching simulation to identify the assets of PSTs' initial interpretive skills and areas in which PSTs might need to reconsider and change. An investigation with a group of PSTs from one teacher education program suggests that many PSTs bring skills with making evidence-based interpretations about a student's process for solving a mathematics problem. However, their skills are much more limited for making interpretations about a student's understanding and have potential for bias and distortion. Implications for teacher education are discussed.

scholarly journals The Development of Pre-Service Teachers’ Understanding of the Knowledge Necessary to Teach Mathematics: A Case Study in Malawi

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Everton Lacerda Jacinto
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Education Program ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Teacher Education Program ◽  
Mathematical Knowledge For Teaching ◽  
Teaching Experience ◽  
Teaching Mathematics ◽  
Initial Moment

Globally, progress in education has been made in recent years to promote learning opportunities for all. However, significant gaps remain in lowincome countries. In Malawi, a developing country where the educational system is under development, primary education is a major concern. Several initiatives have been made to bridge this gap through improving the quality of teacher education, but research has shown that there is still a need to further understand the learning process of preservice teachers during the teacher education program. The present study aimed to gain knowledge about the primary preservice teachers’ process of learning, particularly, the development of their understanding of the knowledge necessary to teach mathematics. The current study addressed the question: How do pre-service teachers develop their understanding of the knowledge necessary to teach mathematics throughout teacher education? In the study, the knowledge necessary for teaching mathematics refers to the knowledge that teachers need to carry out the tasks of teaching mathematics. To further examine this matter, the overall question was divided into three sub-research questions: (1) What understanding do pre-service teachers have of the knowledge needed to carry out the tasks of mathematics teaching at the beginning of their teacher education? (2) To what extent does the pre-service teacher’s understanding of the knowledge needed to carry out teaching tasks evolve through the discussion of practical experiences in college? (3) How do pre-service teachers develop their understanding of the knowledge necessary to carry out the tasks of teaching throughout teacher education? These questions were compiled into a qualitative case study with six preservice teachers in a two-year primary teacher education program at a college in Malawi. Each of these pre-service teachers represented a different profile with teaching experience, subject preferences in high school, and a favorite subject to teach during college. The research occurred over three different moments in a two-year teacher education program in which the pre-service teachers were enrolled: an initial moment at the beginning of the program consisted of a questionnaire survey and individual interviews; a second moment during teaching practice that involved mathematics lessons observations and post-lesson interviews; and a third moment at the end of the program that included a focus group discussion. The data gathered were transcribed and analyzed using a thematic analysis approach. The themes of analysis were designed based on the six domains of mathematical knowledge for teaching theory. Findings show that pre-service teachers develop different paths of development of their understanding of the knowledge needed for teaching mathematics during teacher education and that such development has influences in how they acknowledge effective teaching in Malawi. The current thesis includes four articles that present the main data and results of the study. The first two articles present findings from an analysis of the pre-service teachers’ understanding of the subject matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge, and the third article presents an analysis of the pre-service teachers’ understanding when discussing teaching practice. The fourth article explores the understanding pre-service teachers developed throughout the teacher education program. The contribution of this thesis is to not only offer new empirical and theoretical insights to teacher education but also to suggest a path for further research in teaching knowledge.

scholarly journals The Supervised Teaching Practice and the Preservice Teachers’ Intended and Performed Actions in a Chemistry Class

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-169
Author(s):  
Natany Dayani de Souza Assai ◽  
Sergio De Mello Arruda ◽  
Fabiele Cristiane Dias Broietti
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Analysis Data ◽  
Initial Teacher Education ◽  
Chemistry Teaching ◽  
Research Perspective ◽  
9Th Grade

Background: Giving up prescriptive views on the teacher’s action in the classroom is necessary for a better understanding of the teaching work. We are also faced with the absence of works that address teaching action under an investigative bias in initial teacher education. Objectives:  identify and categorise the actions intended and performed by preservice teachers in a chemistry class, looking for implications for teacher education. Design: the study fits into a qualitative-interpretative research perspective. Setting and Participants: The data analysed comes from the monitoring of chemistry teaching degree students in the Supervised Teaching Practice discipline and their teaching in a 9th-grade class in a public school. Data collection and analysis: data collection took place through different instruments: lesson plans and audio and video recordings of the classes, that enabled interpretations based on the assumptions of the textual discursive analysis. Results: for the actions intended, a small set of five actions was identified (question, write, explain, organise, identify). The actions carried out, on the other hand, include a larger set of 13 actions and, mainly, microactions, made possible by the actions intended. There is a convergence between the actions initially planned and development in the departments, and the emergence of specific actions in the context of the Supervised Practice. Conclusions: Such results indicate the importance of categorising the actions of the undergraduate students in a chemistry class, resulting in a set of actions not yet identified in other studies, and discussing the importance of the Teaching Practice in the constitution of elements of the teaching work.

scholarly journals Uncovering the Skills That Preservice Teachers Bring to Teacher Education: The Practice of Eliciting a Student’s Thinking

2017 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meghan Shaughnessy ◽  
Timothy A. Boerst
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Teacher Preparation ◽  
Elementary Mathematics ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Learning To Teach ◽  
Student Thinking ◽  
Specific Knowledge

Although teacher education is the formal means by which novices are prepared for teaching, they come having already had significant experience in schools. Preservice teachers have formed habits of “teaching” which influence their learning to teach. This article reports a study of the specific knowledge of and skills with teaching practice that novices bring to teacher education with respect to one teaching practice, eliciting student thinking in elementary mathematics, and describes the use of a standardized teaching simulation to learn about novices’ skills. The findings reveal details about preservice teachers’ skills and habits of practice at the point that they enter formal teacher preparation. Preservice teachers’ ways of carrying out this particular practice are categorized into three distinct categories: (a) skills that need to be learned, (b) skills that can be built on, and (c) approaches that need to be unlearned.

scholarly journals The Consensus on Citizenship Education Purposes in Teacher Education

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 164
Author(s):  
Marta Estellés ◽  
Francisco José Amo ◽  
Jesús Romero
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Mixed Method ◽  
Citizenship Education ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Democratic Citizenship ◽  
Teacher Socialization ◽  
Political Ideologies ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Education Courses

Although education for democratic citizenship has long been a powerful rationale for social studies education, researchers still report a significant gap between this purpose and what is really taught in classrooms. Explanations of this phenomenon vary, but literature on citizenship education (CE) research has largely interpreted this gap as a result of (preservice) teachers’ political worldviews or lack of civic experiences. Other evidence, however, suggests that teacher socialization processes generate conventions about what is necessary, possible, and reasonable in CE that go beyond teachers’ political views and behaviors. This mixed-method study, developed at a Spanish university, aims to explore the understandings of CE shared by preservice teachers with different political ideologies and levels of civic engagement. The findings of this study have deep implications for teacher education courses aimed at fostering CE and the curricular inclusion of current social issues.

scholarly journals The Elephant in the Classroom: Using YouTube Comments to Address the Essential but Unacknowledged Topic of Race

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 131
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Riley ◽  
Laura E. Slay ◽  
Carol Revelle
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Students Of Color ◽  
Media Theory ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
User Comments ◽  
Writing Course ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Sociocultural Differences ◽  
Youtube Videos

Drawing on critical race media theory, this praxis article describes how instructors can effectively introduce critical race literacy theory in a teacher education class using online videos. Ultimately, this study helps us to better understand how viewing YouTube videos and responding critically to YouTube user comments can help preservice teachers acknowledge and challenge their pre-existing beliefs related to teachers and students of color in a teacher education writing course. Data analysis reveals that preservice teachers’ idealism for compassionate teaching is embedded in a superficial understanding of sociocultural differences and lacks an understanding of how race affects student learning.  

scholarly journals Sound Stories Cultivate Historic Empathy in Teachers and Students

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 373-388
Author(s):  
Sumer Seiki
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Teaching Method ◽  
Teaching Tool ◽  
Creative Teaching ◽  
Teachers And Students

With the increased demand for culturally and linguistically relevant teaching, this paper explores the use of sound stories to cultivate empathetic understanding in undergraduate preservice teachers. I inquiry into the process of creating, writing, and performing a sound story about my family’s American Japanese imprisonment experience to better understand this teaching method and adapt it for teacher education. The inquiry reveals counter stories of agency and resistance, as well as a powerful and creative teaching tool for increasing empathy in both the teacher and students.

scholarly journals Regional Cultural Understanding in Teacher Education in Latvia, Lithuania, Norway: Comparative Case Analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 10-24
Author(s):  
Gunta Siliņa-Jasjukeviča ◽  
Ilze Briška ◽  
Agnė Juškevičienė
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
Case Analysis ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
School Students ◽  
Cultural Understanding ◽  
Cultural Sustainability

The unique cultural space of each country is comprised of the cultural diversity of its regions with the cultural heritage hidden in the outskirts and border areas of the country. The regional traditions make up an important source of value and knowledge for ensuring cultural sustainability. In teacher education this problem can be treated either in a transmissive or transformative way. It can be seen as performing particular rituals and respecting norms, or cultural values that are personally experienced and highly evaluated, as one’s internally motivated involvement in exploration, cultivation, cooperation and creativity in own community without losing the national and global context.The aim of the study is to investigate the tendencies in teacher education for promoting primary school students’ regional cultural understanding in teaching practice.To pursue the set aim, the concept of regional cultural understanding (RCU) was analysed, the ways of introducing regional cultural understanding in teacher education curriculum including the factors facilitating or hindering the development of regional cultural understanding in teacher education were identified.The comparative case analysis of good practice examples in three countries was carried out to show regularities, differences and similarities of possible pedagogical approaches.Methods: content analysis of educational documents and semi-structured interviews with teacher educators.Sample: teacher education institutions in three countries: Latvia, Lithuania and Norway.Results: structured suggestions for content of the studies and pedagogical approaches for development of preservice teachers’ readiness to realize regional cultural understanding in their teaching practice.

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