scholarly journals Student Teachers’ Reasons for Choosing Teaching as a Career: A Case Study of First Year Students from a Rural University

Author(s):  
N.P. Mudzielwana
2021 ◽  
pp. 003452372198937
Author(s):  
Caroline Elbra-Ramsay

This paper reports the findings of a small-scale study seeking to investigate how student teachers, within a three-year undergraduate programme, understand feedback. Feedback has been central to debates and discussion in the assessment literature in recent years. Hence, in this paper, feedback is positioned within the often-contradictory discourses of assessment, including perspectives on student and teacher feedback. The study focused on two first year undergraduate student teachers at a small university in England and considered the relationships between their understanding of feedback as a student, their understanding of feedback as an emerging teacher, and the key influences shaping these understandings. A phenomenological case study methodology was employed with interviews as the prime method of data collection. Themes emerged as part of an Nvivo analysis, including emotional responses, relationships and dialogue, all of which appear to have impacted on the students’ conceptual understanding of feedback as indelibly shaped by its interpersonal and affective, rather than purely cognitive or ideational, dimensions. The paper therefore seeks to contribute to the wider feedback discourse by offering an analysis of empirical data. Although situated within English teacher education, there are tentative conclusions that are applicable to international teacher education and as well as higher education more generally.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-164
Author(s):  
Gregor STEINBEIß

Abstract: This article investigates teachers’ professional identity of beginning first-year students through their beliefs about being a teacher. The presented study focuses on Austrian teacher students’ (N=18) conceptions of becoming a professional; what convictions student teachers reflect on, which professional identity emerges and what synthesis of a professional teacher identity position can be portrayed at the beginning of teacher education. Through inductively driven content analysis all statements (N=401) have been combined, and a unified synthesis of a beginning student teachers’ professional identity was formed. Three main categories were found: the “ideal” teacher, “good” teaching, and the “optimal” working environment. The results showed a highly idealistic view of being a teacher. The majority of statements referred to teaching from a pupil-centered perspective by strongly emphasising personality traits, student-teacher relationships, and teachers’ professional knowledge. Based on the results, the role of professional identity in Austrian’s teacher education is discussed, and further implementations in research are recommended.


Author(s):  
Agung Wicaksono

<p>Communication strategy is the way to help the speakers when facing difficulties in communication using English as a second language. This case study, at the first year students of English Department, aims to know the most frequent students’ strategies to communicate in speaking activity in speaking class. It is  found that thirteen communication strategies were used by the students in speaking English class, but not all of the communication strategies were used in every conversation, but only certain communication strategy was used. It depends on  the materials difficulties. Furhermore, the most frequent  communication strategies is stalling or time gaining strategy. As they need some time to think and then continue talking after they find the right words they need to communicate. This findings is in line with the propossed theory stated that communication strategy is defined as a systematic technique employed by a speaker to express his or her meaning when facing certain difficulties in communication.</p>


Author(s):  
Heather Coffey ◽  
Susan B. Harden ◽  
Erik Jon Byker ◽  
Amy J. Good ◽  
Larry B. Fisher

Using case study method, this project examines the perceptions and practices related to development of self and cultural awareness among a cohort of 104 (n=104) first-year students, all aspiring to become future teachers. Over the course of one academic semester, first year students who planned to enter the teacher education program participated in readings, activities, assignments, field based observations, and discussions developed to facilitate self and cultural awareness. The findings from analyses of these artifacts indicate that pre-service teachers began to demonstrate deeper awareness of how personal opinions and biases influenced their interactions with others and the types of characteristics related to appreciating diversity (Akiba, 2011) in urban classrooms. This study has implications for engaging first year students in early field-based clinical experiences in order to develop self and cultural awareness in preparation for teaching.


Author(s):  
Melissa L. Johnson ◽  
Laura Pasquini ◽  
Michelle R. Rodems

This case study, an honors first year seminar from the University of Florida, USA, demonstrates the benefits and challenges of these developments in education. The case expands the definition of formal, informal, and online learning communities in the context of a first year seminar.


1996 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Behets

In this study, experienced physical education teachers’ observation skills in teaching situations are compared to that of first- and last-year student teachers. The 56 participants were shown 12 slides from a gymnastics lesson, and after viewing it for 4 s, they were asked to report what they had seen. The number of items and critical events reported were analyzed. No significant differences were found between the three groups on the number of events reported or for the number and duration of the eye fixations. Significant differences were found for the number of critical events reported and fixated. Last-year students and experienced teachers correctly reported more critical events on the slide scenes than first year students, but there were no significant differences in observational capacities between last year students and experienced teachers. This study demonstrated the need for observational training, not only during preservice, but also for inservice teachers.


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 23-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
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Alexander Rylov ◽  
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Larisa Konnova

Experts in the field of economics should satisfy special requirements in a growing economy, such as fluency in mathematical tools and mathematical modeling. It can be attained through the professionally-oriented planned purposeful education program. The ability to deal with economic problems of specific situations (cases) becomes graduates&#180; important quality. The authors have attempted to start teaching the solving of economic cases in the first year University of Economics as part of the basic mathematical disciplines&#180; course. A comparative analysis of two modern educational technologies (the project method and the method of case-study) presented in this article allowed the authors to conclude that project technology can be used for initial training for case solving. The article describes �Mathematical models in solving economic problems�, the case-project competition between first-year students of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation. Themes related to mathematical analysis&#180; economic applications were used during the competition.


Author(s):  
Sasilak Rodphotong

The attempts of the present study aimed at investigating the effectiveness of collaborative learning to enhance English communicative competence and evaluating students’ satisfaction towards the instruction. The participants in this study were 1,471 the first-year students enrolled in the first semester, 2017 academic year. The students’ English proficiency according to the CEFR was A1. The instruments used were lesson plans, pre-test and post-test and satisfaction questionnaire. The lessons were comprised of various collaborative learning activities emphasizing at the following topics: self-introduction, school schedule, telling time, asking and giving information, food, leisure, describing people, describing things and giving direction. The period of experiment was 20 hours. The independent sample t-test was calculated to find the differences. The findings revealed that there were statistically significant differences at the level of .01 after teaching with collaborative learning. This indicated that the students’ communicative competence significantly improved. Besides, the satisfaction questionnaire was distributed at the end of the instruction and the results indicated that the students had a positive satisfaction towards the instruction.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 6-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelvin Mukolo Kayombo ◽  
Steve Carter

This study was the second phase of a larger research project that was designed to identify and measure a higher education institution’s brand in Zambia in order to ascertain areas for strengthening the brand’s competitive position. The objectives of this conjoint study were twofold: firstly, to identify the current position of the ZCAS brand as a case study and secondly, to establish the current position of the ZCAS brand relative to its higher education (HE) competitors in Zambia. This quantitative study involved administering a conjoint questionnaire to 110 first year students in ZCAS and 280 first year students in seven universities in the country. The 19 branding elements identified in the initial qualitative stage of the project were aggregated into five principal branding factors using Atlas.ti’s co-occurrence tools to facilitate this conjoint study. These five principal branding attributes are teaching quality, fees, course availability, learning environment and employability. The study revealed that ZCAS has a fairly strong brand position in the Zambian HE sector because the most important elements in its brand model, i.e. course availability, teaching quality and facilities are also the premier brand dimensions in the market. The study also revealed that ZCAS needs to reposition itself away from the competition in order to occupy a more favorable position in the minds of its prospective and existing customers. Accordingly, the study recommends that ZCAS increases its course offerings and collaborates with universities in the region. ZCAS should also consider setting up a quality assurance unit to foster quality in the institution. This study adds to the increasing body of knowledge on HE branding, particularly in developing countries, by developing and then testing a brand orientation model for the Zambian HE market.


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