scholarly journals Serving the Less-Commonly-Trained Teacher: Perspectives from Arabic Instructors

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dustin De Felice ◽  
Amanda Lanier ◽  
Paula Winke
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Teacher Perspectives ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Graduate Degree ◽  
Career Placement ◽  
Professional Challenges ◽  
Trained Teacher ◽  
Phenomenological Case Study

As proficient speakers of less-commonly-taught languages seek to meet the demand for qualified instructors, they face a range of personal and professional challenges. In an effort to understand the perspectives of these instructors and their particular educational experiences and needs, we conducted a phenomenological case study of two aspiring Arabic teachers. Specifically, we sought insights into their lived experiences, their motivations for pursuing a graduate degree, their attempts to connect coursework with pedagogical practices, and their needs in terms of professional development. Our findings illuminate the intersecting objectives these instructors must achieve. They need to position themselves as qualified candidates for the available positions as instructors, but they also need to reconcile a number of different roles as they develop their teacher identities and connect their backgrounds to ambitions for students’ growth. As teacher educators, we find that we need to facilitate career placement as well as the negotiation of these roles.

scholarly journals Exploring Teachers’ Lived Experiences of Cooperative Learning in Ethiopian Higher Education Classrooms: A Phenomenological-Case Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 332
Author(s):  
Tefera Tadesse ◽  
Aregu Asmare ◽  
Hashim Ware
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Cooperative Learning ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Student Centered ◽  
Traditional Lecture ◽  
Phenomenological Case Study

A growing body of research indicates that teaching is the most important determinant of student learning in higher education (HE). However, HE teachers have a persistent challenge to transform pedagogical practices from a teacher-centered to a student-centered approach. In this study, the authors employed a phenomenological-case study design to examine the teachers’ lived experiences with cooperative learning (CL) pedagogies as applied in the undergraduates’ classrooms in a large public university in Ethiopia. The authors collected the relevant data from two teacher participants through both reflection and a semi-structured interview, along with document analysis of course-related material. The teacher participants felt that their involvement in the CL lessons gave them insight to understand strategies used to implement CL and practical learning opportunities on how to use it as one variant of student-centered teaching methods. As the teacher interviewees suggested, the CL lessons helped them change their mindset from traditional lecture-based teaching to a student-centered approach and transform their pedagogical practices. The results of this study suggest that CL pedagogies offer teachers with professional development opportunities for a meaningful transformation of their roles in HE classrooms. Additionally, the results have important practical implications for many HE institutions (HEIs) and their teachers who work with undergraduate students.

scholarly journals Teacher-Students Relationship and its Potential Impact on Mathematics Learning

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 35-53
Author(s):  
Niroj Dahal ◽  
Bal Chandra Luitel ◽  
Binod Prasad Pant
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Mathematics Learning ◽  
Future Generation ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
School Level ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Teacher Student ◽  
Teacher Students

This article portrays lived experiences, and is an exploration of pedagogical practices as learners, as teachers, as teacher educators and educational researcher focusing on the relationship between teachers and students shifting from traditional to transformative approach in teaching and learning. Based on lived experiences as students of mathematics from school level to university, and as teachers of mathematics in different institutions in different time, the aim of this article is to examine and explore deep settled behavioural practices and seek to change towards transformative/constructive approach of learning and teaching in terms of teacher-student relationship to maintain quality of instruction for future generation in Nepal. Subscribing interpretive, critical, and postmodern research paradigms to embrace multi-paradigmatic research design (Taylor, Taylor & Luitel, 2012), we used auto-ethnography as a fusion research methodology in this study. Further, the auto-ethnographic inquiry also helped us to examine the pedagogical, cultural and contextual learning from different perspectives as students, teachers, teacher educators and educational researchers thereby offering space for interpretation, transformation and envisionary. We landed with the ideas that students’ active participation in learning, social and cultural enactment and transformative pedagogy promote our practice to be more meaningful, and learner centered which, in turn, develops a cordial relationship. Our vision to develop the cordial relationship between teacher-students is focused a bit differently in this article.

scholarly journals Namibian teachers’ perceptions and practices of teaching mapwork

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Johanna Naxweka ◽  
Di Wilmot
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Procedural Knowledge ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Pedagogical Content ◽  
Teachers Perceptions ◽  
Learner Performance ◽  
Poor Learner ◽  
Purposive Sample ◽  
Discrete Map

This article addresses the problem of consistently poor learner performance in mapwork in secondary school geography in Namibia from the perspective of teachers. It presents the findings of a qualitative case study focused on understanding geography teachers’ perceptions and pedagogical practices of mapwork. Data were generated through a questionnaire administered to thirty teachers in fifteen secondary schools in the Ohangwena Region of Northern Namibia, and interviews and classroom observations were done with a purposive sample of three teachers. The study draws on Shulman’s ideas of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (1986, 1987) to interpret what the three teachers say about the teaching of mapwork and how they teach it. The findings reveal that the teachers are conscientious but ill-equipped to teach mapwork. Their classroom practices focus on teaching discrete map skills and procedural knowledge with little if any, attention given to spatial conceptual understanding and application of knowledge to solve problems. The study provides insights that may be of value to teachers, teacher educators and Senior Education Officers in Namibia and other southern African contexts when addressing the problem of low learning outcomes in mapwork.

scholarly journals Pathway to ‘Knowing Places’ — and Ecojustice — Three Teacher Educators’ Experiences

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 260-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Paige ◽  
David Lloyd ◽  
Richard Smith
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Beginning Teachers ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Teacher Education Program ◽  
School Teacher ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Education For Sustainability ◽  
Teacher Education Programs ◽  
Shared Beliefs

AbstractThe case study reported here seeks to promote the sharing of successful practice in Education for Sustainability (EfS). It uses literature and three personal and professional autobiographies as background to the development of a set of sustainability educational practices integrated into a primary/middle school teacher education program. The set of activities focus on developing in students an understanding of EfS and of processes appropriate to it that they can use in their classrooms on graduation. It is the authors’ view that their collaborative building on shared beliefs, contemporary ecojustice literature and three decades of developing enabling pedagogical practices has assisted their efforts to ‘get’ EfS, and to ensure that their students, particularly as beginning teachers, ‘got it’. The ecojustice principles for teacher education programs are outlined in this article and are believed to have wide applicability in many aspects of ecojustice approaches to pro-ecosocial education.

scholarly journals Coping with English for Academic Purposes Provision during COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8642
Author(s):  
Lucas Kohnke ◽  
Andrew Jarvis
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Collaborative Learning ◽  
Online Teaching ◽  
Qualitative Case Study ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Teacher Perspectives ◽  
Case Study Approach ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
University Studies

COVID-19 and the shift to online teaching necessitated a change in approach for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) teachers in preparing their students for university studies. This study explored how EAP instructors coped with and adapted their provision for emergency remote teaching. The study was conducted at an English-medium university in Hong Kong and a qualitative case study approach was adopted. The results revealed two overarching themes of opportunity and challenge. While the sudden shift to online teaching forced innovation and fostered collaborative learning and feedback, teachers experienced difficulties in communicating with students and monitoring their learning. The study voices teacher perspectives in delivering EAP courses online and highlights important implications for the successful delivery of future online EAP provisions.

scholarly journals Roles, relationships and emotions: Student teachers’ understanding of feedback as interpersonal

2021 ◽  
pp. 003452372198937
Author(s):  
Caroline Elbra-Ramsay
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
First Year ◽  
Case Study Methodology ◽  
Study Methodology ◽  
Undergraduate Programme ◽  
Phenomenological Case Study ◽  
International Teacher

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.

scholarly journals Artefacts, practices and pedagogies: teaching writing in English in the NAPLAN era

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Gannon ◽  
Jennifer Dove
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Schools ◽  
English Teachers ◽  
Teaching Writing ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Deep Dive ◽  
Geographically Dispersed ◽  
English Classes ◽  
Novel Method ◽  
Teaching Of Writing

AbstractIn secondary schools, English teachers are often made responsible for writing results in national testing. Yet there have been few studies that focussed on this key group, or on how pedagogical practices have been impacted in the teaching of writing in their classrooms. This study investigated practices of English teachers in four secondary schools across different states, systems and regions. It developed a novel method of case study at a distance that required no classroom presence or school visits for the researchers and allowed a multi-sited and geographically dispersed design. Teachers were invited to select classroom artefacts pertaining to the teaching of writing in their English classes, compile individualised e-portfolios and reflect on these items in writing and in digitally conducted interviews, as well as elaborating on their broader philosophies and feelings about the teaching of writing. Despite and sometimes because of NAPLAN, these teachers held strong views on explicit teaching of elements of writing, but approached these in different ways. The artefacts that they created animated their teaching practices, connected them to their students and their subject, suggested both the pressure of externally driven homogenising approaches to writing and the creative individualised responses of skilled teachers within their unique contexts. In addition to providing granular detail about pedagogical practices in the teaching of writing in the NAPLAN era, the contribution of this paper lies in its methodological adaptation of case study at a distance through teacher-curated artefact portfolios that enabled a deep dive into individual teachers’ practices.

scholarly journals Education for Social Change: The Case of Teacher Education in Wales

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8574
Author(s):  
Rebecca Weicht ◽  
Svanborg R. Jónsdóttir
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Entrepreneurial Education ◽  
Constructive Learning ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
The University ◽  
Action Competence ◽  
Shed Light

Entrepreneurial education offers valuable opportunities for teachers to foster and enhance creativity and action competence, which are also important for sustainability education. The University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD) is a leader in the development of entrepreneurial education in teacher education both in Wales and internationally. The objective of this article is to shed light on how an entrepreneurial education approach can help foster social change. The aim of this study is to learn from teacher educators at UWTSD about how they support creativity, innovation, and an enterprising mindset in their learners. A case study approach is applied. By analysing documentary evidence such as module and assignment handbooks, we explore how teacher educators at UWTSD deliver entrepreneurial education for social change. Our findings indicate that UWTSD’s development of entrepreneurial education in teacher training has enabled constructive learning, cultivating creativity and action competence. We provide examples that display how the intentions of the Curriculum for Wales and entrepreneurial education approaches of the UWTSD emerge in practice. These examples show outcomes of the entrepreneurial projects that evince the enactment of social change. The findings also show that the educational policy of Wales supports entrepreneurial education throughout all levels of the educational system.

Equity and justice for all

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie Kinloch ◽  
Kerry Dixon
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Teacher Educator ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Critical Whiteness Studies ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Urban Teacher

Purpose This paper aims to examine the cultivation of anti-racist practices with pre- and in-service teachers in post-secondary contexts, and the tensions of engaging in this work for equity and justice in urban teacher education. Design/methodology/approach The paper relies on critical race theory (CRT) and critical whiteness studies (CWS), as well as auto-ethnographic and storytelling methods to examine how black in-service teachers working with a black teacher educator and white pre-service teachers working with a white teacher educator enacted strategies for cultivating anti-racist practices. Findings Findings indicate that for black and white educators alike, developing critical consciousness and anti-racist pedagogical practices requires naming racism as the central construct of oppression. Moreover, teachers and teacher educators demonstrated the importance of explicitly naming racism and centralizing (rather than de-centralizing) the political project of anti-racism within the current socio-political climate. Research limitations/implications In addition to racism, educators’ racialized identities must be centralized to support individual anti-racist pedagogical practices. Storying racism provides a context for this individualized work and provides a framework for disrupting master narratives embedded in educational institutions. Originality/value Much has been written about the importance of teachers connecting to students’ out-of-school lives to increase academic achievement and advance educational justice. Strategies for forging those connections include using assets-based practices and linking school curricula to students’ community and cultural identities. While these connections are important, this paper focuses on teachers’ explicit anti-racist practices in urban education.

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