scholarly journals Teacher education as design: technology-rich learning environments and trajectories

Seminar.net ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Lund ◽  
Jonas Bakken ◽  
Kirsti Lyngvær Engelien

Traditional school subjects are being challenged by the accelerating production and development of knowledge in all domains. This creates a need to educate student teachers not only to appropriate existing practices but to be prepared to take the initiative in designing and developing new ones. This paper examines the challenges that confront teacher education when both the amount of information and its complexity are increasing due to the growing use of technology. We argue first that we need a richer view of technology than is often found in decision documents and in some of the didactics literature. We then introduce the concept of design as both an analytical and a didactic concept that links technology-rich environments and learning trajectories to knowledge development. From an activity-theoretical perspective, we approach the notion of design as a key component in teacher education and consider how it materializes through the use of a wiki, and in a new type of exam. The aim is to contribute to enhancing the quality of teacher education by making visible some of the more underlying qualities of what professional ICT competence can entail.

Author(s):  
Brendan Mac Mahon ◽  
Seán Ó Grádaigh ◽  
Sinéad Ní Ghuidhir

Research on the use of iPad in initial teacher education is limited. This paper outlines a study to examine how the professional learning and pedagogical knowledge development of student teachers could be supported following 1:1 iPad deployment on a second level initial teacher education programme in Ireland. Findings show that iPad can be utilised both as an effective pedagogical tool and as a medium for the creation of new learning spaces where student teachers' professional and pedagogical knowledge development is supported through feedback, peer-learning, resource sharing and critical reflection. Creating resources with and for iPad as part of a collaborative design process can also support student teachers in developing and integrating technological, pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) within their approaches to teaching, learning and assessment. Implications for initial teacher education providers and the integration of technology within schools are outlined.


Author(s):  
Urip Sulistiyo ◽  
Amirul Mukminin ◽  
Kemas Abdurrahman ◽  
Eddy Haryanto

This qualitative case study was conducted to gather information on the implementation of teaching practicum in order to improve the quality of the program in an English teacher education program at a state-owned university, Jambi, Indonesia. Information was gathered from five recent teacher graduates, five beginner teachers, five school principals, and five teacher educators on their perceptions of English Foreign Language Teacher Education Program (EFLTEP) graduates as beginner teachers. This qualitative study employed a background survey, document analyses and interviews for data collection. Document analyses were used to examine the aims and content of the English teacher education program and official Indonesian English teacher education curriculum and policies. Semi-structured interviews were used to explore the main data from graduates and collect information from the beginner teachers. Interviews with principals and teacher educators were used to obtain further data and evidence about the beginner teachers’ knowledge and preparedness to teach. We organized our analysis, findings, and discussion around the implementation of teaching practicum. The analyses of the documents and texts revealed that major themes related to (1) the standards for implementing the teaching practicum in the program, (2) quality of the teaching practicum, (3) duration of the teaching practicum, (4) the roles of mentor teachers and teacher educators, and (5) selecting school partners for the student teacher practicum. Particularly, the findings indicated that teaching practicum projects undertaken during the program provided suitable but limited experience for student teachers to translate their knowledge learnt at university into the real practice of teaching at school levels. For future improvement of the program, the role of supervising teachers and teacher educators in assisting student teachers during the teaching practicum project should be a priority. The organisation and management of school–university partnerships for schools taking part in the teaching practicum require attention to maximise benefits to student teachers.


2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Saima Bibi ◽  
Muhammad Saeed

Quality enhancement of teacher education programs has been a debatable issue all over the world. The present study was aimed to assess the quality of teacher education programs being offered in a public sector university in Pakistan. Three programs were randomly selected and prospective teachers studying in the final semester were selected as sample of the study. Prospective teachers studying in last semester of teacher training programs were the respondents. Questionnaire, containing 55 statements divided into six factors, was used as data collection tool. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 20. Descriptive statistics showed that the respondents were more satisfied about the selection criteria, effectiveness of teaching strategies used by teachers, behavior modification practices, appropriateness of courses, timely feedback, and teachers’ content knowledge but they were less satisfied with the statements related to availability of multimedia in the classes, sharing of faculty offices, no distortion of external factors, space to conduct activities, cleanliness and neatness of classrooms, and environment helpful for learning. The results of inferential statistics revealed significant difference in mean score of respondents from different programs on the factors of admission criteria, use of technology, assessment procedure, and quality of paper development and marking. It is recommended in the light of results that the university should allocate special budget to improve the quality of infrastructure. Furthermore, availability of technology and its proper use should be ensured by the university administratio


2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-87
Author(s):  
Vahid Motamedi

The purpose of this study was to analyze the readiness of pre-service teacher education graduates at Mississippi State University (MSU) in the use of technology. The design of this study was a survey approach. Data from the completed survey instruments was coded onto data sheets and was entered into the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. Description statistics were used initially on the data to answer the research question. Chi-square was selected as a statistical tool because the data for the study was nominal and ordinal. The focus of the study promoted one major question and three sub-questions. The major question was: Are undergraduate teacher education graduates at MSU adequately prepared to teach with technology? The three sub-questions were: (a) which students seem to be the most and the least prepared to use technology in the classroom? (b) what are the differences between students who are prepared and those who are not? and (c) which experiences do the most prepared students have that the others do not? The analyses of the data indicated that students with a higher skill level had been exposed to teachers/instructors who used technology in teaching, whether in student teacher placement, practicum placement, or during the last two years of classes. The analyses of the data showed the courses student teachers took did not seem to make them more proficient in the use of technology. The study showed that there were student teachers who did not have exposure to the use of technology in courses they took. The findings of this study indicated that pre-service teacher education graduates were inadequately prepared in the use of technology.


Author(s):  
Joyce Bukirwa Sessanga ◽  
Badru Musisi

This chapter explores the need to equip student teachers with the skills that will enable them to train and develop their learners for employability. However, given the broad understanding of employability, it is important to recognize that the quality of a university graduate is not just a reflection of the quality of the curriculum and its supporting academic environment. It reflects the demands of the industry as well as the competence of the regulating body (i.e. related government institutions) in shaping the characteristics of higher education graduates. It might be overly simplistic to say that universities are encouraged, if not pressured, to produce employable graduates. The higher education sector therefore needs to recognize and understand the context of employability for their graduates to ensure that their students can live up to the expectations from governments and employers.


1978 ◽  
Vol 5 (1&2) ◽  
pp. 81-90
Author(s):  
Ruby King

Central to the educative process is the transaction which takes place between the learner and the teacher. The main concern, therefore, of teacher education programmes is to improve the quality of future transactions by help­ing teachers (in-service and in-training) to understand the learner, the dynamics of learning, and their own roles in the transaction. The case study presented in this article is based on the premise that student-teachers will continue to grope in the dark until they have developed the necessary understandings and insights. It is imperative that our student-teachers receive such help as will enable them to reach the stage where teaching becomes a deliberate meaningful act. This breakthrough can be quickly effected when the student-teacher is made to come to grips with the realities of life in the classroom directly through actual teaching, and indirectly through appropriate room directly through actual teaching, and indirectly through appropriate supporting materials in the local idiom, which reflect circumstances and experiences with which he is familar.


2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 50-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Zhou ◽  
Judy Xu

Technology proficiency has widely been considered a necessary quality of school teachers, yet how to help teachers develop this quality remains an unanswered question. While teacher education programs often offer one technology course as a solution to this issue, scholars have recently argued that such technical skill-oriented courses are not sufficient to develop preservice teachers’ ability to use technology in teaching. This paper argues that the use of technology in teaching requires integrated knowledge between technology, pedagogy, and subject content, and this highly blended knowledge is best developed through the methods courses of a teacher education program. The key message is that preservice teachers need to be consistently exposed to technology and regularly be required to practice it in many aspects of instruction.


Author(s):  
Shanti Divaharan ◽  
Wei-Ying Lim ◽  
Seng-Chee Tan

<span>This paper traces the evolution of the design framework for the use of technology in a teacher education program in a Singaporean university. This course focuses on developing student teachers' capacity for the use of ICT in teaching and learning. We report our two-level reflection: one that focuses on the trajectory of the course design, and one that reflects on the university faculty's pedagogical practices when conducting this course. The goal of this course in the last decade has transformed from a focus on technology skills to pedagogical and knowledge creation. The current goal of the course is to develop student teachers' pervasive use of technology tools to collaborate, design, reflect and think critically. The challenge for the faculty in a teacher education higher learning institute is to design a course that would present opportunities for student teachers to experience the technology tools as learners themselves so as to become teachers who will be doyens in designing technology tool integrated learning. We contend that the experiences of technology tools help to deepen the student teachers' knowledge about technology integration. As student teachers experience technology tools in tandem with theory, the immersive experience may translate into designing apt technology-integrated lessons for their learners.</span>


2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Renata Góralska ◽  
Małgorzata Kosiorek

Emotions are an important aspect of teachers’ professional work, and therefore, developing their emotional competences is an important element of teacher training. The aim of the article is to answer the question whether, in the process of preparing teachers to perform their professional role, attention is paid to issues related to the emotions. The theoretical perspective of our research is provided by the socio-constructivist concepts of emotions and emotional competences. We refer primarily to the theories of Steven Gordon and Carolyn Saarni. The research problem focuses on the question: how are the emotional competences of teachers constructed/presented in the academic education curriculum in Poland? We searched for an answer to the problem by means of critical discourse analysis (CDA), which is one of the most useful research perspectives for studying the relationship between socio-cultural and discursive changes. The source of discursive data is the document that constitutes the legal basis regulating the teacher education process in Poland, i.e. Regulation of the Minister of Science and Higher Education. Our research revealed that in Polish academic education there is a technical-instrumental discourse in force, which is related to the traditional model of teacher training. This has a decisive impact on both the structure of the teacher training curriculum in Poland and the marginal importance of the role of emotions in teachers’ work. The performed analysis may contribute to the improvement of educational practice and, consequently, to the improvement of the quality of academic education.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan Mac Mahon ◽  
Seán Ó Grádaigh ◽  
Sinéad Ní Ghuidhir

Research on the use of iPad in initial teacher education is limited. This paper outlines a study to examine how the professional learning and pedagogical knowledge development of student teachers could be supported following 1:1 iPad deployment on a second level initial teacher education programme in Ireland. Findings show that iPad can be utilised both as an effective pedagogical tool and as a medium for the creation of new learning spaces where student teachers' professional and pedagogical knowledge development is supported through feedback, peer-learning, resource sharing and critical reflection. Creating resources with and for iPad as part of a collaborative design process can also support student teachers in developing and integrating technological, pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) within their approaches to teaching, learning and assessment. Implications for initial teacher education providers and the integration of technology within schools are outlined.


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