Advancing Preservice Physics Teachers’ Critical Thinking through Active and Passive Microteaching Lesson Study

A pretest-posttest comparison-group quasi-experimental study was endeavoured to unravel the effects of the two forms of Microteaching Lesson Study (MLS), the Active MLS and the Passive MLS, on the critical thinking of aspiring physics teachers. Eighteen Bachelor of Secondary Education specializing in Physical Science students participated in the six-week study. Data were gathered using the Critical Thinking Inventory in Physics and were analysed utilizing the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test, Mann-Whitney U Test, and descriptive statistics. Results revealed that both the Active and Passive MLS have positive effects on the overall critical thinking and on all of the critical thinking sub-skills of the preservice teachers. Results further showed that the Active MLS is significantly more effective than the Passive MLS in developing overall critical thinking and its sub-skills, specifically, inference and interpretation. The implementation of lessons by the Active MLS group in microteaching sessions indicated positive affordances on the development of critical thinking. Further studies involving a greater number of preservice teachers specializing in different fields of science are recommended. The integration of the MLS, especially the Active MLS, in the preservice teaching curricula is deemed a worthwhile engagement.

Preservice Teacher Education

This chapter explains in detail the new preservice teacher training curriculum at the University of Jyväskylä and tries to go as deep as possible in understanding a totally new and progressive way of training class and subject teachers. It is not a simple task, so the chapter draws heavily on interviews with the architects of the new preservice teaching education curriculum, as well as from lecturers and university students. In this chapter, preservice teachers are being trained in the new topics of interactions, emotions, and collaboration. To balance the view about preservice teacher education in Finland, the chapter presents a summary of current changes in preservice teacher education at three additional universities: the University of Helsinki, the University of Turku, and the University of Eastern Finland. The University of Jyväskylä has the most progressive view, and although all universities have a common core about teacher education, not all of them have moved as far and as quickly as the University of Jyväskylä. The “dialogue” that the chapter presents among the four universities enriches our understanding of teacher education toward the 2030s.

Culturally Responsive Teaching: Its Application in Higher Education Environments

The application of culturally responsive teaching (CRT) in this article is used to provide a background into the instructional concept of CRT in higher educational settings and to provide examples for classroom pedagogical practice. This article provides instructional approaches that can be used in higher education classes to promote a cultural context to engage preservice teaching candidates who are seeking initial certification to become teachers-of-record and graduate-level teachers who are certified to understand and embrace the intersection of race, gender, religion, and regional cultures that contribute to identity. This article outlines instructional activities that can be used by faculty in higher education programs to assist their students with learning to co-construct culturally responsive lessons. This type of instruction should lead to a process in which faculty in higher educational settings can assist their preservice teacher candidates and graduate-level students in understanding the community in which they will serve or currently serve and to bring the funds of knowledge of their students into positive and productive learning environments.

An Exploration of Evolving Approaches to Teacher Identity Revealed in Literature on Teaching from 2010 to 2018

Teacher identity is conceived in complex ways, in part because of the attention that must be paid to both the personal and the professional dimensions of teaching experience. In addition, teacher identity as a concept is closely intertwined with the notion of teacher agency, as well as with the potential for a teacher to encounter ongoing challenges in the development and adjustment of identity in diverse educational contexts. Literature on teaching from a range of areas—teacher education, preservice teaching, in-service teaching in schools, and university or higher education teaching—reflects a variety of existing approaches to teacher identity. Despite the complexity of the concept, understanding teacher identity remains of critical importance to individual educators, to institutions and to society as a whole.

Professional Identity Tensions and Coping Strategies of EFL Pre-Service Teachers

Professional identity of English teachers is an important process in which teachers view themselves as a professional based on social views about “good teacher”, studentteacher relationship, and self-view as a professional teacher. Teacher preparation program such as Micro Teaching (MT) and Program Pengalaman Lapangan or PreService Teaching Practice (PTP) influences this process by providing support and opportunities in creating a strong professional identity since they are still in a preservice phase. The different nature between MT (situated) and PTP (concrete) can be challenging to the pre-service teachers (PSTs), especially during the PTP. These challenges are called professional identity tensions and they involve PSTs (as a person and professional) and undesirable situation. This study aimed to identify the professional identity tensions faced by EFL PSTs during their PTP and how they coped up with the tensions. The study employed a qualitative survey design. The results identified six professional identity tensions and two coping strategies from the story of seven EFL PSTs. Those PSTs was indicated either to feel tension or to have experiences that might lead them to tension. Keywords: EFL pre-service teacher; professional identity tension; coping strategy

Shifting Teacher Cultural Awareness and Teaching through Study Abroad Experiences

Preservice teacher study abroad experiences and its influence on cultural awareness and teaching is explored in this paper. Participants in this study include preservice teachers from a large teacher education program. Teacher reflections and one-on-one semi-structured interview data were gathered, transcribed, coded, and analyzed for themes. The preservice teacher responses show generally an overall positive study abroad experience. Through their study abroad experiences, the preservice teachers learned about a different culture, different customs and a different language. They also learned about how a different country’s school system works. One of the implications of this study is that we recommend that colleges’ of education as well as other colleges to develop a robust funding mechanism that include scholarships that will defray the cost of studying abroad, especially for underrepresented students. The finding and results from this study can be used as way to internationalize campuses. Indeed, preservice students in our data noted that they enjoyed their experience and gained cultural competence skills that will enhance their preservice teaching experiences.

Applying Kolb’s Model to a Nontraditional Preservice Teaching Practicum

This article reports on the initial findings of an ongoing study that will see six preservice teachers placed in a nontraditional practicum placement as part of their bachelor of education program. Reported here is the examination of emergent professionalism of the initial two preservice teachers during their nontraditional practicum placement on a housing construction site. Emergent professionalism is enacted when teachers shift their concerns from self to other, as described by Fuller. The findings are then examined from the perspective of Kolb’s experiential learning model, including the concrete experience, observation of and reflection on that experience, formation of abstract concepts based upon the reflection, and testing of the new concepts. As a result of this analysis, new insights are shared regarding the ways in which preservice teachers develop their emergent professionalism through examination of the environment, multiple sources of feedback, interdisciplinary lessons, and a hands-on learning environment.

“A Circular Council of People With Equal Ideas”

Mentoring in music education programs is such a ubiquitous part of the process; it is sometimes overlooked or subsumed under other categories. The purpose of this article is to highlight mentoring relationships within an undergraduate music teacher education program. Formal, informal, vertical, and horizontal mentoring are examined from the perspectives of undergraduate preservice music teachers working in a community-university partnership. The data are culled from a 14 month, intrinsic case study of the University of South Carolina String Project, designed to examine the participant experience for all member groups within the string project—the undergraduate preservice teachers, the community students, and the faculty. Mentoring relationships are explored as a critical component of experience for the preservice teachers. Their voices are presented here to illustrate the value they placed on mentoring, as well as the challenges that emerged in construction of a mentoring mosaic as part of their preservice teaching experience.

Connecting faith and pedagogy: Fortune favors the brave

This paper examines the defined charisms of an international field placement, the connection of those gifts with the culture and faith of participating preservice teaching candidates and investigates candidates’ reflections of teaching persona and self-efficacy fostered by an international teaching experience. Launched in 2010, the ELISA (English Leaners in Specialized Atmosphere) program was intended to provide opportunities for preservice candidates to cultivate global classroom perspectives and culturally relevant teaching. As the partnership between the University and pilot schools in Gaming, Austria strengthened, the education faculty began to identify that something deeper was occurring. Participants in the field placements were not only developing pedagogy but connecting their faith to their reflective practice and teaching.Keywords: charism, study abroad, preservice teaching candidates, culturally relevant teaching