Enterprise education: pre-service further education teachers' impressions and aspirations

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the attitudes and impressions of pre-service Further Education teachers towards enterprise education. It also looks at the potential impact on their future teaching practices and aspirations. This study builds on the literature in this area by bringing a teacher education focus and by providing views from the underserved further education sector.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative research approach was used to evaluate pre-service further education teachers' understanding of and attitudes towards, enterprise education. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 15 students in their final year of an initial teacher education degree.FindingsFindings emerged through constant comparative analysis of interview transcripts. These findings indicate that exposure to enterprise education greatly increased understanding of its importance and relevance, while also encouraging pre-service further education teachers to recognise the benefits of incorporating enterprise education into their classrooms of the future.Originality/valueWhile there is an array of literature on entrepreneurship and enterprise education outside of business contents, very few studies exist, which examine enterprise education in an initial teacher education context. Fewer still examine enterprise education from the perspective of further education. This study provides a unique qualitative view of pre-service further education teachers' impressions of enterprise education and their aspirations for the future.

Educator Perceptions of Early Learning Environments as Places for Privileging Social Justice in Rural and Remote Communities

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Australia has long been associated with the concept of social justice, however, a clear understanding of what it looks like across diverse services and communities is not available. This article reports the process of inquiry, as well as the outcomes, of a small-scale study designed to uncover the perceptions of ECEC educators working in rural and remote communities in the state of Queensland. Data were collected through individual semi-structured interviews with five educators from rural and remote settings identified as areas experiencing significant growth in population diversity. An initial thematic analysis of the data revealed three key themes. A secondary analysis using a place and space conceptual framework uncovered deeper, more sophisticated meanings of the educator experience of social justice. The research is important in bringing pedagogical conversations to the forefront regarding ECEC educator perceptions of their role in creating a socially just learning environment. In addition to identifying future research possibilities, implications from the findings indicate opportunities for re-examining and rethinking initial teacher education and ongoing professional learning.

I Want to Become a Teacher because…? Student-Teachers Change in Attitudes of Becoming Teachers in Austria and Kosovo

The motivation for career choice motivation of student-teachers is a well-studied topic with a representative theoretical basis in teacher education research that has a long-standing tradition in the international research landscape. However, in understanding the pressing questions of why young people choose to become teachers, only a few longitudinal and comparative studies have been carried out that focus on the development of motivation for choosing a teaching career. This longitudinal study reports on the effects of time within initial teacher education and how it influences student-teacher attitudes and motives about the teaching profession. This article is a product of a larger study that aims at addressing the existing literature gap by examining student-teacher change in attitudes of becoming teachers in Austria and Kosovo starting from initial teacher education, during early stages of their teaching career as novice teachers, and to more advanced stages of their teaching career. This is a panel study located within a longitudinal design. In this study, a questionnaire and student-teacher reflection texts were used as instruments. Data were collected in three phases during which 673 student-teachers participated in face-to-face administered questionnaire as follows: 341 (phase 1), 185 (phase 2), and 147 (phase 3), as well as 19 student-teacher reflections. Questionnaire data were analysed using the general linear model (GLM) with repeated measures test, whereas the reflection text data were analysed using thematic analysis. The findings in this longitudinal study provide evidence that student-teacher attitudes and motives for becoming teachers can change over time during the initial teacher education in Austria and Kosovo, and they can be influenced by in-school experiences during teaching practice. The study concludes that motives for choosing a teaching career are primarily intrinsic, are not time-stable, and change over the course of studies. The study findings have clear implications for initial teacher education programs in addressing changes in student-teachers’ attitudes of becoming teachers. The insights gained from the findings of this study lead to recommendations that initial teacher education programs should strengthen teaching practice to better manage the preparation of students and teachers and their entry into the teaching profession.

Online Baseline Assessment in Mathematics: Initial Teacher Education Entry-Level Student Performance

This article describes a part of an online and technological intervention at a rural South African Higher Education Institution focused at improving the mathematical knowledge of first-year Senior Phase and Further Education Training (SP& FET) Bachelor of Education student teachers. As part of the interventions in an ICT integrated Mathematics Education and Research Centre, the student teachers were subjected to write an online baseline assessment on the content knowledge in Grade 7 mathematics, which is the first year in Senior Phase in South African Schools. A total of 193 student teachers wrote the online baseline test with 20 items in an invigilated computer laboratory environment. The test items were from the online Computer Aided Mathematics Instruction (CAMI) program which is aligned to the Grade 7 CAPS curriculum of South Africa. The data were analysed by the CAMI system and were further analysed using Microsoft Excel 2016. The result of the test showed an average performance of 38,67% (Variance: 0,66% and SD: 0,81%). This sheds light into the disturbingly limited mathematics subject content knowledge the student teachers enter the HEI with. The programme structure of the Senior Phase mathematics content module of the HEI was also analysed. The authors of this paper recommend that student teachers need to be thoroughly engaged in learning the content during their training as future mathematics teachers. This paper contributes to the ongoing research on ITE programmes at HEIs that prepare teachers for their mathematics teaching role in the senior Phase classrooms. Received: 21 September 2021 / Accepted: 11 December 2021 / Published: 3 January 2022

Changes in pre-service teacher self-efficacy for teaching in relation to professional experience placements

This article aims to contribute new, longitudinal evidence on teacher self-efficacy (TSE) by investigating changes in TSE over the last 2 years of an Australian initial teacher education program. Two hundred and one pre-service teachers were surveyed at three timepoints: (1) after the first professional experience placement, (2) before and (3) after the final placement, using the Scale for Teacher Self-Efficacy. Data were analysed using multilevel modelling. TSE for the domains of classroom management and student engagement decreased significantly between the first and before the commencement of the last professional experience placements. All three dimensions of TSE – instructional strategies, student engagement and classroom management – increased significantly during the final placement.

You Can't Be What You Can't See

This chapter presents the policy, practice, and societal contexts of initial teacher education in Ireland as a backdrop to the TOBAR programme. Primary teaching in Ireland is a high status and high demand profession, yet the teaching body is predominately white, female, and Catholic. In recent years, in response to changes in Irish society, and in initial teacher education and higher education policy, new initiatives have been introduced to diversify the teaching body. In the second section of this chapter, the authors present an overview of one such initiative: the TOBAR programme. The TOBAR programme supports Irish travellers to participate in initial teacher education programmes. Drawing on a series on interviews with students on the TOBAR programme, the authors report that the programme is having a positive impact on the students but that many challenges and barriers still exist.

The Pedagogical Possibilities of Critically Examining Gender and Sexuality in Initial Teacher Education Through the Lens of Intersex

Although pre-service Health and Physical Education (HPE) teachers may be acquainted with media headlines categorizing intersex bodies as “deviant,” “non-biological,” “different,” and/or “non-natural” in their reporting on eligibility testing in women's elite sports, few appear to be familiar with what intersex includes and what these tests were designed to reveal. Drawing on Evan and Rich's advocacy to critically analyse body-policies with strong normative body-pedagogies, this chapter unpacks how athletes marked by this category cannot be understood as separate from the corporeal instructions and ‘authorities' that mark and regulate their bodily representation. The chapter inspires and encourages HPE teachers to take the ‘risk' of engaging students in disruptive practices which explore the inscription of power onto particular bodies and abilities in sports and how they as both pedagogues and members of society are all ethically implicated in these relations of power.

Inclusive Formative Assessment for Diverse Pre-Service Foundation Phase Literacy Teachers

Many classrooms in South Africa are very diverse in terms of culture, gender, language, and intellectual ability. Thus, educators need to be inclusive in the way they plan for teaching and learning. This chapter attempts to show how teacher educators at one institution of higher education in South Africa implemented inclusive formative assessments in their initial teacher education programme. Traditional assessment practices like examinations, tests, and essays, which dominate many classrooms, have proven to be unable to capture the range and nature of the diverse learning outcomes sought from courses. In this study, students were given different assessment tasks to demonstrate their knowledge of the handwriting skills and pedagogy. Findings of the study show that teacher educators managed to accommodate all the students through their use of inclusive assessments. Teacher educators observed improvement in student's self-esteem, motivation, and engagement.