Understandings of Character and Virtue Education in Riga: Main Findings

How students learn to teach? A case study of instrumental lessons given by Latvian undergraduate performer students without prior teacher training

The purpose of this study was to describe and discuss the way students of the Latvian Academy of Music teach before having entered a teacher training programme. Five hours of students’ teaching work was video-taped, analysed and discussed with them between the spring of 2010 and the winter of 2011. The descriptive and analytic results of this study were also contrasted with their own views on pedagogy, which were drawn from a previous study that had been conducted with the same students and their peers in the fall of 2009. The role of the teaching habits and skills that students have acquired from their own teaching, temperament or background is discussed, as well as their needs starting te…

Research-based reflections about character education: myths, challenges and international perspectives

At present, youngsters’ character and virtue education issues are widely discussed in Latvia and in English-speaking academic environment. Given the existing criticism of these concepts, the research question was: what are the main misunderstandings about the nature of character and virtue education? After clarifying the neo-Aristotelian understanding of these concepts, recent research in the field of character education and virtues is presented for deconstructing some of the myths related to it, due to conceptual, historical, moral and political misunderstandings (Kristjánsson, 2013). Real problems (historical, methodological and practical) faced by character education programs in mainstre…

ASSESSMENT OF A PILOT PROGRAMME FOR SUPPORTING PRINCIPALS’ LEADERSHIP FOR CHARACTER EDUCATION IN LATVIAN SCHOOLS

Implemented with the support of the ERAF postdoctoral research grant “Modernization of school education in Latvia through an innovative research-based program on 21st century competences and virtue ethics development supported by a virtual campus (ARETE-school).

DESIGNING A TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAMME FOR CHARACTER EDUCATION: AN INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIP

There is a need of innovative teacher training programmes for character education. This paper addresses three research questions: What are the challenges that a teacher training programme for character education should address? What are the learning outcomes that the programme should achieve? How should the programme be structured for supporting the achievement of those learning outcomes? Two regional authorities, three schools, three universities and a centre of teacher training from Latvia, Estonia and Spain created a strategic partnership for answering these research questions, using design-based implementation research. The results include six domains of learning outcomes and a programm…