Search results for "Professional Development"
showing 10 items of 258 documents
Challenges and Transformations in Teachers’ Training
2014
Abstract Teacher training scenario today is a cause for serious concern. This research evaluates if the voices of children in Romanian preschools are heard and proposes new educational policy in order to train practitioners for preschools. The purpose of the study is to involve practitioners and parents in the Early Years in an experimental training program called: “Voices of children in Romania”. We discovered that according to the traditional attitudes of Romanian parents and practitioners, children's voices are rarely taken into consideration. After the new training program was put into practice in preschools and homes, teachers and parents started to give more attention to children's vo…
Emotional intelligence in Greek teacher education : Findings from a short intervention
2021
AbstractEmotional intelligence (EI) is widely known to be crucial for professional development in education, and it is a curricular component of Greek teacher education. Still, there is little information available on student teachers’ EI. The aim of this study was to explore whether student teachers’ trait EI can be developed through a two-week, EI-focused intervention. The study followed a quasi-experimental design with a mixed method approach, using the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire-Short Form (Greek version) (N = 42) and reflective emotion diaries (N = 19). The participants were third-year undergraduate students studying primary education and teaching at the University of C…
Students’ Experiences of Reflective Writing as a Tool for Learning in Physiotherapy Education
2015
The purpose of this study was to examine physiotherapy students’ experiences of reflective writing. The students (n = 32) were asked to video record their practical activities at school and at workplaces, and to write reflective journals on their experiences. The research data about students’ experiences of reflective writing were collected by interviewing the students. The data were analyzed phenomenographically. The findings revealed four qualitatively different experiences of reflective writing: 1) writing as a useless task; 2) writing as a tool for deepening understanding; 3) writing as a tool for self-reflection; and 4) writing as a tool for professional development. These categories d…
Collaborative professional practice for strengthening teacher educator identities in Eritrea
2021
Strengthening the identities of teacher educators is critical to quality teacher education and implementing change in the education sector. This study examines the professional identities of Eritrean teacher educators and how these identities can be strengthened through collaborative professional practice in a challenging context currently under reform. The focus is on the professional capacity building activities at the College of Education in Eritrea, which were implemented in collaboration with Finnish education partners. The paper reports on findings from an action-research informed study of a semester-long series of professional development seminars and an interview study with individu…
Developing inclusive education policy and practice in Zanzibar : collaborative action research
2018
This doctoral dissertation, which consists of three interrelated sub-studies and an overarching summary, explores the inclusive education development process in Zanzibar, Tanzania. The purpose of the research is to contribute to the development of inclusive policies and practices in order to increase the presence, participation and achievement of all learners. The overarching research question investigated in this research was as follows: How is inclusive education developed in Zanzibar, and how can it be better integrated into the education system? This question was divided into six sub-questions. Each of the three interrelated sub-studies in this dissertation focused on specific sub-quest…
Elementary Math to Close the Digital Skills Gap
2018
All-encompassing digitalization and the digital skills gap pressure the current school system to change. Accordingly, to ’digi-jump’, the Finnish National Curriculum 2014 (FNC-2014) adds programming to K-12 math. However, we claim that the anticipated addition remains too vague and subtle. Instead, we should take into account education recommendations set by computer science organizations, such as ACM, and define clear learning targets for programming. Correspondingly, the whole math syllabus should be critically viewed in the light of these changes and the feedback collected from SW professionals and educators. These findings reveal an imbalance between supply and demand, i.e., what is ove…
Teacher educators amid conflicting demands : tensions between individual and organizational development
2012
THE POTENTIALS OF A TRANSIENT TRANSNATIONAL COMMUNITY FOR TEACHER EDUCATORS’ PROFESSIONAL LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT
2020
Although there has been a rising interest in the profession of teacher educators, there is still a lack of research looking at the professional learning and development of teacher educators. Taking a European perspective, we intend to contribute to the field of teacher education. At the outset we outline current literature and research findings, indicating various challenges that teacher education professionals face in today’s society, which are prominent in many contexts of language teacher education. Choosing to study a transient transnational community of 11 teacher educators as an autoethnographic case, we draw on qualitative data collected in the context of the ERASMUS+ project proPIC …
Addressing Complexity in Science|Environment|Health Pedagogy
2019
This paper aims to discuss complexity as a key feature for understanding the role of science knowledge in environmental and health contexts—a central issue in Science|Environment|Health pedagogy. Complex systems are, in principle, not predictable. In different contexts, ephemeral mechanisms produce different, sometimes completely unexpected results. The art of decision-making in complex contexts is to take scientific knowledge into account but to interpret its meaning in terms of concrete complex contexts. This is illustrated by four empirical studies on Science|Environment|Health issues, presented midway through this paper. The findings underscore the importance of introducing complexity i…
Scaffolding teachers to foster inclusive pedagogy and presence through collaborative action research
2017
Teachers can be influential change agents in transforming their schools if they regularly reflect on their pedagogical practices, looking for improvements that will help all learners reach their fu...