Search results for "Professional [Education]"
showing 10 items of 626 documents
Teacher Guidance in Mathematical Problem-Solving Lessons: Insights from Two Professional Development Programs
2019
When implementing a problem-solving lesson, the teacher needs to provide students appropriate guidance during problem solving. This demanding task requires understanding students’ work in progress and giving them necessary help without constraining their thinking. In this article, we share insights from two professional development programs on how teachers guided students’ problem solving and how they reflected on these instances. One of the programs included Finnish pre-service teachers, while the other program included US in-service teachers. We analyzed video-recorded problem-solving lessons from 16 Finnish and 2 US teachers in grades 6–9. We found two themes about teacher guidance of st…
Assessing the Level of Collaborative Writing in a Wiki-Based Environment: A Case Study in Teacher Education
2016
Wikis have received the last few years a growing interest as tools for supporting collaborative writing in teacher education. This paper reports on results from a case study that aimed at assessing the level of collaborative writing among teacher students. Taking advantages of wiki affordances, the proposed theoretical framework uses a taxonomy of category actions that can be carried out on wiki. These provide a powerful instrument to analyze students’ individual contributions to the wiki and level of collaborative writing among students as well. Implications for teacher preparation and professional development are drawn from the results and future research actions are envisaged to enhance …
Translating Teacher Funds of Identity into Curricular Proposals for the EFL Classroom: A Model for Student-Teacher Innovation and Professional Develo…
2019
This article describes the progress and findings of a research project, organized in the context of a university Masters course in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL), which aimed at translating the student-teachers' (STs) funds of identity into worthwhile curricular proposals for the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) subject. The first part of the research involved 38 STs in three workshops through which they became aware of their own funds of identity, expanded their own teacher identity, and finally designed curricular proposals that incorporated their funds of identity as valuable pedagogical resources. The second part of the research took place during the two-month practicu…
Professional Embodiment: Walking, Re-engagement of Desk Interactions, and Provision of Instruction during Classroom Rounds
2018
Abstract Unlike continuous whole-class (plenary) interaction, independent task work involves incipient teacher–student talk, as the teacher typically ‘makes rounds’ to engage in brief desk interactions with students. This article draws on multimodal conversation analysis to investigate how teacher movement during tasks offers resources for re-engaging in desk interactions and offering task-related guidance. The focus is on teachers’ walking trajectories and ways of positioning the body, and students’ orientation to them, in (i) (pre-)opening moments of a desk interaction, and (ii) during a subsequent instructional turn that guides students with the ongoing task. The analysis shows how the p…
Developing professional identity through group experiential learning: A Group-Analytic experiential training approach for use with postgraduate clini…
2019
This article describes a Group-Analytic, experiential and non-directive training approach taken with postgraduate clinical psychology students in training. Based on median/large group settings, it is aimed at promoting the development of psychology students’ professional identities. It uses a particular form of experiential learning beyond the rational and cognitive aspects of traditional didactic teaching in order to stimulate students’ own involvement in the integration of their thoughts, feelings and attitudes. From a Group-Analytic perspective, the group is conceived of as an organic entity. The convenor takes up a less intrusive and non-directive role in comparison to a traditional sem…
Principles of Learner Learning-Centred Didactic in the Context of Technology-Enhanced Learning
2018
The article seeks to update views on didactic practices in the rapidly changing field of education and addresses the timely problem of paradigm transition when shifts in deliberate education have been imposed upon by at least three factors: increased access to digital technologies in the learners’ everyday life and teaching-learning; reform of educational content towards the acquisition of competencies valid for the twenty-first-century social developments; and, in response to these, appropriate changes in teachers’ professional competence to maintain a learner’s learning-centred didactic with learners who, if compared to those of 25 years before, cooperate and communicate differently, are …
Meaningful time for professional growth or a waste of time?: a study in five countries on teachers' experiences within master's dissertation/thesis w…
2020
The relationship between master’s thesis work and teachers’ professional development has rarely been explored empirically, yet. Drawing upon a larger study, this paper investigates how teachers who were studying for or who have recently graduated from Master of Education programmes offered in five countries – Poland, Portugal, England, Latvia, Romania – perceive the usefulness of dissertation/thesis work for their professional development and how they attempt to use their MA research results in their (future) teaching practice. Results suggest that although most respondents recognized their MA dissertation/thesis work as having a positive impact on their professional development by enhancin…
Who and how? : Preservice teachers as active agents developing professional identities
2016
Abstract This study is part of an ongoing action research project with preservice class teachers in Finland. The study aims to better understand the forms agency takes in preservice teachers' professional identity development. Through the dialogical analysis of student assignments, this study outlines how student teachers are active within their own development and the way in which experiences are drawn on as preservice teachers exert their identity-agency. The results of this study provide a relational picture of identity development highlighting the way in which identity-agency is contextualized, potentially nourished by the relationships between self and other and dependent on experience.
Enhancing Dialogic Argumentation in Mathematics and Science
2017
This paper reports on a teacher professional development (PD) programme addressing dialogic argumentation in mathematics and science classrooms. While argumentation skills are becoming more and more important in an increasingly polarised society, the social aspect of argumentation is often neglected in secondary education. Moreover, it is agreed that genuine argumentation requires time and space in classroom dialogue. There have been calls for research delving into how teachers could be familiarised with dialogic argumentation so that they could foster such dialogue in students. The described PD programme features versatile and continuous cooperation between scholars and participating teach…
Development of Professional Identity During Teacher's Practice
2016
Abstract The article focuses on issues of the development of professional identity of English teachers-to-be in Latvia. This development is an ongoing process which starts during teacher education. The article aims to examine emerging professional identity and how reflective self-evaluation during teacher's practice done with the help of reflective activities facilitates professional development of student teachers. Specific attention is paid to the self-reflection on teacher's practice experiences done with the help of the EPOSTL. It is also concerned with the ways how university can improve student's awareness of their identity. The conducted case study involved questionnaire, content ana…