Search results for "teacher education."
showing 10 items of 336 documents
Hopes and fears of teacher candidates concerning the teaching profession
2017
Romanian university students have the opportunity to enroll in the education program for the teaching profession starting with their first year at the university. Most undergraduates choose the education program for the teaching profession, although some of them do not see themselves as teachers. The schooling experiences, the motivation for entering the teacher education programs, the initial teacher education experiences and their future plans can be important factors in considering the perspective of becoming a teacher or not. Focused on a future orientation, the goal of this study was to investigate teacher education candidates’ hopes and fears concerning a possible career as teacher. U…
Meta-action research with pre-service teachers: a case study
2014
This article analyses a case of action research collaboratively conducted by a university teacher and 50 students in a master's course in teacher training. Its originality resides in the socio-economic, academic, and conceptual nature of the obstacles encountered in the module; in the meta-theoretical orientation of the action research that was chosen to overcome them; and in how triangulation strategies were devised to compensate for the limitations imposed by the academic framing of the course. In spite of the brevity of the research cycle, both the structure of the course and teacher-student interaction improved rapidly and significantly, as did the latter's trust in the teacher. As a re…
Recent tensions and challenges in teacher education as manifested in curriculum discourse
2010
Abstract This study seeks to contribute to discussions on the development of teacher education by analysing teacher educators' talk concerning curriculum reform. The curriculum is understood as a mediating construction between teacher educators and the social context, and the development of the curriculum is seen as a negotiation process between global discourses and local actors. Our aim was to understand the contrasting discourses used by teacher educators in talking about curriculum development, on the grounds that such discourses frame interpretations that direct the implementation of teacher education as a whole. Five contrasting interpretative repertoires were found. We illustrate the…
Do different routes to becoming a special educator produce different understandings of the profession and its core concepts?
2014
There are multiple routes to becoming a special educator in Norway. In recent years, bachelor's degree programmes have offered an alternative to the traditional path in which special education coursework is taken as a part of teacher education. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether these different programmes produce different understandings of the special education profession and its core concepts. We surveyed 27 bachelor students and 36 teacher education students using open-ended questions concerning their future goals and expectations and the concepts of ‘inclusion,’ ‘learning disability,’ and ‘special educator’. Teacher education students were more likely to: (a) view incl…
Children’s Emotions in Educational Settings: Teacher Perceptions from Australia, China, Finland, Japan and Spain
2019
The transition to formal education is a critical transition in children’s lives that has importance for socio-emotional and behavioral functioning. In the transition process, teachers are key players who work intensively with children and their families. This article focuses on teachers’ perceptions of children´s socio-emotional behavior during the transition from preschool to primary school. We collected qualitative teacher interviews from 112 teachers from five different countries—Australia, China, Finland, Japan and Spain. The research questions were: (1) How do teachers in the five countries perceive children’s abilities in expressing and regulating emotions. (2) How are children’s emot…
The role of parents' and teachers' beliefs in children's self-concept development
2016
This study examined to what extent parents' and teachers' beliefs about children's abilities predict children's self-concept of math and reading ability development during the first grade, and whether these predictions depend on the child's gender and level of performance. One hundred fifty-two children and their parents and teachers were followed across first grade. The results showed, first, that the associations between teachers' beliefs and children's subsequent self-concept of ability depended on the level of the children's performance. Among high-performers, the higher the teachers' beliefs about their students' abilities in reading or in math, the higher the subsequent level of self-…
Running a hybrid: mingling in-service and pre-service teachers in peer-mentoring groups
2020
his study examines a hybrid form of the Finnish Peer-Group Mentoring (PGM) merging student teachers and in-service teachers of different career stages in group meetings facilitated by an educated mentor. Experiences of the in-service participants were studied by interviewing them, and the data were analysed through thematic analysis. Four main themes were identified: 1) Enjoying group activities, 2) Personal professional development, 3) Attaching to the professional community and 4) Developing the teacher profession. The study shows that the hybrid model of peer-group mentoring enables opportunities for teacher learning that benefit both schools and teacher education institutions. peerRevie…
Sustainability Development in Mathematics Education : A Case Study of What Kind of Meanings Do Prospective Class Teachers Find for the Mathematical S…
2019
In this article, our focus is on sustainable development in mathematics education from the point of view of teacher training. The aim was to develop prospective teachers’ content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge of school mathematics. As a case study, we chose the mathematical symbol “a/b”, and examined how prospective class teachers in Finland connect it to the concepts of fraction, ratio, division, rational number or probability. Mathematics textbooks often have a central role in lessons, and they affect strongly how pupils understand concepts and the relationships between them. We chose languaging as a multi-semiotic approach to interpreting what kind of meanings the prospecti…
Becoming a Language Teacher: A dream come true or a source of anxiety?
2015
In this qualitative study the author examined personal narratives written by 14 Finnish speaking student teachers of Swedish, in order to find out what they tell about their thoughts and feelings concerning their future work as language teachers. The following three themes were in focus: firstly, what university students tell about their reasons for wanting to become teachers in the first place; secondly, what kinds of worries concerning their future work they mention in their narratives; and thirdly, how student teachers could be supported during transition from teacher education to teaching. According to the study, students choose teaching for reasons that are related to: (a) teacher iden…
Pedagogical leadership to support new teachers' growth
2016
This study aims to discover the impact of pedagogical leadership on new teachers’ growth. The research is focused on three questions: 1) Are new teachers’ feelings and challenges being understood?; 2) How do new teachers receive support from principals and the school community?; and 3) How does pedagogical leadership impact new teachers’ growth? The research uses the qualitative approach of case studies. Four Finnish schools were selected as participants. The principals of each school and their five new teachers, with less than three years of experience, participated in the interviews. Teachers in Finland have common challenges when they first enter the profession. Finnish school communitie…