Search results for "teachers"
showing 10 items of 617 documents
Pre-service Primary Teachers' Scientific Knowledge and Attitudes towards Science Learning and Their Influence on the Understanding of the Nature of S…
2016
The present study focused on the knowledge about the nature of science and the question of the extent to which this knowledge could be explained by employing scientific knowledge, as well as attitudes towards science learning. We obtained data from 171 Spanish pre-service primary school teachers on their knowledge about: a) science concepts, b) science process skills, c) the nature of science (that was split into science construction and validation and the role and function of scientific models), and d) their attitudes towards science learning. Quantitative and qualitative analyses provided interesting results: a) there were significant correlations between any pair of scores of conceptual …
Towards new challenges in Finnish pre-service teacher training
2015
Teacher training in Finland is facing a situation in which it is necessary to develop new ways to organize education according to the needs of the students and society. There is an increasing demand for a more flexible teacher study program that would make it possible for students to face the future challenges in more versatile ways. This qualitative study investigates pre-service teachers’ professional development during the 6 ECTS credits learning period in multiple authentic 21st Century learning environments in Primary school teacher training. This article provides an opportunity to discuss and develop primary school teacher training to help pre-service teachers to adapt themselves to f…
Pre-Service Primary Teachers' Beliefs of Teaching Science With Simulations
2016
Although the benefits of the use of simulations in science education have been extensively documented, research on pre-service teacher education related to the use of simulations in science teaching remains limited. The aim of this study was to investigate the beliefs of pre-service primary teachers in two teacher training programs of two different universities (n = 36 and n = 18) related to teaching science with simulations. The teachers participated in an intervention where they planned and gave a science lesson where simulations were used. The effect of the two different types of interventions on the beliefs was also studied. The Interconnected Model of Professional Growth by Clarke and …
Informal learning contexts in the construction of physical education student teachers’ professional identity
2022
This study aimed to investigate the significance of informal learning contexts in physical education (PE) student teachers’ professional identity construction. It addressed two research questions: How do informal learning contexts contribute to the construction of PE student teachers’ professional identity? What forms of relationships can be identified between the informal and formal contexts of learning in PE student teachers’ professional identity construction? The data consisted of 20 semi-structured interviews with PE student teachers during the final teaching practice period. The data were analysed using structural and pattern coding methods. The analysis revealed that informal learnin…
Status versus nature of work : pre-service language teachers envisioning their future profession
2020
Considering the central role of identity in understanding teacher development, this paper addresses the ways in which pre-service language teachers envision their identities as future professionals. The paper is based on a qualitative study of 61 students’ visualisations of their future work during their first semester in language teacher education. The visualisations and accompanying descriptive texts were analysed using the principles of qualitative content analysis. In the analysis, two different ways of perceiving future professions, and thereby identities as professionals, were identified. The first was a nature-oriented perspective that focused on desired characteristics of the profes…
Finnish pre-service teachers’ perceptions of their strategic learning skills and collaboration dispositions
2019
To support the development of pupils’ 21st-century skills, teachers themselves must also be competent in these skills and learn them during pre-service teacher education. The aim of this study is to investigate what kind of profiles emerge among Finnish first-year pre-service teachers’ (N = 872) in terms of perceptions of their strategic learning skills and collaboration dispositions and what background variables explain membership of the profiles found. Latent profile analysis showed five student profiles corresponding to perceived strategic learning skills and collaboration dispositions. The most robust factor explaining the membership of the profiles was life satisfaction. Pre-service te…
Theoretical and pedagogical perspectives on orchestrating creativity and collaborative learning
2011
The role of teacher is increasingly related to designing and arranging collaborative learning situations in which fruitful and creative group work may occur. This thematic review presents recent studies on creativity and collaborative learning from the perspective of the teacher as conductor of learning processes. The precondition for the design and orchestration of these kinds of learning situations is analysing and understanding of creative and collaborative processes and their contextual adaption. Thus, the first section of this review focuses on the theoretical vantage points of creativity and collaborative learning mainly from socio-cultural perspective. Based on this theoretical groun…
Classroom Orchestration: Balancing between Personal and Collaborative Learning Processes
2014
The nature of vocational education needs has changed. In authentic vocational classroom contexts, there is a rising need to develop new ways to integrate ongoing and overlapping processes of students' personal learning environments and collaborative knowledge construction. However, there is currently very little knowledge about how teachers integrate these two approaches in arranging learning. This creates new challenges for teachers when creating instructional activities, especially regarding teacher-student interactions. This case study illuminates teachers' instructional activities in empowering the students' knowledge construction in a technology-enhanced learning setting. The results s…
Collaborative 3D learning games for future learning: teachers’ instructional practices to enhance shared knowledge construction among students
2013
Collaborative games will enable new kinds of possibilities for learning. In the future, the goal of game-based learning should be to introduce new ideas and deepen in-depth understanding of learners. However, studies have shown that shared high-level knowledge construction is a challenging process. Moreover, thus far, few empirical studies have examined what constitutes the teacher’s role in games. The focus of this paper is to investigate teachers’ real-time instructional activities in a scripted 3D game setting. Our hypothesis is that groups with real-time teacher instruction will come up with more shared knowledge construction that can be considered productive than groups studying withou…
How common are inclusive educational practices among Finnish teachers?
2017
Several instructional strategies have been recommended for use in heterogeneous classrooms, but the frequency of their actual use has remained largely unknown. Therefore, an electronic survey was sent to Finnish comprehensive school teachers (N = 2276) in order to assess the prevalence of three selected inclusive strategies: co-teaching, group work, and differentiation. The results showed that co-teaching was used by 42% and group work by 43% of the teachers at least on a weekly basis, while differentiation was used regularly by 83% of teachers. The application of all strategies was strongly associated with teacher category, with subject teachers using them less frequently than classroom te…