Development Of Teaching Expertise Research Articles

Enacting a child safety education programme in special education contexts

BackgroundThe teaching of personal safety and abuse prevention skills in schools is a feature of robust child protection systems across the world. In Ireland, the Stay Safe programme is mandatory for all primary schools and aims to equip children with the skills and knowledge necessary to reduce their susceptibility to abuse. The mandatory nature of the programme presents a challenge to schools catering for children with special educational needs and disabilities, due to a lack of clarity for teachers over the extent to which it can be adapted. AimThe aim of this study was to probe how teachers in special schools balance the mandatory requirement to teach the designated safety programme, with the practical reality that many of their children may not be able to process the intended learning, in the way it is prescribed. In a broad sense, the study aimed to showcase how teachers increase the accessibility of the programme for children with various special educational needs and disabilities. Methods and ProceduresThe study adopted a mixed-methods approach to data-gathering. Phase 1 consisted of a questionnaire distributed via Qualtrics to every special school principal in Ireland (n = 133). Phase 2 consisted of a three-site embedded case study with three special schools. Data from both phases of research were merged, using a three-part iterative framework, to arrive at a nuanced understanding of how the designated safety programme was enacted in special schools. Outcomes and ResultsThe results indicated that teachers in special schools enact the designated safety programme with varying degrees of systematicity, despite its mandatory status. Aspects of the programme were frequently skipped, supplementary material was introduced and content was generally changed depending on child need. The greater the learning difficulty, the more modification engaged in by teachers in special schools. Conclusions and ImplicationsThis article concludes by proposing that greater flexibility be provided to teachers in special education contexts to modify mandatory child safety education programmes. To support this flexibility and boost teacher expertise in undertaking programme modifications effectively, the article highlights teacher professional learning as a key priority. Prioritising the ongoing development of teacher expertise goes some way towards reducing an over-reliance on past teaching experiences guiding provision, at the expense of expert, evidence-based approaches.

초등 예비교사의 지능정보사회 교사 역량에 대한 중요도와 실행도 차이 및 교육 요구도 분석

This study aims to provide implications for improving teacher education programs for elementary pre-service teachers by analyzing the importance and performance differences, as well as educational needs of their competencies in the intelligent information society. To achieve this, an online survey was conducted with 299 elementary pre-service teachers, and various analyses were performed, including paired sample t-tests, Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA), Borich needs analysis, and The Locus of Focus model analysis. These analyses identified competencies requiring enhancement and derived educational priorities for each competency. The results revealed, firstly, that all aspects of competencies for elementary pre-service teachers in the intelligent information society were statistically significantly higher in importance than in performance. Secondly, the analysis of the differences in importance and performance of competencies in the intelligent information society identified competencies falling under the ‘Concentrate Here' category, including development of teacher expertise (F), adptation to social paradigm shifts (F), and curriculum reorganization (D). Thirdly, according to Borich's need analysis and The Locus of Focus model analysis, the top educational needs among competencies for elementary pre-service teachers in the intelligent information society were adapting to changes in social paradigms (F) and development of teacher expertise (F) as the first priority, establishing and managing learning ecosystems (D) and interpreting and utilizing big data (E) as the second priority, and curriculum reorganization (D) and customized learning design (D) competencies as the third priority. Based on these results, the study discusses implications for improving teacher education programs for future teachers by understanding the competencies required for elementary pre-service teachers in the intelligent information society.

Doctoral student mentorship in social work education: a Canadian example

PurposeThis paper aims to present a thematic analysis investigating the experiences and reflections of doctoral students in social work at a Canadian university who were mentored in the development of teaching expertise, including course design, delivery and evaluation, by a senior faculty member. Recommendations to others who are considering engaging in doctoral student teaching mentorship are presented.Design/methodology/approachThe paper examines the authors’ reflections on their experiences of doctoral student mentorship through their involvement in collaboratively designing, teaching and evaluating an online undergraduate course. The inquiry used a qualitative approach grounded in Schon’s concept of reflexive learning.FindingsBased on the results of the thematic analysis of the mentees’ reflections, this paper presents the collaborative teaching mentorship model and discusses how receiving mentorship in teaching facilitated the mentees’ development as social work educators.Originality/valueAlthough quality guidelines in social work education recommend that doctoral students should be adequately prepared for future teaching opportunities, there is limited discussion about doctoral student development as educators within the academic literature, especially from the perspective of doctoral students. There is also limited articulation of specific models of doctoral student mentorship in developing teaching expertise. The authors hope that sharing their reflections on their experiences and describing the collaborative teaching mentorship model will serve to deepen understandings and promote further exploration and development of doctoral student mentorship in teaching.

The invisible plan: how English teachers develop their expertise and the special place of adapting the skills of lesson planning

This paper analyses how English teachers learn to become expert designers of learning and why sharing that expertise is increasingly vital. Its conceptual framework is the widely recognised, empirically tested, five-stage developmental Dreyfus model of skill acquisition, exemplifying the development of teacher expertise, constituted by the “milestone” [m] and “transitory” [t] phases connecting with the five stages of: Novice [m], Advanced Beginner [t], Competent [m], Proficient [t] and Expert [m]. Teacher planning is analysed as one key tacit or non-tangible component of developing expertise. Focusing specifically on English teachers as key participants in this pioneer teacher cognition study, the defining characteristics of milestone stages of expertise development are explored with specific attention to the remarkably under-researched area of planning. We introduce three new categories, defining modes of planning: (i) visible practical planning, (ii) external reflective planning and (iii) internal reflective planning, demonstrating their role in teacher development through the Dreyfus five stages. English is a subject which suffers from frequent disruptive changes to curriculum and assessment: new learning designs are constantly demanded, making planning an ongoing challenge. The implications for practice include the importance of an explicit understanding of how teachers’ planning moves through the three phases from the very “visible” novice phase to the internal relatively “automatic” competent teacher and finally the seemingly “invisible” expert phase. Further research is needed to explore how English teachers can share planning expertise between the three phases to improve teachers’ skills and student learning.

Learning From the Past: What ESSA Has the Chance to Get Right

Signed into law by President Barack Obama in December 2015, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) replaces No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the 2001 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. NCLB and its Reading First mandate brought punitive accountability models and scripted core curricula into schools. Based on the language of ESSA, there are opportunities to shift away from NCLB's models and curricula and toward a curriculum that supports the development of teacher expertise and children's reading behaviors. In this Inside Track piece, the author explores what we learned from the flaws of NCLB and discusses ways in which ESSA can shift literacy teaching and learning. She calls for educators and scholars to work with other stakeholders to make sense of the new law and to redefine common language used in NCLB and ESSA to better match the goals of literacy education.

Advocating for All Children

Advocating for All Children

Using reflective dialogic blogs with international teaching assistants

Given the growing number of international teaching assistants (ITAs) on US campuses, ITAs have become critical members of US academic communities. Research related to ITAs’ experiences in US classrooms reveals certain challenges that ITAs encounter as instructors in this new educational context. These challenges can be instructional, social, linguistic, or cultural in nature. In response to the need to provide incoming ITAs with both ongoing institutional and personal support, this pilot action research study investigates the impact of the use of reflective dialogic blogs on the ITAs in terms of their development of teaching expertise, cross-cultural awareness, and language skills at the completion of the ITA training course offered at a southwestern US university. The study involved a group of ITAs in online interactions via blogs with the ITA-training course instructor for the duration of one academic semester. Data collection focused on the content of the ITAs’ writing and their perceptions of the effectiveness of reflective dialogic blogs in regard to their development as instructors. The results suggest that more attempts to use tools such as reflective dialogic blogs should be made in the future. The article also suggests possible modifications for the use of reflective dialogic blogs with prospective students.

Continuing innovation and development of teacher expertise – the continual transformation of personal knowledge for teaching

Teachers develop their expertise progressively through experiences of teaching and reflecting on these experiences. When teaching in class, personal educational knowledge of teachers provides the horizon to maintain their performance, to interpret classroom events, and to react to them. Out of class, personal educational knowledge is used to reflect upon personal performance and classroom events, and these reflections modify orientations for teaching. Personal educational knowledge incorporates concepts for teaching and reflection. How personal educational knowledge of teachers is structured and used in and out of teaching is subject to discussion in educational research to date, and empirical research yet struggles to trace how personal educational knowledge is transformed for teaching. Sensitising conceptual perspectives may clarify how knowledge is transformed for teaching and how knowledge and knowing differ.

The role of subjectivity in teacher expertise development: Mindfully embracing the “black sheep” of educational research

Abstract In Western cultures, subjectivity has often been seen as the “black sheep” of educational research because of its heavy emphasis on objectivity. Consequently many research initiatives in education share the assumption that objective reasoning should play a central role. However, mentoring teachers’ practice improvement research often requires us to go beyond the objective dimension and encompass the subjective dimension of the research process such as teachers’ intuition, tacit knowledge and personal meaning-making. The challenge that lies in front of us is how to mindfully make sense of the role of subjectivity in teacher expertise development. This paper examines this issue in terms of three case studies of in-service teachers’ action research projects and points to what it takes for us to mindfully embrace subjectivity in mentoring teachers’ practice improvement research.

The role of subjectivity: Response to Noriyuki Inoue

Abstract This paper offers a response to Dr Noriyuki Inoue’s article published in this issue of the International Journal for Transformative research, entitled The role of subjectivity in teacher expertise development: Mindfully embracing the “black sheep” of educational research. Inoue freely uses the terms ‘subjectivity’ and ‘objectivity’; but referring to findings from quantum physics and consciousness studies, both of which challenge the view that it is possible to observe a world that exists independently of the observer, I ask whether the Japanese concepts of jikkan and ba actually also suggest that it is not possible to separate and define subjective and objective dimensions of reality.

T2 (teaching & thinking)-in-action skills of highly rated medical teachers: How do we help faculty attain that expertise?

Prior to developing faculty development programmes to improve reflection-in-action abilities while teaching, we sought to elaborate how T2 (teaching & thinking)-in-action is perceived by teachers using the theoretical framework of metacognition. We interviewed seven highly rated clinical teachers. Qualitative analysis techniques were used to code the transcripts and develop themes. The themes related to T2-in-action included: (1) T2-in-action preparation; (2) self-awareness; (3) flow; (4) observing; (5) T2-in-action modifiers; and (6) interactive guidance. The importance of these actions is discussed in relation to research on metacognition and teacher cognitions and actions. These highly rated teachers came to be prepared for T2-in-action by multiple methods, monitored their teaching with specific skills, and adapted their teaching based on situational awareness and evaluation. These metacognitive components provide a set of cognitive skills, which could be incorporated into faculty development activities and contribute to the development of teaching expertise.

Development of teaching expertise viewed through the Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition

This study was designed to explore development of skill acquisition in dental education, utilizing the Dreyfus and Dreyfus continuum. By identifying what skill progression may be recognized in the expert dental educator; and what experiences appear to influence this growth, the knowledge gained may inform more efficient, effective faculty support, development and life-long learning. Employing a qualitative approach, individual interviews were conducted with experienced educators and analyzed. Open coding of responses revealed that skill acquisition necessary to good teaching, as expressed by these experienced educators, reflects common themes and a learning curve similar to that noted by Dreyfus and Dreyfus and other investigators. In addition to supporting knowledge and technique development, dental faculty described working to share with students a wide range of non-cognitive competencies such as professionalism, communication, and an ethic of care and service. Findings increase understanding of teaching skill acquisition in dental education and may help provide support for health care faculty who desire to become excellent educators.

FIRST COMES THE THEORY, THEN THE PRACTICE? ON THE ACQUISITION OF GENERAL PEDAGOGICAL KNOWLEDGE DURING INITIAL TEACHER EDUCATION

Teacher education systems worldwide are confronted with the essential question of how to foster both future teachers’ theoretical and practical knowledge and to adequately enable future teachers to connect their theoretical and practical knowledge for teaching. This article investigates how future teachers acquire general pedagogical knowledge (GPK) as a central component of teacher knowledge during initial teacher education, exemplified by pre-service teachers in Germany, where initial teacher education is divided into a first phase with a heavy focus on theoretical, academic study, and a second phase where future teachers learn how to apply their theoretical knowledge in the classroom. Data from teacher knowledge studies Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics and Langsschnittliche Erhebung padagogischer Kompetenzen von Lehramtsstudierenden/Longitudinal Survey of Student Teachers’ Pedagogical Competencies are used to compare future teachers’ GPK at different teacher education stages (the beginning, after 2 years, and end of training). Findings show the more advanced future teachers are in the course of their initial teacher education, the better they perform in the test measuring GPK. When analyzing subscales of the test measuring cognitive dimensions of GPK, as would be expected declarative-conceptual knowledge (measured by cognitive dimensions “recall” and “understand/analyze”) was gained predominantly during the theoretical study (first phase), whereas future teachers who had additionally passed through the practical second phase performed much better on the practical knowledge test subscale (measured by the cognitive dimension “generate”). Research findings are discussed with regard to the development of teacher expertise during initial teacher education, and recommendations for future policy directions with respect to teacher education are given.

An Analysis of Evaluation Perspectives based on Interested Parties for Evaluating Science Teachers' Teaching Ability in Teacher Expertise Development Evaluation

An Analysis of Evaluation Perspectives based on Interested Parties for Evaluating Science Teachers' Teaching Ability in Teacher Expertise Development Evaluation

An Overview of Principles for Special Educators to Guide Mathematics Instruction

Teaching mathematics to diverse learners can be a challenge. The extensive and specialized knowledge that special education teachers need to possess to be considered high-quality teachers is often lacking in preservice and inservice education, yet is mandated by current teacher reforms and rigorous measures of accountability. To provide direction for supporting teacher growth in these areas, this article highlights four knowledge bases that special education teachers should develop and expand upon as a way to improve their instruction for diverse learners in mathematics. Numerous resources and materials are provided to support the development of teacher expertise in content, characteristics of diverse learners, technology, and pedagogy.

Mathematics teaching expertise development approaches and practices: similarities and differences between Western and Eastern countries

This paper comments on the other papers in this issue related to how “mathematics teaching expertise” is conceptualized and the approaches employed to facilitate its development in Western and Eastern countries. Similarities and differences are found to exist in the conceptualization of mathematics teaching expertise and the development approaches employed. The papers in this issue share the similarity of exploring mathematics teaching expertise from the perspective of knowledge. Under the influence of this perspective, the approaches mentioned in the papers mainly focus on the development of teachers’ knowledge. A feature in common among teacher development approaches employed in Western countries is to let teachers attend some courses or training programs designed or organized by mathematics teacher educators at universities. In contrast, teacher development approaches employed in Eastern countries, particularly those employed in Mainland China, are relatively more practical in nature and directly related to teachers’ needs, like learning from observing exemplary teaching. This shows that the conception of mathematics teaching expertise and development approaches are culturally and contextually dependent. It is argued that a broader perspective of mathematics teaching expertise should be taken to explore mathematics teaching expertise and its development, and teacher expertise development should be conceptualized as a complex system rather than as some separated knowledge, skills and techniques.

사서교사의 맞춤형 심화연수 프로그램용 연수과목에 대한 선호도 분석

본 연구의 목적은 사서교사의 교원능력개발 평가지표별 맞춤형 심화연수 프로그램용 연수과목에 대한 선호도를 분석하여 성공적인 현직연수 설계를 위한 기초자료를 제공하는 것이다. 설문 분석 결과 사서교사들은 독서교육, 정보활용교육과 같이 교육정보봉사 영역과 관련된 연수과목을 핵심 업무로 인식하고 있으며, 교육용 콘텐츠 개발과 수업용 자료 개발에 대한 선호도가 높은 것으로 나타났다. 학교급별로는 초등학교 사서교사가 도서관 활성화 프로그램, 자원봉사자 관리, 이용자 요구 및 교육과정 분석, 이용자 교육 평가 그리고 정보활용교육 평가를 선호하는 것으로 나타났다. 특히 연령이 높을수록 메타 데이터에 대한 이해, 정보시스템 구축 그리고 정보시스템과 교육지원에 대한 선호도가 높았다. 따라서 사서교사 연수과목은 학교도서관 교육과 교육과정 연계 방법을 중심으로 구성하고, 연수 방법은 이론 중심의 강의보다는 사례 연구와 개발 중심으로 이루어지는 것이 바람직하다.

Analysis on the In-service Training System of Teachers According to Teacher Expertise Development Evaluation

Analysis on the In-service Training System of Teachers According to Teacher Expertise Development Evaluation

There’s more to teaching than instruction: seven strategies for dealing with the practical side of teaching1

In this paper, we highlight the importance for teachers of having sound practical skills in interacting with students, parents, administrators and other teachers, and argue that the development of such skills is often insufficiently considered in professional training. We then present a new framework for conceptualizing practical skills in dealing with others that follows directly from Sternberg’s theory of successful intelligence. Finally, we outline and discuss an approach to measuring teachers’ preferred strategies for dealing with others that we believe has promise, both for future research into the nature and characteristics of effective teachers and schools, and for the development of teacher expertise.

Developmental changes in teachers' use of higher order thinking and content knowledge.

Secondary-level history teachers (n=60) participated in a study examining differences among experts, experienced teachers, and novices in classroom use of higher order thinking skills (HOTS) and content knowledge. The results support the theory that development of teaching expertise is associated with a change from HOTS-lean and content-rich (curriculum-centered) practices to HOTS-rich and content-lean (learner-centered) ones, but teachers who gain classroom experience and in-service training tend not to develop the full range of expert skills, notably with respect to HOTS. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)