Teacher Education Research Articles

Interpretation as a Technique to Foster Inclusive Classrooms at Higher Learning Institutions in Zambia: A Case Study of Kitwe College of Education

This study aims to explore the implementation of interpretation techniques designed to promote inclusivity in educational settings, particularly those characterized by linguistic diversity and limited resources. The focus is on understanding how various techniques, such as sign language interpretation, simplified language, peer assistance, visual aids, and bilingual instruction, contribute to enhancing the learning experiences of students with disabilities and language barriers. A phenomenological approach was used to gather in-depth insights into participants' experiences. The study involved a sample of 15 participants, including three teacher educators, two interpreters, and ten students. The data was collected through multiple methods, including focus group discussions (FGDs), lesson observations, and individual interviews. These techniques allowed for the exploration of participants' perspectives on the effectiveness of inclusive strategies and the challenges faced in their implementation. Thematic analysis was applied to identify common patterns and challenges, particularly focusing on systemic issues such as resource limitations, the availability of trained interpreters, and cultural attitudes. The analysis further examined how these barriers impacted the success of interpretation techniques in fostering an inclusive learning environment. Additionally, the role of time constraints and linguistic diversity was explored as factors complicating the consistency and accessibility of inclusive practices. The findings highlight the significant impact of inclusive strategies on the learning experiences of students, yet they also point to substantial challenges that hinder the full potential of these practices. The study calls for increased investment in resources, professional development, and the creation of standardized policies to address these barriers. Practical implications suggest that educational institutions must adopt comprehensive and consistent strategies to ensure inclusivity for all students.

Teacher education an analytical approach to internship practices around the world

Teacher education an analytical approach to internship practices around the world

Vocational knowing and becoming in VET and VTE: How bringing them together can provide new insights for vocational pedagogies

This article addresses how vocational knowing and becoming are cultivated in vocational education and training (VET) as part of upper secondary and adult education, as well as in vocational teacher education (VTE). It is based on a study within a Swedish government initiative aimed at promoting the development of school-relevant research and educational practice in partnership between the academia and the school sector and draws on interviews with VET and VTE teachers. Our findings show that VET and VTE teachers share similar ideas of what a good teacher is and does, and how these qualities are cultivated through participation in various communities of practice. VET and VTE teachers also share ideas of what their students need to become skilled professionals. These ideas include critical judgement, the integration of theory and practice, ethical reflection, and the propensity to handle diversity and relate to the Other. We identify and discuss these as aspects of VET and VTE teachers’ vocational phronesis. Implications for VTE include the need for supporting students’ educational journeys, developing teachings strategies for vocational phronesis and reflecting on the purpose of education.

Cross-cutting competencies for human rights education in Chile: rethinking music teacher education from the perspective of global competence

Cross-cutting competencies for human rights education in Chile: rethinking music teacher education from the perspective of global competence

The art of Naqd: communicating critique in Arabic thought for teacher training in Arabia

ABSTRACT This article explores Naqd, critique in Arabic thought, emphasizing its significance for teacher training in the Arab Gulf countries. Naqd, a practice grounded in Arabic intellectual tradition, has almost slipped into obscurity due to the overwhelming influence of the Westernization of higher education. The article responds by re-examining Naqd’s historical and conceptual origins and relevance to contemporary pedagogy. It addresses the urgent need to re-integrate Naqd into teacher education programs to offset the prevalence of Western approaches. It explores key concepts such as Tamhis, Tamyeez, and Taqyeem and Taqweem. By tracing Naqd’s development from pre-Islamic oral traditions to its role in Islamic scholarship and jurisprudence, the article proposes a pedagogical and conceptual framework to revitalize Arabic epistemes and foster a culturally responsive approach. The aim is to restore the balance by integrating Naqd’s dialectical lexicon with culturally and epistemologically relevant practices into teacher education programs in the GCC academia.

Some Aspects of Patriotic Education of Future Teachers

The importance of patriotic education of future teachers in the education system of Kyrgyzstan is considered. For centuries, the love of the people for their homeland, the protection of their interests and unity, and respect for the heritage of their ancestors have formed the basis of patriotic feeling. In most post-Soviet countries, patriotism has become an important part of the political discourse in order to form a national and civic identity. The formation of the Kyrgyz nation - a single civic nation uniting representatives of various ethnic groups living in Kyrgyzstan, should be really strengthened in their consciousness through feelings of love for their country, pride in it, and patriotism. Formation of interest in love for the Kyrgyz land, knowledge of its ancient history is one of the main tasks of modern education. Patriotism is an essential structural and integral part of the national idea, culture and science. Fostering a sense of patriotism is very important for the future of Kyrgyzstan. Patriotic education of future teachers helps to convey national values to the younger generation. Education of patriotic youth is a living, responsible process.

Omani Pre-Service Teachers, Climate Change Anxiety, and Self-Efficacy to Teach Climate Change Education

ABSTRACT This exploratory study investigates the relationship between climate change anxiety and self-efficacy in teaching climate change education among Omani pre-service science teachers (PSSTs). Using a custom-designed questionnaire adapted from established anxiety scales, the researchers collected data on climate change anxiety levels across four domains (reported anxiety, stress levels, cognitive impacts, and physiological impacts) and self-efficacy to teach climate change education. The survey was administered to a group of PSSTs, and responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics and correlation analysis. Results show all participating PSSTs experienced some level of climate change anxiety. A statistically significant, moderate negative correlation was found between climate change anxiety levels and PSSTs’ self-efficacy in teaching climate change education. Higher levels of anxiety were associated with lower self-efficacy. No significant differences in climate change anxiety levels were found based on gender or science specialization. Building on these findings, we discuss implications for teacher education academics, curriculum developers, researchers, policymakers, and others interested in climate change education. We argue for a range of future initiatives in initial teacher education that take climate change anxiety into account.

An Autoethnography of an Islamic Teacher Education Programme

This article explores Islamic Teacher Education through an autoethnographic account of the author’s experience with the Graduate Certificate of Education (Islamic Pedagogy) at the University of South Australia. It addresses the lack of research on how Islamic Pedagogy is taught, contributing to the growing scholarship on faith-based teacher education. Autoethnography is a qualitative research method that combines autobiography and ethnography, emphasising personal experiences to explore cultural communities. It is especially useful in studying emerging concepts like Islamic Pedagogy and Faithful Praxis. This approach challenges Western positivism, promoting epistemic reflexivity, and offering critical insights into marginalised perspectives and educational practices. This paper employs autoethnography to present the author’s Faithful Praxis journey as a transformative pedagogical shift, shaped by their experiences with Western and Islamic epistemologies, aiming to empower Muslim voices in education and challenge marginalization, with the Graduate Certificate fostering epistemic reflexivity and providing a platform to reconcile Islamic and Western knowledge in the classroom. This paper also clarifies the distinction between Islamic Pedagogy and Islamic Integration through autoethnography by highlighting their complementary nature as opposed to the author’s initial assumptions around their interchangeability. Whilst this article contributes to the growing Islamic Teacher Education scholarship through an autoethnographic perspective, further research to assess broader program efficacy is still needed.

NEP 2020: Role of Teachers in Indian Culture and Eternal Value

Teachers play a pivotal role in preserving and transmitting Indian culture and its eternal values. In the context of the National Education Policy in India, which emphasises integrating Indian Knowledge Systems into education, this paper explores how teachers are crucial agents in nurturing and disseminating these cultural values. The study investigates the impact of effective teacher education in equipping educators with the skills, knowledge, and attitudes necessary to uphold Indian cultural values. It examines the role of teachers in fostering societal harmony and individual well-being through the transmission of enduring values embedded in Indian culture. .By analysing the methods and strategies employed in teacher training programs under the NEP, this research aims to highlight how educators can effectively instil these values in students, thereby contributing to a culturally enriched and harmonious society.

Exploring Competitive Strategies of Preschool Teacher Education Program Based on SWOT-QSPM: A Case Study of Zengcheng Vocational and Technical School in Guangzhou City

This paper employs the SWOT-QSPM (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat-Quantitative Strategic Planning Matrix) analytical framework to conduct a strategic study on the preschool teacher education program, taking the preschool teacher major of Zengcheng Vocational and Technical School in Guangzhou City as an example. Through in-depth interviews and qualitative and quantitative analysis methods, the current external opportunities and threats, internal strengths, and weaknesses faced by the major are assessed. Alternative strategies are proposed, and then the QSPM method is used to quantitatively evaluate these alternative strategies. It is concluded that a differentiation strategy should be adopted as the competitive strategy for the preschool teacher education program. The research findings have significant reference value for the development and planning of similar preschool teacher majors in higher vocational colleges. The practical significance lies in the fact that the research conclusions can be directly applied by education providers. The innovative significance lies in providing career planning references for current preschool teacher major students and their parents through strategic analysis.

Learning to become a teacher with a disability: the personal journey of a professor of teacher education

ABSTRACT Studies have shown that teachers with disabilities remain largely invisible in schools and in teacher education, thus perpetuating both the lack of role models for students and preservice teachers with disabilities and the prevalent deficit view that individuals with disabilities cannot be successful teachers. Existing narrative research points instead to the advantages teachers with disabilities can bring to the area of inclusive teaching, as well as the professional identity development that this involves. Given this background, the author describes his personal experience with a suddenly occurring permanent visual impairment that altered how he is able to engage in his work as a professor of teacher education. The article uses a narrative research format to discuss the impact of the impairment, the ways in which the author has been able to re-learn how to approach his work and adjust his own sense of professional identity, and how, in effect, he can use his disability as an asset in his teaching, exemplifying trends in the research on the identity development of teachers with disabilities. Possible implications for teacher education are suggested.

The understanding of inclusion in education of pre-service primary school teachers who graduated from a public university in Zimbabwe

Since the universalisation of inclusive education in 1994 at the United Nations Salamanca Conference in Spain, teachers globally have been grappling with how to implement it. Inclusive education calls for adoption of inclusive pedagogical approaches that are learner-centred. In order to do justice to diverse learners in today’s heterogeneous classroom populations, a solid and in-depth understanding of the philosophy of inclusion is a pre-requisite for all classroom practitioners. This qualitative study therefore aims to examine the understanding of inclusion in education of pre-service primary school teachers who graduated from a public university in Zimbabwe as the context for proposing strategies to enhance their professional preparation. Sixteen graduate pre-service primary school teachers who were purposively sampled from Masvingo province’s selected university that proffers pre-service teacher education. A triangulation of data gathering instruments of face-to-face individual interviews, document analysis and non-participant observation complemented by a follow-up discussion was adopted. Data gathered was thematically analysed and established several findings. The chief finding was that, university graduate pre-service primary school teachers had differing and inadequate understandings of the philosophy of inclusion in education that culminated into haphazard implementation of inclusive education as they had various practices.

Exploring the impact of blended learning instruction on preservice teachers' self-efficacy beliefs in organizing educational field trips to out-of-school learning environment

Abstract The integration of the flipped classroom model, self-efficacy theory, and the value of out-of-school learning environments forms the foundation for this study. By employing the flipped classroom model, preservice teachers can develop their instructional skills and build self-efficacy in organizing educational field trips. The active, student-centered learning experiences facilitated by the flipped classroom model can enhance preservice teachers' self-efficacy beliefs, preparing them to effectively utilize out-of-school learning environments in their future teaching careers. This study aims to explore the impact of the flipped classroom model on preservice teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, specifically in the context of organizing and conducting educational field trips. By understanding the theoretical underpinnings and practical implications, the study seeks to contribute to the development of effective teacher education practices that promote innovative and confident teaching professionals. The study’s participants were 57 preservice teachers in the science teacher education program. It was undertaken employing a sequential, explanatory mixed-methods study. The preservice teachers in the experimental group were educated using the flipped classroom model, while the control group was instructed through the conventional classroom model. The “Self-Efficacy Belief Scale for Organizing Educational Field Trips to Out-of-School Environments” and a semi-structured interview form were used to gather data. Results indicate that the flipped classroom implemented in the course has positive effect on the self-efficacy beliefs of preservice teachers towards organizing trips to out of school learning environments. Furthermore, it was concluded that the use of this model was encouraging for pre-service teachers to use it in their teaching professions.

Teaching About and For Social Justice

Teaching for social justice is an explicit goal of most teacher education programs. However, this mandate has been criticized by scholars who claim that social justice is an undertheorized and vague concept that is often disconnected from methods courses that focus on content-specific pedagogies. This study seeks to address this disconnect by exploring how an Equity Literature Circles (ELC) framework within a literacy methods course can enhance teacher candidates’ (TCs’) understanding of the relationship between literacy instruction, diversity, and social justice. Drawing on the perceptions of ten TCs enrolled in a teacher education program in western Canada, data for the study was generated from classroom artifacts, an individual survey, and a focus group interview. Upon analysis of the data, the findings suggest that an ELC framework is an effective instructional strategy for enhancing TCs’ understanding of intersecting aspects of diversity, equity-focused literacy instruction, and teaching about and for social justice. Teaching for social justice is an explicit goal of most teacher education programs. However, this mandate has been criticized by scholars who claim that social justice is an undertheorized and vague concept that is often disconnected from methods courses that focus on content-specific pedagogies. This study seeks to address this disconnect by exploring how an Equity Literature Circles (ELC) framework within a literacy methods course can enhance teacher candidates’ (TCs’) understanding of the relationship between literacy instruction, diversity, and social justice. Drawing on the perceptions of ten TCs enrolled in a teacher education program in western Canada, data for the study was generated from classroom artifacts, an individual survey, and a focus group interview. Upon analysis of the data, the findings suggest that an ELC framework is an effective instructional strategy for enhancing TCs’ understanding of intersecting aspects of diversity, equity-focused literacy instruction, and teaching about and for social justice.

Introduction to the Special Issue Teacher Educators for Children with Behavioral Disorders (TECBD) Conference

Introduction to the Special Issue Teacher Educators for Children with Behavioral Disorders (TECBD) Conference

Exploring Antiracist Pedagogies in Project-Based Learning with Preservice Teachers

This exploratory study, grounded in critical race, social-cultural, and critical literacy theories, uses children’s literature as a catalyst for engaging preservice teachers (PSTs) in critical conversations about systemic racism and its impact on curricular and instructional decisions. Integrating tenets from both project-based learning (PBL) and antiracist teaching, we focus on three major practice markers for PSTs: (1) acquiring knowledge of experiences and histories of communities marginalized by society; (2) integrating content and pedagogical knowledge with antibias practices to create a culture of caring and curricular restorative justice; and (3) bridging coursework towards authentic calls to action. We share our experiences as teacher educators alongside an exploration of PSTs perceptions and experiences engaging in an antiracist PBL.

"No pain, no gain": Simulation-based learning in teacher education: The mediating role of simulation hindrances.

Research on educational simulations has attempted to decipher the simulation-based learning (SBL) process by examining factors that facilitate and impede this process. In the current study, we examined the role of SBL participants' hindrances, in particular their experience of anxiety or fear, which we view using the framework of leaving one's comfort zone. Departure from one's comfort zone has never been studied in the context of SBL in teacher education. A quantitative analysis of data collected via a questionnaire on Simulation Learning Outcomes in Teacher Education (SLOTE) revealed a model in which the hindrance variable potentially mediated all of the relationships between the background variables and the simulation learning outcomes (i.e., communication skills and collaborative learning insights). These results improve the theoretical understanding of the SBL process in this field and indicate ways to optimally utilize potential hindrances to plan and apply SBL for the purpose of learning.

The positioning of quality and expertise in initial teacher education: policy enactment in the Australian context

Abstract Teacher quality and teacher education improvement have been central discourses for at least two decades in global education. In Australia, despite the pervasive nature of these discussions, there is a lack of substantial evidence indicating the existence of a problem in this regard. Policies aimed at enhancing the ‘preparedness’ of teacher graduates and elevating the ‘quality’ of ITE programs have nonetheless emerged as prevalent solutions over the past decade. The latest enactment of reforms in the policy chain is the Strong Beginnings report from the Teacher Education Expert Panel. In this paper, we align with Ball’s perspective that policy should be viewed as a dynamic process rather than a presumed, ready-made solution to a problem. We utilise systematic conceptual coding using Leximancer to enable a nuanced exploration of the understandings, practices, and conditions of influence for the policy actors inscribed in the TEEP report. We also analyse concept frequency and collocation in the final Strong Beginnings report, noting two main propositions: first, that there is a problem with quality in ITE; and second, that practice is foregrounded in professionalisation. We highlight the consistencies and contradictions within the discourses of the final report and the submissions from policy actors that contributed to this policy enactment process. We suggest that evidence is used when it suits a policy position, but ignored if it disrupts the platform position. We conclude by arguing that the policy actors in this policy enactment process should be afforded the professional authority to continue a well-established process of continual improvement.

English Teachers’ Emotions and Regulation Strategies in Response to Students’ Disruptive Behaviour

This study explored the emotions and coping strategies of 25 Bhutanese English teachers in response to student disruption. Thematic analysis of in-depth interviews revealed that the participants encountered a variety of students’ disruptive behaviours that elicited a wide range of emotions, both positive (e.g., compassion and pride) and negative (e.g., frustration, irritation, anger, sadness, anxiety, insult, guilt, and disappointment). Findings also indicated that teachers regulate their emotions using both antecedent-focused (e.g., situation selection, situation modification, attention deployment, and cognitive change) and response-focused (e.g., emotion suppression, deep breathing, journaling, talking with colleagues or students, listening to music, and watching movies) emotion regulation strategies. The study concludes with practical implications for policymakers, teachers, and teacher educators and recommendations for future research.

Editorial

We are pleased to share this new edition with our readership, which contains twelve articles from authors based in Vietnam, Bhutan, Thailand, India, Chile, Mexico, the USA, and Colombia. This shows a geographical diversity of contributions and the interest we have captured in different parts of the world. We expect to reach more teachers and academic communities so that the knowledge shared by authors do contribute to deepening our understanding of English language teaching (ELT), classroom research, teacher education, and related areas.