Everyday Teaching Practice Research Articles

Forming a Collaborative Community of Practice of EFL Teachers through Self-study Research

The current study is a self-reflective autoethnographic research study, which aims to explore how two in-service English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in Japan built a collaborative and mutually supportive community of practice, and how they shared and re-constructed their expertise through interacting with each other. Prior to the study, both of the participating teachers from different teaching contexts shared a similar struggle: a lack of collegiality and a quest for creativity. An online journal forum was created where they recorded their thoughts, difficulties and challenges in their everyday teaching practice for one year. They also gave comments and feedback to each other online. As a result, participation in an online collaborative community of practice enabled them to reflect on and adjust their teaching practices. In particular, the role of collegiality in sharing teaching strategies impacted the teaching of English as a foreign language in diverse contexts, both public and private schools. It also had an impact on teaching different language skills (oral communication for one participant and reading and translation for the other) and the use of students' native language as assistance. By taking on the role of a diagonal mentor, they also found a way to make their professional voices heard.

A case study on learning basic logical competencies when utilising technologies and real-world objects

In our technological age, many technologies and real-world objects communicate with each other or partly merge. However, this combination of technologies and real-world objects has not yet found its way into everyday teaching practices in schools to any great extent. To investigate the possibilities of combining technologies and real-world objects in mathematics classes, we conducted an exploratory educational study with 47 students. Analysing students’ data using the principles of grounded theory demonstrated that for students in our study (A) using open tasks with multiple solutions, (B) immediate feedback and (C) novelty effects in the learning process, are essential to design mathematics learning environments with combining technologies and real-world objects when learning basic logical operations.

Promoting Sustainable Social Emotional Learning at School through Relationship-Centered Learning Environment, Teaching Methods and Formative Assessment

Abstract How to promote social emotional learning (SEL) at school depends largely on teachers. Mostly teachers implement specific programs, but they have difficulties in incorporating SEL into the regular curriculum. The main aim of the paper is to present the conceptual model of sustainable integration of SEL into everyday teaching practices in every subject. This approach has been developed in the project ìLearning to Be: Development of Practices and Methodologies for Assessing Social, Emotional and Health Skills within Education Systemsî. This initiative is based on the premise that the assessment of learning at school should go beyond grading studentsí knowledge and should include practices for observing young peopleís personal growth, social skills, attitudes and other general competences. The novelty of this conceptual approach is associated with integrating SEL standards, formative assessment and classroom instruction into a single sustainability-oriented model. The relationship between SEL standards (ISBE, 2003) and formative assessment strategies established by Wiliam (2011) is described, providing a detailed description of specific classroom activities. The objective of this approach is, therefore, towards building emotionally strong and flexible individuals who can deal with complex challenges through prosocial behavior that encourages human prospering and the attainment of the United Nationsí Sustainable Development Goals.

Digital learning in European history education: Political visions, the logics of schools and teaching practices

The advancement of digital technology has raised hopes of radical improvements in education, such as a new culture of learning. History educators have underlined that the use of digital media could help students to develop a constructivist understanding of history while at the same time rendering history more vivid, relevant and exciting. The last twenty years have shown, however, that even though digital media are increasingly being used in schools, there have been no significant changes in European education systems. This paper helps explain the gap between expectations and reality by exploring how contemporary education policies and curricula in the EU and at the national level frame digital learning in schools and history education. It shows that the ambitious vision of digital learning included in EU policies is closely related to the EU's knowledge economy goals, to which national governments, however, do not fully subscribe. These national policies emphasize the wider role of education in society, which includes strengthening social cohesion and incorporating humane, democratic and civic values. They also take into account the relative autonomy of schools, whose own institutional logics eventually decide how ideas take shape in everyday teaching practice. The relative autonomy of schools is reflected by history curricula that do not include substantial requirements, but only a few optional suggestions concerning the use of digital media. Practitioners' experiences and empirical research indicate that the suggested uses can be part of effective student-centred teaching approaches, but demand considerable investments of time, resources, efforts and creativity. The discussion of these examples also illustrates that the economistic EU vision of digital learning is not a suitable framework for the key concerns of history education. A revised vision of digital learning could and should, therefore, include other important education aims, such as democratic values, social cohesion and active citizenship.

Teacher professional development in the context of the “Open Discovery of STEM laboratories” project: Is the MOOC methodology suitable for teaching physics?

The “Open Discovery of STEM Laboratories” (ODL) project, funded by the European Erasmus+ KA2 program, was aimed at introducing the use of MOOCs in school curricula. In particular, it fostered teacher collaboration in creating and using micro-MOOCs for the inclusion of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) online remote or virtual laboratories in the everyday teaching practice. The project focused on teachers, educators and curriculum designers with the aim to strengthen their profile by supporting them to deliver high quality teaching practices and to adopt new methods and tools. Thanks to the project, in service and pre-service teachers had the opportunity to extend their knowledge about the inquiry-based science teaching approach, improve both digital skills and pedagogical competences, experience international collaborative work, explore attractive open education resources helpful to design creative lessons on STEM topics. In this contribution, we focus our attention on the results from the ODL teacher training in Italy, showing the valuable feedback collected by teachers on the impact of the ODL pedagogical approach on Physics education at secondary school, highlighting strengths and possible weaknesses of the proposed methodology. The feedback to the ODL experience provided by both teachers and students during the multiplier events, in the summer school and after the first pilot-studies in the classroom, was very positive. Experiencing micro-MOOCs’ approach has been reported by the teachers as a very effective strategy for increasing students’ motivation to learn physics more meaningfully. Thanks to the ODL methodology, student understanding of physics concepts has been achieved within a multidisciplinary learning context which also supports the development of transversal abilities, communication and reasoning skills. The ODL learning activities provided the students with the opportunity to develop a large range of complementary competencies, such as working in groups, interpreting and evaluating experimental data, designing models, facing and solving everyday problems, which are all very relevant in physics education.

Lecture Capture Policies: A Survey of British Universities

The integration of digital and convergent technologies into the classroom poses policy level challenges for universities, as these constitute a wider process of digitalization and marketization of the higher education institutions (HEIs) ranging from open access publishing to augmenting pedagogy through learning platforms. Digital technologies not only augment teaching and learning, they present HEIs with a multitude of challenges from copyright of third-party materials to performance rights. This paper surveyed lecture capture policies in 149 British universities in 2015–2016. As mobile and capture technologies become part of the classroom and extend their construction beyond the physical realms, this paper assesses the policy challenges that have emerged with the incorporation of lecture capture technologies into HEIs. Lecture capture is part of the ‘digitalization’ of the HEI sector, illuminating both the investments into digital modes of delivery and dissemination and in tandem the numerous challenges (structural, pedagogic, legal and ethical) that face the sector today through the increasing incorporation of technologies into everyday teaching practices, policy and delivery.

Experiencias De Investigación En La Enseñanza De Los Deportes En Educación

El presente trabajo expone las reflexiones metateóricas y metodológicas asociadas al desarrollo y los avances del proyecto de investigación, orientado al estudio de los procesos de selección y tratamiento de los saberes deportivos que realizan los docentes de Educación Física en las escuelas secundarias de la ciudad de San Carlos de Bariloche. Al inicio describimos el proyecto, junto con los principales avances construidos durante los dos primeros años de implementación, y a continuación exhibimos las interpelaciones suscitadas al interior del equipo sobre la propia tarea investigativa, con foco en el desarrollo de los procesos de reflexividad para la producción de conocimientos. Reflexividad que nos involucra subjetivamente para procurar dilucidar los discursos y las prácticas docentes cotidianas, según las posiciones que ocupan/ocupamos dentro del universo social y profesional. En tal sentido, nos cuestionamos con respecto a la política de conocimiento que establece una asimetría entre trabajo docente e investigación académica, con un planteo metodológico que apuesta a la construcción de narrativas y la problematización de experiencias,junto con la elaboración de proyectos para una transformación de la enseñanza de los deportes en las escuelas.

Az alsó középiskolában használt angol tankönyvek szerepe a kommunikatív nyelvoktatásban két Sunshine-ból tanító alsó középiskolai tanár esettanulmánya alapján

A Kairyudo kiadó gondozásában megjelenő Sunshine a Japán Oktatásügyi, Kulturális, Sport- valamint Tudomány- és Technológiaügyi Minisztérium (MEXT) által jóváhagyott alsó középiskolai tankönyvcsalád. Jelen esettanulmány két Iwate Prefektúrában a Sunshine tankönyvekből tanító pedagógus munkáját megfigyelve a következő kérdésekre keresi a választ: mely tulajdonságokban felel meg a tankönyv a Nemzeti Alaptanterv szempontjainak, a két pedagógus hogyan értelmezi és építi be a tankönyv egyes jellemzőit mindennapos tanári tevékenységébe, illetve milyen módszereket alkalmaznak a tankönyv kiegészítésére. A kutatáshoz a Sunshine tankönyvek hivatalos tájékoztató kiadványa és kiegészítő brosúrája, óralátogatások, óralátogatási jegyzőkönyvek, félig strukturált interjúk, tanteremi oktatási eszközök szolgáltattak alapot. A kutatási eredmények szerint a Sunshine tankönyvcsalád általánosságban megfelel a kommunikatív megközelítésnek, de a tanároknak saját ötleteikkel kell kiegészíteniük a tankönyvet.

Critical Factors that Enhance the Effectiveness of Online Communities of Practice: EFL Coordinators’ Patterns of Involvement - The Greek EL Teachers Cops Professional Development Paradigm

The paper examines Greek EFL Coordinators’ involvement in online Communities of Practice (CoPs) in terms of its impact on participating teachers’ professional development. The study focuses on four online CoPs hosting 49 Greek EFL teachers as participants and four Greek EFL Coordinators, using an online platform named 2gather developed by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in the context of a national in-service professional development project in Greece. The study involves investigating the Coordinators’ patterns of involvement and their trainees’ response using a mixed-methods approach which combines quantitative and qualitative research as collective case studies of the four groups. Differentiations between the four Coordinators’ reported patterns of involvement and teachers’ reported effectiveness of their CoP training experience enables us to identify critical factors that contribute to the enhancement of effectiveness. A comparison of the Coordinators’ and their trainees’ responses per online CoP highlights the factors that have supported teachers’ reported reconstruction of knowledge and practices and the reported effectiveness of the CoP training experience regarding their everyday teaching practice. The findings contribute to furthering our understanding of effective online CoPs implementation in the context of continuing professional development.

The Role of Language Objectives: Strengthening Math and Science Teachers’ Language Awareness with Emergent Bilinguals in Secondary Classrooms

El rol de los objetivos de lenguaje: fortaleciendo la conciencia linguistica de los maestros de matematicas y ciencias con los bilingues emergentes en las clases secundariasO papel dos objetivos da linguagem: fortalecer a consciencia linguistica dos professores de matematica e ciencias com os bilingues emergentes nas aulas secundariasThis study focuses on the linguistic foundation of sound pedagogic practices related to non-language content areas referring especially to language objectives; it employ Tharp and Gallimore’s theory on learning: making teaching visible in order to develop the students’ thinking. In the contexts of training both before and after service, a study was conducted on how secondary-science and math teachers contextualize their own teaching according to Emergent Bilinguals (EBs) by using interviews and focus group discussions. Findings reveal that teachers gradually develop an increased sense of importance of language objectives over time. The strengths and challenges highlighted through the study show the need for increased teacher training in the area of teacher language awareness (TLA). So far, the predominance of TLA in the classrooms has been on language, rather than content. Based on the current analysis of how content teachers define and employ language objectives in their teaching, this study proposes a few ways to provide math and science teachers with tools for incorporating language into everyday teaching practices. The present study further supports the call for attention on the needs of all content teachers who work with EBs on training in language awareness.To reference this article (APA) / Para citar este articulo (APA) / Para citar este artigo (APA)Hansen-Thomas, H., Langman, J., & Farias, T. (2018). The role of language objectives: Strengthening math and science teachers’ language awareness with emergent bilinguals in secondary classrooms. LACLIL, 11(2), 193-214. DOI: 10.5294/laclil.2018.11.2.2Received: 22/10/2018Approved: 13/02/2019

Rethinking teachers’ production of social justice in rural schools

ABSTRACT In this article I examine how teachers in a rural school in Australia produce social justice through their everyday teaching practices. Drawing on data from a qualitative study using focus groups and semi-structured interviews, I focus on teachers’ enactments of social justice pedagogies amidst social class divisions in the community. I draw on Iris Marion Young’s theory of justice to illustrate how a plural social justice education that includes teaching practices that create a relational process between teachers and students should be based on a politics of distribution, recognition and participation. In particular, I am concerned with Young’s formulation of plural social justice and democratic communication, and with her theorisation that issues of self-respect, self-determination and participation are not reducible to liberal theories of distributive justice that focus solely on the proper allocation of material goods. By rethinking the production of social justice in rural schools, I ultimately contribute to redressing the paucity of research on rural schooling in the field of education and to providing a better understanding of the relationship between a contested concept like justice and the everyday challenges faced by teachers endeavouring to deliver a quality education for all students in their school.

WIELOJĘZYCZNOŚĆ I MIĘDZYKULTUROWOŚĆ W POLSKIM KONTEKŚCIE EDUKACYJNYM – REALISTYCZNE CELE CZY MITY EDUKACYJNE?

Over the last decade or so, mainly under the influence of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, it has been assumed, often entirely uncritically, that the key goals of foreign language peda-gogy should be the development of multilingualism and multicultural-ism. Although these goals are barely mentioned in the current core cur-riculum and they do not really find a reflection in coursebooks or every-day teaching practice, the pedagogical recommendations stemming from numerous conference presentations, research studies or methodology textbooks for pre-service and in-service teachers indicate that such a sit-uation should be subject to change because it is not sufficiently reflective of the latest theoretical proposals. A question arises, however, to what extent these goals can in fact be accomplished in our educational context in which additional languages are taught and learned as foreign rather than second, and, despite increasing opportunities in this respect, out-of-school contact with such languages is often still very limited. The pa-per aims to address this question, mainly focusing on the difficulties in-volved in fostering multilingualism and multiculturalism, both with re-spect to the relevant regulations concerning language education in Po-land, everyday realities of foreign language teaching and learning, the limitations of teacher training as well as problems involved in conducting empirical studies.

Enhancing curricula and learning environments using critical realist perspectives and approaches: a case study and critique

ABSTRACTWhile critical realist (CR) ontological and epistemological perspectives and research approaches are becoming more widely adopted by higher education researchers, the scope of research is relatively limited, and novice researchers in the area still struggle to create rich, in‐depth, and critical accounts of these approaches ‘in action’. This article provides an account of teacher‐researchers’ exploration of these perspectives in the context of an important aspect their everyday teaching practice – the design of effective curricula and learning environments. The context is research that focused on the design, evaluation, and enhancement of learning environments intended to facilitate students’ development of design thinking expertise. The article outlines the researchers’ CR paradigm positioning and implications for methodologies used to gather, analyse, and theorise data about the response of design and business students to three iterations of a design thinking learning environment. The research involved action research that integrated survey, case study, and theorising methodologies. Examples of data, analyses, and explanatory theory are provided to give insights into specific research tasks and their outcomes. Possible explanations for the findings and their implications for attempts to enhance the learning environment are considered from a CR perspective along with challenges that deploying these approaches may entail.

TPACK In Situ: A Design-Based Approach Supporting Professional Development in Practice

Technological pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) is a well-known conceptual framework for what knowledge teachers need in order to teach successfully using technology. Most recent TPACK studies address assessment of teacher TPACK by quantitative self-reporting surveys. Such an approach provides little guidance for teachers in how to develop their everyday teaching practice. We argue for a revival of the original TPACK design-based approach and propose a design-based, operationalization of the framework that is situated in action, context specific, and integrated in practical teaching. The approach has been developed, evaluated, and validated in a school development project in a Nordic Elementary School context using design-based research. The project engaged more than 100 professionals: in-service elementary teachers, school administrators and researchers, and more than 1,000 students during 3 years. The theoretical development evolved from rich descriptions of 38 didactic design as delimited units of teaching including planning, implementation, and evaluation of specified learning tasks acted out in practice. Contributions include framing teaching practice as design activity and a TPACK in situ model and methods targeting reflective practitioners. Our proposed approach addresses current limitations of TPACK and is aligned with advocated professional development methods.

Experienced teachers dealing with issues in education: a career perspective

ABSTRACT This article reports on a qualitative study on the issues experienced teachers may encounter in everyday teaching practice. Some issues may possibly originate at the beginning of a career and continue to be a struggle during their career. Data were collected among 20 mid- and late career teachers from eight secondary schools. The results showed that at the current moment in their career, respondents of this study particularly recognised three issues: teacher–parent interaction, teaching versus other tasks and private life versus work. Teachers seldom talk about their issues, but more often than not they try to find a solution themselves or put up with the situation.

How to develop students’ approaches to learning: Experiences from a programme based on co-regulated learning

Starting from the insight that during their education students do not manage to learn how to learn, we created the programme called Blooming with the intention of enabling the students to reconsider their own approaches to learning by developing collaborative activities and relations in the classroom. The programme was realised in a secondary school class, and research goals were to explore the contribution of the programme to the change in students? approach to learning - regarding the learning motivation and strategies - and to obtain an insight into students? perspective of the benefits of the programme. The changes in learning strategies and students? motivation were investigated using the MSLQ before and after programme attendance. The data on the programme benefits were obtained via focus groups with students and analysed by the thematic content analysis. It has been established that the students achieved a significant improvement when it comes to the mastering of the learning strategies that refer to self-regulation, critical thinking, peer learning and help seeking. In addition, the students pointed out as benefits a different method of work and pleasant atmosphere, the feeling of autonomy in classes, as well as the development of a different understanding of the nature of knowledge, the learning process and instruction. The results indicate that the use of Bloom?s taxonomy as the tool for co-regulated learning and self-evaluation of students can contribute to the change in students? learning approaches. This finding is relevant for further considering of the possibility for this method to grow from a special programme into everyday teaching practice.

Prova Campinas 2010: entre usos alegóricos e normativos de linguagem

A Prova Campinas 2010 foi um trabalho coletivo desafiador. Ao longo dele, fizemos interlocução com práticas cotidianas de ensino que vinham sendo realizadas na rede municipal de ensino de Campinas, bem como com os pensamentos de três destacados filósofos – Friedrich Nietzsche, Ludwig Wittgenstein e Jacques Derrida -, com o propósito de gerar dados que nos permitissem problematizar a educação escolar e as formas habituais de avaliação da aprendizagem nesse contexto. Neste artigo, apresentamos, em linhas gerais, o conjunto de ideias que potencializou os processos de concepção, elaboração e correção da prova, bem como o seu contexto de realização. A apresentação dessas ideias constitui o pano de fundo para o comentário analítico comparativo que nós faremos acerca dos modos como os estudantes que participaram da prova lidam com questões que lhes solicitam fazer usos preponderantemente normativos da linguagem – tais como os que são feitos, dentre outros, pela matemática acadêmica e escolar – e com usos preponderantemente alegóricos da linguagem, tais como os que são feitos, dentre outros, pelas diferentes modalidades de artes.

ЛІНІЙНИЙ ТА ОБ’ЄМНИЙ СПОСОБИ ПОДАННЯ НАВЧАЛЬНОЇ ІНФОРМАЦІЇ

The article acquaints with features of linear and volumetric (visual, graphic) methods of information representation. It is shown advantages and shortcomings of each of the presented ways of a statement of information. The author shows an urgent need of more active use of visual forms of information representation by a teacher that is caused by sharp expansion of modern information space of knowledge. The use by teachers of modern methods of work with information massifs accompanies their general development of information literacy. Possibilities of use of a volumetric way of information representation in everyday teaching practice are offered. Visualization of information massifs of knowledge will promote for growth of information literacy of the teacher that is the perspective direction of further researches.

A Study on Teachers’ Perception on the Importance of Testing at the Tertiary Level English in Engineering Colleges

This article focuses at the teacher's perception on their everyday classroom teaching practices, notions and beliefs carried towards the learners as well as on the language tests and the methods of testing and evaluation behind the tests etc. The present study through a survey explores Anna University Affiliated Teachers’ perceptions of the issue of testing. The results of the survey indicate that teachers have positive attitude towards testing and they pay considerable attention on testing on form. Teachers’ experiences as well as their understanding on the concepts of ELT (English Language Teaching) are observed. On the whole, this article presents the tertiary level language teachers’ overall impressions on Testing at the tertiary level as an outcome.

Bøger i 1700-tallets nordjyske landsbyskoler

This article takes its point of departure in a collection of inventories, presented to Bishop Bror Brorson on his visitation journeys in the diocese of Aalborg, Northern Jutland, in the 1750s. The inventories reveal considerable variations: the majority of schools had 3 to 30 books registered, some schools had between 30 and 60 books regisitered, while a minority of schools had no books at all. However, these books were only the tip of the iceberg. By analysing the school decree of 1739 as well as information in the inventories themselves, it can be demonstrated, how parents were responsible for acquiring the necessary teaching materials themselves. The books registered were first of all free copies for poor children, and some of these books were not even listed, as they had been given away to individual children.The inventories bear witness to a high degree of continuity concerning the schoolbooks used for elementary teaching: ABCs, catechisms, gospel books, expositions of the catechism. But it can also be documented that the government had succeeded in introducing Erik Pontoppidan’s new Pietistic exposition of the catechism from 1737 into all village schools. In contrast, there were no central regulations that dealt with teaching materials for writing and mathematics.Instruction in these subjects was a local matter. Moreover, the inventories reveal a number of book donations, especially from Pietistic pastors, and in some cases unique information about the bindings, as well as the wear and tear of schoolbooks can be found. Thus the inventories provide an intriguing window into everyday teaching practices and the role of school books in 18th century village schools.