Group Of Teacher Candidates Research Articles

An artful encounter with dance – empowering future teachers in cross-sectoral collaborations with the Cultural Schoolbag as an example

This article explores how teacher candidates articulate their experiences of a cross-sectoral collaboration with dance students in creating an artful encounter for pupils in primary schools in Norway. Through an arts-based inquiry, using clay as material of expression, groups of teacher candidates were filmed while creating a sculpture representing their processes. The creation process and sculpture were in turn analysed, revealing that the teacher candidates considered themselves to be scaffolding the artful encounter with the children in school, providing them with greater confidence as key personas in these artful encounters, and a better understanding of the creation of art. The analysis regarding the dramaturgy of the collaboration revealed that the teacher candidates experienced being co-creators in the project when they could focus primarily on unfolding the educational potential of the artful encounters.

Understanding Motivational Differences through the Lens of Gamification User Types

In the context of an educational technology course, teacher candidates completed Marczewski’s User Types Hexad Test, a questionnaire based on a typology for classifying both intrinsic and extrinsic motivational tendencies. The test results showed teacher candidates' motivational tendencies, through indicating their resonance with six different User Types, including Socializers, Free Spirits, Achievers, Philanthropists, Players, and Disruptors. Knowing their User Type allowed teacher candidates to reflect on their own personal motivations to use various types of digital tools, as well as to consider how their peers and their students with different user profiles may be motivated differently than themselves. The main research questions in this study were related to discovering the motivational differences present in a group of teacher candidates, and whether knowing about these differences would empower them to acknowledge differences in motivation among their learners. The findings include teacher candidates’ understandings of the importance of differentiating for motivational tendencies through insight, relationships, and effective teaching, as well the different language teacher candidates use to describe their own developing teacher identity, according to their resonant User Types. These data provide examples of how User Type awareness can help teacher candidates take practical steps toward differentiating instructional design based not only on consideration of learners’ abilities and interests, but also on learners’ motivational profiles. Suggestions for language that would resonate with various User Types is presented, and may help teacher educators as they coach pre-service teachers through their identity development.

Problem-Based Learning Strategies and Critical Thinking Skills Among Pre-Service Teachers

Mathematical underachievement among students was not only a source of concern in the Philippines, but has now spread throughout the world. Low critical thinking skill among Filipino students is one of the causes contributing to the country’s poor performance in mathematics. Students’ lack of critical thinking abilities may be due to teachers’ knowledge and expertise. To explore the critical thinking skills of pre-service teachers through the use of problem-based learning strategies is the main objective of the study. Quasi-experimental with a counterbalanced design was employed, presenting two problem-based learning strategies namely authentic strategy and non-linear strategy to two groups of teacher candidates. The results showed that students’ critical thinking skills in evaluating arguments and drawing conclusions are lacking. There is also a substantial difference in critical thinking skills between students in groups 1 and 2, except for the capacity to recognize assumptions. The pre-service teachers’ critical thinking skills do not differ significantly by sequence. The study results indicated that the pre-service teachers’ critical thinking skills were still low, particularly in terms of evaluating arguments and drawing conclusions due to inadequate background knowledge and lack of in-depth understanding of the mathematics concepts. The results imply that schools focus more on building strategies to improve and develop students’ critical thinking skills in mathematics education. Moreover, the study suggests that further research develop successful techniques for planning effective initiatives to increase critical thinking teaching and learning in higher education and training programs that could help improve the students’ critical thinking skills.

Culture, Confidence, and Crêpes Sucrées: Exploring Teacher Candidate Perceptions of Francophone Homestay Community Leadership Experiences

This study examines the perceptions of two groups of teacher candidates (TCs) who had participated in a 2-week, French immersion homestay Community Leadership Experience (CLE) in rural Trois-Pistoles, Quebec, Canada. Based on individual participant interviews, the co-authors, who also each served as a Faculty Facilitator for several of these CLE trips (2015-2020), present thematic findings surrounding the five components (homestay, school placements, community volunteering, cultural workshops/events, and Quebec City trip), and perceived benefits of the program including accessibility, language acquisition and improvement, cultural awareness, self-confidence, career planning re-assessment (division/program), and future employability advantages.

Open Educational Resources in Teacher Preparation Programs

The purpose of this article is to examine whether the use of open educational resources (OER) in teacher preparation programs impacts the perception of the resource. P-12 schools are beginning to adopt OER; however, many teachers are unfamiliar with OER, which may slow diffusion throughout the institution. In this study, two groups of teacher candidates from two universities completed surveys evaluating their perceptions of OER. The first group used an open textbook in their course. The second group had no experience using OER. Results indicate that teacher candidates who used the open textbook perceived OER more positively and were more likely to want to use OER in their future classrooms. The results suggest that incorporating OER into courses during teacher preparation programs not only better prepares teacher candidates for using the resources after graduation, but also increases progression through the adoption process described in the diffusion of innovation theory.

Beyond censorship: politics, teens, and ELA teacher candidates

Purpose Grounded in the scholarship addressing teacher self-censorship around controversial topics, this paper aims to investigate a three-part research question: How do secondary English language arts (ELA) teacher–candidates (TCs) in the penultimate semester of their undergraduate teacher education program position political texts/speeches, interpret high school teens’ political standpoints and view the prospects of discussing political texts/speeches with students? The study findings provide insights to the ways some TCs might position themselves as novice ELA teachers relative to political texts/speeches, students, colleagues and families in their future school communities. Design/methodology/approach Audio-recorded data from whole-class and small-group discussions were coded for TCs’ positioning of political texts/speeches, interpretations of teens’ political standpoints and viewpoints on discussing with students President Obama’s speech, “A More Perfect Union” (“A.M.P.U.”) The coded data set was further analyzed to identify themes across the TCs’ perspectives. Findings The data set tells the story of a group of TCs whose positionalities, background knowledge and practical experiences in navigating divergent perspectives would influence both their daily selection and censorship of political texts/speeches like “A.M.P.U.” and their subsequent willingness to guide equitable yet critical conversations about controversial issues in the secondary ELA classroom. Originality/value In advance of the 2018 midterm elections, this paper considers how the common core state standards’ (CCSS) recommendations to include more nonfiction documents in ELA instruction positions ELA teachers to provide interdisciplinary support in helping students think critically about political issues. It expands on the body of scholarship that, thus far, has been primarily grounded in the research on social studies instruction.

Awareness of social studies teacher candidates on refugees in Turkey

The aim of this study is to obtain information about the awareness of social studies teacher candidates about the refugee problem in Turkey. In this regard, a group of teacher candidates are asked their opinion on the subject of refugees in Turkey and as to how they perceive the problem. Interview method is used in the study for data collection. The obtained data is subjected to content analysis via Nvivo 8 software package. As a result of the study, it is observed that the participants residing in provinces with high refugee population have a more negative attitude towards refugees, whereas the ones in areas with no refugee population have a more positive attitude towards them. It is also observed that, in general, teacher candidates do not pay any special effort to acquire information about the subject.

Transformation—More Than Meets the Eye: Teacher Candidates' Journeys to Cultural Competence

The author provides a narrative describing how one group of teacher candidates enrolled in a 5th-year master of arts in teaching program explore the concepts of multicultural education culminating in an out-of-class assignment that provides a catalyst for transformative learning as identified by Mezirow. The candidates chart their progress using Gallavan's Cultural Competence Compass and connect these experiences to their pedagogical knowledge using the Pathwise Classroom Observation Protocol. The results show that candidates gained a greater awareness of self, stronger appreciation of others, and higher levels of commitment to creating a positive learning environment for their own students.

Reading the Maps of Meaning Within Drama: Visible Discourse(s), Multimodal Semiotics, and Analogous Reflection in Applied Theatre Inquiry

David Buckingham, in a recent article in Media, Culture, and Society (2009), calls into question many claims made by those who inquire into creative educational methods. This is to say that he contests the idea that inquiry into a creative event can yield insight into anything but the socio-cultural complexity of the event itself. What then might scholars inquire into when exploring what applied theatre does? This article looks at two specific moments from a process drama facilitated for use with a group of teacher candidates at a Midwestern U.S. urban university and posits that what might be explored is how certain discourses are made visible through the utterances that emerge within an applied theatre event.

Equity Education: A Longitudinal Study Comparing Multicultural Knowledge and Dispositions of Field-Based and Campus-Based Teacher Candidates

Two groups of teacher candidates, enrolled either in a field-based or campus-based program, were measured before and after their first semester of teacher education courses and again at the end of their student teaching semester. The two groups were compared regarding their knowledge of multicultural education issues, dispositions towards diverse populations, and their perception of confidence in teaching in diverse classrooms. Multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVAs) with repeated measures indicated that there was a significant increase for both groups in multicultural knowledge after the first semester and that this knowledge was maintained throughout their program. Results also indicated that there was a significant increase in a positive attitude toward multicultural education for both groups after their first semester; however, this positive attitude was not maintained. In terms of perceived confidence in teaching, both groups increased after the first semester, and the field-based group continued to increase until the end of their undergraduate program. The findings suggest that the field-based experience continues to impact students' multicultural knowledge and their perceived self-efficacy.

Learning to Teach for Social Justice: Measuring Change in the Beliefs of Teacher Candidates

This article speaks to two current trends in teacher education—the press to assess teacher education in terms of measurable outcomes, on one hand, and the growing emphasis on social justice as a theme of teacher education, on the other. The article begins with a discussion of the concept of teacher education for social justice. Then, using Rasch Item Response Theory techniques and analyses, the article shows that certain aspects of the complex construct, “learning to teach for social justice,” can be measured reliably and validly across multiple groups of teacher candidates and graduates using a “Learning to Teach for Social Justice-Beliefs” (LTSJ-B) scale. This scale is part of a suite of teacher preparation surveys, which are in turn, part of a larger portfolio of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods studies designed to explore the effects of teacher education and the process of learning to teach. The analyses presented here show that the LTSJ-B scale can detect changes in beliefs related to teaching for social justice over time and across cohorts of teacher candidates. Specifically, we show that the scores of cohorts of exiting teacher candidates far exceeded the scores of entering candidates. We also show that after one year of teaching, graduates of the program maintained these higher scores. The analyses in this article contribute to the argument that although “learning to teach for social justice” is a complex matter that requires complex measures, it can indeed be constructed as a legitimate outcome of teacher education and thus expand the larger agenda to make teacher education accountable for the quality of teachers it prepares.

Literacy histories: Categories of influence

The preparation of literacy educators is a complicated task. Many factors, some outside a teacher education program, contribute to what a teacher candidate believes about literacy and its instruction. Unfortunately, the institutionalized pedagogy that comprises the literacy component of a teacher education program too often ignores teacher candidates’ wider social and experiential arenas and the beliefs and values that emanate from them (Liston & Zeichner, 1991). Instead, these personal experiences seem to be perceived as somehow beside the point. In this study, we attempt to understand the relationship between candidates’ experiential roots and their education to be a teacher of literacy. To explore an aspect of this wider range of influence, we secured the self‐reported literacy histories of teacher candidates. This source of information about a group of teacher candidates’ literacy lives provided a context for analysis. Using them, we examined possible links between teacher candidates’ remembrances about their literacy development and their developing stances about literacy learning and its instruction. In this reporting of that study, we begin by linking our inquiry to our theoretical stance that learning to teach literacy, like literacy learning, is a social construction. Then, we relate our findings to those of others who seek to understand the relationships between personal beliefs and professional stances about literacy.

Selecting successful teachers: The predictive validity of the urban teacher selection interview

Abstract The Urban Teacher Selection Interview (UTSI) was designed by Martin Haberman to differentiate between students who will become successful teachers and those who will not be successful. The purpose of this study was to assess the predictive validity of the UTSI for three different groups of teacher candidates (traditional, alternative licensure, and PDS placement). Results of multiple regression analyses, in which the rated performances of 68 teacher candidates in six teaching domains were regressed on UTSI items and demographic variables, identified only a limited number of significant predictors (e.g., total UTSI score and the communication domain) while showing generally weak correlations. Recognizing that higher predictability outcomes might emerge in different contexts, the results nevertheless suggest possible limitations in using the UTSI as a sole basis for prediction and therefore caution in over‐emphasizing interview results in teacher selection.