Initial Teacher Training Courses Research Articles

Subject Specialist Mentors in the Lifelong Learning Sector: The Subject Specialist Mentor Model; is it working? A case study approach

This short article explores whether using a mentoring model supports our Subject Specialist Mentors (SSMs) with their role of mentoring trainees on Initial Teacher Training (ITT) courses. Although there are many mentoring models to choose from, our model is based around mentoring within the Lifelong Learning Sector (LLS) where trainees need support for their subject specialism as well as their generic teaching skills. The main focus is the use of coaching and mentoring skills taking into consideration guiding, supporting and challenging the trainee during the lifetime of the mentor/trainee relationship. The SSMs found that using our model as a tool helped to structure meetings and to ensure that the trainee had the necessary support to enable them to become proficient, competent subject specialist teachers. In conclusion, it was found that there is a need for the use of a model or a framework to help the Subject Specialist Mentor (SSM) with such an important role.

Beginning to Teach Chemistry: How personal and academic characteristics of pre-service science teachers compare with their understandings of basic chemical ideas

Around 150 pre-service science teachers (PSTs) participated in a study comparing academic and personal characteristics with their misconceptions about basic chemical ideas taught to 11–16-year-olds, such as particle theory, change of state, conservation of mass, chemical bonding, mole calculations, and combustion reactions. Data, collected by questionnaire, indicate that despite all PSTs being regarded technically as ‘academically well-qualified’ for science teaching, biology and physics specialists have more extensive misconceptions than chemists. Two personal characteristics, PSTs’ preferences for teaching as a subject ‘specialist’ or as a ‘generalist’ teaching all sciences and their self-confidence for working in these two domains, were assessed by responses to Likert-scale statements. Proportionately more biologists tend to be ‘super-confident’ generalists, while more physicists were specialists anxious about outside specialism teaching. No statistically significant relationships between personal characteristics and misconceptions were found, suggesting that chemistry may be being taught by confident PSTs with poor understandings of basic ideas. Furthermore, these data suggest that attending to PSTs’ personal characteristics alongside other components of a teacher’s professional knowledge base may contribute to creating more effective science teachers. The paper presents a novel way of considering PSTs’ qualities for teaching that offers potential for further research and initial teacher training course development.

Tribute to John Paynter

It was my wife to be, whilst teacher training at Goldsmiths in the early seventies, who drew my attention to this extraordinary man. Large, amiable, typically English in so many ways, polished shoes, be-suited, courteous, brilliant. She remembers now some 40 years later the experience of being taught, being inspired by him as a visiting lecturer on her postgraduate, initial teacher-training primary course, promulgating a philosophy of creativity in the class room whose mantra was manna to the ears of eager students, wanting in turn to teach and inspire children. This visit followed closely the publication of the revolutionary Sound and Silence, a book that changed the face of music education for ever.

Dominant discourses of pre‐service teacher education and the exigencies of the workplace: an ethnographic study from English further education

The placement in colleges is a crucially formative experience for trainee teachers on pre‐service Further Education (FE) initial teacher training courses. A project at the University of Huddersfield researched these placements in four colleges in the north of England and the relationships that were formed between the trainees, their mentors, other staff and students. Where the trainees were placed and who they taught were often matters of expedience, and their individual circumstances were contingent upon diverse, often local, factors. As such, the picture that emerged of the lived experience of placement defied simple classification and explanation. Drawing on data gathered during the project this paper argues that the experience of placements is characterised by confusion, insecurity and marginalisation on the one hand and integration, enthusiasm and development on the other. Regardless of their individual experience, however, there is evidence that the trainees learnt to cope and even that messiness may be useful preparation for the unstable FE workplace. The paper problematises the developmental basis for placements and questions what constitutes a successful placement before considering how trainees can be best prepared to teach in the FE sector.

Beginning secondary school teachers’ perceptions of pupil misbehaviour in Spain

This study used a questionnaire to identify the perceptions of pupil misbehaviour held by a sample of 176 secondary school student teachers attending a one‐year initial teacher training course in Spain. The main factor accounting for secondary school pupils’ misbehaviour in lessons was reported to be ‘parents who do not instil pro‐school values in their children’. The most frequently reported form of misbehaviour in a typical secondary school lesson was reported to be ‘talking out of turn’. The most effective disciplinary strategy reported was ‘have a conversation with the pupil after the lesson’. The findings are broadly in line with similar research conducted in the UK, although there are some notable differences. In addition, over a quarter of the sample reported being ‘a bit confident’ or ‘not at all confident’ in ‘keeping pupils engaged’, and this figure rose to over a half of the sample in ‘dealing swiftly with misbehaviour’.

Developing trainee school teachers' expertise as health promoters

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to report the outcome of an education and public health collaboration investigating the impact of adapted training to enhance teachers' potential role to promote child health and wellbeing.Design/methodology/approachThe study was conducted in three phases: a survey of the health education content in universities in initial teacher training courses; a longitudinal survey at the commencement and completion of courses to capture trainees' knowledge, skills and attitudes towards health and their role in health promotion; and mapping curriculum content against qualified teacher standards and public health competencies.FindingsTraining about health varies largely between institutions. Trainees' knowledge levels remained low after training; ranked importance of key health topics – nutrition, alcohol, smoking, – decreased significantly; a majority thought that teachers and schools play an important role in health promotion, but significant increases were also noted in the minority who thought health promotion is not part of their remit (Phase 2).Originality/valueTo the best of one's knowledge, similar work has not so far been reported. While teachers are in a prime position to influence child health, trainees require knowledge and skills to realise their public health potential.

Subject Specialist Mentors in the LifeLong Learning Sector: who needs them? A case study approach

Mentoring has become a key to success in many fields and different organisations, and has now become one of the important roles within initial teacher training in the Lifelong Learning Sector. The training of mentors, in particular, subject specialist mentors, is therefore fundamental to ensure that trainees on initial teacher training courses develop with regard to teaching and ensuring they have the necessary subject knowledge. Research was based on a case study at the University Campus Barnsley (part of the University of Huddersfield). Findings from subject specialist mentors, through focus groups, and trainees on a Certificate in Education/Professional or Post Graduate Certificate in Education (Cert Ed/PGCE) initial teacher training course, through questionnaires highlighted some interesting development needs. The research has found that there is a changing profile of the subject specialist mentor who supports trainees on initial teacher training courses, in particular they feel that they are not only mentors, but also coaches.

Attitudes of a sample of English, Maltese and German teachers towards media education

Media education forms part of the National Minimum Curriculum of England, Malta and Germany. Teacher training courses differ greatly in how teachers are prepared to teach media education. In this paper we shall investigate the attitudes of a sample of teachers trained in England, Malta and in Germany towards their perceived importance of media education and the teachers' preparedness to teach the subject. This preliminary study had a sample of 132 participants, 33 teachers from England, 47 from Germany and 52 teachers from Malta. The tool used to collect data was an online questionnaire. The results show that teachers taking part in this study were not given enough training, or any training at all to be able to teach media education with the result that they do not feel sufficiently prepared to teach the subject. It is suggested by the authors that media education becomes a compulsory component of the initial teacher training courses as well as advanced training for teachers.

Diversity in pre-service teachers' understandings of research

In this article we present findings from a small-scale qualitative study examining the understandings of research of a diverse group of 12 first-year Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) students in an urban, historically advantaged, higher education institution in South Africa. Our aim was to examine students’ understandings of research within the initial teacher training course in a context of national pressures to both increase diversity and throughput rates within these programmes, and to focus on integrating research as a means for making teaching a practice involving ongoing inquiry. Our findings pointed to differences in the nature and degree of students’ understandings of research. At one extreme within our sample, some students reflected enthusiasm for an inquiry orientation and were able to relate their research activity to both experiences of learning and possibilities for teaching. At the other extreme, our analysis revealed that some students understood research simply as an institutional requirement, in which neither the content of research reading, nor the activities associated with research, were viewed as tools with which to understand or examine their own experiences of teaching and learning. Our findings are related to existing literature on research within teacher education programmes and within undergraduate education more broadly, including the conceptual frameworks used to examine research activity. We suggest that existing frameworks need broadening in two ways: first, it would appear that scales need to be expanded to accommodate the diversity of student understandings that we encountered within our data; second, the frameworks need to be adapted to incorporate the practice-based focus of teacher education where knowledge is viewed as an underpinning feature. Such an approach may well have purchase more broadly for programmes involving a professional orientation – law, medicine and social work, for example.

Personal development planning in initial teacher training: a case study from post‐compulsory education

This paper provides a case study of personal development planning (PDP) within an initial teacher training course for the post‐compulsory sector, delivered through a large consortium in the north of England. The paper reviews conceptual and empirical studies of PDP in higher education and reports on the practice and perceptions of students and tutors in the light of these studies. The paper finds that PDP is often a negative experience and that difficulty and frustration are associated with the requirement to re‐contextualise, for the purposes of external audit, practices occurring organically but less visibly elsewhere in the course. The importance of issues relating to resources, assessment and ownership of PDP processes is highlighted, but the paper concludes that conceptual and ideological difficulties imply that requirements for ‘individual learning plans’ and ‘personal development records’ for trainee teachers may be inescapably problematic.

`Does knowing stuff like PSHE and citizenship make me a better teacher?': Student teachers in the teacher training figuration

One of the key elements of figurational sociology is the emphasis on understanding complex networks of interdependencies in which people are involved. The focal point of this paper is the process of initial teacher training (ITT) and the relationships of which student teachers are part during their ITT course. The paper does not look at what student teachers ought to think; rather, it is an exploration of why student teachers may think the way they do. The paper uses data which were collected as part of a larger project funded by a Teacher Training Agency small research grant. Results suggest that student teachers value aspects of their course differently. In particular, student teachers value university practical sessions and school-based experiences over university-based theory sessions, which are considered irrelevant to the actual practice of teaching. Despite attempts by university tutors to engage student teachers in academic discourses about the nature of physical education (PE), student teachers' perceptions of PE did not change during their course. Further, student teachers perceived conflict between the university-based theoretical elements and the school-based elements of the course.

Conceptions of assessment: trainee teachers' practice and values

This study examines the values and practice in relation to assessment of a sample of 220 trainee teachers studying for a Postgraduate Certificate in Education, an initial teacher training and education (ITET) course, at the University of Cambridge, UK. The survey instrument was drawn from James and Pedder (2006), and was composed of questionnaire items that sought to elicit how trainees valued different classroom assessment practices, and the extent to which their own teaching complied with such values. The study draws additionally on the findings of James and Pedder (2006) to compare and contrast results with those for qualified teachers. Item and factor analyses revealed three dimensions that underpin trainees' classroom practice and values (promoting learning autonomy, performance orientation, making learning explicit). Values‐practice gaps were greatest on promoting learning autonomy and performance orientation. Trainees valued practices associated with the former more than they implemented them in their teaching, while they implemented practices associated with the latter more than predicted by their values. Values‐practice gaps suggested that trainees were constrained from implementing their values to a greater extent than qualified teachers, particularly with respect to these two factors.

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT IN TEACHER EDUCATION: THE DEVELOPMENT OF A DIAGNOSTIC LANGUAGE TEST FOR TRAINEE TEACHERS OF GERMAN

ABSTRACT: This article describes the development and validation of a diagnostic test of German and its integration in a programme of formative assessment during a one-year initial teacher-training course. The test focuses on linguistic aspects that cause difficulty for trainee teachers of German as a foreign language and assesses implicit and explicit grammatical knowledge as well as students’ confidence in this knowledge. Administration of the test to 57 German speakers in four groups (first-year undergraduates, fourth-year undergraduates, postgraduate trainees, and native speakers) provided evidence of its reliability and validity.

Understanding differences in trainee teachers' values and practice in relation to assessment

This study uses cluster analysis to examine groupings of trainee teachers against dimensions underpinning their values and practice in relation to assessment. Our sample comprised 220 trainees, studying for a Postgraduate Certificate in Education, an initial teacher training and education course, at the University of Cambridge, UK. The survey instrument derives from D. Pedder and M. James, and aimed to discover how trainee teachers value and implement different classroom assessment practices in their teaching. Cluster analysis of factor scores from varimax rotated principal components analysis revealed four clusters of trainees in relation to their practice responses, and two clusters in relation to values responses. Similarities and differences between clusters are discussed, as are similarities and differences with corresponding solutions for qualified teachers. Membership of clusters was found to be associated with membership of particular subject disciplines. The implications for initial teacher education and training are discussed.

‘The bar is slightly higher’: the perception of racism in teacher education

The education and training of teachers is an issue of national concern. In this paper we analyse the findings of an in‐depth investigation, undertaken by means of semi structured interviews, of a group of minority ethnic teacher trainees who withdrew from Initial Teacher Training courses in England, and a smaller group of those who completed these courses. We focus, in particular, on trainees' perception of the manifestation of racism during their training. Though none of the minority ethnic withdrawers perceive racism as the determining factor for their withdrawal, some mention instances of covert and even overt racism, while others note subtle forms of discriminatory obstacles to successful completion of the course, which they are reluctant to label as racism. The paper concludes by pointing to the complexity of categorizing phenomena as racism. It also draws attention, on the one hand, to the vulnerability of those who view themselves as being racially abused, and, on the other, to those who are disinclined to dwell on barriers to success as forms of racism and are more predisposed to regarding them as failures of the system.

Literature‐informed, one‐turn action research: three cases and a commentary

Although action research is a common feature of courses of initial teacher training, the evidence as to its efficacy, in encouraging reflection among trainees, is mixed. This article discusses cases of action research assignments carried out by three trainees into their own practice in relation to (a) behaviour management, (b) monitoring and assessing, and (c) pupil‐centred education. The assignments are analysed using Bloom et al's. (1964) typology of thinking skills, Handal & Lauvas's (1987) model of reflective practice, and typologies of action research by Noffke (1997) and Rearick and Feldman (1999). They are positioned as cases of ‘literature‐informed, one‐turn’ action research; a concept which is discussed in relation to other concepts of action research.

Pre‐service science teachers' perceptions of written lesson appraisals: the impact of styles of mentoring

Biology and chemistry graduates (n = 29) on a one year, post graduate, initial teacher training course were asked about their perceptions of written lesson appraisals produced by mentors when observing their teaching. Data were collected using the same open questions at three points in their course. The data relating to mentors who had received only generic training were compared with those for mentors who had been trained to focus on topic‐specific pedagogy. Marked differences in pre‐service science teachers' perceptions are identified. The implications arising from these differences for using written lesson appraisals in developing topic‐specific pedagogy are discussed and opportunities for future research identified. Nous avons demandé à des licenciés en biologie et chimie poursuivant des études de formation pédagogique d'un an comment ils percevaient les évaluations écrites par leur conseiller pédagogique (mentor) lors des observations de leurs leçons. Nous avons rassemblé les données en posant les mêmes questions ouvertes, à trois reprises pendant leur cours. Nous avons comparé les données reliées aux mentors ayant reçu une formation générique avec les données reliées aux mentors ayant reçu une formation spécifique centrée sur leur matière. Nous avons identifié de nettes différences dans les perceptions des professeurs‐stagiaires. Nous discutons les implications issues de ces différences pour l'utilisation des évaluations écrites de leçons dans le but de développer une pédagogie propre à chaque matière et nous identifions des possibilités de recherches dans le futur. Preguntamos a licenciados en biología y química que siguen una formación pedagógica de un año cómo percibían las evaluaciones escritas por sus mentores cuando observan sus lecciones. Colectamos nuestros datos por medio de las mismas preguntas abiertas que les hicimos durante el curso. Comparamos los datos relacionados con los mentores que habían recibido una formación genérica con los datos relacionados con los mentores que habían recibido une formación enfocada en una asignatura específica. Notamos diferencias claras en las percepciones de los profesores‐aprendices. Discutimos las implicaciones que resultan de esas diferencias para la utilización de dichas observaciones escritas a fines de desarrollar una pedagogía específica a cada asignatura y acertamos oportunidades para investigaciones futuras. Biologen und Chemiker (n = 29) mit abgeschlossenem Studium, die an einer einjährigen Referendarausbildung teilnahmen, wurden gefragt, wie sie die schriftlichen Unterrichtsbeurteilungen ihrer beobachtenden Mentoren einschätzten. Daten wurden gesammelt, indem die selben offenen Fragen zu drei verschiedenen Zeitpunkten im Kurs gestellt wurden. Daten bezüglich Mentoren, die nur eine allgemeine Mentorenausbildung mitgemacht hatten, wurden mit Daten betreffs anderer verglichen, die darin ausgebildet worden waren, sich auf themenspezifische Pädagogik zu konzentrieren. Deutliche Unterschiede in den Einschätzungen der Referendare wurden festgestellt. Die aus diesen Unterschieden aufkommenden Implikationen für den Benutz schriftlichen Unterrichtsbeurteilungen bei der Entwicklung themenspezifischer Pädagogik werden hier diskutiert, und Möglichkeiten für zukünftige Forschung identifiziert.

O campo de atuação do professor com formação em Licenciatura Plena em Ciências no Paraná

Teaching Science with quality is unquestionably one of the principal requirements for attaining higher material and cultural development indices in Brazil. With this in mind, the State University of Maringa, State of Parana, established in 1992 the Science Initial Teacher Training course, a pioneer course aiming to develop specialized teachers to work from the 5th to the 8th grades. These professionals act, by rights, in the disciplines of Science and Mathematics in Primary School and in Methodology of the Teaching of Science in Secondary School. However, it is necessary to verify if the graduates have really found proper work opportunities. Here, the situation of the aforementioned teachers competing in public selection exams (for temporary and permanent teaching posts) carried out by the Parana State Government is analyzed. The analysis indicates that the rules of the selection processes do not give the Science teachers due credit in their indispensable role in Brazilian Education.

Did they jump or were they pushed? Reasons why minority ethnic trainees withdraw from initial teacher training courses

This article reports the findings of a research project which examines the reasons why minority ethnic trainees withdraw from teacher training courses. It highlights a number of issues, the most significant of which is that withdrawal is a process not an event. The most common causes of withdrawal were ‘personal’ and ‘family’ reasons. However, the combination of these two factors with various issues to do with the initial teacher training (ITT) institution and the placement school made it impossible for most trainees to stay on the course. With the exception of perceptions of racism by some minority ethnic trainees, the reasons for withdrawal given by majority ethnic and minority ethnic trainees were by and large the same. The article concludes by suggesting a number of strategies for ITT institutions and placement schools to improve the retention of trainees. It emphasises the need for better support from ITT institutions, more structured mentoring during school placements, continuous and effective communication between the ITT institutions and placement schools, flexibility in course structure, improved funding, availability of affordable childcare, and the tackling of discrimination. It also stresses that withdrawal is not necessarily final, and these trainees should be encouraged to return to teaching as many enjoyed the course and would make good teachers.

Aspects of consistency and inconsistency in secondary humanities PGCE courses with ‘perfect’ Ofsted grades

Government inspection of initial teacher training (ITT) courses in England is frequent, relentless and high‐stakes. How confident should providers be about the consistency of judgements made through inspection? This paper researches outcomes of the 1999–2002 round of inspections of secondary Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) courses. It focuses, through critical document analysis, on aspects of consistency and inconsistency in three secondary humanities subjects. The courses concerned were awarded the maximum possible grades following inspection. The reports from the providers are analyzed for different aspects of consistency: length, descriptors used, matching against specific criteria and reference to Standards. They are also analyzed, for one of the inspected cells, against the detailed, published criteria for the inspection of that cell. Several important consistencies and inconsistencies are highlighted and discussed, along with recommendations to enhance consistency in subsequent inspections.