Learning In Teacher Education Research Articles

Co-regulated learning in initial teacher education: strategies adopted by students during the development of ICT integration projects in Basic Education

ABSTRACT Initial teacher education provide learning opportunities that allow future teachers to develop digital skills and self- and co-regulation learning (SCRL). However, there is need for research on how to prepare students teachers to use Information and Communication Technologies (ITC) on SCRL. This qualitative exploratory study took place in ICT and Education Basic course (“TIC e EB”, Portuguese-language acronym) from Higher Education Institution, that adopted project-based learning (PBL) over five phases. In teamwork, the students developed an educational integration project of ICT with a curriculum content of Basic/Preschool Education. The research goals were: 1) Identify which ICT were integrated in the projects and understand their educational purposes; 2) Identify and understand which CRL strategies were adopted during the PBL phases; 3) Identify the difficulties experienced and how they overcame them, 4) Verify the students’ perception of TIC e EB course. Teams actively explored and integrated a diversity of ICT (n = 34) in their projects: tools to provide content and pedagogical activities; platforms that allow development of interactive and gamified activities and others. Students mentioned different CRL strategies and difficulties. Strategies to overcome difficulties were the exploration of new tools/applications, seeking information and help from the teacher. The teams mentioned that the “TIC e EB” was an asset in their academic path and professional future, challenger, and trigger to “think outside the box”.

Can service scholarships boost academic performance? Causal evidence from China’s Free Teacher Education scholarship

Can service scholarships boost academic performance? Causal evidence from China’s Free Teacher Education scholarship

Signature pedagogies of teacher education in physical education: a scoping review

ABSTRACT Introduction and purpose There is a need for contemporary studies which establish a shared language to further analyze and develop pedagogies in the field of teacher education in physical education (PE). This includes both initial teacher education (PE-ITE) and continuous professional development (PE-CPD), holding the responsibility for preparing pre-service teachers (PSTs) and teacher educators, as well as facilitating the ongoing professional learning of in-service teachers (ISTs) and teacher educators. This study entails a comprehensive scoping review covering the period from 2015 to 2023, encompassing studies within the broad field of teacher education in PE across international contexts, all examined through the perspective of Shulman’s, L. S. (2005. “Signature Pedagogies in the Professions.” Daedalus 134 (3): 52–59) concept of signature pedagogies. The purpose was two-fold: (1): to map the current literature on teacher education in PE (including PE-ITE and PE-CPD for both ISTs and teacher educators), and (2) to propose a preliminary shared language of signature pedagogies of teacher education in PE. Theoretical lens Signature pedagogies refer to the forms of teaching-learning that leap to mind when thinking about the preparation and ongoing learning and development of teachers (i.e. pre-service teachers, in-service teachers and teacher educators; Shulman, L. S. 2005. “Signature Pedagogies in the Professions.” Daedalus 134 (3): 52–59). Signature pedagogies are both pervasive and routine, cutting across topics and courses, programs, and institutions, and are described through three layers of structure – the surface, deep, and implicit. Method The research process was guided by a five-stage framework for conducting a scoping review. In line with the specific purposes articulated above, the research question guiding the review was: What is known from the literature on signature pedagogies of teacher education in PE? The search was restricted to articles published between 2015–2023. Both empirical and conceptual articles (i.e. those with data collection and those without) were included, provided the inclusion criteria were met. A total of 465 articles were included in the review, and the pedagogies identified from each article were co-constructed into themes/categories. Findings and discussion Three signature pedagogies of teacher education in PE across international contexts are identified and presented in terms of their surface, deep and implicit structure, including: (auto)biographical pedagogies, experiential pedagogies, and pedagogies of professional learning. Subsequently, we explore the similarities and differences between each of the three groups of pedagogies and what makes a pedagogy of teacher education in PE distinct from a pedagogy of teacher education more broadly. Conclusion and further research This study offers a preliminary shared language of teacher education pedagogies in the field of PE and is intended to open a dialogue around preparing and supporting pre-service teachers, in-service teachers, and teacher educators in the context of PE. While this review represents an initial step in addressing a gap in the literature by exploring and articulating teacher education pedagogies in PE, there remains a need to analyse their use across teacher education contexts and to consider how this shared language might inform a more intentional practice of these pedagogies within and across teacher education contexts in ways that might ensure more authentic, transformative and equitable teacher education practices in PE.

Collaborative advocacy for multilingual learners: Developments from coursework into practice

AbstractAdvocacy is widely expected of teachers working with multilingual learners (MLs) and is included in TESOL standards and teacher education scholarship. Recent research on language teacher advocacy demonstrates the importance and necessity of advocacy for MLs and their families. However, few studies document how teachers collaboratively advocate for their MLs and how they develop collaborative alliances to implement their advocacy. This article contributes to the growing conversation of how teachers advocate collaboratively for MLs by examining a cohort of teachers from their English as a second language (ESL) certification courses into their teaching practice. Dialogic discourse analyses of 3 years of discussions show how teachers develop their community advocacy plans and stances collaboratively. The authors conclude with implications for preparing teachers to advocate collaboratively for MLs and their families.

Educational Leadership and Professional Learning in Teacher Education : A Indian Perspective

Educational Leadership and Professional Learning in Teacher Education : A Indian Perspective

A systematic evidence synthesis of disability and inclusive pedagogy in initial teacher training in English as a Foreign Language

This systematic review considers recent evidence of the preparation of inclusive education implementation in the context of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education across different countries. The study comprised of a comprehensive search of multiple databases which are accessible for scholars with visual impairments working with an open-source screen reader application: British Education Index, Education Source, ERIC subscription, Scopus, and Web of Science Core Collection. The searches generated 508 studies from January 1 2002, to December 31 2022,. 73 duplicated studies were removed, leaving 435 records to be screened for inclusion. 430 of these were rejected for not meeting the selection criteria, leaving five studies for inclusion. One additional relevant study from author's personal collection of references was also included in the review. The review discovered that the issue of disability and inclusive pedagogy in initial EFL teacher education scholarship is extremely under-studied. Only four relevant studies were conducted in the Global North, two in the Middle East, and none in the Global South, where an expanding population of pupils learning English are located. The findings of this study provide insights and recommendations for policy and practices of initial EFL teacher education.

The self-sought professional learning experiences of secondary school teachers in Malta

ABSTRACT With the introduction of the sectorial agreement signed between the Maltese Government and the Malta Union of Teachers in 2017, Maltese teachers have been incentivised to accelerate their salary scale progression following engagement in self-sought professional learning. The theory of affordances was applied in this mixed-methods research to explore the importance attributed by secondary school teachers towards self-sought learning. Following data collection of 166 questionnaires and 14 teacher interviews, quantitative and qualitative data were analysed using SPSS and MAXQDA respectively. Results suggest that while the majority of teachers are intrinsically motivated to pursue self-sought professional learning, they seek incentives and, in particular, monetary support. Other important barriers that hinder teachers in furthering their professional learning beyond school hours are family responsibilities and lack of time. This study provides insights into teachers’ conceptualisations of professional learning and implications for teacher education.

Critical incidents as a strategy to enhance student teachers’ reflection about practice through immersive learning

ABSTRACT Critical incidents are unanticipated events (either positive or negative) that teachers may encounter during a lesson or other situation causing them to reflect on their approach and change accordingly. .Critical incidents have great potential for learning as they are vividly remembered and set the conditions for systematic reflection. However, despite the importance of the critical incident technique for professional learning in Initial Teacher Education (ITE), it is not generally used in teacher education programmes until the practicum stage when video-analysis is used. This study aims to analyse student teachers’ individual and group reflections regarding two cases recorded on video in Portugal and Spain. Under the context of an Erasmus research project entitled ‘Digital Practicum 3.0: Exploring Augmented Reality, Remote Classrooms, and Virtual Learning to enrich and expand preservice teacher education preparation (2020–1-ES01-KA226-HE - 096,120)’ two cohorts of 39 and 22 student teachers, respectively, reflected upon two critical incidents previously selected by the student teachers who had taught the two lessons that were video recorded. They had to watch the videos and analyse the incidents both in group discussion and individual reflection. Findings suggest that such a strategy is key to enhancing the development of critical reflection in Initial Teacher Education.

Could a playful approach to teaching be a path to resonant connections? Experiences from teacher education in Denmark

Creative and playful approaches to teaching in teacher education emerge these years. Due to the increasing focus on performance, pace, visible goals, and efficiency in the educational systems within the Western societies, there seem to be a search for new answers when organising teaching within teacher education—also for the future. Based on empirical material created in a large research project in teacher education in Denmark, this paper analyses how playful approaches can contribute to improving conditions for a holistic approach to education, and how these approaches must be linked to concrete pedagogical actions. By applying a theoretical framework of playful approaches to learning in teacher education based on Rosa, Lennon and Skovbjerg, the main contribution of the paper is to point to both pedagogical directions and clarifications when working with playful approaches in teacher education.

University Teaching as a Site for Professional Learning of Teacher Educators: The Role of Collaborative Inquiry and Reflection within a Professional Learning Community

While initial teacher education (ITE) has been acknowledged as an important process for improving the quality of education by preparing future teachers, less attention has been paid to the support of the continuous professional learning of teacher educators (TEs). This study reports on the supporting processes and tools for a collaborative inquiry-based systematic reflection of five TEs and the effects of their use in constructing professional knowledge about ITE. The reflective written reports and reflective discussions of the TEs are thematically analysed to show the focus of inquiry, the links among inquiry, reflection, and action, as well as the contributing role of collaboration within a professional learning community (PLC). The results show that the TE inquiry was a continuous process of exploring the beliefs, understandings, and participation of pre-service teachers (PSTs) during teaching; the impact of the teaching context on TE actions and decisions; and the ways in which their collaboration enhanced professional learning. The inquiry results informed the reflections and practice design of TEs. Guiding questions, sustained interactions among the PLC members, and support from a facilitator created opportunities for the collaborative construction of the professional learning of TEs. This article provides TEs or/and facilitators of PLCs in teacher education with a methodology for supporting professional knowledge through collaborative inquiry and reflection.

Research trends in critical thinking skills in mathematics: a bibliometric study

<span lang="EN-US">This study systematically reviews and analyzes previous studies’ literature to identify the research gaps and the steps that must be taken for research on critical thinking in further mathematics education. Two methods, namely bibliometric analysis and descriptive content analysis, were used to achieve this goal. Data for the bibliometric analysis was obtained from the Scopus database, with the keywords “critical thinking” and “mathematics” Documents accessed are limited to the publication range of 2012-2022. The results show that the number of critical thinking research in mathematics has increased significantly, with a peak in 2021 of 65 articles; the United States has the most research and citations. The source that received the most citations was the journal Educational Studies in Mathematics. The evolution of the theme of critical thinking in mathematics began to link critical thinking with collaboration learning, mathematics education, teacher education, engineering, education, and collaborative learning. The quantitative approach with a student sample, tests as data collection instruments, and the analysis of variance (ANOVA) method is the methodology most often used by researchers. The results of this study are likely helpful for other researchers who will examine critical thinking skills in mathematics, namely as a research guide that they will develop. In addition, the existence of several research gaps can motivate other researchers to fill these gaps to contribute to improving the quality of critical thinking in mathematics.</span>

Centering Equity for Multilingual Learners in Preservice Teachers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK)

Recent calls encourage teacher education programs to examine how they address equity within educational technology coursework. This study therefore conceptualizes equity specifically related to using digital tools with multilingual learners. Drawing on a technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) framework informed by prior research on (language) teacher education and computer-assisted language learning, this study examines how preservice teachers described their knowledge base specifically related to using digital tools equitably with multilingual learners. Qualitative analysis of 17 preservice teachers’ course discussions, assignments, and interviews revealed that preservice teachers purposefully reflected on and selected digital tools to use that would support students’ language development and leverage students’ interests. They also reflected on structural inequities and advocacy related to technological implementation. This study encourages teacher educators to support preservice teachers in developing technologically savvy practices that are also linguistically responsive and humanizing by centering equity in TPACK.

Narrative inquiry in China

Narrative inquiry has been widely used in different disciplines around the world. In this article, we focus on narrative inquiry in China where we start by retelling our first close contact with narrative researchers in China in 2007 when Professor Gang Ding at East China Normal University invited leading Chinese researchers to a three-day narrative inquiry workshop co-planned with us (Connelly and Xu). Second, we review narrative studies published in Chinese to demonstrate how widely narrative inquiry has been adopted in educational studies in the country in the past two decades by Chinese university researchers, graduate students, and schoolteachers. Next, our review of English literature of narrative studies related to education in China has two important components: English literature on narrative inquiry contextualized in China and narrative inquiry for reciprocal learning in teacher education and school education between Canada and China. Both reveal how narrative inquiry has contributed to international cross-cultural educational studies related to Chinese contexts. Finally, in the “Discussion” section, we provide our interpretation of some current dialogs on narrative inquiry among Chinese educational researchers; for example, the differences between yanjiu 研究 (research) and tanjiu 探究 (inquiry). Some heated discussions surrounding narrative inquiry in China are also highlighted, including: (1) cultural complexities in narrative inquiry, (2) theoretical frameworks in narrative inquiry, (3) re-storying and fictionalization processes in narrative inquiry, and (4) ethical considerations in narrative inquiry. To conclude, with cases selected and elaborated from the Canada-China partnership, we demonstrate how narrative inquiry has enabled us to develop “reciprocal learning” as both a conceptual framework and a methodological approach to building a multidimensional bridge for reciprocal learning in education between the West and East. This Reciprocal Learning approach reflects our global comparative studies view that the path to global cross-cultural harmony and understanding lies with collaborative action plans among people of different cultures. Writing this article on narrative inquiry in China enabled us to reflect on and learn from narrative inquirers and researchers in China while sharing what we have done in our own narrative inquiry.

Emotions, subjective well-being and gender in basketball learning in teacher education: a case study

The narrative study of emotions in Physical Education teacher training allows us to approach the associated personal and social meanings. The first objective of this research was to understand in a Chilean context the emotional meanings of university Physical Education students in their learning of basketball. Secondly, the objective was to interpret these emotional meanings from a gender perspective. A qualitative, interpretative, and phenomenological methodology was used. Four women and seven men from the Physical Education Pedagogy program at a private Chilean university in the Metropolitan Region participated in the study. The data were collected through personal diaries, which were subjected to a deductive-inductive content analysis with the Atlas.ti 22 program. The results show 14 categories referring to four positive emotions and six negative emotions for subjective well-being. There were nine shared and five separate categories between male and female gender. It is concluded that the recognized meanings can be used to favor subjective well-being by means of didactic adaptations in basketball learning.

Play qualities: Playful actions in learning processes in teacher education and social education

In this paper, we investigate the concept of play qualities with the aim of supporting, creating, analysing, and evaluating playful approaches to learning in teacher education and social education. Through a design-based approach, it explores how the concept of play qualities might create opportunities to conceptualise playful approaches to teaching and learning in higher education. The concept of play quality has the following characteristics: They are related to actions and always aimed at those engaged in concrete situations and those exercising concrete actions. They are dynamic and develop and transform over time. The main contribution of this paper is the creation of a concept that enables us to look at existing teaching approaches and ask about their play qualities, so that we can use the concept of play qualities as design principles for future playful teaching.

Being, becoming and sustaining: learning professional learning in teacher education

ABSTRACT In this study, we are exploring the development of professional learning of nearly qualified teachers, here referred to as prospective teachers, during their subject teacher education at a Finnish university. From a teacher educator stance, we aim to understand how teacher education practices can support prospective teachers’ professional learning. The research question guiding our study is: How are prospective teachers portraying their professional learning by making use of a self-reflective portfolio? The data analysed consists of self-reflective learning portfolios written by prospective subject teachers as a course assignment in a course in general didactics. Drawing on a practice theoretical perspective, the analysis highlights how activities and assignments supporting both individual and collegial learning can be arranged during pre-service teacher education, and how prospective teachers can achieve a sense of collaborative and dialogic professional learning. The results contribute to discussions about promoting sustainable professional learning for both prospective and in-service teachers.

INNOVATIVE EFFECTS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ON TEACHER EDUCATION

The goal of this investigation was to see the impact of AI on teacher education. To have a better understanding of how it will impact teacher education in problem-solving, how it will aid in planning, and whether it will promote continuous learning in teacher education. The study allows instructors and students from tertiary institutions in The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus to express their views. Three primary research topics guided these investigations, and four semi-structured interview questions were developed to obtain thorough responses to these issues. The opinions of the participants were solicited in person. The findings showed that both students and lecturers were aware and comfortable with AI in educational systems, that AI has had significant effects on problem-solving in teacher education, and that AI is vital for facilitating planning in teacher education. Finally, it was emphasized that the application of AI in teacher education allows for continuous learning, which has benefits as well as drawbacks.

Using Collaborative self-study to support professional learning in initial teacher education: developing pedagogy through Meaningful Physical Education

ABSTRACT Collaborative self-study provides teacher educators with opportunities to enhance professional learning. This paper explores how three teacher educators used this approach to support their learning while introducing the pedagogy of Meaningful Physical Education (MPE) to pre-service teachers (PSTs). Thematic analysis of reflections, critical friend feedback and online conversations were used to generate three themes: Collaborative Self-study helped us to learn about our practice; learn how to support student learning; and learn how to introduce pedagogical innovation. Collaboration reinforced resolve and sustained change through sharing experiences, content, resources, and outcomes. While the context for this study was PE, we believe the findings are relevant for all initial teacher educators seeking to develop their practice. Further research into collaborative self-study practice of pedagogical innovation across varied curricular areas could enhance teacher and student learning.

Exploring student teachers’ aesthetic learning processes

ABSTRACT This case study explores arts-based teaching and learning in generalist teacher education by focusing on student teachers’ aesthetic learning processes in a professional workshop. The workshop is included in a Norwegian teacher education programme, where the student teachers learn about and through aesthetic learning processes. By asking what the student teachers emphasise about the learning processes, the study seeks an in-depth understanding of the case from student teachers’ perspectives. Multiple qualitative data sources have been analysed holistically and interpretatively, leading to three categories that reflect emotional, intellectual and practical qualities of aesthetic learning processes. The findings and the discussion highlight how the learning processes expand student teachers’ perception of learning, as well as how emotions seem to constitute a moving and cementing force in creating spaces for new understandings. Student teachers’ professional development in arts-based teaching and learning is further discussed.

Teacher educator learning to implement equitable mathematics teaching using technology through lesson study

PurposeThis paper examines how mathematics teacher educators (MTEs) learn to enact equitable mathematics instruction using technology through lesson study (LS).Design/methodology/approachA LS team with three MTEs conducted three iterations of LS on teaching the Pythagorean Theorem in an in-person, technology-mediated environment. Many forms of data were collected: Desmos activities, videos of research lessons (RLs), videos of MTE RL debriefings, artifacts of student learning in the Desmos Dashboard, and MTEs' written self-reflection. The authors investigate the teacher educators' learning through LS by analyzing the MTE debriefings of the RLs using Bannister’s (2015) framework for teacher learning in communities of practice.FindingsThe MTEs learned to enact equitable mathematics instruction using technology through addressing emerging issues related to intellectual authority and use of student thinking. Throughout the LS, the MTEs sought ways of promoting students' mathematical authority and using student thinking through features of the Desmos platform.Research limitations/implicationsThis study focuses on MTEs' learning without examining participating preservice teachers' learning. It demonstrates the benefits of LS for MTEs' professional learning.Practical implicationsThis study showcases how a research-based Desmos activity is used and refined to promote MTE learning how to implement equitable mathematics instruction.Originality/valueThe study contributes to better understanding of how LS could be used to develop MTEs' professional learning. Moreover, the dual process of participation and reification was concretized through diagnostic and prognostic frames in the LS context, which enriches the concept of community of practice.