Pedagogical Thoughtfulness Research Articles

Preservice teachers’ experiences navigating “adaptive learning” technology

ABSTRACT This hermeneutic-phenomenological study, following the work of van Manen, examines how kindergarten and elementary preservice teachers experienced practicum and student teaching in classrooms affected by the expansion of “adaptive learning” technology designed to assess children and personalize their learning. The researchers conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews and collected personal drawings from 21 mainly White and female preservice teachers in the Appalachian region of the US. The findings provided preservice teachers’ descriptions of the effects of “adaptive learning” contexts with attention to three subgroups that emerged: children experiencing traumatic stress, working class students, and students labeled as “gifted.” The findings suggested that from the view of preservice teachers, “adaptive learning” technology had a complicated role in classroom learning since it did not only extract data from children but reconstituted relations in the classroom. Although adaptive learning was used in part to ease teacher recruitment and retention challenges, it tended to have a negative effect on preservice teachers’ opportunities for learning. To improve levels of pedagogical thoughtfulness and tact in “adaptive learning” classrooms, the data suggested that new considerations of communication, scheduling, and engaging dialogically with the “adaptive learning” tools are paramount to creating better opportunities for mentoring, learning, and growth.

The Dalcroze diamond: a theory of spiritual experiences in Dalcroze Eurhythmics

ABSTRACTThis qualitative study presents a theory of spiritual experiences in Dalcroze Eurhythmics generated from four qualitative research studies by the authors. Two of these are literature-based (‘A conceptual model of spirituality in music education’ and ‘A conceptual study of spirituality in selected writings of Émile Jaques-Dalcroze’) and two are based on lived experiences (‘Exploring lived experiences of spirituality amongst five Dalcroze teachers’ and ‘Stories students tell about their lived experiences of spirituality in the Dalcroze class’). The theory is generated by concepts, constructs and propositions that emerged when the data from all four previous studies were revisited and coded for causality. Since the theory of Dalcroze Eurhythmics and spiritual experiences is multifaceted, we used a diamond as a metaphor to show our findings. We propose that if participation in Dalcroze practice can connect us to ourselves, others, the environment, the sacred (that which is made special, set apart, nurtured, loved, enjoyed, respected or considered important), or facilitate transcendent, holistic or transformative experiences, then spiritual experiences may occur. With this theory, we hope to create heightened awareness of the spiritual potential in the Dalcroze class and communicate the pedagogical thoughtfulness and tact that are required when teaching using the Dalcroze approach.

Exploring lived experiences of spirituality amongst five Dalcroze teachers

This article presents an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) of the lived spiritual experiences of five Dalcroze teachers while teaching Dalcroze Eurhythmics. It responds to a recent expansion of research into spirituality within music education and also in relation to Dalcroze Eurhythmics. However, there is no study on the lived spiritual experiences of Dalcroze practitioners. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to understand how five Dalcroze teachers make sense of their spiritual experiences while teaching Dalcroze Eurhythmics. After semi-structured interviews, we interpreted the experiences of each individual participant separately before doing a cross-case analysis. A six-step, iterative, and inductive data analysis cycle was followed. The superordinate themes that emerged are: Breathing is essential; Giving and receiving energy (physical and emotional); Creating connections through sound and movement; Awareness of self, other, environment, and music; Growth and learning; Meaning and holism; Wellbeing; and Precious moments of transcending time and space. Participants’ spiritual experiences are discussed against the background of “A conceptual model of spirituality in music education” as well as “A conceptual study of spirituality in selected writings of Émile Jaques-Dalcroze.” Music educators’ awareness of spirituality while teaching Dalcroze Eurhythmics could be heightened to increase their “pedagogical thoughtfulness and tact.”

Critical autobiographical research for science educators

In recent years the popularity of qualitative research in science education has increased dramatically. This is an evolving field in which new forms, such as critical autobiographical research, are emerging. This form of research focuses on the researcher’s own life-history, involves writing in the narrative first person voice, and can give unique insights into the social and cultural forces shaping his/her own practice. Autobiographical research can be part of a multi-method participant-observation study, helping the researcher to deal with his/her own biases prior to interpreting and representing the perspectives of other participants. Autobiographical research also can form the whole inquiry, especially in cultural research, thereby enabling science educators to become cultural researchers and reveal hidden cultural forces influencing the social structures of schooling, the curriculum and their own pedagogies. Autobiographical writing, which is part of the inquiry process, commences with a descriptive account of key-issues and develops further into reflective thinking, generating new insights and heightening the researcher’s sensitivities towards those issues, thereby enabling the researcher to see his/her research in the context of his/her biography and culture. An important goal of autobiographical writing is to develop pedagogical thoughtfulness. Another goal is moral; through the writing process we can come to understand how to make increasingly educative our interactions with others who share a commitment to educating the young. Not surprisingly, there are critical voices questioning the rigor and legitimacy of literature-based autobiographical writing. However, these concerns are largely unfounded because good autobiographical research attends to a set of quality standards. Critical autobiography as research is thus a powerful and legitimate means for making science classrooms more culturally relevant and more meaningful to students worldwide.

Didactic Approaches to Child-Managed Play: Analyses of Teacher’s Interaction Styles in Kindergartens and After-School Programmes in Norway

This article explores the nature of teachers’ involvement in child-managed play. We approached this didactic issue through analysis of interactional situations in a kindergarten and an after-school programme and by drawing on relational theory and the concept of “pedagogical tact”. Qualitative material was gathered from observations and video recordings of children and their teachers in the kindergarten and the after-school programme, and interactional situations were analysed. The findings show that in both institutions, teachers’ involvement follows three main approaches: surveillance, an initiating and inspiring approach, and a participating and interactional approach. Whether surveillance is based on judgments about safety or about rules, it seems to hamper the children’s play. Children in both institution types seem to like when teachers’ involvement included the initiation of new activities. Such activities often transform into child-managed play. Teachers’ inspiring communications and interactions were also characterised by recognition and acknowledgement, and this approach appeared to promote child-managed play. It seems important that a surveillance approach does not overshadow an initiating and inspiring approach or a participating and interactional approach in interactional situations through which teachers act with pedagogical thoughtfulness and tact.

Nurturing music learners in Mrs Miller's `family room': a secondary classroom for students with special needs

In this narrative account of a secondary school classroom of students with special needs, I share the story of a teacher and her students. With multiple impairments and low socioeconomic status creating an additional layer of risk, these students struggle with emotional and social interaction in addition to academic challenges. School music classes of choir and band were unavailable to these students. As a former music teacher in this district, I was invited to provide weekly musical experiences. I obtained permissions to engage in a research study while visiting the school. The students' musical experiences were central to our interaction and my research. However, in this article, I explore a finding that emerged during the course of the study — that is, the classroom teacher's role in creating a place of belonging for her students. By understanding the students' need to feel parental love, the teacher — demonstrating a mature model of pedagogical thoughtfulness — fostered a sense of family and belonging within the classroom community.

Critical autoethnographic inquiry for culture‐sensitive professional development

A question asked by a Year 10 student – ‘What is a Mozambican chemistry?’ – constituted for me, a school teacher at the time, a matter of wonder and subsequently a key focus of interrogation for my professional practice. This critical event shaped my one‐year research journey in which writing about my own lifeworld experience was a way of inquiring into science teacher education in Mozambique. A critical autoethnographic methodology enabled me to represent and interrogate some of the complexity of learning and teaching science in Mozambique. I drew on my evolving professional perspectives – trainee teacher, science teacher, science teacher educator – to generate multiple narratives intended to engage myself and my reader in pedagogical thoughtfulness. In this paper, I reflect on the research process, especially how autoethnography enabled me to explore and reflect critically on the sensitivity of my professional practice to Mozambican culture.

PowerPoint's Pedagogy

Teacher-student discourse is increasingly mediated through, by and with digital technologies. In-class discussions have found new, textually-rich venues online; chalk and whiteboard lectures are rapidly giving way to PowerPoint presentations. Yet, what does this mean experientially for students? This article investigates college students' experiences of PowerPoint in the classroom. The research asks: What are the tacit and pedagogical dimensions of the PowerPoint presentation for students? The method of inquiry is informed by a hermeneutic phenomenological approach and by the heuristic notions of pedagogical tact and thoughtfulness.

Seeking Pedagogical Places

In this paper, we explore the meaning of pedagogical place by focusing on significant relations between teachers, students, and the various places in which they appear to find pedagogical thoughtfulness. By opening up educational discourse to consider pedagogy beyond established notions of classroom practice, we invite readers to step outside perceived limits of classroom instruction. How might we know a pedagogical moment when we encounter one? When does a place become pedagogical? Formerly an outdoor educator of youth and an elementary teacher, now university teacher educators, we explore what it means to be in the right place, pedagogically. Some observations on pedagogical place that emerged after reflecting on the lived experiences of various teachers include: different places are appropriate for engaging in different kinds of pedagogical activities with students; activities can be experienced as in place or out-of-place; dwelling pedagogically is being absorbed, being able to dwell authentically in a learning experience without interruption or distraction; nature involves such areas as the natural ability and interests of the child, the relationship of the natural physical and social world, and the nature of learning.

The shanai, the pseudosphere and other imaginings: envisioning culturally contextualised mathematics education

Adopting a self-conscious form of co-generative writing and employing a bricolage of visual images and literary genres we draw on a recent critical auto/ethnographic inquiry to engage our readers in pedagogical thoughtfulness about the problem of culturally decontextualised mathematics education in Nepal, a country rich in cultural and linguistic diversity. Combining transformative, critical mathematics and ethnomathematical perspectives we develop a critical cultural perspective on the need for a culturally contextualized mathematics education that enables Nepalese students to develop (rather than abandon) their cultural capital. We illustrate this perspective by means of an ethnodrama which portrays a pre-service teacher’s point of view of the universalist pedagogy of Dr. Euclid, a semi-fictive professor of undergraduate mathematics. We deconstruct the naivety of this conventional Western mathematics pedagogy arguing that it fails to incorporate salient aspects of Nepali culture. Subsequently we employ metaphorical imagining to envision a culturally inclusive mathematics education for enabling Nepalese teachers to (i) excavate multiple mathematical knowledge systems embedded in the daily practices of rural and remote villages across the country, and (ii) develop contextualized pedagogical perspectives to serve the diverse interests and aspirations of Nepali school children.

A Fugue About Grief

The following autoethnography reveals the author's personal struggle when informed about a suicide. The resulting emotional turmoil causes her to shift forward, backward, and sideways through memories of death during a summer beach outing with her daughter. The narrative demonstrates how she copes with her inner anguish while striving to preserve a happy union. She reveals the painful irony of living simultaneously in a culture of happiness and culture of grief. In doing so, her narrative implicates the stories that encourage parents to suppress emotions from their children. In the end, autoethnography becomes an epiphany that heals her from the tragedy as she gains a deeper understanding about the personal and cultural influences shaping her desire for pedagogical thoughtfulness.

FORUM: Alternative Perspectives Cultural Hybridity and Third Space Science Classrooms

Peter Charles Taylor is an associate professor of transformative education at Curtin University of Technology. His research focuses on the contextualisation of science and mathematics education with/in postcolonial and emerging societies, especially culture-sensitive ways of harnessing global forces of modernisation. This research as/for professional development of teachers and teacher educators involves excavating personal educational histories and alternative knowledge systems, examining critically the legacy of (neo)colonial educational policies and practices, and envisioning transformative curricular possibilities for creating ‘third space’ classrooms. Of particular interest to him are auto/ethnography, literary genres of narrative, fictive and impressionistic writing, and arts-based standards of critical reflexivity and pedagogical thoughtfulness. He draws on a wide range of theoretical referents, including critical constructivism, reconceptualist curriculum theory, research as reflective/imaginative praxis, the cultural/linguistic nature of science and mathematics, concepts of cultural identity/agency/entitlement, and postcolonial theorising.

Professionalism in Physical Therapy: A Reflection on Ways of Being in Physical Therapy Education

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about professionalism in physical therapy, more precisely, about professionalism in physical therapy education. So, too, have many others, judging from the numerous presentations and conversations about this topic at the 2004 Combined sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APIA) this past February. Driven by APIA'S Vision 2020 statement and the vision of a doctoring profession, the recently developed and adopted document, Professionalism in Physical Therapy: Core Values,1,2 provides a valuable blueprint for physical therapy educators as they consider how to promote student learning and development as future health care professionals who will embrace and enact these core values in their everyday practice. result of an APTA sponsored consensus conference, the document identifies and defines seven core values that are essential to professionalism in physical therapy: accountability, altruism, compassion and caring, excellence, integrity, professional duty, and social responsibility.1 As I read through the definitions and indicators put forth in this document, 1 couldn't help but think that teaching and learning about these values and dimensions of professionalism is not so much about what is taught and learned as it is about how we are teaching, and, perhaps most importantly, who we are as teachers in relation to our students. Furthermore, I believe these values urge us to attend to and critically examine how we teach and who we are as faculty both individually and collectively in physical therapy education. Professing and owning these values is obviously not the stuff of rote memorization and recitation of some oath or pledge-it is living them; it is about of being with our students as they make the journey toward professionalism. Sam Feitelberg, in his recent Pauline Cerasoli address to physical therapy educators, The Influence of Leaders,3 echoed my thoughts, and I hope those of many others, on this matter: We should never forget that a student is a learner and should be respected. . .and is not a lower form of person on the road to becoming a professional. If we go forward to adopt a pledge or oath, then we have committed ourselves to behaving in a way that will bring meaning and life to the words as students recite them. Many authors have written about the Importance of who we are In relation to our students (Ie, our relational stance or ways of with students in educational endeavors) and the influence of such presence on learning.4-10 This presence can have both positive and negative influences on learning. Social constructivist theories of teaming remind us that teaching and learning are extraordinarily relational, contextual, and reciprocal endeavors. As such, they also remind us that learning does not just occur in one's head but through active and authentic engagement with academic content through and with other individuals. Thus, our presence as faculty (both academic and clinical) is critical. Students, educational researchers, and educational philosophers have all helped us to identify and understand characteristics, attributes, and behaviors that contribute to positive presence and that enable and enhance learning. In one recent study of physical therapist students and their approaches to learning, Sellheim9 reported positive presence factors as faculty enthusiasm, respectful and positive attitudes toward students, and accessibility. Alternatively, negative presence factors were reported as intimidation, egotistical attitudes, and mistrust. Other influential authors have urged teachers to explore and develop positive presence as a means for facilitating learning through thoughtful teaching,6 mindful practice,11,12 and, last but not least, pedagogical sensitivity and tact.7 latter of these concepts, described in van Manen's7 treatise on the moral dimensions of teaching, Tact of Teaching: TheMeaning of Pedagogical Thoughtfulness, should be required reading for physical therapy educators, in my opinion. …

The Tact of Teaching: The Meaning of Pedagogical Thoughtfulness

In The Tact of Teaching bestselling author Max van Manen offers teachers at every stage an original and inspiring interpretation of the notion of pedagogy, one that searches for its roots in the experience of in loco parentis. Using dozens of anecdotes and scenes taken directly from life in classrooms, including many from the often-neglected domain of high school, The Tact of Teaching explicates the meaning of pedagogical moments, the conditions of pedagogy, the relation between pedagogy and politics, the nature of pedagogical experience, and the practical forms of pedagogical understanding. The author: -Presents experiential analysis of the relation between pedagogical reflection and action-Explores how pedagogical tact manifests itself, what tact accomplishes, and how tact does what it does-Speaks of hope and humane practice in an era of schooling often given over to mindless technocracy or fashionable despair

Review of The Tact of Teaching: The Meaning of Pedagogical Thoughtfulness.

Review of The Tact of Teaching: The Meaning of Pedagogical Thoughtfulness.