Pre-service Professional Development Research Articles

Analysis of Pre-service Professional Development Path for Senior High School English Teachers under the Subject Key Competence

Analysis of Pre-service Professional Development Path for Senior High School English Teachers under the Subject Key Competence

Professional development in English-medium instruction: faculty attitudes in South Korea and Japan

ABSTRACT The need to support those teaching in English-medium instruction (EMI) classrooms is becoming increasingly acknowledged, and faculty professional development (PD) is recognised as an important element of that support. This study, a replication and localisation of an international study by Macaro et al. (2020. “English Medium Instruction in Higher Education: Teacher Perspectives on Professional Development and Certification.” International Journal of Applied Linguistics 30 (1): 144–157), investigates the experiences and attitudes of faculty members teaching in EMI programmes in South Korea and Japan towards EMI related PD and certification. Survey findings (South Korea n = 234, Japan n = 92) indicate that few faculty members have experience with pre-service PD, and that EMI-related in-service PD is rare in South Korea but on the rise in Japan. Preferences for PD and attitudes towards certification differed between the two populations sampled, and there are indications that the disciplinary and language backgrounds of the professors may influence this. This highlights the need for local, context-appropriate approaches to supporting faculty in EMI programmes.

The complexity of data-based decision making: An introduction to the special issue

This special issue explores the complexity and interconnectedness of the many components of data-based decision making. The selection of papers represents many countries (i.e., Belgium, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and the United States), theories, methods, and foci. All the papers seek to explicate how data are used at the different level of the system, ranging from students, teachers, schools, and districts. Together these papers offer a view of the current data-based decision making landscape, including in- and pre-service professional development, district and school organizational capacity, the data use process (from goal setting to collaborative instructional decision making), and effects on student achievement. The intent of the special issue is to stimulate future work in terms of impact on research, theory, policy, and practice.

Teacher Political Disclosure as Parrhēsia

Background/ContextThe traditional stance on teacher political disclosure within K–12 education is that neutrality is the only morally appropriate approach for teachers to take when broaching political or social issues in their classes due to their role as state employees who serve a particular community. A number of recent high-profile cases of teachers intolerantly disclosing their political beliefs in their classrooms have only served to reinforce the belief among the general public that teachers too often use their positions of authority to proselytize to their students. However, both theoretical arguments made by scholars and empirical data from K–12 classrooms suggest that disclosure may be beneficial to students’ learning experiences and civic development.PurposeThis article seeks to better understand the benefits and limitations of teacher political disclosure by framing disclosure around Foucault's conceptualization of parrhēsia, which can loosely be defined as the ability to speak the truth in spite of danger or fear.Research DesignThis is an analytic essay/theoretical argument. As a way of scaffolding the discussion, I incorporate vignettes of data collected from my research in high school civics classrooms. Of particular interest to this argument is Mr. Monroe, a teacher I studied during the 2012 Presidential Election.Conclusions/RecommendationsAn analysis of teacher political disclosure using a parrhēsia framework suggests that educators should rethink the conventional wisdom that supports non-disclosure. Although disclosure carries inherent risk, it also offers democratic and interpersonal benefits for students. Both in-service and pre-service professional development, then, should present teachers with a complete picture of the risks and benefits of disclosure, and teachers should determine whether to engage in parrhēsiastic acts by strategically balancing those risks against the potential of disclosure to support their pedagogical goals.

Cancer Prevention and Control: Where are the Kids?

The Journal of Cancer Education May 2012 supplement #2 (27) entitled “Workforce Gaps and Opportunities in Cancer Prevention & Control” focused on the expanding need for a larger and more efficient cancer prevention workforce. Topics discussed ranged from the number of physician and nurse oncologists to communication and funding problems. In the “recommendations” sections of the papers in this special issue, no mention of cancer education/prevention opportunities for school-age children was made. Yet this is the age group that begins to make lifestyle choices such as tobacco and/or tanning booth use. Without proper health science information regarding these practices, youngsters are at risk of making uninformed and therefore poor lifestyle decisions. School-age children should be a major target for cancer prevention education. For example, in the 2012 Report of the Surgeon General on “Preventing Tobacco Use Among Youth and Young Adults” (http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco), it was stated that “tobacco use is a pediatric epidemic, around the world as well as in the United States with nearly all tobacco use beginning in childhood and adolescence.” This editorial suggests a way to provide cancer prevention education to school-age children. The kids are there . order were: first—anatomy and physiology; second— science and medicine; third—genetics and reproduction; fourth—behavior, neurobiology, and the mind; fifth— man and animal relationships; and sixth—biotechnology. For example, 68 % of the grade K-8 children ranked anatomy and physiology, and sickness and medicine as their primary interests. Regarding their primary interests, only 11 % listed genetics and reproduction and 1.4 % listed biotechnology [1]. The teachers of these interested students, however, usually are not trained in science/health science education leaving it untaught. Two quotes from middle school students are revealing: “A lot of my teachers tell me that smoking causes lung cancer – but none of them can tell me how this happens” and “Skin cancer can be prevented I think. We haven't really discussed that in school” [2]. The problem of teachers being poorly prepared to teach science has been documented [3]. In summary, students will not be able to learn science if their teachers do not have adequate knowledge on the science they teach. Teachers need better preservice and inservice training in science to deepen their knowledge on the science content of the curriculum. Proper training of teachers in the health sciences, especially cancer prevention education, obviously is needed. It has been suggested that future advances made in improving the nation's health will not result from spectacular biomedical breakthroughs, but from advances in personally initiated actions that are directly influenced by the individual's health-related attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge through school-based health science education. It has been recommended that there be increased in-service and preservice professional development opportunities and incentives for persons responsible for teaching health education. Preservice professional preparation of all teachers should include E. R. Burns (*) Department of Neurobiology and Developmental Sciences, College of Medicine, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, 4301 West Markham St., Little Rock, AR 72205, USA e-mail: burnsbob@uams.edu J Canc Educ (2014) 29:209–210 DOI 10.1007/s13187-013-0582-x

Topics in Teacher Education Research

In previous editorials, we have described how criticism of the rigor and relevance of teacher education has influenced our vision for the journal. As a result, we have shared our criteria for determining the quality of manuscripts submitted to Journal of Teacher Education (JTE) and described how certain published articles exemplified these criteria (see Issues 63:1 and 64:2). However, our examples have primarily focused on improving methodology, creating the theoretical and conceptual frameworks that enable readers to see linkages in findings within and across studies, and providing explanations of how the findings from a study add to the existing knowledge base. Recently, in discussions at conferences and through email exchanges, potential authors have asked about specific topics of interest to the editorial team and to readers of the journal. In other words, what do we publish? Given the diversity of our readership, as well as our editorial team, the range of topics is broad and diverse. Nevertheless, we tend to see some topics as more relevant given identified needs of researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. Many of these preferences appear as themed calls for proposals or as special issues and include the following: research on features of teacher education programs as opposed to pathways (Issue 63:3), diversity and disability in teacher education (Issue 63:4), assessment and accountability in teacher education (Issue 63:5), inservice and preservice professional development related to the Common Core and other standards (Issue 64:3), interdisciplinary teacher education collaboration (Issue 64:5), professional development and practices of teacher educators (Issue 65:4), and implications of preservice and inservice teacher performance assessment for teacher education (Issue 65:5). As the ultimate intent of the themed calls is to advance research and discussion in these specific areas, the themes remain topics of special interest long past the particular target issue. Other important topics, although not specified as themes, emerge in editorial team discussions and through communication with reviewers and readers. Topics of interest include uses and impacts of technology in preservice and inservice professional development, diversity and multicultural teacher education, issues of teacher quality and retention related to teacher education, practice-based teacher education, professional development communities of practice, coaching and mentoring in both preservice and inservice contexts, processes and outcomes in various cognitive and affective areas (e.g., pedagogical content knowledge, professional identity, self-efficacy), and teacher education within specific content areas. This list is not in any particular order and is not exhaustive. Often we receive manuscripts on topics not on the list whose authors make a compelling case for relevance and importance to teacher educators (e.g., body pedagogy, bullying, community-based placements) and are published in JTE as a result. The argument for the relevance and importance of the topic, coupled with how the particular study advances our understanding and knowledge in the area, influences reviewers' and editors' decisions about inclusion. The articles that comprise this issue provide good examples of the diversity of topics included in JTE and the rationales for importance and relevance that influenced reviewers and editors. The topics include exploration of race and multicultural teacher education, professional development using collaborative web technologies, teacher recruitment and preparation in relation to various outcomes, teacher preparation and induction support in relation to career intentions and decisions, and alignment of teacher education assessment course curricula with standards and policies. One of the five articles is a theoretical/conceptual discussion while the remaining four represent both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. …

The Role of Content Knowledge and Problem Features on Preservice Teachers’ Appraisal of Elementary Mathematics Tasks

The objective of this study was to examine the nature of preservice teachers’ evaluations of elementary mathematics problems using the Mathematical Tasks Framework (MTF), a model designed to discriminate among tasks according to their cognitive complexity. We also tested the relationship between mathematics content knowledge and problem length on the preservice teachers’ evaluations. Twenty-six undergraduate students enrolled in an elementary mathematics methods course at a large urban university were introduced to the MTF and cognitive complexity during a class lecture and were subsequently required to sort 32 mathematics problems according to the framework. Results demonstrated that overall, the preservice teachers had more difficulty accurately classifying problems considered to represent high levels of cognitive complexity compared to problems that were less complex. Those with strong mathematics content knowledge, as measured by a standardized test, were able to sort the problems more accurately than those with weaker content knowledge. Two open-ended items assessing content knowledge were not related to sorting performance. Finally, the preservice teachers were influenced by the surface characteristic of task length; the data indicated that the teachers tended to label short problems as less cognitively demanding and long problems as more so. Implications for preservice professional development include an increased emphasis on mathematics content knowledge as well as expert modeling of the identification of deep conceptual principles at the heart of the mathematics curriculum.

Impact of Professional Development Schools Pre-Service through Induction

The study examined elementary pre-service Professional Development School preparation and subsequent entry/retention in the teaching profession. A total of 48 student teachers took part in the study. One group of 24 (Total-PDS) had two PDS experiences prior to student teaching as well as Cluster-PDS student teaching experience during teacher preparation. A second group of 24 (Semi-PDS) had two PDS experiences prior to student teaching and a traditional student teaching experience. Results indicated no significant differences between the two groups prior to student teaching. There were, however, significant differences in favor of the Total-PDS group at the exit of student teaching in regard to role preparedness, Personal Teacher Efficacy (PTE) and General Teacher Efficacy (GTE). The Total-PDS group also made significant increases (pre/post) in role overload and PTE. The Total-PDS group had a higher percentage of pre-service teachers that entered the teaching profession when compared to the Semi-PDS group (100%/79%). Following the first year of teaching, there were no significant differences between groups in the two efficacy variables, although the Total-PDS group regressed significantly in General Teacher Efficacy (GTE) and Personal Teacher Efficacy, (PTE) was no longer significantly different between groups as it had been following student teaching. Retention rates were equal after the first year between groups because the Total-PDS group lost 8 first year teachers compared to 3 for the Semi-PDS group. Results should lead teacher educators to question the types and sites for field based experiences during teacher preparation.

Projects: Teaching Mathematics to Deaf Students: A Comprehensive Web-Based Resource

A major new resource is being developed on the World Wide Web for mathematics educators who have deaf students in their classes. It includes well-grounded information about best practices in teaching and curriculum development and resources that support in-service and preservice professional development efforts.

Using teacher narrative research in teacher development

Professional development is key to ongoing school reform, and effective and empowering professional development should begin in teacher education. Too often both current inservice and preservice professional development depend on generic prescriptions, unrelated to the actual daily lives of teachers, and unresponsive to diverse individual needs. The author argues that teacher development should be humanistic, constructivist, and should recognize and encourage teachers’ voices. One means for such development is teacher narrative research, teacher inquiry built on teacher lore or story. Several examples from students are provided that demonstrate how such research and narrative meet the human needs of preservice teachers; help new teachers construct, both individually and with their peers, knowledge about teaching; and acknowledge diverse voices in education.