Undergraduate Teacher Education Research Articles

Cultivating teacher professionalism in Chinese and U.S. settings: contexts, standards, and personhood

ABSTRACT Our global era invites research on teacher reflection that is grounded in local contexts and enriched by cross-regional collaborations. Teacher professionalism is a shared global interest that is shaped by unique cultural factors in local settings. This study examines Chinese and U.S. undergraduate teacher education student views on the criteria for and standardised measures used to assess teacher professionalism. Data analyses of participant products, specifically group rubrics and individual reflections, involved constant comparative analyses to highlight convergent and divergent themes in student conceptions of teacher professionalism within and across the U.S. and Chinese university contexts. Findings demonstrate similarities and distinctions across participant views on the professional knowledge, skills, and dispositions involved in becoming a teacher, and reveals teacher professionalism as a dialectic among contexts, standards, and persons. Context distinguishes professional practice in ways that bring meaning and relevancy to local student needs. Standards provide a shared foundation for global discourse around key elements of a profession. Maintaining a person-centred view helps ensure assessment practices keep education’s broader civic goals central. Engaging in international dialogue on the meaning of teacher professionalism across regional cultures expanded understandings of professionalism, and how it may be fostered and evaluated more effectively in teacher education.

Using Book Clubs to Support Inquiry in Teacher Education

The bombardment of information on students in higher education has created a need for not only information processing skills but improved communicative competence and interpersonal relationship skills. In an attempt to address this, we have implemented book clubs in our undergraduate teacher education courses. In these book clubs, we facilitate students in both critique and analysis of perspectives at difference with one another as well as the process of communicating on a professional level. The results have been students who feel more confident in evaluating literature and hosting conversations with critical elements.

The argumentative design principles of three courses in a Physics undergraduate teacher education program

To assure that current science education practices are aligned with recent educational research findings, there must be a constant effort of investigating the environments in which teachers are educated and prepared for their pedagogical action. One of the epistemic practices that should be discussed and taught in every teacher education program is argumentation. Preparing future teachers to construct and evaluate arguments and enabling them to design activities that scaffold students’ argumentative skills has become a highly desirable goal in science education in the past few decades. Despite that, few studies have been devoted to studying the role of argumentation and argumentative development in initial and continuing teacher education. The present study was aimed at observing and analyzing some of the characteristics of three courses of an undergraduate Physics teacher education program at a public university in the State of São Paulo (Brazil), and to compare them in terms of their potential contributions to the development or argumentation skills of its students. Preliminary results suggest that the curricular reform that has been implemented was responsible for shifting practices to a much more updated and theory-informed model, but the program’s focus is still on written instruction, and not on the development of oral communication skills, which would be key for a fertile argumentative development.

We can’t always measure what matters: revealing opportunities to enhance online student engagement through pedagogical care

ABSTRACT Online learning was initially introduced to support face-to-face learning, but now represents a dominant pedagogical approach in Higher Education. The rapid shift from face-to-face learning to online platforms has left many academics feeling pedagogically unprepared. In this research, we initially sought to understand and enhance online student engagement in three undergraduate teacher education courses through the mapping of ‘pedagogical touchpoints’ – encounters students had with their online learning environment – to better understand their needs, preferences and behaviours as online learners, with a focus on recognising what students valued and identified as ‘engaging’. While seeking insight into the student experience through a range of data, including course feedback, survey data, interviews and researcher critical reflections, we noted that they approached their studies with a diverse range of needs and preferences for engaging in online learning, and that some aspects that were valued most highly were not necessarily identifiable or ‘measurable’, but represented less definable, but importantly – engaging qualities that students highly valued. These ‘unmeasurable’ elements were found to be related to the exercising of pedagogical care, not just in interactions between teacher and students, but an overall online pedagogy of care that permeated all aspects of course design and delivery. The research thus contributes an important insight into effective and engaging online pedagogy that forefronts the value of pedagogical care, and what this may look like when facilitating online learning.

Sustainability: A Regional Australian Experience of Educating Secondary Geography Teachers

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number four seeks an equitable and widespread education that enables an outcome of sustainable development by 2030. Intersecting the studies of society and earth processes, a geographical education is well placed to make cohesive sense of all the individual knowledge silos that contribute to achieving sustainability. Geography education is compulsory for the first three years of the secondary education curriculum in Australia; however, research has shown that many geography teachers are underprepared and report limitations in their teaching of sustainability. This article engages with this research problem to provide a critical reflection, using experiential knowledge as an analytical lens, on how tertiary level geography training at one Australian regional university can equip undergraduate teacher education students with the values, knowledge, and skills needed to develop their future students’ understanding and appreciation of the principles of sustainability. The authors unpacked a geography minor for a Bachelor of Secondary Education degree at Central Queensland University and, deploying content analysis, explain how three units in that minor can develop these students’ values, knowledge, and skills through fostering initiatives and activities. The analysis was framed by elements of pedagogy that offer learners a context for developing active, global citizenship and participation to understand the interdependencies of ecological, societal, and economic systems including a multisided view of sustainability and sustainable development. The study concluded that the three geography units engage student teachers in sustainable thinking in a variety of ways, which can have a wider application in the geography curricula in other teacher education courses. More importantly, however, the study found that there is a critical need for collaboration between university teachers of sustainability content and university teachers of school-based pedagogy in order to maximise the efficacy of sustainability education in schools.

Prospective Secondary Math Teachers Encountering STEM in a Methods Course: When Math is More Than “Just Math”

Education reforms in the United States and abroad have increased efforts to improve student interest and capacity in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Despite these attempts, students still have little opportunity to engage in STEM learning in K-12 education. This qualitative case study was designed to investigate how incorporating STEM into teacher education can promote STEM teaching as well as enhance math instruction. The study took place in the fourth year of an undergraduate teacher education program spanning a secondary math and science Methods course and student teaching. Guided by the framework of sensemaking, individual interviews, teaching artifacts, and written reflections for four teachers were analyzed to identify moments of dissonance that pushed participants to reach new understandings about the learning and teaching of math. Findings indicated that learning to teach math through the lens of STEM shifted pre-service teachers’ instructional emphasis in two ways: 1) figuring out math vs. learning about math; and 2) teaching math through authentic STEM contexts as opposed to focusing purely on mathematics. However, experiences in student teaching can either enhance or stifle these gains. Findings suggest the role of teacher education in promoting STEM education by shifting prospective teachers’ mindsets about mathematics and teaching.

Disability studies in and for inclusive teacher education in Aotearoa New Zealand

ABSTRACT In inclusive education, Disability Studies is a framework that has been useful for identifying gaps in theory, in practice and the spaces in between. Disability Studies in Education also provides new spaces in which to manoeuvre, re-framing theory, reflecting on and (potentially) shifting practice in classrooms, schools, and national policies and guidelines. In this paper three teacher educators and a school principal describe their work in undergraduate and graduate teacher education, both initial teacher education and in-service professional development. We describe the genesis of our theorising in an ongoing project developing and disseminating a sociocultural approach to assessment, Narrative Assessment. We continue to learn about curriculum, pedagogy and assessment in this project. These learnings inform our theory and practice of teacher education for inclusive education.

Transforming Preservice Teacher Perceptions of Immigrant Communities Through Digital Storytelling

Background: As diverse communities continue to be targets of racism and anti-immigrant sentiments permeate current political discourse, the need to prepare a teaching force that understands immigrant children and their families continues to be a critical priority. Purpose: This study explored the ways in which one digital storytelling project that required 20 clinical hours working with English learners (ELs) engaged preservice teachers in learning about immigrant issues. Methodology/Approach: Data in the form of critical reflections, digital storytelling video transcripts, and archival data were collected from undergraduate teacher education candidates over three semesters. Narrative data from participants were analyzed using thematic narrative analysis. Findings/Conclusions: The findings of the study are organized into themes that included enriching experience, transformed attitudes, and stories of resilience. The results showed the ways that preservice teachers’ dispositions about immigration were challenged and how much their understanding of the experiences of ELs was deepened through the experience. Implications: This study offers insight for teacher education programs and shows how experiential pedagogical tools such as digital storytelling and authentic clinical experiences can challenge existing and problematic beliefs and assumptions, helping to build a cadre of teacher advocates of immigrant children.

Global Identity Development in Teacher Education with Modifications Prompted by COVID-19

Education systems face pressures from globalization. Thinking more globally, developing a more global identity, and demonstrating intercultural competence are valued in teacher education as reflected in accreditation standards. These anticipate the requirements of future students’ more diverse generations who must function in an increasingly interconnected and intercultural globalized world. This article describes a course that fits into an undergraduate or graduate teacher education program, and that fosters intercultural competence and global identity through online course delivery combined with experiential learning in a destination country. This course won the 2019 College-Level Course Award from the Association for Distance Education and Independent Learning. Travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated developing alternatives to the study abroad component of this course. These virtual solutions are described and can be used in a variety of contexts. © 2021. Common Ground Research Networks, Meg Milligan, Paige Paquette, All Rights Reserved. All Rights Reserved.

Learning by Design

This article reports on an application of a SoTL research process for two teacher education instructors in an undergraduate teacher education course, Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age. After engaging in content analysis of student work samples derived from a Digital Sabbath assignment, the instructors asked more questions about how well the assignment aligned to course objectives and intended learning outcomes. Collaboratively, they determined how the Digital Sabbath assignment could be revised to better meet the stated course objective. The authors anticipate that assignment revisions could result in improved student learning outcomes for the teacher education students. Insights from the student responses and course materials are discussed as well as implications for teaching and learning in a teacher education program.

Pre-service Teacher Perceptions in Integrating Maker-Centered Learning in their Mathematics and Education Initial Teacher Education Programme

Aquest article descriu un programa innovador "C24M2: codificació creativa per a creadors de matemàtiques", en un programa de formació simultània de professors de pregrau. Utilitzant Makerspace en un entorn universitari, el programa va fomentar una cultura de creativitat i innovació mitjançant la combinació de matemàtiques i les assignatures STEM més àmpliament reconegudes. En abordar el desafiament de preparar els professors de manera eficaç per ensenyar àrees STEM clau, com ara el pensament computacional, d’una manera atractiva i eficaç, aquest article descriu un disseny i una estructura del fabricant, integrant la física amb la codificació per ordinador, per abordar el desafiament de preparar els estudiants professors. de matemàtiques. L’objectiu del document és validar i explorar les percepcions de la informàtica dels professors de serveis previs i demostra el potencial de l’aprenentatge centrat en els creadors com a context potent per promoure i millorar l’educació STEM, tant entre els alumnes com en els professors de serveis previs. Aquest article examina si el disseny del C24M2 afavoreix una actitud positiva cap a la informàtica per a aquest conjunt de professors de pre-servei. La investigació realitzada aborda les qüestions més destacades de sosteniment i integració de l’aprenentatge centrat en els creadors de manera més àmplia i sistemàtica dins de l’educació, en particular la necessitat de donar suport al desenvolupament professional del professorat en l’aprenentatge centrat en els creadors per mediar l’aprenentatge sostenible d’alt impacte a les escoles i altres entorns educatius.

Letting Go of the Lesson Plan: Spontaneity and Flexibility in a Learner-Centered Approach to Maximize Learning in a Graduate School Setting

ABSTRACT As college classrooms become more diverse, university faculty members need to find more effective ways to increase student-learning outcomes. Research suggests that to do so, faculty members take a more learner-centered approach. This article highlights a graduate course in an urban, diverse East Coast institution rooted in a learner-centered pedagogy. It examines what transpired after the professor “let go of her own lesson plan,” allowing her students to assume full ownership in order to create a meaningful experience for themselves and undergraduate teacher education students.

‘Seeing is believing, but not necessarily perceiving!’: Chinese EFL M.E.d. student teachers’ perceptions of school visit experiences

ABSTRACT School experience has been practised as an integral component of undergraduate teacher education programmes in many countries. This has spurred a large amount of research on various issues in the whole experience. However, the stage of school visits and classroom observations remains unexplored as a research subject. This paper reports on a study of a group of Chinese EFL (English as a foreign language) M.E.d. student teachers’ perceptions of their year-long experience of school visits. It was found that, whilst the student teachers benefited from the experience, such as increased familiarity with school life, an enhanced motivation for professional development, and an emerging collaborative community, three limitations emerged in the process, including limited professional experiences and understanding, potential oscillation from an idealistic to realistic mindset, and the limited depth of collaboration. Therefore, the study indicates that extensive school visits experience alone is insufficient, and should be offered in tandem with well-structured reflective teaching practicum to facilitate student teachers’ gradual teacher identity formation. Dynamic and systematic partnerships are necessary to set concrete goals and assessments at each stage, and make curricular and pedagogical transformations responsively.

Learning to Teach in a Museum: Benefits of a Museum–University Partnership

ABSTRACT This article centers on the results of a two-year study of a museum–university partnership conducted with 81 secondary preservice student teachers enrolled in a large public university in the Midwestern United States. The focus is on preservice student teachers’ experiences working in a large urban museum which also houses a public middle school (grades 6–8), in partnership with the second largest urban district in the state. In this setting, preservice student teachers worked weekly with small groups of sixth-grade students in the museum as part of a required undergraduate content area literacy teacher education course. This study highlights ways this museum–university field experience served as an important clinical component for preservice student teacher learning. Working in a museum provided preservice student teachers with opportunities to experience and engage in teaching opportunities using integrated curriculum and inquiry-based teaching. Findings also showcase how this partnership provided preservice student teachers with learning opportunities, including studying and connecting concepts of storytelling related to the museum, recognizing the museum as a teacher, and learning from other museum personnel and educators.

Teaching about and for social justice in teacher education in Hong Kong

This paper analyses the learning impacts of a social justice learning unit, which was implemented through three lectures in each of two undergraduate teacher education courses in 2017/18 across two semesters. The design of the unit allows for social inquiry and experiential learning in the undergraduate curriculum. A sequential mixed-methods design was adopted, with pre and post questionnaire and interview data gathered from undergraduate students. We argue that learning and applying social justice concepts through group inquiry and other learning activities on social justice related issues, together with an experiential learning site visit, can facilitate the development of understanding of both the concept and application of social justice, a positive perception towards ethnic minorities and a desire for further learning and engagement in the community. This study would be useful for any university educators who want to teach about and for social justice in ways that may help students to develop an increased willingness for community service.

Jumpstarting Cross-Discipline Collaboration in Undergraduate Social Work Education

This paper examines the integration of undergraduate teacher education students into interprofessional activities with social work and pre-occupational therapy undergraduates. Like health professionals, school-based professionals work across disciplines daily and come together for critical decision-making on behalf of vulnerable and special needs students. Although evidenced-based pedagogy in interprofessional education (IPE) has become common in graduate and professional health education, less is known about its implementation in undergraduate education and with non-health-related disciplines. This article describes a 2-year interprofessional undergraduate simulation project with social work, teacher education, and pre-occupational studies students working prospectively in a K-12 school setting. Survey data found that students gained confidence in their disciplinary roles as well as in their abilities to communicate and collaborate effectively as a result of participation in the school-based simulation and related activities. The project highlighted the benefits of situating theory-driven undergraduate interprofessional learning in settings beyond healthcare and the need for developing assessment tools inclusive of undergraduates and relevant to a range of workforce environments.

Identity formation in music teacher education: The role of the curriculum

The purpose of this descriptive quantitative research was to examine undergraduate music teacher education curricula in the context of professional identity formation and in comparison with teacher education curricula in other subjects. Comprehensive course listings for undergraduate degree programs in music teacher education, mathematics teacher education, and English teacher education were gathered from the official course catalogs of 16 higher education institutions. These data were coded and analyzed to determine the amount of coursework in each program devoted to developing pedagogical skills, subject-area content knowledge, and other skills. Results indicated that while the amount of content-focused and pedagogy-focused courses was relatively balanced in English and mathematics teacher education programs, music teacher education programs devoted a significantly larger proportion of the curriculum to content-based courses. While scholars have called on music teacher educators to prioritize the development of a teacher identity in undergraduate music education students, current music teacher education curricula may not be aligned with these recommendations.

Exploring the digital competence of pre-service teachers on entry onto an initial teacher education programme in Ireland

This study aimed to explore the digital competence of recent entrants into a pre-service teacher education programme in an Irish University. The participants were drawn from a cohort of 208 undergraduate teacher education students. The study employed an online survey that captured both self-reported levels of digital competence and knowledge of key areas of cyber ethics and digital technology. The respondents were active users of technology and very frequent users of social media but reported levels of skills in the use of other digital technologies were lower. In addition, their knowledge of cyber-ethics and associated practices varied. The study also found that they were positively disposed to technology in teaching. The paper argues that, while there are limitations to surveys that aim to capture one’s level of digital competence, they can help guide teacher educators in responding to pre-service teachers. However, digital competence is an evolving concept and care must be taken to ensure that frameworks and tools used to assess it do not stifle teachers’ autonomy in relation to their utilisation of technology.

Personal and Professional Readiness of In-service Teachers of English for Culturally Responsive Teaching

Purpose: The aim of this study was twofold. First, it investigated the extent to which in-service teachers of English were personally and professionally ready to carry out culturally responsive teaching (CRT). Second, it aimed to understand teachers’ perceptions of CRT. Research Method: This study was carried out in a sequential explanatory mixed methods design. Accordingly, first quantitative data were gathered in the first phase through administering CRT readiness scale. In the second phase, qualitative data were gathered through semi-structured interviews to gain detailed insights about their perceptions. A total number of 415 in-service teachers of English participated in the quantitative phase of the study, and 12 teachers participated in the semi-structured interviews. Findings: Quantitative findings showed significant differences between teachers' personal and professional readiness, novice and experienced teachers, and graduates of ELT departments and graduates of ELL and ACL departments. Qualitative findings showed that experience alone was a distinguishable factor for CRT and also underlined the necessity for and the importance of culture-oriented courses in undergraduate English language teacher education. Implications for Research and Practice: Accordingly, enriching undergraduate English language teacher education programs with culture-oriented courses is a need. Such courses should cover both theoretical and practical sides of multicultural education and CRT. There is also a need to provide more opportunities for teacher candidates to execute teaching practices in real and culturally diverse classrooms. Furthermore, the need for studies focusing on field-specific competencies and real classroom settings are also underlined.

“I chose teacher education because…”: a look into Indonesian future teachers

ABSTRACT In Indonesia, implementation of the Law on Teachers and Lecturers in 2005 increased teacher salaries and led to an oversupply of students in teacher education programs, which might be due to no specific teacher education admission criteria. Consequently, limited teaching positions upon graduation result in more teacher education graduates undertaking non-teaching careers. Then, why do students enter teacher education? The study applies the Factors Influencing Teaching Choice (FIT-Choice) theoretical framework. Over eight hundred final-year undergraduate teacher education students from four universities participated in the study. Primary education participants were more motivated by their perceived teaching ability, intrinsic value, job security, time for family, opportunities to have a second job, job transferability, make social contribution, work with children/adolescents, prior teaching and learning experiences, and social influences than all other programs of study. Early childhood and special education participants entered the program because they desire to enhance social equity. English language education participants were the least motivated among others. Improving selection criteria for teacher education admissions, strengthening teacher induction programs, as well as refining the quality of teacher training institutions are crucial to ensure high-quality teachers in Indonesia.