Undergraduate Teacher Education Research Articles

Facebook short response: The 10/90 model and comment and-reply strategy

This paper presents an action research project designed to explore how a Facebook group wall discussion is integrated as the flexible learning activity (FLA) in an undergraduate teacher education program literature course. It describes the nature, patterns and nuances of the short responses and how teacher-student and student-student interactions in the online course enrichment activities are formed. Data was gathered through content analyses of comments and replies including an online forum. Although action research is limited by its generalizability and focus, the study yields innovative and interactive ways of keeping students to be academically and emotionally engaged through the consistently prevailing 10/90 model ratio of teacher and students online content contribution shared respectively. Positive theme generations and active interactions of students are mostly evident. Pedagogical online functions of teacher and student-student connections are recognized to support how the project became a viable platform for idea expression, fun, freedom and flexibility, and thus converting students' regular online social media behaviors into academic works. Considerations for the next cycle via Facebook group or related platforms are also extended. Finally, data-driven results with student stakeholders' inputs justifiably espouse relevant theoretical propositions and pedagogical model or lessons for both teacher-practitioners and academic researchers to try in different setting, in other courses, and/or to investigate further.

Innovations in Heart Rate Monitoring Devices and Smart Applications: Physical Configuration Matters!

Bluetooth/ANT+ heart rate monitors and smart device applications have the potential to advance heart rate monitoring in non-clinical settings. New innovative applications allow for heart rate monitoring of multiple users simultaneously; however, preliminary attempts to use a particular commercially available model in a typical university gymnasium setting revealed persistent issues with signal interruption; thus, the trustworthiness of the data was limited. PURPOSE: To reduce the prevalence of signal interruption by determining the best physical configuration of components. METHODS: A quasi-experimental repeated measures design was utilized to determine the best configuration of the system components. Cluster and ANOVA analyses determined good, better, and best configurations. The dependent variable was signal interruption and the unit of analyses was the number of signal interruptions per two-minute session. The independent variables were height (1.8m, 3.6m, and 5.4m), angle (60°, 75°, and 90°), and location (left corner, middle, right corner) of the transmitter component. University students, male and female adults ages 19-25 with no apparent health problems, were recruited to participate during undergraduate physical education teacher education lab classes. Participants were monitored while participating in physical activities during normal class sessions. Classes were conducted in a typical indoor gymnasium slightly larger than a single standard collegiate-sized basketball court. RESULTS: Inspection of the graphs and ANOVA analyses revealed that the best configuration of the system was transmitter device placement at a height of 1.8m’ F(2, 1,052) = 54.86, p < .001, partial η2 = .09, at a 60°angle F(2, 1,052) = 12.50, p < .001, partial η2 = .02, and in the left corner location F(2, 1,052) = 24.28, p < .001, partial η2 = .04. CONCLUSIONS: The height, angle, and location of the transmitter component all played a significant role in reducing the prevalence of signal interruption. It was determined that the best results were found with the lowest height and smallest angle chosen. Therefore, random placement of transmitter height, angle and location will not yield the best heart rate monitoring results.

Exploring the genre of undergraduate teacher education acknowledgments

Genre-based studies in various disciplines have continuously flourished throughout the years. Despite this proliferation, local studies dealing with the acknowledgment section of the undergraduate theses tend to be premature most specifically in the field of Teacher Education (TE). The study aimed to analyze, through the presence of moves, the overall structure of the thirty (30) randomly sampled undergraduate acknowledgments from the field of TE using Hyland’s model. The findings revealed that the undergraduate acknowledgment structure was comprised of Thanking Move which is the most pervasive move, followed by the Reflecting Move. Though the Announcing Move was notpresent, one unique move, which is Thanking God, appeared to be dominating in the corpus. It is suggested for future studies to increase the number of the corpus in order to yield more interesting results and explore the socio-cultural aspect of the investigated genre.

Socialization of a student teacher on teaching practice into the discursive community of the classroom: Between a teacher-centered and a learner-centered approach

Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate the socialization of a student teacher on teaching practice into the discursive community of the classroom. Discourse analysis of interviews and video recordings of classes taught by a student teacher and cooperating teacher was conducted. The results showed interpretative repertoires of classroom management of the cooperating teacher and the student teacher, where those of the student teacher are more learner-centered. However, during the teaching practice of the student teacher, the teacher-centered approach is reproduced, especially through rituals and teaching practices. The implications for undergraduate teacher education are discussed.

Sosyal Bilgiler Öğretmen Adaylarının Proje Tabanlı Öğrenme (PTÖ) Algılarının İncelenmesi

We are living in a technology driven fast moving age in which students need 21st century skills to be successful in work and daily life. Project Based Learning (PBL) that requires students to make a project is recommended to achieve the aforementioned skills. One of the focuses of the research is teachers' and students' perceptions of the benefits and challenges of PBL and project. According to the research, these perceptions effect teachers and teacher candidates’ qualifications, experiences and artifacts. The aim of this study was to identify perceptions of pre-service social studies teachers who have not sufficient experiences in the projects. The survey method was used in the study. A total of 145 students comprised the participants. This study was conducted in an undergraduate social science teacher education program at Faculty of Education in Trabzon, Turkey during autumn semester of the 2014-2015 school year. The open ended questions were administered and mind maps were asked to the participants to define what they perceived as project. A qualitative analysis was conducted and results were presented in graphs and tables. This study concluded that teacher candidates perceive projects as for preparing teaching materials and an instruction technique to teach subject matter of social studies. Recommendations for practitioners and researchers are presented.

Problem-Based Learning, Assessment Literacy, Mathematics Knowledge, and Competencies in Teacher Education

Problem-based learning could have a great impact in teacher education not only to support prospective teachers’ learning, but also to help them to design and implement learner-centered experiences to satisfy requirements of reform-based curriculum. In this paper, we discuss the nature and role of problem-based learning to support authentic learning opportunities in an undergraduate teacher education program. We address its use in an educational assessment course aimed at developing prospective teachers’ assessment literacy and competencies. We focus on two sections of the course for elementary school prospective teachers in which students were also engaged in activities involving assessment in teaching mathematics and share examples of the content of the course. A study of the impact of the course on the students’ knowledge is in progress.

Norwegian and Croatian Students of Undergraduate Kindergarten Teacher Education Programs on Their Professional Development and Conditions for It

This article presents Norwegian and Croatian students’ perspectives on conditions for their professional growth during undergraduate kindergarten teacher education. The data gathered through focus group interviews are theorized using the cultural-historical wholeness approach that identifies institutional conditions for the development of certain motivations and acts. Since the students from the two countries generally perceive the institutional conditions for their learning as insufficient, the conclusions refer to certain institutional practices that could strengthen the development of competences that students recognize as the most relevant. These competences to act grow at the intersection of theory and practice.

The Role of the Educational Conversation in Succeeding in Undergraduate Kindergarten Teacher Education

This paper investigates an institutional practice of the educational conversation that is a part of the undergraduate kindergarten teacher education program at a Norwegian university. The formal goal connected to this practice is to facilitate students coping with their courses of study. Thus, this paper reconstructs the perspectives of the teacher educators and the students regarding this practice and reconstructs its various supportive qualities. The core of the support derived from the educational conversation stems from transforming the formal, professional, and institutional expectations of the kindergarten teacher education program into the personal motivation of the students. Reflecting on better conditions for the educational conversation is connected to ethical reflections on the power relations and influence that face-to-face meetings with experienced teachers who listen can have on students particularly in the era of mass education.

Transdisciplinary relationship between mathematics and accounting

Accounting and mathematics are closely related. There is little mathematics content that a profound relationship exists between mathematics and accounting. There is, however, a limited understanding of the nature of this relationship and the extent to which mathematics influences the teaching and learning of accounting. Accounting scholars perform a variety of calculations in accounting courses, making mathematics integral to the successful study of accounting. This investigative study is hinged on transdisciplinary relationship between mathematics and accounting in an undergraduate teacher education degree. The purpose of this article was to identify the mathematics topics required for the study of accounting in a Bachelor of Education (BEd) degree curriculum. A detailed analysis of the BEd Accounting course content for Accounting I, II and III regarding mathematical topics students encounter in their accounting modules was undertaken. A content analysis in the form documents was employed. Accounting course packs were analysed for mathematics required in a BEd curriculum. The analysis of accounting course packs revealed a range of mathematical content required for accounting. This finding confirmed the mathematical content needed for accounting, as identified under literature review. This article concludes with the implications for basic education, higher education, textbook writers, curriculum specialists and international policymakers.

The use of video laboratory report to develop presentation skills in science teacher education students

As the information technology growing so fast, the students in today science classroom is a digital natives student. Science Teacher Education Program in the university is facing the challenges to adapt the situation in order to prepare future science teachers that having the skills to teach those students. The skills for future science teacher are acquired through the pre-service science teacher education program at the university. One of the most important for science teacher’s skills is presentation skills using information technology. This study tried to explore the use of video laboratory report to develop pre-service science teacher presentation skills using information technology in Science in Daily Life Course provided by one of the undergraduate teacher education programs. From this study, pre-service science teachers indicated that the use of video in reporting laboratory activity, supported by feedback from the lecturers and YouTube as the media to upload and share their video had enhanced their skills to do laboratory activity presentation in the form of video.

Professional knowledge building in teacher education: some reflections based on Gur-Ze’ev

Abstract This article critically discusses the topic of professional knowledge in teacher education through the lenses of Ilan Gur-Ze'ev's counter-education. It is based on a study investigating how professional knowledge building evolves through written reflections, examining the development of professional identity in the context of a course in an undergraduate teacher education course in Brazil. The research’s findings demonstrate that students gained an awareness of the potential that teaching and learning activities have for the development of concepts about the teaching profession, leading to the strengthening of their professional identity as future teachers and as what Gur-Ze'ev called 'improviser-teacher'.

Preparing Future Teachers in Indonesia: Motives of Science and Non-Science Student Teachers for Entering into Teacher Education Programs

The purpose of this current study was to examine the undocumented motives of the first-year science and nonscience student teachers from seven different undergraduate teacher education programs in one public university, Jambi, Indonesia. Data were collected through a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. A total of 593 completed questionnaires received from participants who enrolled in seven different undergraduate teacher education programs (biology, chemistry, economics English, history, mathematics, and physics education programs). Interview data were obtained from eighteen participants who were willing to be interviewed. The frequency of each statement was computed and expressed as percentage of its total score while interview data were audiotaped, transcribed verbatim, and carefully analysed. Our findings indicated that the first-year student teachers‟ interpretations of their motives for entering teacher education programs were quantitatively and qualitatively interwoven among altruistic, intrinsic, and extrinsic motives across participants. Policy implications are also discussed. Keywords: Indonesian student teachers; Motives; Teacher education policy.

How do pre-service physical education teachers understand health education and their role as health educators?

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine how pre-service physical education (PE) teacher education students understand health education and their role as health educators. The challenges that a cohort of pre-service teachers ( n = 20) majoring and minoring in PE face in engaging in a socially contextualised understanding of health are examined. Design: Study participants were in a semester length foundational health education course. Following ethics board approval, participants’ reflective journals were accessed for data. The data were coded for themes and then analysed using Windschitl’s framing of constructivism in practice. Setting: Undergraduate health education teacher education programme at an Australian university. Results: Findings reveal how PE teacher education students made meaning of socially contextualised and contested areas of health, and developed their own understanding of health education pedagogical practice. Common challenges were evidenced by the students when attempting to explain their expanding understanding of health education pedagogy and practice. Conclusion: The simple understandings and conceptual ambiguities evident in this group of students help to explain why health education taught in secondary schools by PE teachers more often takes the form of ‘PE theory’ than health education.

“Speaking properly”: language conceptions problematized in English lessons of an undergraduate teacher education course in Brazil

This qualitative research was done in a class of English Oral Practice 2 in an undergraduate English teacher education course in Brazil. Grounded on the conception of language as practice, the first author of this article developed a problematizing pedagogy focusing on race/racism and language as space of power. Resorting to class activities (a question of a written test, an oral test, and a feedback session) and the professor’s diary, we analyzed the students’ accounts about the course and the meanings they constructed about language. Their accounts indicate that, when evaluating the course, most of them highlighted the relevance of content, showing that they started conceptualizing language beyond form. Their accounts also suggest they were not using language, but making it.

Vozes em confronto no Núcleo Docente Estruturante de cursos de Letras: entre o prescrito e a prática institucionalizada

RESUMO O presente artigo tem como objetivo analisar as reações-respostas de professores do Núcleo Docente Estruturante (NDE) de Cursos de Letras de uma universidade pública aos discursos consignados nos documentos oficiais da educação que dispõem sobre o Núcleo nas instituições de ensino, focalizando as relações de tensão existentes entre os discursos envolvidos na interação verbal. Os fundamentos da Teoria Dialógica do Discurso, de viés bakhtiniano, orientam o estudo, favorecendo o debate em torno das refrações e revalorizações dos discursos legais relacionados à criação do NDE no âmbito dos cursos de graduação. A análise dialógica revela que os enunciados dos sujeitos da pesquisa interagem com as vozes oficiais que determinam a criação do NDE e, de algum modo, são respostas a elas, tanto acolhendo-as, como também alterando-as, recusando-as, desprezando-as, num contexto em que os cursos de Letras seriam avaliados por comissões de avaliadores do Ministério da Educação.

Selecting Quality Picture Books for Mathematics Instruction: What Do Preservice Teachers Look For?

A quality picture book can enhance instruction and build positive and meaningful connections that enable students to visualize and engage in mathematics. To learn more about how preservice teachers analyze and select quality picture books in their mathematics lessons, a study was conducted over two semesters during a required field experience component of an undergraduate teacher education program. The preservice teachers were required to use a picture book to explore a mathematical concept in three mathematics-focused lesson plans. Data was collected through preservice teachers’ lesson plan reflections, summative reflections over the experience of integrating picture books and mathematics, and focus group interviews. The qualitative data analysis revealed that in planning mathematics lessons to incorporate quality picture books, preservice teachers most often selected a book based on the topic to be taught or based on previous use by their university instructor. The quality of the selected picture books did not appear to be a critical criterion for selection. As a result, it is important for teacher educators to model ways of assessing and selecting quality picture books and provide opportunities for preservice teachers to incorporate these techniques.

Initial Teacher Preparation for Teaching Students with Exceptionalities: Pre-service Teachers' Knowledge and Perceived Competence

This research study surveyed 100 undergraduate teacher education students in a regional university in Australia, explored self-reported perceptions of their knowledge about students with exceptional needs, and their competence to be effective educators of these students in an inclusive classroom. Additionally, we included a measure of general attitude toward teaching in an inclusive classroom. What made this exploratory study atypical was broadening the concept of ‘exceptionality’ to the inclusion of items related to students with physical and cognitive challenges, superior academic gifts and those deemed to be twice exceptional. The results were unexpected in that teachers’ age, parental status and exposure to units of study in special and inclusive education did not differentiate their knowledge, perceived competence, or general attitude.

Pre-Service Teachers' Attitude on ELT Research

This paper reports on a research determining the attitudes of pre-service EFL teachers’ attitude to research in English language teaching (ELT) in Indonesia. A mixed method was used in this study. A survey questionnaire was completed by 217 (F= 187, M=30) participants who enrolled in the fourth year of undergraduate teacher education. Then, interview was used to identify their problems in conducting the research. The participants acknowledged that they had positive attitudes towards research in ELT. Meanwhile, they had negative views about English department involvement in their research. While there were no significant sex differences in the attitudes to ELT research. The interview findings revealed that there were some factors that made them get difficulties in doing their research. The pedagogical implications of the study for the pre-service teachers include the need to be aware of the significant relationship between attitude and background in research practice and they should be trained formally on conducting and writing ELT research.

Survival in a Time of Crisis: the Professional Faculty in British Columbia

" Schools of Art , Education and Natural Resources to be reviewed! " read the headlines in Michigan Daily, soon to be followed by smaller but equally as serious headlines in the Ann Arbor News, The Detroit Free Press and, yes, even the New York Times. What followed was two years of agonizing effort by the students, faculty and administration of a major, Big Ten University to grapple with the perceptions, hopes and reality of a review that would leave in its wake a demoralized faculty and reduced enrollment. The School of Education, rated number one in the United States by at least one outside reviewer, was being challenged by the spectra of closure. Closure of a school of education in a university noted for having the first permanent chair, in 1879, devoted exclusively to the training of secondary school teachers and administrators; closure of school noted for having John Dewey so involved in teaching and research that he forgot and left the perambulator containing his baby in front of the Ann Arbor post office one sunny day; closure of a School of Education rated in 1977 as having the best undergraduate teacher education program and in 1983 the best graduate teacher preparation program . The fact of review sank in slowly for the faculty and students and is still sinking in. With relief, we can say that the recent reports of our demise have been greatly exaggerated. The fact is not that the School of Education is headed for closure but that the School of Education at The University of Michigan will take a 40% budget cut over the next five years.

The Erosion of Professional Schools: The Right Blend in a Time of Decline

" Schools of Art , Education and Natural Resources to be reviewed! " read the headlines in Michigan Daily, soon to be followed by smaller but equally as serious headlines in the Ann Arbor News, The Detroit Free Press and, yes, even the New York Times. What followed was two years of agonizing effort by the students, faculty and administration of a major, Big Ten University to grapple with the perceptions, hopes and reality of a review that would leave in its wake a demoralized faculty and reduced enrollment. The School of Education, rated number one in the United States by at least one outside reviewer, was being challenged by the spectra of closure. Closure of a school of education in a university noted for having the first permanent chair, in 1879, devoted exclusively to the training of secondary school teachers and administrators; closure of school noted for having John Dewey so involved in teaching and research that he forgot and left the perambulator containing his baby in front of the Ann Arbor post office one sunny day; closure of a School of Education rated in 1977 as having the best undergraduate teacher education program and in 1983 the best graduate teacher preparation program . The fact of review sank in slowly for the faculty and students and is still sinking in. With relief, we can say that the recent reports of our demise have been greatly exaggerated. The fact is not that the School of Education is headed for closure but that the School of Education at The University of Michigan will take a 40% budget cut over the next five years.