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Narratives of Professional Learning: Becoming a Teacher and Learning to Teach
No full textThis paper is about professional learning in the context of becoming a teacher. It
presents narrative accounts written by prospective teachers that show how they have
created professional knowledge through inquiry. These narrative excerpts present
the voices of prospective teachers as they deal with their most pressing issues and
concerns, examine prior knowledge in the light of new understandings, and
construct new knowledge through the processes of reflection, dialogue and inquiry.
The details of the narratives are illustrative of the ways in which these prospective
teachers have learned to question the taken-for-granted in their lives, to find patterns
and connections, and to think critically and creatively. They show the people and
the personalities behind the ideas and the issues, and provide glimpses of these
individuals’ personal hopes, beliefs, theories, worldviews, passions and
preoccupations. They also provide insights into the processes of creating an
ethically-based professional knowledge in teaching that is unique to each individual.
These narrative excerpts were written in the context of a year-long teacher
education program in which prospective teachers were enrolled as a cohort in two
consecutive courses in the foundations of Education, Teaching, Students, Schools
and Systems, and Developing a Philosophy in Teaching. These prospective
secondary school teachers specialized in the teaching of two subjects, one of which
they had studied to the level of an advanced degree, and taken a number of
university courses in the other. Many of these individuals had spent a number of
years pursuing other careers before entering the teacher education program, and
consequently brought a range of rich career and life experiences to that setting
Innovation and the Persistence of Old Solutions
No full textInterventions that result in school improvement are difficult to accomplish. The
widespread failure of restructuring as a mechanism to achieve significant change has
led to a greater focus on process as more effective in facilitating improvement (van
den Berg, Vandenberghe & Sleegers, 1999). Much of the process focus is aimed at
creating schools that can best be described as learning organisations (Leithwood,
Jantzi & Steinbach, 1995; Resnick & Hall, 1998; Scribner, Cockrell, Cockrell &
Valentine, 1999). The burgeoning literature in this area has led to various
conceptualisations of the term, but generally refers to the process whereby
organisational members identify what they want to achieve and develop strategies
that help them to learn about the effectiveness of their practice in reaching their
goals. In education contexts, the development of organisational learning has been
linked to increasing the capacity of schools to ‘engage in and sustain continuous
learning of teachers and the school itself for the purpose of enhancing student
learning’ (Stoll, 1999, p. 506). Newmann, King and Rigdon (1997) are more
specific about what they consider to be involved. They described schools with high
capacity as ones in which ‘… school staff developed explicit schoolwide standards
that focused on student performance, mechanisms for collecting and reviewing
relevant information, and a culture of peer pressure among teachers that served as
potentially important consequences’ (p. 63)
Social justice through effective antiracism education: a survey of preservice teachers
No full textThe concern of this paper is the role of education in realising social justice
through effective anti-racism education. This paper argues that there are two
goals of anti-racism education: the curricular justice goal, which aims to
deliver curricular justice to Aboriginal students, and the wider responsibility
goal, which aims to redress the social disadvantage of Aboriginal people
(defined in this paper as social injustice). I argue that if the two goals of antiracism
education were achieved, namely curricular justice and wider
responsibility, education would play a significant role in the construction of a
just society. On the basis of both philosophical argument and appeal to
current educational policy, I argue that a necessary condition for the
achievement of these goals is that teachers adopt a social justice aim of
education and operate with a needs-based notion of social justice. This article
describes a study examining pre-service teachers’ aims of education and
notions of social justice in relation to anti-racism education. The findings of
the study indicate that only a small minority of the sample population of preservice
teachers satisfy the conditions necessary for the effective
implementation of anti-racism education and that courses undertaken have a
significant effect on students’ aim of education and notion of social justice
Implications of conducting naturalistic research in multiple sites
No full textA curriculum initiative project was implemented in four schools in Singapore over a span of five to six weeks during 2004. The project employed a number of different schools: girls only, boys only and co-educational schools; different levels of performance in a graded situation; multiple teachers and classes within each site; and control and experimental conditions for the curriculum implementation. The diverse schools offered an opportunity to examine the implications of conducting naturalistic research with some features of action research on a curriculum initiative in multiple sites. Though there were also departures or adaptations made to some characteristics of classical action research, many of the fundamental characteristics of an action research were followed during the project. There was also an opportunity to study the benefits and challenges of conducting multiple site case studies in naturalistic research
The use of public reflection circles and the promotion of metacognition: Teaching for autonomy and good practice
No full textThe purposes for this study range from the professional to the personal. We
are university instructors who teach undergraduate and graduate courses
about classroom processes, group development and facilitation, educational
psychology, and change processes to pre-service teachers or individuals who
use groups as vehicles for classroom, personal, community, or organizational
learning and transformation. We are interested in how individuals in groups
can co-develop expertise in practice. We are also committed to creating
social environments in which individuals can learn, release their creativity,
and become competent. Sometimes we are successful in this undertaking, and
sometimes we are not. We would like to better elucidate and understand the
powerful elements of this process, so we can implement them mindfully in
the future
Pressure points: school executive and educational change
No full textRecent international research has demonstrated a relationship between
physical health and occupational status/level of appointment: people who
hold higher level positions enjoy better physical health on average than
those in lower positions. Researchers have speculated that this may be in
part due to the lower levels of control exercised over pace and timetabling
of work by those occupying lower positions. Poorer physical health is
thus mediated by lower levels of mental wellbeing.
Worldwide, many working in school education have experienced
‘control’ being taken away from them by rapid and constant educational
change imposed from ‘the outside’. The pace and extent of change has
varied across nations, and it can be predicted that its effects will also vary
according to its intensity.
The research reported here was conducted in four countries -
Australia, New Zealand, England and the United States of America - and
employed a sample of more than 2600 teachers and school executives at
over 360 primary and secondary schools.
Context - in this case, country - was found to be the most powerful
predictor of overall career satisfaction, change in satisfaction and mental
health, as measured by the General Health Questionnaire. This result is
discussed in the light of levels of educational change experienced at each
of the four sites.
The level of position an individual held and type of school they
worked in were found to be related to his/her satisfaction and mental
wellbeing in some contexts, but not others. In this paper, we explore the
reasons for these relationships, using insights gained from the general
research on occupational status and health
Formative feedback within plagiarism education: Is there a role for text-matching software?
No full textThe need for effective education to enhance students' understanding and development of academic integrity has been well established, particularly for international students new to tertiary study in English-speaking countries. Most research recommends the use of methods such as instruction and warnings, as part of a plagiarism education programme. Few studies have looked at the role of formative feedback through tutorial intervention in the process of academic writing, in which use of the text-matching tool Turnitin is made in ways which support learning, rather than guide assessment. This study addresses that gap using data gathered over three years from cohorts of international students in the United Kingdom (UK) with regard to four identified areas of development: avoidance of plagiarism, decrease in over-reliance on some sources, correct use of citation and appropriate paraphrasing. Individual tutorials were held to give formative feedback on students' own writing, with particular regard to their use of sources. A supportive environment was created in which questions about references could be discussed, by using the Turnitin originality reports directly. The tutorial feedback appeared to have a positive effect on students' understanding of academic integrity reflected in improved drafts. This implies that tutorial feedback using Turnitin could be a key factor in plagiarism education. Recommendations for future use are given at the end of the study
A Futures Perspective in the School Curriculum
No full textThe future has captivated many people, from astrologers to trendsetters.
However, it is rarely explicitly studied in the school setting. While businesses
frequently develop five-year plans and government departments look to the
immediate future, educational institutions have been slow to adopt forwardlooking
foci in their curricula. Futures studies is an established global field of
study that is now gaining greater prominence and covers a spectrum of
practices, ranging from examination of current trends to critically working
for the creation of specific futures. It offers techniques, methodologies and
concepts that have relevance in the classroom. This paper is an exploration of
the need for education to be more futures-oriented and of ways in which
established futures concepts and methodologies can be incorporated as part of
a futures perspective across curriculums
Mathematics teacher stress in Chinese secondary schools
No full textSince the 1970s studies on teacher stress have become numerous. However, most of the existing research has been the product of western countries. There have been a few studies conducted in the People’s Republic of China. This study aims to investigate the general level of Chinese math teachers’ stress, its main sources, and the coping methods. The questionnaire, which was used in Taiwan (Kyriacou & Chien 2004), was administered to 211 secondary school math teachers who attended an in-service training program in the summer of 2007. This study revealed that teachers in China experience a higher level of stress compared to their counterparts in western countries and in other Chinese societies (eg Taiwan and Hong Kong). Moreover, rural teachers, young teachers, and teachers with less teaching experience reported being more stressed than their respective peers. This paper provides the possible explanations for the findings and suggestions for Chinese policy makers as well as for future studies in China
Contributing to the debate: the perspectives of children on gender, achievement and literacy
No full textThere has been much debate about the underachievement of boys in the United
Kingdom (UK), fuelled by continuing evidence that shows girls achieving better
than boys in most exams, and boys continuing to dominate special needs education
and school exclusions. Various theories have emerged, with boys’ poor performance
being attributed to a changing economic infrastructure, to the results of poor
parenting or to innate biological differences where, for example, they are perceived
as being less able than girls to learn language.
In this paper, I contribute to the debate by reporting a selection of the
findings from a research project in a cluster of schools, where students from Year 1
(ages 5-6) to Year 11 (ages 15-16) and their teachers were interviewed about their
perceptions and attitudes to learning and gender, and were observed in the
classroom. While I provide much comment about raising standards and improving
classroom practice for all students, I specifically focus on underachieving boys and
on literacy. Data on the perceptions of children in Years 4 and 5 (ages 8-10) are
presented here. Findings relating to the Early Years children and their teachers are
reported in Wood (2001) and data on patterns of interaction and response in Years 1-
8 in Myhill (2002)