1,720,971 research outputs found
An analysis of pre-service teachers’ reflections of ‘good practice’ teaching videos
No full textVideo clips of mathematics lessons are used extensively in initial teacher education and continuing professional learning activities. Given course time constraints, an opportunity to critique these videos is not always possible. Because of this, and because pre-service teachers make extensive use of material found during internet searches, much of it purporting to exemplify ‘good’ practice, we were interested to know what sense they make of such material. By encouraging pre-service teachers to reflect and comment on the practices being promoted in this way, we wanted to hear what they focused on, their initial views of the teaching and learning shown in the video, and how their views were formed and affected by engaging in discussion
Deconstructing ‘good practice’ teaching videos: An analysis of pre-service teachers’ reflections
Full text linkVideo clips of mathematics lessons are used extensively in pre-service teacher education and continuing professional development activities. Given course time constraints, an opportunity to critique these videos is not always possible. Because of this, and because pre-service teachers make extensive use of material found during internet searches, much of it purporting to exemplify ‘good’ practice, we were interested to know what sense they make of such material. By encouraging pre-service teachers to reflect and comment on the practices being promoted in this way, we wanted to hear what they focused on, their initial views of the teaching and learning shown in the video, and how their views were formed and affected by engaging in discussion. Findings indicate that pre-service teachers’ responses to the material were dominated by their beliefs about mathematics, and that engaging in discussion enabled them to appreciate the interpretations of others
Tracing threads of awareness in initial teacher education: Peer-collaboration.
No full textThis paper reports on a UK project exploring the learning of preservice primary teachers whilst they engaged in doing mathematics and how this experience shaped their subsequent teaching. During university-based sessions, we presented a number of visual growing patterns for preservice teachers to investigate collaboratively and to consider possible approaches to use in their teaching. We draw on aspects of enactivism and the notion of reflective spection in the context of teacher learning, tracing threads between preservice teachers’ retro-spection of their own learning and pro-spection of their approach to teaching. Our findings suggest that preservice teachers emphasize the importance of collaboration in ‘seeing’ what others ‘see’ and that this influences their teaching
Using grounded theory: a collaborative approach
No full textThere are many video clips that are widely available to support CPD for teachers but what do student teachers make of this material? This study focuses on student teachers following a one year post graduate initial teacher education programme. Student teachers were given a video clip to watch about supporting pupils make the transition from using the grid method to the standard written method. They split into small groups to discuss their initial thoughts and then came back together as a group (approximately 30 students) to share their thoughts more widely. Following this discussion they were asked to write a short reflection about the session. Seven researchers used grounded theory to analyse the data and this session will provide an overview of the approach we took. We will begin by showing the video clip used in the study and some excerpts from the student teachers’ reflections. We will explain the collaborative approach taken to coding the data and ask participants to engage in discussion about the codes we have assigned. Following this, early findings from the study will be discussed.<br/
Pre-service primary teachers’ approaches to mathematical generalisation
Full text linkIn our teaching with primary pre-service teachers (PSTs), each of us includes generalising tasks in the context of mathematical reasoning. We set out to explore the value of such activity from the perspective of PSTs and their approaches to generalisation. In this paper, we focus on one PST’s mathematical reasoning when working on the ‘flower beds’ problem. We analyse the ways in which this PST attends to: looking for a relationship; seeing structure within a single figure in a sequence; and seeing sameness and difference between figures in a sequence. We consider what motivates shifts in attention, we reflect on the significance of students’ prior experience, and of student collaboration in our teaching sessions
“You see things that you wouldn’t have seen otherwise”: enabling elementary preservice teachers to share different ways of seeing mathematics
Full text linkAbstract
Finding opportunities for elementary preservice teachers to engage in mathematics for themselves and to collaborate in their enquiries was the focus of this study, carried out at two English Universities. Preservice teachers on 1-year postgraduate programmes engaged in shared mathematics enquiry, with a focus on growing patterns. We conducted interviews with 15 preservice teachers and analysed the interview data alongside their subsequent lesson plans and lesson evaluations. We explored the awarenesses that emerged through deliberate retrospective analysis of sharing what others were seeing and how this influenced their prospective thinking about their own teaching. Our findings indicate that even when preservice teachers struggle to make sense of what others are seeing, they recognise that some approaches may be more efficient or insightful than others, and that listening to others’ ideas is a powerful learning opportunity for teachers and children. This has implications for initial teacher education programmes internationally. There is value in providing preservice teachers with opportunities to engage with mathematics as a shared experience, and in enabling and supporting deliberate retrospective and prospective reflection of this activity.</jats:p
Planning for the unexpected:Working within symbolically structured environments
Full text linkThis chapter begins with two classroom examples, including some of the thinking behind their planning and offers them to provoke thinking about what can be planned and what must remain unexpected, if a teacher aims to “create the conditions in which creative and independent work can take place”. The distinction the teacher needs students to make, in setting up this task, is that shapes are labelled by adding up the number of dots inside and on the outside. The teacher cannot know what the students will notice, but is confident that there will be some things noticed that allow tasks to be set up for the class, related to the problem. It does not really matter what particular things are said, so long as they can lead to questions, challenges or conjectures. There seems to be something powerful in using students' names to label conjectures
Preservice teachers’ expressed awarenesses: emerging threads of retro-spection of learning and pro-spection of teaching
Full text linkIn this paper, we report an enquiry into elementary preservice teachers’ learning, as they engage in doing mathematics for themselves. As a group of researchers working in elementary initial teacher education in English universities, we co-planned and taught sessions on growing pattern generalisation. Following the sessions, interviews of fifteen preservice teachers at two universities focused on their expressed awareness of their approach to the mathematical activity. Preservice teachers’ prospective planning and post-teaching evaluations of similar activities in their classrooms were also examined. We draw on aspects of enactivism and the notion of reflective ‘spection' in the context of teacher learning, tracing threads between preservice teachers’ retro-spection of learning and pro-spection of teaching. Our analysis indicates that increasing sensitivity to their own embodied processes of generalisation offers opportunities for novice teachers to respond deliberately, rather than to react impulsively, to different pedagogical possibilities. The paper contributes a new dimension to the discussion about the focus of novice elementary school teachers’ retrospective reflection by examining how deliberate retrospective analysis of doing mathematics, and not only of teaching actions, can develop awarenesses that underlie the growth of expertise in mathematics teaching. We argue that engaging preservice teachers in mathematics to support deliberate retrospective analysis of their mathematics learning and prospective consideration of the implications for teaching, can enable more critical pedagogical choices
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