Section archive - Instruction in Teacher Training

The authors’ research is guided by the aim to use counterstories pedagogically in teacher education. They report on counterstory-based parent teacher conference simulations, where composite case narratives support teacher candidates in taking up asset-based perspectives. Their work rests upon the assertion that asset-based framing must not remain purely conceptual; rather, asset-based frames must infuse teaching practice. They examine how counterstories can be constructed to ensure that they are robust, respectful, and pedagogically useful for teacher education.

This article attempts to use different ways of looking that help classroom and visual art teachers analyze the meanings attributed to visual images, thereby enhancing their visual literacy skills. In the study, holistic multiple-case sampling was employed in the context of case study method as each group of teachers was individually considered as an analysis unit and their analysis of visual images through different ways of looking was evaluated in a holistic way. The participants of the study comprised of a total of 508 teachers who attended teacher training workshop of the Project titled ‘The Implementation of Visual Culture Theory on Primary and Secondary Visual Arts Courses.’ The data were collected with worksheets, artistic drawings and participant diaries and analyzed inductively. The data were presented in three themes: analyzing visual elements, approaching the visual contextually, and determining the contributions of visual experience. The results denoted that classroom and visual arts teachers interacted with images through a series of questions related to different ways of looking at visual images, questioned visual representations, artistic components and sub-meanings and created various meanings in terms of social, economic, psychological and cultural contexts, thereby increasing their visual literacy skills.

The aim of this multiple case-study analysis was to find out the influence that service-learning methodology has on the development of sustainability competences amongst university students (Preschool, Primary and Social Education) of three Spanish Universities (UIC, UAM and USAL). A sample of 129 university students of the academic year 2017–18 was used. A pre-experimental study was carried out, using a pre-test-post-test study with natural groups, without a control group. The findings of this study show that service-learning contributed to improve knowledge in sustainability in the 5 case studies analysed. The findings also demonstrate how the use of service-learning promotes the development of practical skills associated with sustainability action.

Three mid-career teacher educators, each of whom involuntarily served as mid-level administrators are now in the similar position of having left those roles. Each has a different story to tell and they come from very different institutions, yet find themselves experiencing many of the same issues and frustrations. This collaborative self-study was an intentional study of and reflection on how their administrative roles impacted or changed their perspectives on teacher education in general and how it changed them each personally. The weight of the role had lasting implications for their personal and professional selves. Their reflective journals, weekly online meetings, and responses to each other’s experiences resulted in findings that can inform the work of others in similar positions or circumstances. Those findings, while both similar and distinct, reveal enough commonality that the authors, as teacher educators often placed in positions of leadership, must consider the implications for their practice, their students, their scholarship community, and themselves.