Section archive - Instruction in Teacher Training

In teacher education, it is imperative that course design, method of instruction, and classroom procedures align with the content. One way to achieve this may be to “flip” the classroom. While flipped classrooms have received considerable attention in recent years, much remains unknown about their effect on basic psychological needs or learning outcomes of preservice teachers. The purpose of the present study was to address this gap by utilizing a quasi-experimental design to examine differences in motivation and objective learning outcomes after controlling for socioeconomic status (SES) and grade point average (GPA) between traditional and flipped sections of a foundational educational course (N = 263). Results revealed that preservice teachers in the traditional section had significantly higher scores on two of the motivation outcomes (e.g., intrinsic and identified regulation), but that preservice teachers in the flipped sections had significantly higher scores on several indices of objective learning outcomes. Implications for teacher education are discussed.

This paper focuses on the training of Arab English teachers as per the directives of the Ministry of Education, particularly the Academic Class practicum. Using both Legitimation Code Theory and Appraisal Theory, this study compares the propositional content of the practicum programme provided by a teaching college in central Israel, with the educational orientation of Muslim Arab student teachers. Results reveal a ‘code clash’ between the curricular policy and the student teachers, shedding light on ways to re-scaffold the practicum to work towards a ‘code match’.

Within a sociocultural framework, we use situated learning theory to explore the use of a coteaching approach during student teaching. Coteaching is a model for learning to teach where clinical educators and teacher candidates teach alongside one another and share responsibility for pupil learning. Teacher education programs have adopted this model for student teaching because there is evidence that coteaching supports pupil learning and coteacher learning. This study of coteaching in three teacher education programs, within the same university, examined opportunities afforded for teacher candidates’ development of growth competence, adaptive teaching expertise, and collaborative expertise. Data analysis from the nested, cross-case qualitative study enabled us to examine opportunities for candidate learning afforded by coteaching during student teaching, posit recommendations on using coteaching, explain the necessary conditions, and discuss the model’s current limitations.

This narrative inquiry examines teachers’ influences on undergraduate and graduate students who enrolled in STEM programs and intended to enter STEM careers. Three National Science Foundation (NSF) scholarship grants sat in the backdrop. Narrative exemplars were crafted using the interpretative tools of broadening, burrowing, storying and restorying, fictionalisation and serial interpretation. Three diverse students’ narratives constituted the science education cases: one from teacher education, another arising from cyber technology and a third involving cyber security. The influence of the university students’ former teachers cohered around five themes: 1) same program-different narratives, 2) in loco parentis, 3) counter stories, 4) learning in small moments, and 5) the importance of the liberal arts in STEM education. The students’ narratives form instructive models for their siblings and other students pursuing STEM degrees and careers. Most importantly, the multiperspectival stories of experiences capture the far-reaching impact of ‘unsung teachers’ whose long-term influence is greatly underestimated by the public.