Section archive - Instruction in Teacher Training

This article examined a professional development course within a large urban school district for preKindergarten and Kindergarten teachers. In the course, the teachers were asked to reconceptualize their pedagogical practices with their students and engage in learning activities in their classrooms that attended to the children’s sociocultural worlds.

The purpose of this research is to identify the factors within the school environment that enhance and facilitate a teachers’ innovative behavior. Furthermore, it aims to examine whether it is possible to predict a teachers’ innovative behaviour with the proposed two-layer model (with self-efficacy being the first layer and teaching practices being the second). In this study, a model for predicting teachers’ innovative behaviour was proposed, with three general factors of school environment: interaction and involvement, need for innovation and freedom for innovation. The authors conclude that a teachers’ innovative potential is developed and used in the best possible way, when the school environment provides them with possibilities for self-development, recognition for their innovative behaviour and professional development and also constructive feedback from school management and the students’ parents.

This study employed qualitative data collection and analysis methods to investigate the influence of English as a foreign language teacher education programme on Korean teachers’ classroom teaching practices. Findings from the analysis included that: a) most of the teachers were dissatisfied with the largely theory-oriented pre-service teacher education programmes that they attended; b) a major source of influence on their teaching was their experience of in-service teacher training programmes with practical curricula; c) observation of other fellow teachers’ teaching had the strongest impact upon the teachers’ teaching practices; and d) the teachers’ low English proficiency and the washback effect of the Korea Scholastic Aptitude Test hindered the maintenance of the changes brought about by in-service teacher education programmes.

This article examines how coaching using questions could assist novice teachers to promote mathematical thinking and discussions within time-constrained programmes. Findings included that student teacher roles in rehearsals were enhanced through coaching with questions and co-construction was enabled. Findings indicate that questions used in coaching of rehearsals inform and empower novice teachers, essential factors within initial teacher education for equitable and ambitious mathematics teaching.