International Portal of Teacher Education
The online resource of academic content on teacher training and teacher education
Section archive - Preservice Teachers
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512 items
11
Research about in-service teachers has shown that specific skills such as the skill to identify effective teaching interactions in others relates to the teachers’ skill to engage in effective classroom interactions related to student learning.
This study aimed to examine the relationship between these skills for 130 preservice teachers in the final year of their program.
Findings indicated that preservice teachers’ skill to identify effective teaching interactions in others related to the effectiveness of the emotional support and instructional support exhibited in their observed classroom interactions.
In addition, the study investigated the relationship between these skills and the teacher program characteristics.
This study provides further evidence that the skill of noticing effective teaching interactions in others is related to implementing one’s own effective classroom interactions.
Thus, enhancing preservice teachers’ noticing skills serves as an important target for current and future teacher training.
Published: 2021
Updated: Jun. 06, 2021
12
The aim of this study is to gain insight into the content and sources of the educational ideals of beginning student teachers.
The authors interviewed twenty-four beginning student teachers within the disciplines of history and the English language from three teacher education institutes in the Netherlands.
The student teachers were selected using the maximum variation sampling strategy and participated voluntarily.
The authors’ findings show that beginning student teachers have various educational ideals regarding the personal, interpersonal and societal development of their students.
Meaningful experiences related to forming educational ideals took place in the context of school, family, jobs and voluntary activities and societal issues.
They conclude by discussing the outcomes of this study for teacher education and future research.
Published: 2020
Updated: May. 13, 2021
13
Field experiences aim at immersing student teachers in authentic work tasks and conditions of teachers.
However, specific psychological needs of the teaching workforce are not considered when studying the fulfilment of student teachers’ psychological needs.
This paper proposes a four-dimensional theoretical framework incorporating both basic and specific psychological needs.
A diary study is presented, which measures the fulfilment of the hypothesised needs at five intervals during a ten-day field experience.
The average fulfilment rates and development trends show differences among the four dimensions, suggesting the presence of lower- and higher-order needs.
Significant correlations between need fulfilment and success indicators, such as learner satisfaction, learning gain, teacher self-efficacy and level of self-reflection, are also found.
The results highlight the relevance of high rates of need fulfilment right from the start of the field experience.
Published: 2020
Updated: May. 13, 2021
14
This study utilized cultural historical activity theory to explore the evolution of nine preservice teachers’ (PSTs’) conceptions of social justice teaching while enrolled in a social justice-oriented teacher education program.
From three interviews conducted over one year, findings show that tensions PSTs encountered while student teaching in high-poverty schools predominantly shaped their thinking.
PSTs’ conceptions of social justice teaching evolved to include navigating inequitable systems, loving students critically, and viewing social justice teaching as uniquely personal.
Implications include the importance of teacher educators leveraging inevitable student-teaching tensions as learning opportunities to further PSTs’ commitment to social justice teaching.
Published: 2020
Updated: Apr. 19, 2021
15
Research highlights the challenges of teacher preparation programs in adequately preparing teachers to meet the needs of diverse students often served in high-needs urban schools.
Teacher preparation programs that include culturally relevant pedagogy, coursework specifically related to school-community interaction, and most importantly, internships with mentorship in urban schools, have demonstrated that teachers specifically trained to teach in urban schools are better prepared and stay in teaching longer.
This study examined the perceptions of 11 clinical supervising teachers and nine pre-service teachers that received flexible University mentoring supports during student teaching in two high-need, urban schools.
The findings illustrate that urban student teaching experiences, when supported by additional collaborative mentorship, have the potential to improve experiences for both pre-service teachers and supervising teachers.
Further, collaboration with schools to link teacher preparation program course content to urban teaching experiences can improve the theory-to-practice gap.
Published: 2021
Updated: Apr. 19, 2021
16
Team-based learning (TBL) is a type of small-group collaborative learning that promotes students’ accountability and intellectual growth.
The readiness assurance stage of TBL, though having a great potential of addressing the widespread course preparation problem, has not been given enough attention.
This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of the readiness assurance stage in online and on-campus TBL and to enhance our understanding of how pre-service teachers’ interpersonal dispositions affected their learning in both environments.
Results of the mixed-method study showed that both online and on-campus modes were effective in improving pre-service teachers’ understanding and applying pedagogies in teaching. Students’ conceptual understanding of pedagogies was positively associated with their learning behavior and negatively affected by the conformity in online TBL.
However, none of the interpersonal dispositions were found to significantly affect pre-service teachers’ application of pedagogies in online TBL. Likewise, those interpersonal dispositions did not significantly affect pre-service teachers’ understanding and applying pedagogies in on-campus TBL.
Based on these results, the authors offer suggestions for educators and researchers who are interested in implementing or examining TBL
Published: 2021
Updated: Apr. 18, 2021
17
Policy documents from OECD and UNESCO have been stressing the need to prepare students for what has been termed a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world.
They emphasise social-emotional competencies as necessary for coping with such conditions.
This qualitative research frames the COVID-19 outbreak as an extreme case of VUCA that grants the opportunity to examine whether our teacher preparation curriculum provides teacher students with these social-emotional competencies that they are expected to model and are necessary for coping with such circumstances.
Fifty-four student teachers and 24 teacher educators responded to open-ended questionnaires, and 16 semi-structured interviews with teacher educators were analysed based on grounded theory.
Results demonstrate that our student teachers struggle substantially with VUCA circumstances and do not seem to receive sufficient preparation in the domain of social-emotional competencies.
These troubling findings serve as a wake-up call to increase a social-emotional orientation in teacher education curriculum.
Published: 2020
Updated: Apr. 11, 2021
18
The purpose of study was gain insight into pre-service teachers’ experiences in using classroom data to make learning and teaching decisions.
The qualitative study is based on the reflections and recommendations of three pre-service teachers’ that participated in a data-driven decision-making intervention whilst on an immersive 10-week professional learning experience.
This study is underpinned by an action research framework.
From the thematic analysis of the reflections, several recommendations were put forward by the pre-service teachers.
They advocated for dedicated time to develop data collection, analysis, and visualisation skills and that these skills should be embedded in their degrees.
Their reflections articulate the need to have a strong set of data related skills and competencies in order to be able to engage with professional practice.
Published: 2020
Updated: Apr. 06, 2021
19
How preservice teachers perceive their readiness to work with diverse learners can indicate their future success in the classroom.
Using self-efficacy theory as a conceptual base, this study examined what factors contribute to preservice teachers’ self-efficacy level in addressing English Learners’ (ELs) cultural and linguistic needs, while adopting a multi-method design.
Data sources included a self-efficacy survey of a group of preservice teachers, written rationales for their self-efficacy ratings, and suggestions for improving their self-efficacy.
Data analyses revealed that the preservice teachers lacked self-efficacy in communicating with ELs while showing high self-efficacy in employing different learning modalities.
In addition, direct exposure through field and/or life experiences and curriculum emphasis were identified as key factors.
Findings further illuminate the preservice teachers’ incongruent understandings of mainstream school culture versus ELs’ cultures, the role of culture in academic versus social and emotional domains, and lack of interconnectedness between academic excellence and cultural competency.
Published: 2020
Updated: Mar. 11, 2021
20
Despite a surge of research interest in pre-service teachers’ identities over the past years, scant attention has been paid to the process of their identity construction during their teaching practicum.
Adopting a qualitative case study approach, this study seeks to fill this gap by examining the identity construction experiences of four pre-service school counselling teachers who have just completed their teaching practicum in a university in China.
Informed by possible selves theory and identity conflicts theory, the study shows that the participants’ identity construction emerged from the interactions between their core identities and new forms of identities arising from their daily practice and social interactions in different school settings.
While some participants’ identities updated and expanded in a supportive work environment, some experienced identity conflicts and deficits with a reduced sense of commitment towards teaching in a constraining school context.
However, facilitated by their self-agency and contextual affordance, some navigated their identity conflicts by developing a negotiated identity and/or enriching their ideal identities for their continuing practice and development.
The study argues for an explicit focus on teacher identities in current teacher education programs to raise student teachers’ identity awareness and facilitate their reflective learning and identity building.
Published: 2020
Updated: Feb. 27, 2021