Feb. 21, 2010
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MOFET ITEC Portal Newsletter

We are delighted to be sending you another edition of the MOFET ITEC Portal update with a selection of the latest articles and significant trends published in academic journals focusing on teacher education, pedagogy and instruction.

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The MOFET ITEC Portal Team

February 21, 2010 International Portal of Teacher Education
February 2010
Featured Items
'Support Our Networking and Help Us Belong!': Listening to Beginning Secondary School Science Teachers
During the course of an Initial Teacher Education programme, beginning teachers develop strong professional relationships. This study investigates the nature of these webs of relationships as networks, from a teacher's ego-centric perspective. Three case studies, set within a wider sample of 11 secondary school science teachers leaving one UK university's PostGraduate Certificate in Education, were studied. The focus of the paper is on how the teachers used others to help shape their sense of belonging to this, their new workplace. The paper develops ideas from network theories to argue that membership of the communities are a subset of the professional inter-relationships teachers utilise for their professional development.
Meaningfulness Via Participation: Sociocultural Practices for Teacher Learning and Development
The goal of this study is to investigate the nature of student-teachers' learning practices in primary school chemistry classroom contexts. The theoretical approach of this study is based on the sociocultural view of learning and development. Forty university students participated in the study at the at the Department of Educational Sciences and Teacher Education, Oulu University, Finland. This qualitative case study follows a three-step research design: pre-narrative, intervention and post-narrative, in order to highlight the practices involved in teacher learning and development.
Engaging in and Engaging with Research: Teacher Inquiry and Development
This paper explores how a group of engaged, enquiring teachers orient themselves towards research. The evidence discussed in this paper comes from work undertaken by teachers in the Learning to Learn Phase 3 Evaluation. This action research project ran for three years in primary and secondary schools in three clusters across UK. The paper focuses on identifying those aspects of being involved in L2L that support teachers' learning and the way that the teachers themselves understand the impact on their professional development. The findings contribute to our understanding of the role of inquiry and research in schools in supporting professional learning by suggesting how tools and models of working are developed.
The Misuses and Effective Uses of Constructivist Teaching
In this essay, the author takes a serious look at constructivist teaching practices highlighting both the promises and potential problems of these practices. The author argues that constructivist teaching has often been misinterpreted and misused, resulting in learning practices that neither challenge students nor address their needs. The author also presents two examples that illustrate the effective use of constructivist teaching and explains what makes them successful. The author concludes that as evidenced by the examples, constructivist teaching can produce tremendous results when used correctly and judiciously; it can also lead to poor results and ineffective learning when it is misconstrued or misused.
Strategies for Preparing Preservice Social Studies Teachers to Integrate Technology Effectively: Models and Practices
This article describes strategies used by the authors to assist preservice social studies teachers with understanding and applying models and practices for effectively integrating technology into their future classrooms—thus, strengthening the link between technology, pedagogy and content. Efforts with preservice teachers described here have been informed by the authors’ successes assisting in-service teachers with understanding how technology can empower inquiry-based teaching practices in social studies classrooms, as well as efforts to more fully integrate technology into the overall teacher education programs at the authors’ institutions.
Conceptualizing Dispositions: Intellectual, Cultural, and Moral Domains of Teaching
In this paper, the authors’ goal is to explore how teacher candidates are inclined to think through issues of content and pedagogy, the cultural backgrounds of their students, and the values driving their moral reasoning. The authors provide a heuristic that organizes dispositions around three domains - intellectual, cultural, and moral. The authors use a small sample of teacher candidate journal entries to ground the discussion of each disposition domain. The authors offer recommendations for how teacher education programs can provide opportunities for prospective teachers to consider their dispositions and to identify how their dispositions influence teaching decisions.
February 2010
All Recent Items
Multiculturalism & Diversity
Sticky Points: Teacher Educators Re-examine their Practice in light of a New Alberta Social Studies Program and its Inclusion of Aboriginal Perspectives
The Refugee Action Support Program: Developing Understandings of Diversity
The Cultural Practice of Reading and the Standardized Assessment of Reading Instruction: When Incommensurate Worlds Collide

Professional Development

Comparative Study of the Evaluation of Professional Competencies by Experienced and Trainee Spanish Primary Teachers
Teacher Learning and Policy Intention: Selected Findings from an Evaluation of a Large-Scale Programme of Professional Development in the Republic of Ireland
Towards Professionalism: Ethical Perspectives of Israeli Teachers
'Out of Complacency and into Action”: An Exploration of Professional Development Experiences in School/Home Literacy Engagement
Meaningfulness Via Participation: Sociocultural Practices for Teacher Learning and Development

TE & Instruction

Investigating Teachers' Educational Beliefs in Chinese Primary Schools: Socioeconomic and Geographical Perspectives
Peer Assessment as a Learning Tool for Enhancing Student Teachers' Preparation
Catalytic Tools: Understanding the Interaction of Enquiry and Feedback in Teachers' Learning
Lower Secondary School Teachers' Judgements of Pupils' Problems
The Impact of Collaborative Video Analysis by Practitioners and Researchers upon Pedagogical Thinking and Practice: A Follow-up Study
Locating and Exploring Teacher Perception in the Reflective Thinking Process
The Misuses and Effective Uses of Constructivist Teaching
Mathematics Teacher TPACK Standards and Development Model

Research Methods

Learning From Our Differences: A Dialogue Across Perspectives on Quality in Education Research

Mentoring & Supervision

Role Reversal within the Mentoring Dyad: Collaborative Mentoring on the Effective Instruction of English Language Learners
Keeping Our Teachers! Investigating Mentoring Practices to Support and Retain Novice Educators

Teacher Educators

The Activities of a School-Based Teacher Educator: A Theoretical and Empirical Exploration

TE Programs

Why Is Finnish Teacher Education Successful? Some Goals Finnish Teacher Educators Have for their Teaching
Every Child Matters: The Perceptions of a Sample of Initial Teacher Education Trainees in England
Language Teacher Education in Finland and the Cultural Dimension of Foreign Language Teaching - A Student Teacher Perspective
Strategies for Preparing Preservice Social Studies Teachers to Integrate Technology Effectively: Models and Practices

Preservice Students

Using Educative Curriculum Materials to Support Preservice Elementary Teachers' Curricular Planning: A Comparison Between Two Different Forms of Support
The Change in Epistemological Beliefs and Beliefs about Teaching and Learning: A Study among Pre-service Teachers
Strengthening Partnerships and Boosting Conceptual Connections in Preservice Field Experience
Scaffolded Support Systems: Examining a Multi-Tiered Support Plan Protocol for Struggling Teacher Candidates
Seeing Self as Others See You: Variability in Self-Efficacy Ratings in Student Teaching

Beginning Teachers

'Support Our Networking and Help Us Belong!': Listening to Beginning Secondary School Science Teachers
Assisting Beginning Teachers and School Communities to Grow through Extended and Collaborative Mentoring Experiences

Technology & Computers

Fostering Online Social Construction of Science Knowledge with Primary Pre-service Teachers Working in Virtual Teams

Theories & Approaches

Conceptualizing Dispositions: Intellectual, Cultural, and Moral Domains of Teaching
Toward a Theory of Aesthetic Learning Experiences

TE - General Trends

Teacher Training by Alternating Classroom Work and Work Analysis: From the Perspective of a Social Conception of Meaning and Action
Engaging in and Engaging with Research: Teacher Inquiry and Development
February 2010
 
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