Search results for: Self perception

Teacher professional development (TPD) programs are increasingly using video recordings of teaching practice to develop teacher capacity and foster student learning. However, consensus has yet to be reached about how to utilize video recordings in TPD for physical education (PE) teachers. The authors used semi-structured interviews and evaluations of PE teachers’ written reflective statements to investigate how they reacted as they engaged with different video material and external facilitators during a TPD program. Teachers believed video-based reflection on their own teaching, rather than viewing others’ practice, was the most useful, even though both forms of analysis produced a similar depth of reflection. PE teachers also benefited from dialogue with external facilitators during the TPD program. These results highlight the importance of researchers, teachers, and facilitators delivering and participating in TPD collaboratively and focusing on strategies that may increase the depth of teacher reflection on their own practices, which is considered a first step toward changing classroom practice and improving student outcomes.

The present study investigates teachers’ perceived challenge and competence at different stages when dealing with professional requirements. A total of 655 teachers from 250 primary schools in the state of Zurich, Switzerland, at different career stages (pre-service, beginning and experienced teachers), completed a survey measuring four professional requirements in competence and challenge dimensions. Structural equation modelling was used to assess the validity of the measures and teachers’ sense of competence and perceived challenge were compared across different career stages. Beginning teachers were found to be lower in their sense of competence in all four requirements, but teachers’ experiences of challenge varied at different career stages. The findings call for attention to facilitating new teachers to accomplish the required competencies and to minimise any stress arising from the challenges they face. Promoting optimal use of resources through cooperation in the workplace may help beginning teachers to maximise their sense of competence.

This study had two purposes: (1) to test the hypothesis that teacher candidates who faced challenges in student teaching had lower self-ratings on teacher dispositions than their counterparts who did not face challenges in student teaching, and (2) to develop an explanatory model to predict teacher candidates’ challenging experiences in student teaching. As the authors hypothesized, teacher candidates who successfully completed student teaching had significantly higher self-rating scores on dispositions than their counterparts who faced notable challenges. The findings from this study stand to advance our understanding of how dispositions relate to instructional practices and approaches.

This study describes an innovative leadership development program in self-awareness in the Summer Principals Academy at Teachers College. It describes both the theoretical and practical pedagogy of self-awareness training. The themes that emerged from the data led to the development of cognitive maps for practitioners that provide heuristics and developmental guides for practice, as well as refinements of the training protocols.