Search results for: Teacher development

This article describes a U.S. based multi-year study focused on understanding how a critical reflective practice informs the identities and practices of two teacher educators and a group of preservice teachers. Using a self-study methodology, the authors have examined the processes and practices of their own identity development, alongside that of their preservice teachers. Using a framework as a tool for reflection, they posited a series of questions as a prompt for collaborative reflective writing. In their analysis of these written reflections, they discovered a process of becoming more reflective and expansive through writing, explicitly identifying the contextual factors at play in their personal development as educators. In addition, they found that this method of self-study became a space for transformational learning, where educators could share, be vulnerable, take risks but also care for one another in the process. The findings from this study highlight the importance of careful, critical reflection when supporting new educators.

The professional development of teachers in China takes place, to a large extent, in Teaching Research Groups (TRG) that exist in all schools. Though there are diverse models of TRG activities, these might, on the surface, appear to resemble forms of Action Research (AR) or include elements that might resemble AR. In conducting a Lesson Design Study (LDS) with a TRG in Shanghai, the authors encountered the specific challenge of what might be the interconnectedness and differences between AR and their LDS. To address this issue, they applied a research-informed depiction of the distinguishing characteristics of AR to their LDS. Based on this analysis, they found that (1) in contrast to the depiction of AR that encompasses a choice of methods, their LDS follows a specific ‘design research’ methodology, (2) whereas the depiction of AR is simultaneously directed towards teacher self-change and restructuring the organisation or institution within which the teacher works, LDS concerns more than the practical questions in one local social context and aims to tackle bigger questions across the social contexts in the subject research field, and (3) whereas in the depiction of AR, teachers engage in a process of authentic collaboration with other teachers seeking to improve their practices, in the LDS community the external researchers and expert teachers play other roles in the TRG. Even though there may be differences between the depiction of AR and their LDS, the interconnectedness is important in that both AR and their LDS contribute directly to school-based teacher professional development.

This study examined how collaboration between teacher educators and leaders and teachers can promote development in teacher education, in school and in the collaboration site in school where both parties meet. The findings show that school-based development is a positive form of continuing the professional development of teachers. The author also found that both structure and culture can lay the foundation for and should interact with each other to foster professional development in school and thus lead to a developing organisation. Furthermore, the study reveals that the teacher-TE does not have a model for how teacher educators can collaborate with teachers and leaders in school or how they can collaborate at their institution to develop their work in school and research.

This study had several goals to: (a) describe the associations between aspects of personal and social identity, generativity, and the development of teacher identity in first year teaching students; and (b) examine which aspects of personal and social identity, and generativity predict teacher identity after controlling for a number of relevant covariates. A further aim of the study was to discuss the theoretical and research implications of considering professional teacher identity from a developmental and social psychological perspective in light of the results from the present analysis. This study suggests that those who have a well-formed sense of personal identity are more likely to be ready to begin the process of forming a professional identity. The findings also point to the potential value of pursuing an understanding of professional teacher identity as a developmental and social psychological process.