Enhancing Student Teachers’ Professional Development through Active Learning (original) (raw)
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Research-informed ‘immersive’ professional learning with pre-service teachers in schools
Cogent Education
Research-informed immersive professional learning in schools is another avenue for pre-service teachers (PSTs) to develop their understanding and reflection about theories, methods, and practices of teaching and learning. From a collaborative research project that aimed at developing the intercultural capabilities of Prep level students in a primary school, in this paper, as teacher educators, we examine the views of four PSTs involved in this project. The findings draw upon the opportunities and affordances PSTs identified from this in-school "immersive" and situated teaching experience in; bridging the incongruences of the theory/ practice divide; reflecting on their teaching practices; and in improving their teacher efficacy, agency, and relational agency. From a reflexive stance, as teacher educators, we further discuss the implications of this collaborative research with PSTs in closing the gap of the theory/practice divide between university-based learning and teaching practices in schools. We also discuss the mentioned affordances as emphasised by the PSTs towards the improvement of their teacher efficacy, agency, and relational agency. The paper concludes on further strengthening of universityschool collaborative research partnerships. It highlights research-informed projects ABOUT THE AUTHORS
TeachLivE™: Learning from practice in a mixed-reality teaching environment
Becoming a teacher: Research on the work-integrated learning of student teachers, 2020
Peer review declaration The publisher (AOSIS) endorses the South African 'National Scholarly Book Publishers Forum Best Practice for Peer Review of Scholarly Books'. The manuscript was subjected to a rigorous twostep peer review process prior to publication, with the identities of the reviewers not revealed to the author(s). The reviewers were independent of the publisher and/or authors in question. The reviewers commented positively on the scholarly merits of the manuscript and recommended that the manuscript should be published. Where the reviewers recommended revision and/or improvements to the manuscript, the authors responded adequately to such recommendations. Research justification This book disseminates original research on learning in and from practice in pre-service teacher education. Authors such as Lederman and Lederman (2015:670) have described the student teaching practicum or work-integrated learning (WIL), which is an essential component of pre-service teacher education, as the 'elephant in the room'. These authors noted that '… the capstone experience in any teacher education programme is the student teaching practicum … (a)fter all, this is where the rubber hits the road' (Lederman & Lederman 2015:670). However, many teacher educators will agree that this WIL component is sometimes very insufficient in assisting the student teacher to develop an own footing and voice as a teacher. This is the 'gap' that this research book addresses. Most of the chapters in the book report empirical data, with the exception of two chapters, that can be categorised as systematic reviews. Work-integrated learning is addressed from various angles in the chapters. Chapter 6 focusses on research related to what makes Finnish teacher education so effective, and in Chapter 4, researchers of the University of Johannesburg disseminate their findings on establishing a teaching school (based on Finnish insights) in Johannesburg. Chapter 3 highlights the challenges faced in open learning and distance learning teacher education contexts. Several of the chapters disseminate research findings on alternative interventions to classic WIL, namely, where 'safe spaces' or laboratories are created for student teachers to learn and grow professionally. These could either be simulations, such as software programs and avatars in the intervention described in Chapter 2, student excursions, as portrayed in the findings in Chapter 5, Chapter 7 and Chapter 10, or alternative approaches to WIL (e.g. Ch. 11 and Ch. 12). The book is devoted to scholarship in the field of pre-service teacher education. The target audience of this book comprises scholars working in the fields of pre-service teacher education, WIL and self-directed learning. The book makes a unique contribution in terms of firstly its extensive use of cultural-historical activity theory as a research lens, and secondly in drawing on various theoretical frameworks. Both quantitative and qualitative research informed the findings of the book. In accordance with the requirements of the Department of Higher Education and Training, this book contains more than 50% original content not published before, and no part of this work has been plagiarised.
Active and Participatory Teaching Methods
European Journal of Education
By active-participatory methods, we understand all the situations in which students are placed and who take them out of the subject of the object of training and turn them into active subjects, co-participants in their own training, not only the active methods themselves. Student-centered learning is an approach that involves an active learning style and the integration of learning programs according to the pupil's own learning rhythm. The student must be involved and accountable for the progress he has made in terms his own education. Among the teaching-learning methods are those through which students work productively with each other, develop collaborative skills and mutual help. They can have a tremendous impact on pupils due to their names, playability, and provide children's learning alternatives. In order to develop critical thinking in pupils, we must use, above all, some active-participative strategies, creative. They must not be broken by traditional ones; they mark a higher level in the spiral of the modernization of didactic strategies.
Student teachers as critical collaborative actors and thinkers
uni.lcmi.lu
The present paper describes the DECOTEC approach to teacher training, a research project in-progress at the Institute of teacher training and educational research in Luxembourg (ISERP). It tries to implement an alternative approach to teacher training along several key dimensions like interrelated activity systems, boundary crossing objects, collaborative work, development of expertise and expanded IT use. The key shift in the design of our approach is one of agency: from a paradigm of 'instructing how to teach' to a paradigm of 'learning about learning'. In this article we present the core concepts of the approach, focus on three closely interconnected change areas and present first available research data.
Teaching and Teacher Education, 2006
This article deals with the potential of school-based teacher education for creating a professional community of learners. Learning to participate in the social and cultural practices with regard to education is assumed to be crucial for developing a professional identity as a teacher. From the perspective of socio-cultural theory, we have made a retrospective analysis of a project for collaborative school-based teacher education. The main research question was whether there was a stimulating context for student teachers to develop their own professional identity. To what extent were students able to function as 'legitimate peripheral participants' in the school, and to what extent has a 'professional community of learners' been realized? Finally, we reflect on the conditions in which teacher education can be centred on a specific school innovation project. r
Beyond student-centered and teacher-centered pedagogy: Teaching and learning as guided participation
In recent decades, student centered pedagogy has provided serious challenges to traditional ―lecture-and-test‖ modes of education in colleges and universities. Advocates of student-centered pedagogy generally proceed from the constructivist position that maintains that learners construct their understandings through their actions and experiences on the world. Student-centered thinking has spawned a burgeoning interest in the use of a variety of different active learning methods in and out of the classroom. These include collaborative learning, experiential learning, problem-based learning, and a variety of other pedagogical methods. However, the theory and practice of student-centered pedagogy is not without its problems. ―Student centered‖ learning is often defined in contradistinction to ―teacher-centered‖ pedagogy. The idea that students must be active in the construction of knowledge is often understood to imply a diminishing role for the teacher in the learning process. Teachers are called upon to relinquish singular claims to authority or power in the classroom. As a result, the role of the teacher becomes recast as one of ―coach‖ or ―facilitator‖. In this paper, I argue that the student/teacher-centered dichotomy is built upon a false premise -- namely that it is possible to parse off the active role of the student from the socio-cultural activities of which the student and teacher are a part. An alternative approach is based upon the socio-cultural-constructivist idea that learning is a form of guided participation in socio-cultural activity. From this view, knowledge in any given discipline is the historical product of socio-cultural processes that have evolved over long periods of time. Such knowledge is preserved and communicated through the cultural vehicle of language. It follows that learning within any given discipline requires mastery of the language-based meanings that define disciplinary knowledge and practice. Such knowledge can only be acquired through active participation in language-mediated learning activities that are structured by more expert individuals. All learning is thus viewed as a form of doing. Pedagogy becomes a task of articulating learning goals and identifying the forms of doing that promote development toward those goals.
Towards a Teacher-Culture of Participation
There is overwhelming evidence that today's education is inadequate for responding to the demands of the 21 st century and probably beyond. In order to facilitate students' learning and education, it will be pivotal to firstly reconsider what is required from the teacher and teacher professional competency. In this paper, we argue that for education being responsive to the requirements of the digital age, it is important to support teachers' creative design thinking and creative teaching practices realised by a teacher-culture of participation. Such a culture can nurse a " Can Do " mindset and " Want to " culture of participation leading to educational practices responsive to the needs of diverse students and society.
2013
This article describes a pedagogical experience with a video to explore the school patrimony. The experience was held with university students from the History course and reflects the pedagogical possibilities of the Proposed Virtual School Museum. This experience intended to show the cultural heritage present in the school. Having the TIC as mediators, data was collected and materials produced in order to be used both in the classroom and as distant learning. The methodology adopted promoted the work with media, the local History, the school History, its spaces and objects. pedagogical practices and to produce a flexible working environment for the teacher trainees either in basic or higher schools. Using videos, blogs and photographs it constituted an enriched learning environment and contributed for debates about curricula involving blended teaching and learning. The creativity of the teacher trainees was evident in the way they surpassed the more routine stances and constituted good practices of transitions to open and flexible learning. In conclusion, the experience showed that educational practices can and should focus more on the learning beyond the classroom. Furthermore, the use of informational technologies was an important tool in the process of mobilizing school communities.
Journal of Education and Educational Development, 2019
This report introduces an innovative research project about the dialogue among teacher trainees from UK, Norway and Pakistan, about a literary work, in a virtual environment. This project involved us, fi ve English in Education academics from the three contexts, as researchers who gathered, analysed and reported on the international data collaboratively. We refl ect on our experience as international researchers and the benefi ts we found in this type of association across borders for future teachers. This work has implications for teacher education and the methodologies used can be benefi cial for future researchers and teacher educators.