The Iron Grip of Productivity Software within Teacher Education

Author(s):  
Joan E. Hughes ◽  
Gloria Gonzales-Dholakia ◽  
Yu-Chi Wen ◽  
Hyo-Jin Yoon

This chapter discusses several challenges and recommendations in obtaining the desired outcome from technology-rich teacher education programs, including a novice teacher prepared to make decisions supporting students’ subject-area learning with technology. The authors shape the discussion using select findings from two studies of preservice teachers enrolled in a technology-rich teacher education program at a U.S. university. The authors discuss the importance of the modeling relationship between instructors’ and preservice teachers’ experiences with digital technologies and describe productivity software’s enduring grip as the most used digital technology among preservice teachers during teacher education – even in technology-rich teacher education programs. The authors argue that teacher education’s overemphasis on productivity tools is not adequately preparing new teachers for the knowledge society in which teachers live, work, and educate. The authors argue that educational change, such as shifts toward technology-rich teaching and learning, will only be successful with a concerted change effort in both teacher education programs and PK-12 institutions.

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Meredith JC Swallow

Abstract: Varying policy on the implementation of proficiency-based education (PBE) presents a challenge in the preparation of future educators. It becomes critical to include structures and strategies in teacher education programs that support learning and application in different assessment frameworks. This study explores a piloted PBE model in a university teacher preparation course to better understand the enactment of PBE in classrooms, and the associated teaching and learning implications in a university setting. Results point toward reflection, choice, and standards as objectives as benefits of a PBE model, while challenges include time and scalability in classrooms. Implications focus on the instructional practices identified as benefits in a PBE model and the implementation of those practices in teacher preparation.


Author(s):  
Lorraine Gilpin ◽  
Yasar Bodur ◽  
Kathleen Crawford

Peer assessment holds tremendous potential to positively impact the development of preservice teachers. The purpose of this chapter is to describe our findings on the impact of different forms of peer observation and feedback on preservice teachers’ skills in analyzing classroom teaching and their perceptions of their experience with peer assessment. In addition to reporting our findings, we draw from the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning literature to present peer assessment as a medium to overcome structured isolation that is present in the practice of teaching. According to our study, peer observation and feedback is beneficial to preservice teachers’ learning. However, to maximize its effectiveness, a culture of peer assessment should be established in teacher education programs.


AERA Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 233285842090149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Bjorklund ◽  
Alan J. Daly ◽  
Rebecca Ambrose ◽  
Elizabeth A. van Es

Learning to teach is rife with challenges. Preservice teachers’ self-efficacy can potentially mitigate the stress of these challenges, and teacher education programs are fundamental in helping them build this important resource. As such, understanding the foundations of self-efficacy is important for researchers and teacher educators alike. Grounding our study in social network theory, we explored the relationship between sense of belonging to a teacher education program, network centrality, and self-efficacy. Our sample included 245 preservice teachers in three university teacher education programs. We found that sense of belonging to the program and network centrality (in-degree and out-degree) were significantly and positively related to preservice teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs. This study builds on a growing literature that explores the relationships between preservice teachers’ social networks and their beliefs and practices.


Author(s):  
George Zhou ◽  
Judy Xu

Technology proficiency has widely been considered a necessary quality of school teachers, yet how to help teachers develop this quality remains an unanswered question. While teacher education programs often offer one technology course as a solution to this issue, scholars have recently argued that such technical skill-oriented courses are not sufficient to develop preservice teachers’ ability to use technology in teaching. This paper argues that the use of technology in teaching requires integrated knowledge between technology, pedagogy, and subject content, and this highly blended knowledge is best developed through the methods courses of a teacher education program. The key message is that preservice teachers need to be consistently exposed to technology and regularly be required to practice it in many aspects of instruction.


2013 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuka Kurihara

Drawing on Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of mind as a conceptual framework, I discuss the nature of L2 teachers’ learning to teach. In particular, I examine how EFL teachers who participated in overseas teacher education programs for professional development and returned to their native countries appropriated the pedagogical resources (hereinafter tools) presented in the programs into their own classroom instruction. EFL teachers’ experiences are complex because their learning involves not only transferring the tools but also negotiating cultural boundaries between the two key contexts. Three secondary school English teachers from Japan, four U.S. program instructors, and two school administrators in Japan participated in this qualitative case study. The cases illustrated that an individual teacher’s process of learning and the social world were intricately interwoven and influenced one another. The teachers also attempted to (re)construct new knowledge about ELT by negotiating cross-cultural challenges. Implications for L2 teacher education programs are discussed. 本研究はヴィゴツキーの社会文化理論を枠組みに、英語教員の学びの本質を探る。英語を外国語として教えているEFL教員の中でも、特に海外で教員研修プログラムを経験し現在自国で教える日本人教員が、研修で学んだツール(知識やスキル)を日本の現場でどのように自分のものとして使用しているかについて調査した。教員は異なる環境へのツールの移行や、互いの文化的側面を乗り越え折り合いをつけようとする、複雑な学びを経験する。この質的研究には、中等教育の日本人英語教員3名、米国の教員研修プログラム関係者4名、そして日本の学校管理職2名が参加した。結果、教員の学びとは、個々の学びの過程とその社会環境が密接に関係し互いに影響をもたらしながら起こっていることが明らかになった。また、教員は文化的差異から生じる問題を解決する際、新たな英語教授アプローチを見出そうしていることも分かった。最後に教員研修への応用を述べる。


2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 51-64
Author(s):  
Mara E. Culp ◽  
Karen Salvador

Music educators must meet the needs of students with diverse characteristics, including but not limited to cultural backgrounds, musical abilities and interests, and physical, behavioral, social, and cognitive functioning. Music education programs may not systematically prepare preservice teachers or potential music teacher educators for this reality. The purpose of this study was to examine how music teacher education programs prepare undergraduate and graduate students to structure inclusive and responsive experiences for diverse learners. We replicated and expanded Salvador’s study by including graduate student preparation, incorporating additional facets of human diversity, and contacting all institutions accredited by National Association of Schools of Music to prepare music educators. According to our respondents, integrated instruction focused on diverse learners was more commonly part of undergraduate coursework than graduate coursework. We used quantitative and qualitative analysis to describe course offerings and content integration.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 368-384
Author(s):  
Lucinda Grace Heimer

Race is a marker hiding more complex narratives. Children identify the social cues that continue to segregate based on race, yet too often teachers fail to provide support for making sense of these worlds. Current critical scholarship highlights the importance of addressing issues of race, culture, and social justice with future teachers. The timing of this work is urgent as health, social and civil unrest due to systemic racism in the U.S. raise critiques and also open possibilities to reimagine early childhood education. Classroom teachers feel pressure to standardize pedagogy and outcomes yet meet myriad student needs and talents in complex settings. This study builds on the current literature as it uses one case study to explore institutional messages and student perceptions in a future teacher education program that centers race, culture, identity, and social justice. Teaching as a caring profession is explored to illuminate the impact authentic, aesthetic, and rhetorical care may have in classrooms. Using key tenets of Critical Race Theory as an analytical tool enhanced the case study process by focusing the inquiry on identity within a racist society. Four themes are highlighted related to institutional values, rigorous coursework, white privilege, and connecting individual racial and cultural understanding with classroom practice. With consideration of ethical relationality, teacher education programs begin to address the impact of racist histories. This work calls for individualized critical inquiry regarding future teacher understanding of “self” in new contexts as well as an investigation of how teacher education programs fit into larger institutional philosophies.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 26-37
Author(s):  
Chin-Wen Chien

Teachers should adjust their curriculum and instructional practice to meet the needs of individual learners, because one size does not fit all (Kaplan, Rogers, &Webster, 2008; Tomlinson, 2003). This study focuses on the implementation of differentiated instruction in products, “tiered assignments,” in a Children’s English class in a teacher education program in Taiwan. The study concludes that 52 college students held a positive attitude toward these tiered assignments and that they learned theories and instructional strategies not only from lectures and tasks in the university classes but also from completing different choices. Another important finding is that participants’ choice of completing these assignments is based on the level of easy of the assignments. Two suggestions are made to effectively implement differentiated instruction in products in teacher education programs in terms of explicitly modeling and explaining differentiated instruction in products and designing tiered assignments based on the levels of challenge as well as learners’ readiness, interests and profiles.


Author(s):  
Ngatman Ngatman

<em>This study aims to analyze the understanding the use of Javanese language "krama inggil" of preservice teachers in primary teacher education programs. This research is a descriptive study of 84 research subjects. The instruments used were description test sheets, questionnaire sheets, and interview sheets. The data analysis technique uses descriptive qualitative. The results of the analysis show that: 1) The average value of understanding the use of Javanese language "krama inggil" was 78; 2) students who are able to communicate using good manners and apply in daily life as much as 38.61%; 3) Some of the difficulties factors of students using Javanese language "krama inggil" include not being accustomed from childhood, parents do not teach Javanese language "krama inggil", preferring to use Indonesian, lacking the motivation to use Javanese language "krama inggil" because it is difficult to pronounce.</em>


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