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Book part
Publication date: 21 December 2017

Phil Wood

With the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), the status of teaching has been moved towards the centre of concerns in the UK higher education (HE) sector. This…

Abstract

With the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), the status of teaching has been moved towards the centre of concerns in the UK higher education (HE) sector. This interest develops further the notion of teaching excellence created through various institutional and sectoral schemes such as the Higher Education Academy (HEA) fellowship. Whilst excellence schemes and the TEF all highlight the importance of teaching, they also run the danger of reducing it to lists and simplified proxies.

This chapter argues that reductive characterisations of teaching, through metrics supporting the TEF, such as the national student survey, or ‘idealised’ descriptions of the foundational aspects of ‘excellent practice’, all lead to partial accounts of the teaching process. Such characterisations might lead to creeping performativity and increasing organisational attempts to control. An alternative account of teaching is proposed based on complexity theory. This sees teaching as emergent, multifaceted and contextually based. It refutes notions of ‘best practice’ and argues that any attempt to capture ‘excellent practice’ is to reduce the holistic nature of the processes that bring teaching, learning, curriculum and assessment together.

Details

Teaching Excellence in Higher Education
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-761-4

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 18 September 2014

Mary Carol Combs

This chapter explores an approach to instruction in pre-service classes called “goofiness pedagogy.” Embedded in teaching and learning theories, goofiness pedagogy is designed to…

Abstract

This chapter explores an approach to instruction in pre-service classes called “goofiness pedagogy.” Embedded in teaching and learning theories, goofiness pedagogy is designed to model creative teaching to help emergent bilingual learners academically, linguistically, and socially. Currently in Arizona, highly restrictive language policies limit curricular and pedagogical choices for students acquiring English. As a result, pre-service teachers are often reluctant to work with them, and worried that their own creativity will be constrained. This chapter thus discusses a multi-year study of goofiness pedagogy – theatrical drama, play, and performance – that helps pre-service teachers develop an alternative vision of exceptional teaching for and with emergent bilingual learners. Data sources include student and author reflections on the practice of performed goofiness in Structured English Immersion classes at the University of Arizona, video-taped performances of students engaged in drama and improvisation, and analysis of student written artifacts. Findings indicate that while some pre-teachers hesitate to participate in “performed goofiness,” the majority believe that theatrical activities encourage them to try out innovative teaching strategies, take risks, make mistakes, and analyze those mistakes in a supportive community of practice. Equally important, pre-service teachers begin to understand that learning in general, and language learning in particular, are social pursuits and that teachers should create social spaces in their own classrooms to support the academic and language development of emergent bilingual students. Goofiness pedagogy also has transformed the author’s own teaching practices, and consequently represents a “pedagogy of hope” within a rigid state context.

Details

Research on Preparing Preservice Teachers to Work Effectively with Emergent Bilinguals
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-265-4

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 18 September 2014

Alcione N. Ostorga and Peter Farruggio

As members of a team of bilingual preservice faculty in the South Texas borderlands, we have observed a consistent, pattern of inappropriate pedagogy offered to the emergent…

Abstract

As members of a team of bilingual preservice faculty in the South Texas borderlands, we have observed a consistent, pattern of inappropriate pedagogy offered to the emergent bilingual learners (EBLs) in the region’s inadequate PK-12 system, where subtractivist teaching practices and school policies undermined their academic development and their personal and professional identities as bilinguals and linguistic minorities. Our task is to teach our preservice students about best practices as we help them develop an awareness of themselves as bilingual, bi-literate professionals who can navigate within the accountability-driven school system and provide additive developmental learning opportunities to their emergent bilingual students.

In this chapter, we describe the experiences and findings from a five-year research project that employed an innovative approach to higher education pedagogy to teach 63 bilingual preservice students how to provide research-based, constructivist-oriented additive pedagogy to emergent bilinguals. Analysis of data from journals and focus group discussions suggest the development of the critical stance necessary for the development of an additive approach needed for the optimal development of emergent bilinguals. Although the study is limited to the specific context of South Texas US–Mexico border communities, the findings have implications for the preparation of bilingual education settings across the nation.

Details

Research on Preparing Preservice Teachers to Work Effectively with Emergent Bilinguals
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-265-4

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 18 September 2014

Minda Morren López and Lori Czop Assaf

In this qualitative study, we explore 31 preservice teachers’ generative trajectories including how they built on instructional practices learned in the service-learning project…

Abstract

In this qualitative study, we explore 31 preservice teachers’ generative trajectories including how they built on instructional practices learned in the service-learning project, the university methods course, and the field-based experience. We addressed the question: In what ways does participating in a semester-long field-based university course combined with a service-learning program shape preservice teachers’ views about effective literacy practices for emergent bilinguals? We identified four themes in our analysis: importance of choice in literacy pedagogy; learning from and with our students; freedom to apply course methods and ideas; and growing confidence and align them with Ball’s (2009) generative change model and the four processes of change – metacognitive awareness, ideological becoming, internalization, and efficacy.

We found the preservice teachers’ ability to develop an awareness of diversity grew from their work with students both in their field-block experience and writing club. These opportunities provided them with a layering of learning – from course readings, collaborating with teachers, to problem solving and creating lessons that specifically met their students’ needs. By moving in and out of different contexts, preservice teachers developed generative knowledge about ways to support writing for emergent bilinguals. Likewise, they became keenly aware of their own experiences and beliefs. Implications include the importance of providing a variety of opportunities for preservice teachers to work directly with students. This should be accompanied by written and verbal discussions to examine and critique their experiences and ideologies in relation to students’ language and literacy needs.

Details

Research on Preparing Preservice Teachers to Work Effectively with Emergent Bilinguals
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-265-4

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 3 February 2015

Jason Goulah and Sonia W. Soltero

This chapter examines in-service teachers’ transformed perspectives and practices for educating emergent bilinguals resulting from graduate study in a bilingual education graduate…

Abstract

This chapter examines in-service teachers’ transformed perspectives and practices for educating emergent bilinguals resulting from graduate study in a bilingual education graduate program in Chicago. This examination is contextualized in consideration of emergent bilinguals relative to the changing face of P-12 classrooms and gaps in teacher education. Findings from autoethnographic and discourse analytic inquiry suggest that teacher preparation in bilingual education (1) prepared and empowered in-service teachers to meet the academic, social, and cultural-linguistic needs of emergent bilinguals in their classrooms and (2) fostered a conscious inner transformation in in-service teachers that resulted in new ways and purposes of interacting with emergent bilingual students, their families, and colleagues. Findings also suggest that although there is institutional progress in meeting emergent bilinguals’ needs, it is incremental and insufficient. There are three major deficiencies: (1) new and increased teacher education standards lack the required specialized coursework in the education of emergent bilinguals; (2) teacher preparation of emergent bilinguals is inadequate; and (3) teacher preparation programs resist requiring specialized coursework in teaching emergent bilinguals.

Abstract

Details

Research on Preparing Inservice Teachers to Work Effectively with Emergent Bilinguals
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-494-8

Book part
Publication date: 6 May 2015

Ryan M. Rish and Audra Slocum

To present a cross-case analysis of two pre-service teachers who studied their own teaching using video within a teacher inquiry project (TIP) – a teacher education pedagogy we…

Abstract

Purpose

To present a cross-case analysis of two pre-service teachers who studied their own teaching using video within a teacher inquiry project (TIP) – a teacher education pedagogy we are calling video-mediated teacher inquiry.

Methodology/approach

Activity theory is used to examine how inquiry groups collaboratively used video to mediate shifts in goals and tool use for the two pre-service teachers presented in the study. This chapter addresses the question of how video-mediated teacher inquiry supports the appropriation of teaching tools (i.e., classroom discussion) in a teacher education program.

Findings

The findings indicate that shifts in goals and tool use made during the TIP suggest greater appropriation of the pedagogical tool of classroom discussion. We also consider how these shifts may be bound by the inquiry project.

Practical implications

The use of video cases of teachers’ own teaching is an emergent pedagogy that combines elements of both case study methods and practitioner inquiry. We argue that this pedagogy supports tool appropriation among pre-service teachers in ways that may help them develop as reflective practitioners.

Details

Video Reflection in Literacy Teacher Education and Development: Lessons from Research and Practice
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-676-8

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 8 November 2010

Christopher M. Branson

International research data unambiguously correlates effective educational leadership with improved student learning. Such leadership not only improves the professional…

Abstract

International research data unambiguously correlates effective educational leadership with improved student learning. Such leadership not only improves the professional performance of teachers but also models learning excellence. Undoubtedly, students learn so much from what they observe others doing. But how can educational leaders model what they have not experienced, themselves? How can today's educational leaders model learning excellence when there is an ever-increasing disparity between contemporary improvements in pedagogical approaches and the lived reality of leadership? To prepare world class educational leaders of learning, it is essential that the process for learning about leadership is closely aligned to what is now considered to be best practice in promoting student learning. If enactivism is the new bench mark in pedagogical practice, how could it be applied to the preparation and practice of leaders? This chapter applies the assumptions and intentions of enactivism to the context of leadership. Although this process enables educational leaders to resume their pivotal place as models of learning excellence, it has profound implications for leadership expectations and accountabilities.

Details

Global Perspectives on Educational Leadership Reform: The Development and Preparation of Leaders of Learning and Learners of Leadership
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-85724-445-1

Book part
Publication date: 3 February 2015

Brendan H. O’Connor and Layne J. Crawford

While bilinguals frequently mix languages in everyday conversation, these hybrid language practices have often been viewed from a deficit perspective, particularly in classroom…

Abstract

While bilinguals frequently mix languages in everyday conversation, these hybrid language practices have often been viewed from a deficit perspective, particularly in classroom contexts. However, an emerging literature documents the complexity of hybrid language practices and their usefulness as an academic and social resource for bilingual students. This chapter examines hybrid language practices among English- and Spanish-speaking high school students in an astronomy/oceanography classroom in southern Arizona. Microethnography, or fine-grained analysis of video recordings from long-term ethnographic observation, is used to reveal what bilingual students accomplished with hybrid language practices in the classroom and to outline implications for teachers who want to engage their students’ hybrid repertoires. Specifically, the analyses reveal that careful attention to hybrid language practices can provide teachers with insights into students’ academic learning across linguistic codes, their use of language mixing for particular functions, and their beliefs about language and identity. The research is necessarily limited in scope because such in-depth analysis can only be done with a very small amount of data. Nevertheless, the findings affirm that hybrid language practices can enrich classroom discourse, academic learning, and social interaction for emergent bilinguals. The chapter highlights a teacher’s story in order to offer practical guidance to other teachers who seek to capitalize on the promise of hybrid language practices in their own classrooms.

Details

Research on Preparing Inservice Teachers to Work Effectively with Emergent Bilinguals
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-494-8

Keywords

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 21 December 2017

Abstract

Details

Teaching Excellence in Higher Education
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-761-4

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