Search results

Global governance has granted international organizations a political role of utmost importance. As the search for research-based best practices is the spearhead of these nongovernmental organizations, national decision-makers tend to accept their recommendations willingly. The way decision-makers use research-based evidence has been amply investigated, but few researchers have interrogated how the same international organizations, that claim to establish a bridge between research and policy, use such evidence. This prompted us to analyze the pedagogical discourse of UNESCO, an organization that recently reminded the international community that improving teacher quality is now a major issue for all those who are preoccupied with improving the quality of education (UNESCO, 2014). Teaching and learning: Achieving quality for all. EFA global monitoring report. Paris, France: UNESCO). How does UNESCO deal with the issue of teaching practices? What is the content of its pedagogical discourse? To answer these questions, we analyzed the Organization’s publications on teachers in the past 15 years (N = 45) and conducted interviews with a number of its strategic members (N = 5). The results of our analyses of this dataset indicate a tension between the content of the publications and what the interviewees had to say. While the publications timidly but recurrently promote learner-centered constructivist approaches, the interviewees argued that pedagogical orientations are a matter of national sovereignty; that UNESCO should not cross this line. As an intermediary between research and policy and a think tank, UNESCO seems caught in this contradiction. In matters of pedagogy, shouldn’t the Organization be more forceful in counseling its member States by referring to research-based evidence on teaching effectiveness?

The purpose of this paper is to identify how pedagogical mentoring contributed to the transformation of teachers’ pedagogical practices and to the consolidation of a team of autonomous leaders in a Colombian regional university, within the framework of a curricular reform.

The paper is a qualitative research under the methodology of experience systematization. In this methodology, the participants and researchers analyze experiences and generate knowledge about why processes are developed in a particular way. This requires organizing, reconstructing and interpreting facts and experiences. In education, the main actors (teachers) research their own pedagogical practice, developing critical thinking and generating curricular and pedagogical knowledge.

Results show that pedagogical mentoring was effective in achieving the proposed objectives by means of learning conversations. The entire process addressed the curriculum in all its complexity, encouraged reflection about the teachers’ pedagogical practice and empowered them as designers, implementers and evaluators of the curriculum.

Curricular reforms are complex educational phenomena. In this study, the authors limited the analysis to understanding how to generate a new community of practice with teachers to implement curricular changes in all their complexity. Other actors such as principals or students were not included in the process.

The systematization of this experience shows that pedagogical mentoring is a successful strategy to develop a curricular reform in a participative manner. In addition, it provides elements – from both pedagogical practice and theory – to foster communities of reflexive teachers who are ultimately the actual designers and implementers of curricula that can tackle the challenges of education for the twenty-first century.

The study aims to examine the issues relating to workplace learning at the upper secondary school level. This study is based on the two questions. How should the professional/peer-learning community or PLC be developed and deployed to help strengthen in-service teacher training? The second question is what are the success factors which contribute to the continuity of the PLC within the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) context?

This study, considered as a case study, is based on BMA’s in-service teaching training program which took place from August 2014 until September 2016. Observations and interviews represent the key tasks undertaken for this study. Observation focuses on the PLC adaptation for a teacher network and key activities relating to actual teaching and learning. Interviews with teachers and students help evaluate the suitability of the PLC’s use as a component of in-service teacher training for workplace learning. The application proposal to international funding helps outline how the data from the observation and interviews should be grouped and analyzed.

The PLC’s implementation involves a network of teachers (those teachers who traveled to Finland for pedagogical training), the selection of a common theme (i.e. a polluted waterway reflecting environmental phenomena) allowing various different subject teachers to work together and actual teaching and learning across schools with students through project work. The results of the interviews demonstrate that a PLC is a potential alternative for BMA’s in-service teacher training. The PLC allows teachers to share their experience and knowledge while simultaneously strengthening students’ life skills through the PLC’s applications.

The case study demonstrates the process through which the PLC is successfully deployed. The BMA applied the PLC alongside and in collaboration with the actual student teaching and learning, instead of separating them because the PLC was regarded as training. PLC is dependent on: the willingness of the teachers to work together, their ability to come up with a common topic that they can link their knowledge, enable several subject teachers to work together, an effective planning process to gradually involve the students in problem-based learning and public recognition to demonstrate their success.

The PLC appears to benefit workplace (or school) learning and development for both teachers and students. Additionally, the use of the PLC in this case study points to an alternative for future in-service teacher training at BMA schools. When compared with the existing practice of sitting in a room and listening to an external expert without much interaction, participating teachers feel that the PLC helps them become more motivated, through experience and knowledge sharing.

The contribution to research is the knowledge on the PLC’s implementation for in-service teaching training (as part of workplace learning). Moreover, the PLC should be applied simultaneously with actual teaching and learning through project work. Three notable lessons learned from comparing the effectiveness of the PLC use between BMA and Finnish schools point to the importance of pre- and in-service teacher training with the focus on continuous dialogue and open communication, familiarity with integrated lesson plan and teacher autonomy.

This chapter explores the use of Lesson Study (LS) as a strategy for co-constructing pedagogical knowledge and draws on data from a series of interviews with student teachers. Sixteen student teachers, undertaking a postgraduate teacher training program in higher education in England, engaged in LS as an official assessment of their ability to jointly plan, deliver, and evaluate a lesson. LS is thus seen to promote an intense collaborative working relationship between participating student teachers that engenders fresh opportunities for learning. It is argued, then, that this approach can challenge the prevalent model of individually led professional development by facilitating a space for the co-construction of pedagogical knowledge. LS is also explored for its potential to bridge the theory-practice divide by enabling participant student teachers to generate theory from practice.

The aim of this scoping review was to identify key characteristics related to strategies and approaches for delivering sustainable training and professional development (PD) of graduate teaching assistants (GTAs), teaching assistants (TAs), and tutors. While the continuous, coherent and responsive programmes for such training and PD may address needs that are congruent with the needs of other sessional teachers, the literature has not focussed on GTA training and PD that support the longer-term retention of GTAs as sessional teachers.

In this scoping review, we devised a search strategy to identify literature relating to the key characteristics of strategies and approaches for delivering sustainable GTA training and professional development in higher education settings. We were guided by the frameworks for such reviews developed by Arksey and O’Malley (2005), Levac et al. (2010) and Westphaln et al. (2021). We used PRISMA guidelines to guide our reporting processes, and used thematic analysis practice (Braun and Clarke, 2022) as our analytical approach in order to identify and discuss the key themes.

We identified that strategies and approaches for delivering sustainable GTA training and PD frame GTAs as future academics and leaders in teaching; provide institutional support and investment in teaching; deliver departmental training; facilitate peer support; provide pedagogical training; implement training strategies; and support the teacher identity of GTAs.

These findings add to the body of research that explores how strategies and approaches for delivering sustainable GTA training and PD address and meet the needs common to all sessional teachers constrained by the precarity of the part-time faculty/academia. While our findings indicate such training and PD enhance the quality of teaching available to university students, this effect is dependent on institutional support and facilitation of peer and faculty networks.

There has been much debate in recent times about the factors that improve the quality of teaching in higher education (HE) institutions. This has been especially fueled by the increasing importance attached to Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) qualification. To fill the existing gap in the current literature in this regard, this study aims to investigate whether HE teachers (lecturers) who undergo pedagogical training (PT) in addition to obtaining PhD qualification possess higher knowledge and pedagogical competencies (PCs) than those that relied only on having PhD qualification without further teaching qualifications.

Drawing upon data collected through a structured questionnaire administered to 1,174 Nigerian HE teachers in various disciplines from 39 HE institutions, in addition to two focus groups, the study adopts a mixed-methods research. The quantitative data were analyzed descriptively while qualitatively data were coded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed thematically.

This article proposes that teachers who undergo PT in addition to obtaining PhD tend to have more PCs and perform better than those that have not undergone any form of PT. Also, it found a statistically significant difference between PCs of HE teachers who have undergone PT in addition to PhD qualification from those without PT. The implication is that teachers who have undergone PT are more effective in facilitating teaching and learning than those who have not completed PT.

Despite the merits of the mixed-methods research, a major limitation of this study is the failure to compare students' achievements or successes based on the two distinct samples. However, the limitations create opportunities for further studies into the subject matter.

This study is timely, given that Nigeria (like many African countries) has a low quality HE system and low graduate outcomes (related to knowledge, employability, and skills). More so, research into pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and practices are rare or nonexistent in the literature related to Nigeria and other African countries' HE system.

The purpose of this paper is to address a gap in the comparative research literature on vocational education and training (VET) and skill formation systems. It examines the impact of international technical standardisation and regulation on the design, organisation and delivery of apprenticeships in the aeronautical and aerospace sectors in England and Germany.

The research design was informed by insights from economics, workplace and work-based learning and comparative education. Academic experts in the fields of aerospace and aeronautical standardisation and regulation, VET, human resource development and business organisation were consulted. The generic occupation of “aircraft mechanic” was selected as being the closest match for comparison. Interviews and non-participant observation in workplaces and training centres were carried out involving three companies in England and four in Germany.

Findings show that there is considerable convergence across the pedagogical approaches to apprenticeships in England and Germany related to fostering the capacity to take responsibility for the quality of one’s work, to work in and lead teams, and to respond to and work with customers. Increasing international regulation and technical standardisation underpins a shared language about learning through practice in technologically advanced workplaces.

This paper is original because it turns the lens of inquiry to workplace processes to reveal the level of convergence in training philosophies and practices in an internationally highly regulated sector. It shows how international technical standardisation and regulation is leading to pedagogical innovation. The findings have implications for VET and apprenticeship policy at the national and international level.

This paper aims to explore the advantages of applying best pedagogical practice to library-based teaching, using targeted content in order to contextualise the teaching within a performing arts curriculum. The author, dual-qualified in music and librarianship, is responsible for providing library user education and instructing readers in the use of electronic resources, literature review, related research and bibliographic skills and Scottish songbook history in a performing arts institution. A recent opportunity to take a short course, The Teaching Artist, prompted the author to re-examine her approach to such library-based teaching. Her observations arise from the reflective practice that was a core component of The Teaching Artist course.

The main focus of this concept paper is a consideration of best pedagogical practice, and a discussion of how best to embed it in a curriculum designed for performers and other creative artists. Turning from a role as a bibliographic instructor to that as an academic adjunct, the author addresses similar pedagogical issues in a session on Scottish songbooks, which is delivered each year to second-year undergraduates.

The author wrote a paper on user education for a librarianship journal in 1991. The present paper reflects upon the discernible differences in approach between then and now, and finds that gaining pedagogical expertise has enabled significant improvements.

There is comparatively little published about user education in music libraries, about pedagogical training for librarians working in this field, or about scholar-librarians availing themselves of suitable training to improve their delivery of academic course components.

This paper aims to examine the pedagogical strategies and challenges of selected multigrade (MG) schoolteachers in Albay, Philippines.

This study utilized a case study design using a validated semi-structured instrument with in-depth interviews to ten MG teachers, observation and document analysis. Qualitative data analyses such as content and thematic analyses were used in analyzing the data.

The results show that MG teachers use a variety of overlapping and supplementary instructional strategies such as (1) teaching one topic to all grades and at varying levels of difficulty using differentiated activity, (2) “jump-jump strategy”/teaching one grade while others work independently and (3) peer teaching or tutoring. However, there are several pedagogical challenges that MG teachers are faced with: (1) conflict between the medium of instructions and grade grouping, (2) problems with lesson planning, (3) unfocused instruction, (4) insufficient learners' materials, (5) absence of training prior to MG teaching and (6) the negative perception of the effectiveness of MG instructions.

The research is limited within the context of the participants and focuses on the pedagogical strategies and challenges in the implementation of MG teaching.

The results of this study can serve as a reference on how to support and strengthen MG instruction.

This study provides a research-based overview of MG schools from the grassroots level and adds to the limited studies of MG education in the Philippines.

Recent decades have witnessed increasing interest worldwide in educational quality. Many international organisations and national education systems have conducted studies on the meaning of quality, the various ways in which it can be measured and the factors that promote it as a basis for designing education reforms and rendering good practices visible. In this chapter, the authors explore conceptual perspectives on educational quality that are informed by various pedagogical approaches and examine the initiatives implemented in Spain to improve educational quality in non-university contexts, analysing education legislation over the past 30 years. The authors also propose basic elements or strategies that the authors believe would further promote educational quality in non-university settings in Spain and elsewhere. These proposals revolve around the educational project, teacher training and professional development, diversity and inclusion in education and community leadership.