Search results
1 – 10 of over 4000Julie Jackson Albee and Joyce A. Piveral
This study describes one university’s effective management process for identifying dispositions of pre‐service teacher candidates. Identification of specific dispositions was…
Abstract
This study describes one university’s effective management process for identifying dispositions of pre‐service teacher candidates. Identification of specific dispositions was solicited from university professors, pre‐service teachers, practicing teachers, professors, and administrators through 221 surveys, and was analyzed through the Delphi method. To evaluate if the teachers at differing levels similarly valued identified dispositions (i.e. professors, pre‐service, practicing, elementary, high school) a Pearson chi‐square analysis was conducted. Findings from this analysis showed that there was not a significant difference between the dispositions valued by various groups. This led to the development of an instrument to measure and monitor the dispositions of pre‐service teachers. A monitoring system to provide managers with a process to assist pre‐service teachers in improving areas of weakness was then developed.
Details
Keywords
Heather D. Kindall, Tracey Crowe and Angela Elsass
Professional dispositions must be cultivated through focused self-reflection and targeted, authentic, internship experiences prior to entering the teaching profession. Continued…
Abstract
Purpose
Professional dispositions must be cultivated through focused self-reflection and targeted, authentic, internship experiences prior to entering the teaching profession. Continued development through mentoring during the clinical internship can enhance the effectiveness of pre-service teacher candidates as instructional leaders. The purpose of this paper is to explore the unique experiences found to be successful in mentoring pre-service teachers from student to professional during an authentic, yearlong internship experience.
Design/methodology/approach
Intern participants in this pilot study completed an inventory that measured professional dispositions five times during an internship experience. Data were analyzed using a mixed methods study design.
Findings
Results of the study determined that intern participants held unrealistic views of teaching and did not recognize the importance of dispositional development prior to focused mentoring throughout the year of clinical internship. One central finding in this study is that change and growth about perceptions of professional dispositions can be developed through focused mentoring.
Originality/value
Mentoring within the teacher preparation program can help in the transition of understanding professional growth and development, attitudes, and the view of complex behaviors. The dispositions necessary for effective teaching can be honed through cultural and clinical experiences, continual self-reflection, constructive feedback on evaluations of teaching, and targeted mentoring before beginning the clinical student internship and throughout the experience.
Details
Keywords
Qiaoping Zhang, Jing Guo and Yicheng Wei
This study explored the mathematical dispositions of Hong Kong mathematics pre-service teachers (PSTs). It also constructed a mathematical disposition framework comprising their…
Abstract
Purpose
This study explored the mathematical dispositions of Hong Kong mathematics pre-service teachers (PSTs). It also constructed a mathematical disposition framework comprising their affective, cognitive and functional dispositions towards the subject.
Design/methodology/approach
Thirty-one participants completed three structured metaphor tasks and one open-ended metaphor task in which they shared their views on mathematics. Responses were examined qualitatively and quantitatively. Coding based on thematic analysis was utilized to summarize the specific contents of the mathematical dispositions expressed by the PSTs, and a 5-level scoring scale was employed to evaluate the strength of the dispositions as represented by different metaphor types.
Findings
The findings suggest that the mathematical dispositions of pre-service mathematics teachers were generally positive. However, the overall level was not high. The most prevalent metaphors used to describe mathematics were “rice”, “blue” and “dog”.
Research limitations/implications
Hong Kong mathematics PSTs' mathematical dispositions are examined by using metaphorical tasks. Three categories are identified: affective, cognitive and functional dispositions towards mathematics.
Originality/value
This study has proposed an original framework for describing mathematical disposition.
Details
Keywords
This study intended to provide such an opportunity to preservice teachers with a project-based learning (PBL) approach and an inquiry-based pedagogy to engage them in learning…
Abstract
Purpose
This study intended to provide such an opportunity to preservice teachers with a project-based learning (PBL) approach and an inquiry-based pedagogy to engage them in learning science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) knowledge and skills of integration with adding an art component to STEM as science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) for K-8 children, and developing their own STEAM tasks. The purpose of this project was to explore how STEAM integration in mathematics methods courses influenced K-8 preservice teachers' disposition and knowledge of STEAM integration.
Design/methodology/approach
This project used a mixed-research design in data collection and analysis to examine the effects of using the STEAM integration on preservice teachers' knowledge and disposition. The preservice teachers in two EDEL 462 classes in Spring 2019 participated in STEAM learning and development in the inquiry process of four steps of STEAM integration. Data collection includes the pre- and postquestionnaires on teachers' knowledge and disposition.
Findings
The results in this study show that the STEAM integration in the mathematics methods courses engaged preservice teachers in four steps of the inquiry process of connection, collaboration, communication and evaluation for STEAM integration using PBL approach. The preservice teachers not only enhanced their disposition in attitude and confidence but also enhanced their knowledge of STEAM integration.
Research limitations/implications
The following conclusions can be drawn from the present study that integrating STEAM components in mathematics methods fosters preservice teachers' creativity, connection, communication, application and teamwork skills, and importantly, it enhances K-8 preservice teachers' productive dispositions and knowledge in STEAM integration.
Practical implications
The results of this study indicate that using math methods courses to engage preservice teachers in learning STEAM integration and designing authentic STEAM tasks in four steps enhanced preservice teachers' attitude and confidence that significantly related to their knowledge of STEAM integration.
Originality/value
These findings have significant implications for the understanding of how to prepare future teachers in STEAM integration in higher education.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework for conceptualizing three dispositional‐related stages that educators may experience in their professional careers and address…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework for conceptualizing three dispositional‐related stages that educators may experience in their professional careers and address the implications of these stages for integrating moral literacy perspectives into initial and advanced teacher and leader certification programs.
Design/methodology/approach
The dispositional conceptual framework is presented and discussed from the author's viewpoint. The contention is that there is at least some general consistency that teacher and leader program candidates, at various stages of their professional careers, may experience and reflect in the attitudes – a component of dispositions – that they bring to the university classroom learning environment.
Findings
Observations and insights about the consistency of dispositions within each of three program candidate groups are discussed. The dispositions emerged as: attitude formation; attitude adjustment; and attitude alignment. Within the context of course development and through that process of course delivery, the author describes how an understanding of candidates' attitudinal stages informed decisions about course content and instructional strategies to facilitate an ethos of values inquiry and reflection.
Originality/value
The framework may be useful to professors of education interested in integrating values inquiry and moral agency into their teaching.
Details
Keywords
Jadelyn Abbott, Katherine Landau Wright and Hannah Carter
The purpose of this study was to identify if and how K–6 teachers perceive that their literacy instructional coaches influence their writing teaching.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to identify if and how K–6 teachers perceive that their literacy instructional coaches influence their writing teaching.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors employed a parallel convergent mixed-methods design with survey data. The authors used thematic analysis to identify patterns within short-answer responses.
Findings
K–6 teachers receive little literacy coaching specific to writing. However, when they do receive coaching, they believe it benefits their writing instruction. Sustained coaching through the coaching cycle, frequent collaborations, and support with writing instructional resources and strategies were reported as the most influential writing coaching practices.
Research limitations/implications
Sample size was a limitation to this study. Of the 66 participants, 41 (62%) completed the entire survey.
Practical implications
This research provides coaches with valuable insights about coaching practices that teachers find to be the most effective in influencing their writing instruction. The increase in teachers' competence in writing instruction due to coaching provides evidence to administrators and stakeholders that coaching in writing is an area in need of attention.
Originality/value
This study adds to research specific to the coaching of writing within the K–6 context, which currently is sparse.
Details
Keywords
Noemi Peña Trapero and Ángel I. Pérez Gómez
The purpose of this paper is to show the relationship between lesson study (LS) and the reconstruction of teacher dispositions (practical knowledge).
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to show the relationship between lesson study (LS) and the reconstruction of teacher dispositions (practical knowledge).
Design/methodology/approach
This work consists of an exhaustive qualitative study, analysis and interpretation of the practical knowledge of an infant school teacher before and after her participation in a training process based on LS.
Findings
This work offers a response to this resistance to change and to progress in education. It demonstrates the potentiality of LS for the transformation of schools in the twenty-first century and the construction of a reflected, shared, emerging pedagogical capital for teachers.
Originality/value
The analysis focusses on practical knowledge (knowledge-in-action, (Schön, 1998); implicit theories (Pozo, 2006; Marrero, 2009); phronesis (Kinsella and Pitman, 2012); tacit knowledge (Contreras and Pérez de Lara, 2010)) because in accordance with the latest theories deriving from cognitive neuroscience, most of the resources the authors use in their action come from unconscious mechanisms. Hence, the procedures and mechanisms of qualitative research have been used to carry out in-depth analysis through prolonged daily observation of practice under a series of previously established dimensions (knowledge, skills, attitudes, values and emotions).
Details
Keywords
Gloria A. Neubert and James B. Binko
Teacher recruitment and retention are recurring topics of investigation. To clarify this topic at our own university, we conducted a study of 10 graduates previously selected as…
Abstract
Teacher recruitment and retention are recurring topics of investigation. To clarify this topic at our own university, we conducted a study of 10 graduates previously selected as the stars, (i.e., outstanding, social studies student teachers in our program from 1994 to 2004). The following questions guided the study: Did they enter teaching, and did they remain? What, if any, are the characteristics they have in common and distinguish them as star teachers? Using qualitative processes involving guided interviews with the graduates as well as their supervisors, transcript analysis, triangulated data, and case analyses meetings, we were able to pose cogent answers to both questions, including nine characteristics related to content and pedagogical knowledge, as well as professional dispositions.