January 20 | International Portal of Teacher Education

Jan. 20, 2015

Dear subscriber,

MOFET ITEC Portal Newsletter

Dear Subscriber,

We are delighted to be sending you the first 2015 newsletter of the International Portal of Teacher Education, containing, as usual, the latest articles on teacher education, pedagogy, and instruction that have been published in academic journals.

The beginning of 2015 signals the inception of our brand-new and long-waited project for Arabic speaking teachers and educators around the world, namely, The International Portal of Teacher Education (in Arabic).

The purpose of the new academic portal is to address the needs of the education and teaching communities in Arabic speaking countries throughout the world and to survey the developments in the field in these countries. You are more than welcome to pass it on to your Arabic speaking colleagues.

We hope that 2015 will be characterized by professional development and the initiation of new educational projects for our readers.

The MOFET Portal Team

January 20, 2015

International Portal of Teacher Education

Please note: a complete list of recent additions to the portal follows the Featured Items.

January 2015

Featured Items

Multiculturalism in Teacher Education Institutes - The Relationship between Formulated Official Policies and Grassroots Initiatives

The current study examined the multicultural policies advocated and the actual practices in two teacher education colleges in Israel. The main findings reveal a gap between multicultural discourse and policies in two colleges, as manifested in the activity patterns of both teacher education colleges. Furthermore, the difference between the colleges in terms of multicultural discourse and practice is related to the difference in the colleges’ organizational structures and target populations. The authors recommend that there is room for grassroots developments. Finally, the authors recommend that every teacher-education institute in any multicultural country must include the topic of multiculturalism in the curricula.

Noticing and Naming as Social Practice: Examining the Relevance of a Contextualized Field-Based Early Childhood Literacy Methods Course

This study examines what early childhood preservice teachers enrolled in a field-based literacy methods course deemed relevant regarding teaching, literacy, and learning. The authors recognize that learning to teach and learning to see oneself as a teacher does not happen within one course or within one field placement. However, they were surprised to find that preservice teachers became more attuned to the more nuanced and complex practices that shape learning and children’s identities as learners. The authors believe early childhood preservice teachers in the study developed the social practice of noticing and naming because they were continually asked to pay close attention to the learners in front of them in relationship to course readings, discussions, and observations.

Exploring Mental Models of Learning and Instruction in Teacher Education

The purpose of this article was to derive a set of descriptive themes that pertained to the development of preservice teachers' mental models of learning and instruction. The findings highlight the importance of exploring preservice teachers' cause-effect conceptualizations.The authors point to several areas of potential concern in their mental model development. The authors believe that preservice teachers' mental models can be represented by a two-level structure.

Authentic Project-Based Design of Professional Development for Teachers Studying Online and Blended Teaching

This article describes an authentic project-based learning. The article overviews the approach and impact of an online professional development course for those in education and training, including school teachers and their schools in New Zealand and abroad. The data show that practice with online and blended learning during this course appears to have contributed to participants’ rate of adoption of similar approaches in their own professional contexts. The authors argue that the design of this postgraduate course can be seen to enhance relative advantages of online and blended learning in each student’s professional work, while also reducing the complexity of these innovations.

Pupil Aggressiveness and Perceptual Orientation towards Weakness in a Teacher who is New to the Class

This study aimed to investigate possible relationships between aggressiveness in pupils and the extent to which pupils will seek signs of weakness in teachers who are new to the class. The authors also explored whether gender moderated the relationship between aggressiveness and the perceptual orientation studied. The results reveal connections between aggressiveness and perceptual orientation towards weakness in teachers. The results also support the conclusion that interest in weakness is generally connected to aggressiveness, mainly proactive aggressiveness, regardless of gender.

The Challenge to Situate Digital Learning Technologies in Preservice Teacher Mathematics Education

This article focuses on how preservice primary teachers can be supported to embrace digital learning technologies (DLTs) in their teaching of mathematics. The findings reveal that preservice teachers demonstrated a high degree of initiative. In addition, the students began to recognize the potential of such creative DLTs as a bridge between the use of familiar hands-on materials as representations and abstract representations of mathematical models. Furthermore, the students gained confidence after successfully presenting their DLTs to their peers, and their self-efficacy in using technology to teach mathematics increased due to these enactive mastery experiences.

Mentoring of New Teachers as a Contested Practice: Supervision, Support and Collaborative Self-development

This article aims to examine contested practices of mentoring of newly qualified teachers within and between New South Wales in Australia, Finland and Sweden. The meta-analysis revealed three main archetypes of mentoring: mentoring as supervision, mentoring as support, and mentoring as collaborative self-development. These three different views of mentoring are found in Australia, Sweden and Finland. The authors suggested that these three different archetypes of mentoring form very different dispositions in mentees and mentors.