January 5 | International Portal of Teacher Education

Jan. 05, 2016

Dear subscriber,

MOFET ITEC Portal Newsletter

Dear Subscriber,

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

At the beginning of the 2016 New Year, we are happy to launch our brand-new and exciting online program, "Teaching Arabic".

The aim of the courses in this new program is to assist teachers of Arabic all over the world. The courses all focus on expanding the didactic and teaching knowledge of teachers, teacher educators, lecturers, and researchers in the field of teaching the Arabic language.

We hope that the New Year will encourage professional development and herald the initiation of new educational projects for our readers.

Wishing you an interesting reading,

The MOFET Portal Team

January 5, 2016

International Portal of Teacher Education

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

January 2016

Featured Items

Exploring the Written Dialogues of Two First-Year Secondary Science Teachers in an Online Mentoring Program

The purpose of this study was to investigate the changes and learning processes beginning science teachers made in their online mentoring experiences, specifically when written dialogues were used as the primary modes of communication between mentors and mentees. The results reveal that the two pairs of mentee–mentors showed different participation patterns that affected the intensity of the creation of new realities, and affected whether the mentees tried/vetted new teaching practices suggested by their mentors. However, the two beginning science teachers shared teaching practices they had learned during their teacher education programs, and discussed how these practices were different from those currently in use by more experienced teachers at their schools.

The Role of Video for Self-Evaluation in Early Field Experiences

This study aimed to investigate the impact of video models on teacher candidates’ readiness for and capacity to self-evaluate their teaching performance in an early fieldwork (EFE) lesson. The findings indicate that teacher candidates benefited by viewing videos in preparing for their teaching experience. In addition, candidates who had access to the video models and rubrics did not overestimate their performance.

Student Teachers’ Mathematics Attitudes, Authentic Investigations and Use of Metacognitive Tools

Based on findings from a semester-long study, this paper examines the development of Samoan prospective teachers’ mathematical understandings and mathematics attitudes when investigating authentic contexts and applying working mathematically processes, mental computations and problem-solving strategies to find solutions of problems. The authors were also interested in assessing the impact of using the innovative tools, mental computations and creative authentic investigations on PPTs attitudes towards mathematics. The findings reveal that both the positive and negative variations suggested that learning experiences in the FYMM course influenced general perceptions about mathematics learning and therefore, one’s actions when confronted with problems to solve.

Teacher Enactment Patterns: How Can We Help Move All Teachers to Reform-Based Inquiry Practice Through Professional Development?

This study aimed to examine high school teachers’ beliefs about inquiry instruction and determine how their beliefs influenced their use of inquiry after a professional development program. The authors used Windschitl’s (2002) Constructivist Dilemmas framework as a framework to understand the teachers’ enactments.The authors found that the teachers were placed into four enactment categories: Integrated, Emerging, Laboratory-based, and Activity-focused.

Do Student Achievement Outcomes Differ Across Teacher Preparation Programs? An Analysis of Teacher Education in Louisiana

This study describes the output of 1 year’s analyses of a systematic approach to examining student achievement outcomes for recent program completers across teacher preparation programs (TPPs) in Louisiana. Results demonstrated considerable overlap in CI between programs, with some programs having coefficients whose CI did not overlap with substantive anchors such as the average new teacher or the average experienced certified teacher in that content domain with either a 68% or a 95% CI.