June 7 | International Portal of Teacher Education

Jun. 07, 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.

On Wednesday, June 15, we invite you to participate in the webinar "Creating Care-full Listening and Conversations between Members of Conflicting Multicultural Groups: The Case of Israeli Society" with Yishai Shalif.

In today's world, populations of many countries are multinational and multicultural and are composed of groups of differing and sometimes even contradicting values, worldviews, and traditions. The existence of tension and strife between the different groups is a very common phenomenon—one that occasionally degenerates into violence of all kinds.

The consequences of this strife and tension affect the schools, and the staff members are required to alleviate the tension in the short term and maintain an ongoing education process in the long term. To this end, a team in the Israeli Ministry of Education has developed a program for school pupils based on narrative practices so as to create Care-Full Listening and Conversation across multinational and multicultural divides.

As usual registration is free of charge, click here for details.

Wishing you interesting and enjoyable reading,

The MOFET Portal Team

June 7, 2016

International Portal of Teacher Education

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

June 2016

Featured Items

Examining the Quality of Technology Implementation in STEM Classrooms: Demonstration of an Evaluative Framework

In this study, the authors examined the impact of teacher professional development focused on incorporating these workplace technologies in the classroom. For this study, they developed an expanded framework that incorporated (a) the type of technology used; (b) the degree of alignment to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) practices; (c) the use of student-centered pedagogical practices; and (d) the degree of relevance to real-world contexts. The results provide evidence that the framework captures quality of technology use and point to the need for additional research on effective teacher education around technology applications.

Learning to Enact Social Justice Pedagogy in Mathematics Classrooms

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact the mathematics education course had on teacher candidates' (TCs) ability to enact social justice pedagogy (SJP). The results reveal two important findings. The first finding is TCs in this teacher-research study were successful in enacting social justice oriented mathematics lessons as demonstrated through microteaching episodes. The second finding is TCs’ beliefs can be changed as a result of taking mathematics education courses. The results of this study have shown that teacher candidates’ beliefs about teaching for social justice as well as their practices are malleable.

Postgraduate Student Teachers’ Developing Conceptions of the Place of Theory in Learning to Teach: ‘More Important to Me Now Than When I Started’

This article reports on the developing conceptions held by a group of postgraduate student teachers about the relationship of theory to classroom practice in learning to teach. The authors capture participants’ preconceptions about theory before beginning training and subsequent developments through the course and into the first teaching post. The students saw theoretical knowledge as preparation for the classroom and something to be applied in practice. As newly qualified teachers, the participants not only see theory as integral to their practice, but recognise the important, largely unanticipated, role of the university in this process.

Mentoring Beginning Teachers to Enact Discussion-based Teaching

The purpose of this study was to examine one mentor as she assisted three beginning teachers to shift their teaching practice to a more robust understanding of a high-leverage practice, discussion-based teaching. The mentor met each beginning teacher where they were in their development, and took on the authority to move each of them forward as they embraced features of a complex practice related to reform-based teaching. Rather than facilitating learning ordinary practices, this mentor provided an image of an exemplar. She provided an image of the possible as she helped beginning teachers learn the power of local knowledge from teachers who took on teacher educator roles, who pushed back against institutionalized norms of learning to teach alone or learning to teach the scripted curriculum.

Preparing Teacher Candidates for Family–School Partnerships

In this explorative study, preparation of pre-service teachers for family–school partnerships (FSP) was examined within three teacher education institutions. Findings indicate that preparation for FSP is integrated in other courses. Attention is mainly focused on communication, there is no attention to models of FSP or to address underlying power relationships or barriers and there is no assessment on this topic. In primary programmes, more attention is paid to FSP then in secondary progammes. In addition, secondary respondents articulated fewer positive opinions than primary respondents.