November 29 | International Portal of Teacher Education

Nov. 29, 2012

Dear subscriber,

MOFET ITEC Portal Newsletter

Dear Subscriber,

We are delighted to be sending you the new issue of The MOFET ITEC Portal newsletter with the latest articles published in academic journals focusing on teacher education, pedagogy and instruction.

MOFETeach 2013 – Education, Innovation, & ICT: between March 11-18, we offer a special study tour in Israel for teachers, policy makers & administrators. One day of the tour (March 17th) will be dedicated to a Mini-Conference. For more information and registration please click here.

As always, for more teacher education updates, news and information about our free webinars, online academy and growing international activities, please visit MOFET International website.

Wishing you interesting and enjoyable reading,

The MOFET ITEC Portal Team

November 29, 2012

International Portal of Teacher Education

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

November 2012

Featured Items

Promoting Teacher Reflection: What Is Said To Be Done

This study explores what is advocated and disseminated as reflection about teaching to teachers in professional development journals. The authors conducted a discourse analysis of 122 articles that dealt with teacher reflection. These texts were published in two popular educational journals in Spain: Notes on Pedagogy and Educational Innovation Journal. The authors found four biases in what is conveyed to teachers about reflection.

Technology Use in Middle-Grades Teacher Preparation Programs

This study aimed to explore the ways in which teacher-education programs help teachers to embrace and critique technology, and literacies they engender, in teaching reading at the middle-school level. The findings reveal that that the middle-grades teacher-education programs encouraged the use of a range of technology tools, from traditional through information/communication to multimedia applications. However, many of the multimodal texts and media that preservice teachers were exposed to or explored for classroom use in teacher-education programs were older-generation applications.

Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes of Preservice and Inservice Teachers in Educational Measurement

The goal of this study is to examine differences between preservice and inservice teachers’ knowledge of, perceived skills in, and attitudes toward educational measurement. The participants in this study were 279 preservice teachers and 233 inservice teachers teaching grades 5 to 10 in Oman. Results showed that inservice teachers demonstrated a lower level of knowledge, a higher level of perceived skilfulness, and a more favourable attitude toward educational measurement than preservice teachers.

‘You’ve Either Got [It] Or You Haven’t’ – Conflicted Supervision of Preservice Teachers

This article presents a case study from a larger research study which examined teachers’ experiences as supervisors of preservice teachers. This case study focuses on the experiences of two female supervisors, Kathy and Sally. The findings reveal that three contextual factors are significant to the supervisors' stories: the mature age of the preservice teachers; the preferred collegial practice of the supervising teachers; and the professional recognition they had been afforded by the school.

Key Pedagogical Principles and Their Major Obstacles as Perceived by Comprehensive School Teachers

This article discusses how teachers conceptualize their pedagogical principles which they perceive to be personally important. 362 class teachers of the fourth grade and 1989 subject teachers of the seventh to ninth grade answered a a questionnaire. The results of this study reflected the change from transmission to transaction pedagogy and shows that they have learned their lesson in the sense that both pupil-centeredness and constructivist learning preference are present in their pedagogical thinking and also action.

Key Experiences in Student Teachers’ Development

The current study examines how student teachers perceive their first year of teaching, by examining how they picture their development, their key experiences during that development, and, in case of negative experiences, how they coped with those experiences. This study was carried out at a teacher education institute in the Netherlands. The findings suggest that most of the student teachers in this study perceive their own development as a path with highs and lows, and with transformative moments or periods.