Sep. 22, 2014
Dear subscriber, 
MOFET ITEC Portal Newsletter

Dear Subscriber,

We are delighted to be sending you September's newsletter with the latest articles published in academic journals focusing on teacher training, pedagogy and instruction.

Please notice the upcoming semester of The MOFET Institute's Online Academy will begin on October 24, 2014.
We offer courses on Teaching ICT in Education and Teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL).
We hope to see you among our students! For more information click here

Wishing you interesting and enjoyable reading,

The MOFET Portal Team

September 22, 2014 International Portal of Teacher Education
Please note: a complete list of recent additions to the portal follows the Featured Items.
September 2014
Featured Items
Gaps or Bridges in Multicultural Teacher Education: A Q Study of Attitudes toward Student Diversity
This article aimed to examine both preservice teachers’ and teacher educators’ attitudes toward student diversity. Two array groups emerged: Students Are Students and Diversity Advocates. The authors find gaps in attitudes toward student diversity between the two array groups. These gaps indicate both consensual and divided attitudes toward student diversity.However, a major gap in attitudes toward student diversity between the two groups is similarity versus diversity: while one group highlights similarity among students, the other group appeals for the importance of acknowledging and addressing student diversity.
Leveling the Field: Negotiating Positions of Power as a Preservice Teacher
Drawn from a larger study, the authors examine how one preservice teacher negotiated positions of power with students in ways that enabled and prohibited him from enacting his preferred teacher identities. Specifically, this study illustrates how video analysis opened opportunities for this preservice teacher to reflect on the relationship between positions of power and identity enactment during moment-to-moment classroom interactions. The analysis challenged the preservice teacher to study how he positioned himself as a teacher, how students positioned him, and how he positioned students during classroom interactions.
Investigating Teacher Efficacy: Comparing Preservice and Inservice Teachers with Different Levels of Experience
This research examined differences in the levels of domain-specific and general efficacy across groups of preservice and inservice teachers. The participants divided into four classifications: the preservice teacher—prior, preservice teacher – post, novice teacher and experienced teacher. The findings revealed that experienced teachers held the highest general teaching efficacy as well as the highest efficacy with regards to domain-specific areas such as student engagement and classroom management.
The Components of Effective Teacher Training in the Use of Three-Dimensional Immersive Virtual Worlds for Learning and Instruction Purposes: A Literature Review
The goal of this review is to identify the key components of effective teacher training in virtual schooling, with a focus on three-dimensional (3D) immersive virtual worlds (IVWs). The process of identifying the essential components of effective teacher training in the use of 3D IVWs will be described step-by-step.
Systematic Design of Blended PBL: Exploring the Design Experiences and Support Needs of PBL Novices in an Online Environment
This study aims to inform teacher educators, professional development specialists, and researchers how they can better support teachers in designing blended PBL, especially in online environments. The study focused on an individual project, which required the participants to design a blended PBL lesson for their selected target audience. The results of this study suggest that professional development programs provide PBL novices with (a) an opportunity to design the whole PBL process using a systematic approach, (b) synchronous, interactive questioning sessions and customized scaffolding, (c) concise and easy-to-understand guidelines and checklists, and (d) opportunities to have a successful experience with PBL design.
Shifting Sands in the United Arab Emirates: Effecting Conceptual Change for Creativity in Early Childhood Teacher Education
The purpose of this study was to explore conceptions held by student teachers of creativity and to examine conceptual changes they experience during a series of workshops informed by the Conceptual Change Model. The findings reveal that during the course of the workshops, the participants changed their vision of their role as teachers from managers who deliver the curriculum and assess it, to observers and facilitators of learning who are interested in creatively engaging children. Furthermore, by the end of the workshops, participants reported being comfortable working with creativity and felt they could benefit the school by bridging a perceived gap in readiness to teach for creativity.
September 2014
All Recent Items
Multiculturalism & Diversity
Gaps or Bridges in Multicultural Teacher Education: A Q Study of Attitudes toward Student Diversity

Professional Development

Investigating Teacher Efficacy: Comparing Preservice and Inservice Teachers with Different Levels of Experience
Growing Effective CLD Teachers for Today's Classrooms of CLD Children

Instruction in Teacher Training

Integrating Physics and Literacy Learning in a Physics Course for Prospective Elementary and Middle School Teachers
Shifting Sands in the United Arab Emirates: Effecting Conceptual Change for Creativity in Early Childhood Teacher Education
Middle-Level Preservice Mathematics Teachers’ Mental Representations of Classroom Floor Plans
Negotiating Accountability during Student Teaching: The Influence of an Inquiry-Based Student Teaching Seminar
Cooperating Teacher Participation in Teacher Education: A Review of the Literature

Research Methods

The Secret between Storytelling and Retelling: Tea, School, & Narrative

Teacher Educators

Activating the Need to Know in Reading Instruction: One Teacher Educator's Practice
Teacher Educators' Perceptions and Use of Differentiated Instruction Practices: An Exploratory Investigation

Teacher Education Programs

Preparing Mathematics and Science Teachers through a Residency Program: Perceptions and Reflections

Preservice Teachers

Leveling the Field: Negotiating Positions of Power as a Preservice Teacher
Teaching in Rural Turkey: Pre-service Teacher Perspectives
Who Is Responsible for Vulnerable Pupils? The Attitudes of Teacher Candidates in Serbia and Slovenia
Mathematics Student Teachers’ Views on Tutor Feedback during Teaching Practice
Student Teacher Challenges: Using the Cognitive Load Theory as an Explanatory Lens

Beginning Teachers

Systematic Design of Blended PBL: Exploring the Design Experiences and Support Needs of PBL Novices in an Online Environment
Stories of Practitioner Enquiry: Using Narrative Interviews to Explore Teachers’ Perspectives of Learning to Learn
Beginning EFL Teachers’ Beliefs about Quality Questions and Their Questioning Practices
“Reality Shock”: New Early Childhood Education Teachers

Teaching Assessment

Teacher Efficacy: How Teachers Rate Themselves and How Students Rate Their Teachers
Contextualising Higher Education Assessment Task Words with An ‘Anti-Glossary’ Approach

ICT & Technology

Preservice Teachers’ Perceptions of Learning Science Methods through Hybridizing Asynchronous and Traditional Experiences
Navigating Access and Maintaining Established Practice: Social Studies Teachers' Technology Integration at Three Florida Middle Schools
The Components of Effective Teacher Training in the Use of Three-Dimensional Immersive Virtual Worlds for Learning and Instruction Purposes: A Literature Review

Theories & Approaches

College Students, Diversity, and Community Service Learning
Teaching to and Beyond the Test: The Influence of Mandated Accountability Testing in One Social Studies Teacher’s Classroom
Beyond the Walls: Conceptualizing Natural Environments as “Third Educators”

Trends in Teacher Education

Curriculum Development in Teacher Education: Process and Politics of the Redesign of an Undergraduate Middle-Grades Program
September 2014
 
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