Self-Study Research: Modelling graduating
teacher standards for pre-service teachers
Session overview
Graduating Teacher Standards- critiqued as knowledge separate from practice,
calls for adaptive expertise (Aitken, Sinnema and Meyer, 2013)
Open- mindedness is a form of intellectual humility, a recognition of our
fallibility
(Spiegel, 2012)
Discernment entails understanding how and why we connect with certain ideas
and perspectives rather than others (Long, 1995)
Three Vignettes
Context:
University of Canterbury, Christchurch, NZ
Initial Teacher Education for secondary schools
1.
2.
3.
Chris- Junior Outdoor and Environmental Education
Lindsey- Senior Biology
Ronnie- Senior English
Negotiating content, pedagogy and responsibility
Methods:
Chris
• Audio reflections and journal
• Recordings of lessons
• Student interviews and focus group
Lindsey
• Student assessment task
• Students’ reflections in e-portfolios
Ronnie
• Recorded professional conversations
• Journal
Chris’ Self Study- handing over in outdoor and environmental education
How do student teachers respond to my ‘handing over’ in an outdoor camp?
How do I hand over yet provide sufficient
structure?
Student Planning time
1. The hard workers
2. The tent hiders and slackers
3. The suspicious case of the splashers
Student in the ‘suspicious splashers’:
Like when were out swimming before like we
were actually … we were talking about what
were going to do. …we weren’t just being
dicks the complete whole time..
Key findings to inform my practice
It is the boundary cases that define my teaching,
what am I prepared to accept and when do I
intervene and provide structure?
2 Groups did not present me with challenges, my
course of action was clear.
The group in the water challenged me because it was
a different way of planning and despite my
articulated position, I felt discomfort.
Lindsey’s vignette
Focus was on how I could use students’ reflections in
their e-portfolios to inform my teaching
Biology teacher education course for secondary
teachers.
Two iterations of course
Student K: We as teachers need to
address this issue and start making steps
towards incorporating more hands on
tasks in lessons. In biology this doesn't
necessarily mean we have to start doing
more dissections or bacterial streaking.
What it means is that we have to start
taking different approaches to
presenting the same material.
Student O: This exercise involved pairing up with another
student teacher to “wing it” as each of us we were filmed
individually presenting what we knew about a skeleton (prop)
as if doing a presentation to a class of students.
It was hilarious to say the least and a lot of fun with (for me
anyway) an on the spot realization of how we need to read and
know what we are talking about before jumping in front of a
class unprepared. When viewing the video footage,
despite thinking I had put on an air of confidence (faked it), I
saw how I looked when I didn’t know what I was talking about,
my facial expressions gave it away and it was so obvious that I
didn’t know what I was talking about in any great depth and just
“winging it”….
It motivated me to read well about topics and look for
interesting content to give me more confidence to teach and
talk about the lesson content with genuine enthusiasm.
It’s a good way to
get feedback.
One really good thing
about it is that it is
ongoing (beyond the
course).
I agree with having
the reflections all in
one place ..
I liked the structure with
groups, personal page, you
could share pages or it
(pages) could be made
private.
Myportfolio is “data
kind” in that you can
embed links and
videos.
It encourages us to
share our resources
more easily
You can edit things. You know
compared with “dropbox” where
once you hand things in, it’s
gone.
Key findings to inform my practice
Students tended to comment mostly on pedagogy and
resources
Second class - not much difference in terms of what students
reflected on therefore this was not a good indicator of student
outcome changes.
The initiation of the online student quiz linked to main
outcomes for the course showed some shifts in terms of
preparedness pre and post course completion. These shifts can
be compared from year to year.
In a small class, students’ concerns can be listened to and
addressed relatively easily.
Ronnie’s Puzzle of Practice
“Stepping up: stepping
back”
Where there’s Will but “no
way!”
• Deliberately co-constructing the
final block of a year long course –
after Final Placement
• Negotiating content, pedagogy
and responsibility
Negotiating the tensions:
• pragmatism vs autonomy
• accountability vs responsibility
• pre-construction vs co-construction
Conclusions
What is the role of student voice?
Tension for teacher educators between being open-minded and discerning.
Is co-construction authentic in a neo-liberal environment?
What evidence is there of changed practice?