New Directions in Teaching
Professional Course on Primary Teachers’ PCK Development within Inquiry Learning Approaches
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Maria Chaitidou, Anna Spyrtou, Catherine Dimitriadou, Petros Kariotoglou
This research focuses on the development of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) in four primary teachers during a professional learning course. The course consists of two parts: a) a theoretical framework, concerning the explicit introduction of PCK in inquiry-based learning, and the teachers' engagement in a Teaching-Learning Sequence (TLS) concerning Material Science; a practical phase during which teachers designed and implemented their own TLS in real classrooms. We assume that if the teachers are explicitly familiarized with the PCK components, namely Pedagogical Knowledge, Content Knowledge and Context Knowledge, and if they reflect on their own PCK along with the implementation of the aforementioned TLS, then their PCK will be developed towards the use of multiple inquiry learning environments in their teaching practices. Educational material for the explicit PCK introduction was developed consisting of worksheets, reflective tasks, Power Point transparencies and a teacher’s guide. Data were collected by the use of tools such as Content Representations (CoReS), semi-structured interviews, classroom observations and the researcher’s notes. Content Analysis was employed in the data analysis procedure. Results indicated that teachers fruitfully designed and implemented inquiry approaches such as modeling and using tools to gather, analyze and interpret data.
Teacher Emotion: A Key Component of Education
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Hanwei Cheng
Teachers’ emotion is a double edged sword—it can either prompt teaching activities or do harm to it, and it is therefore important for us to explore this issue and ensure emotion is applied appropriately in daily teaching practice. Based on literature review as well as author’s personal experience, this research examines the ways teachers’ emotion influence students, teachers and the teaching practice as a whole. As it turns out, teachers’ emotion is closely related to a variety of issues such as teachers’ job burnout, and the emotion itself is influenced by various factors under the teaching context. Possible solutions to solving teachers’ emotional problems, as well as potential methods of putting emotion to good use, are proposed according to the findings.
Towards Understanding the Language of Reflection
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Yulia Muchnik Rozanov
Constant search for the best training methods raising the competence of novice teachers has always been a central issue in pedagogical discourse, and the analysis of student-teachers’ reflective reports may point at particular methods and practices that tend to cause novice teachers’ professional growth. Extensive research has employed open content analysis methodology to scrutinize students’ reflective reports in order help their mentors optimize the training process. However, the open content analysis approach might sometimes overlook implicitly conveyed concerns and anxiety that novice teachers tend to feel and may as well be insufficient to follow complicated processes, such as identity shaping or professional empowerment. The current study suggests a range of linguistic markers to be observed throughout the students’ reflective reports that could indicate the areas requiring mentors’ particular attention in order to enhance the students’ professional growth and empowerment. The proposed and further particularized Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL)-based methodology has been applied to the analysis of the reflective reports by the first-year students in the science teaching track of one of the teaching colleges in Israel. Three case studies have been analyzed emerging distinctive linguistic markers that point at internalization of the material taught, the process of identity change, and the student-teachers’ positioning. We believe that the suggested methodology may serve as a supplementary but effective means of identifying the crucial issues in the students’ training process.
