Self-Study Research: Modelling graduating teacher standards for pre-service teachersChris North Lindsey Conner Ronnie Davey

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. Chris- Junior Outdoor and Environmental Education2. Lindsey- Senior Biology3. Ronnie- Senior English

Negotiating content, pedagogy and responsibility

Methods:Chris• Audio reflections and journal• Recordings of lessons• Student interviews and focus groupLindsey• Student assessment task• Students’ reflections in e-portfoliosRonnie• 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?

1. The hard workers2. The tent hiders and slackers3. The suspicious case of the splashers

Student Planning time

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.

One really good thing about it is that it is

ongoing (beyond the course).

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.

Myportfolio is “data kind” in that you can

embed links and videos.

It’s a good way to get feedback.

I liked the structure with groups, personal page, you

could share pages or it (pages) could be made

private.

I agree with having the reflections all in

one place ..

Students tended to comment mostly on pedagogy and resourcesSecond 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.

Key findings to inform my practice

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?