Connecting Theory and Practice

The 21st century has emerged as an era of accountability and standardisation for the teaching profession (Mikulec & Miller, 2012). The current research is comprised of 4 interrelated empirical studies which measure and explore individual differences in perceptions of teacher-student boundaries in the secondary school context from an ethical perspective. This research is timely given it has been 8 years since the Teacher Code of Conduct was introduced in Victoria (The Institute, 2008). While the relationship between teachers and their students has been recognised as a powerful contributor to learning, engagement, and development, the professional limitations of teacher-student interactions have been relatively unexplored. Further, technological advances in the last decade have created new environments that potentially expose teachers to new possibilities and vulnerabilities such as Social Networking Sites (SNS). Within a contingency framework for ethical decision-making (Ferrell & Gresham, 1985) the current research employs a mixed-methods approach and a cross-sectional design. Participants were preservice secondary teachers (N = 288) enrolled at a Victorian university and early career secondary teachers (N = 227) registered in Victoria. All participants completed a questionnaire during class time (preservice) or online (early career) which took approximately 40 minutes. In the absence of a measure of attitudes towards teacher-student interactions and behaviours, the Professional Interactions and Behaviours Scale (PIBS) was developed and validated in Study A. Based upon the Victorian Teacher Code of Conduct, (The Institute, 2008), 5 types of teacher-student interactions were educed from the items; emotional support, physical support, teacher disclosure, connectivity, and befriending. Although average endorsement was modest, early career teachers reported higher endorsement of teacher disclosure and preservice teachers provided greater approval of connectivity and befriending. An opportune international collaboration enabled further comparisons with preservice secondary teachers in Norway (N = 227), who demonstrated greater endorsement of the provision of physical support to students than Victorian preservice teachers. Differences in reported ethical training provided during teacher education are also noted and considered as a context for the development of attitudes toward professional behaviour. Utilising a person-centred approach, Study B explored profiles of trait-like characteristics among the Victorian preservice teachers through cluster analysis. This study proposed that individual differences in personality (Mc Crae & Costa, 2003) and attachment style as defined by Bartholomew (1990) may relate to other personal characteristics such as the need for popularity, domains of contingent self-worth and perceptions of professional behaviour as measured by the PIBS. Preservice teachers described as “responsive resilient” in personality were more likely than “curious & sensitive ambiverts” to endorse teacher provision of emotional support to students. Further, securely attached individuals were more likely to endorse the provision of physical support than dismissive individuals. Study C utilised a mixed-methods approach to explore profiles of teacher-student interactions styles in early career secondary teachers and their responses to ethical dilemmas relating to teacher-student boundaries. Four profiles emerged; “sparing investors”, “reserved professionals”, “relational enthusiasts”, and “supportive ambitious” and in terms of interpersonal goals, professional expectancies and values, burnout, career satisfaction and career aspirations. Few quantitative differences were observed between profiles in terms of ethical decision-making, yet thematic analysis highlighted contextual considerations and protective behaviours as key considerations of early career teachers. Study D explored current and prospective social networking behaviour and found both preservice and early career teachers were highly engaged with SNS, with preservice teachers reporting greater usage. Almost half of participants in both the preservice and early career samples reported negative experiences as a result of online social networking such as bullying or workplace issues. In relation to connecting with students, early career teachers were more likely to accept a friend request from a past student than preservice teachers. Taken together, these studies explore individual differences in teacher-student boundaries as they are perceived by preservice and early career teachers in Victoria. The PIBS is presented as a valid contemporary measure of perceptions towards teacher-student interactions, and differences of experience and culture considered. Implications of the findings are considered in relation to teacher selection processes, the ethics curriculum in teacher education, and regulation of the teaching profession in Australia.

Becoming a teacher of English language requires both knowledge of theory and practice. Teacher candidates at the faculties of education in BA programs in Turkey practice teaching through observing real classrooms and doing micro-teachings in real schools during their four-year teacher training. This study was conducted at a foundation university in Turkey, in which senior pre-service teachers, before they enter the teaching profession and become novice teachers, go and experience teaching to fulfill the requirements of the practicum (school experience course) in their last semester. This course requires them to observe three different levels of classroom in real schools, write reflective papers, prepare lesson plans and practice teaching. The transition from pre-service to novice teacher can be facilitated via successful practicum programs offered by the faculties of education in Turkey. The impact of practicum tends to result in either entry into teaching or teacher retention. The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the effects of this program on students’ decisions on entry into the profession. The data were collected in two stages: Before and after the practicum. At the beginning of the last semester, before they go practicum, five pre-service EFL teachers were asked the reasons for choosing teacher education programs, and their concerns related to practicum and the profession through an in-depth semi-controlled interview. Those pre-service teachers were also interviewed on the same topics at the end of the semester, after practicum. Results indicated that practicum or school experience has contributed positively to their perceptions regarding their entry into teaching because almost all of them wanted to enter teaching at the end of the program, and they are in-service teachers now. These findings suggest that teacher education courses should aim to develop students’ practical knowledge, and the relationship among the mentor teacher, the supervisor, and the student teacher should be valued and supported more in teacher education programs.

What is quality in teacher education, why is it so elusive, and what are the major challenges? We begin with issues that illustrate the sheer complexity of the concept of quality when considered in the context of initial teacher education. Three fundamental challenges to achieving quality in teacher education are examined: the problem of the apprenticeship of observation, the problem of enactment and the problem of complexity. We then identify three additional challenges: dissonance and drift, resistance as a barrier to quality, and cultural barriers to achieving quality. The argument continues with a focus on quality as it may be perceived by the four major players: teacher candidate, mentor teacher, faculty supervisor and teacher educator. Each plays a significant and significantly different role in a program of teacher education. The four different roles lead to at least four different interpretations of the meaning of quality in initial teacher education. We continue our argument by presenting the voices of a number of individuals who have spoken directly to the issue of quality or excellence in programs of teacher education. Finally, we explore perspectives that could help to achieve greater quality in programs of teacher education: listening to those learning to teach, searching for quality learning, fostering metacognition and learning from experience, promoting knowledge integration, and connecting epistemology to the challenge of quality.

Recent challenges concerning the quality of teachers and the programs that prepare them have resulted in responses from professional organizations that have been more widespread and intense than in the past (Robinson, 2011; Wiseman, 2012). The Blue Ribbon Panel on Clinical Preparation (BRP) formed by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), the merger of NCATE and Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC) into Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) to improve teacher education (Cibulka, 2011), and the Teacher Performance Assessment Initiative which emerged from collaboration between the Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT), the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), and American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) member institutions (Robinson, 2011) are examples of ways that professional organizations have responded to the challenges. In general, calls for performance assessments of teaching to provide both formative and summative information about the quality of teachers, teacher candidates, and teacher preparation programs pervade the current discourse on education at every level, including schools and districts, institutions of higher education, state and national policymaking entities, and professional organizations. As a result, a number of performance assessments have emerged that can provide feedback to teacher education programs about the strengths and weaknesses of their candidates as well as evidence for licensure and certification of teachers. For example, Education Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) was designed to provide information for program improvement through the use of a common set of performance assessments for preservice teachers and has also been adopted by states and districts for summative evaluation purposes (http://edtpa.aacte.org/). The multiple performance measures in systems like edTPA improve upon value added models (VAM) by providing information on teaching quality, not just teacher quality or teacher effectiveness, and provide information sooner than might be accomplished by use of VAM alone (Newton, 2010). For this theme issue, we invited research and conceptual articles related to teacher performance assessments specifically as they affect teacher education, including validation studies of measures used in the assessments. We posed a series of questions that we considered important for researchers to address related to performance assessments, including the following: What are the relationships between current performance assessments and teacher education, either conceptually or in terms of outcomes? What do we know about the use of performance assessments in the context of teacher education, and what do we need to know? How do performance assessments of teachers in schools map onto assessment of teacher education programs, or how don't they? What differences may exist across novice teachers and expert teachers with respect to performance assessment, and how does that impact their professional learning? What are the implications of the relationships between for-profit companies, university teacher education programs, researchers, states, and professional organizations with respect to performance assessments of teachers? What is the relationship between assessment criteria and the research on teaching and learning, and what are its implications for teacher education? How do states make decisions to move to statewide teacher assessment systems? What potential conflicts of interest may exist among various stakeholders in performance assessment efforts? How do policies related to performance assessment of teachers affect opportunities for teacher learning? What can we learn from the history of past efforts to evaluate beginning teachers? What is different this time? What do we know about the validity and reliability of performance assessments and why does this matter? …

This study investigated teacher candidates’ perceptions of 21st-century competencies, compared the perceptions among teacher candidates from different majors and academic achievement levels, examined the relationship between teacher candidates’ perceptions of the competencies and their learning achievement, and determined approaches to enhance such competencies. A survey was conducted among 250 teacher candidates from 13 different majors, and six university lecturers were interviewed in an open-admission university in Thailand. The results revealed that the teacher candidates realized the high importance of 21st-century competencies regarding the role of teachers as facilitators, learning management skills, technology and media literacy skills, morality and professional ethics, assessment and evaluation, knowledge and understanding of the social context, communication skills, and research skills. Teacher candidates from different majors and with varied academic achievement levels had the same perceptions of 21st-century competencies in all but two areas: knowledge and understanding of the social context and communication skills. Furthermore, no relationship was found between teacher andidates’ perceptions of the competencies and their academic achievement. The results suggest that faculty and other related organizations must realize the importance of developing teacher candidates’ 21st-century competencies by creating efficient, high-quality programs, to prepare them for a successful career path

The aim of this study was to learn the opinion of the teacher candidates who study pedagogical formation in Karabuk University in 2016-2017 teaching session, as well as mentor teachers and coordinators who lead them during the teaching practices at schools. This research study is mainly based on qualitative techniques. Working group of this study is composed of 155 teacher candidates, 56 mentor teachers and 16 coordinators. Three open-ended questions were given to the teacher candidates, mentors and coordinators for collection of data. The data were evaluated as in the mean of content analysis. According to the findings, teacher candidates expressed that “mentor teachers and coordinators at schools of implementation had a positive and supportive attitude towards them” while some of the candidates were expressing that “mentor teachers are not supportive.” Mentor teachers and coordinators found teacher candidates’ attitudes positive and refined. Mentor teachers and coordinators mentioned negative references about teacher candidates. They said that teacher candidates didn’t use proper teaching methods, techniques and materials when the teacher candidates are teaching, and failed to manage and maintain classroom atmosphere and the intended lesson time. It is considerable that teacher candidates had also mentioned that “they were doing the same mistakes what their coordinators and teachers determined.” As a result, teaching practice schedules should be well arranged in the way of cooperation between the University and the National Ministry of education, which was suggested to the authorities in the Turkish Higher Education Board.

Autoethnography, a qualitative research methodology that investigates aspects of individuals' identities, ideologies, and emotions, has recently gained traction in applied linguistics and second language (L2) scholarship. However, research is needed that investigates the use of autoethnography in preservice teacher education programs, along with exploring the connections between individuals' autoethnographies and actual pedagogical practices. The current study explores such issues by implementing a critical autoethnographic narrative assignment in a master's TESOL course for teacher candidates (TCs). Eight TCs completed two installments of a critical autoethnographic narrative, reflecting on their prior L2 learning and teaching/tutoring experiences. After completing various course assignments (e.g., textbook review, lesson plans), TCs then produced a final multimodal reflection, examining how their experiences influenced their pedagogies. TCs' narratives and reflections were thematically analyzed to examine 1) shared identities, ideologies, and challenges faced, and 2) explicit connections TCs made between their experiences and pedagogies. The findings of this study point to multiple shared ideologies and challenges among the TCs. Some preservice teachers were also able to link aspects of their identities and ideologies to specific curricular design practices. Implications are discussed for L2 teacher educators in terms of leveraging autoethnography for fostering reflective practices.

Objective: The purpose of this study is to explore the emotional experiences of EFL teacher candidates during practicum, as well as the factors that influence their positive and negative feelings and the coping strategies within the concern of sustainable development goals (SDGs). Theoretical Framework: Teachers’ emotions can be uncovered through a variety of theoretical perspectives. In this study, positive psychology was adopted as a theoretical lens for understanding and analyzing emotional experiences and emotions of teacher candidates. Method: The present study, which intends to investigate EFL teacher candidates’ emotional experiences during practicum in addition to uncovering the factors affecting their positive and negative emotions and coping strategies that they utilize in the face of any adverse or unpleasant situations while practicing their teaching, adopted a qualitative research study as the research design. To achieve the purpose of the study, data were collected through open-ended interview forms and reflection papers. Results and Discussion: Research findings reveal that participating teacher candidates experienced both positive and negative emotions during their teaching practices. Such emotions were mostly triggered by teacher candidates’ lack of practices, their dilemmas, teaching context, supervisor, and mentor roles. Moreover, findings indicate that teacher candidates employ several strategies to regulate their emotions during practicum. In this sense, teacher candidates’ emotional stories and coping strategies that they applied in the face of negative experiences are crucial on their wellbeing and problem-solving skills as well as identity construction, which in turn ensures sustainability in teacher education. Research Implications: Teacher educators as supervisors and mentor teachers at practicum schools need to consider that teacher candidates experience emotional ups and downs, and such emotional experiences affect their teaching performances as well as their teacher identity construction.

In this paper the written feedback provided by mentor teachers using a new assessment model for preservice teacher professional experience deployed in the Australian Capital Territory and based on the Australian National Standards for Teachers is analysed. The analysis reveals mentor teachers hold a pervasive theory-in-use in regards to the needs of beginning teachers that may restrict the developmental ambition of the assessment model. The restricted vision of what is important for beginning teachers held by mentor teachers is possibly a reaction to continual change within school education. The analysis is preceded by a description of the ‘Professional Conversations’ model for mentoring preservice and early career teachers.

Despite decades of curricular change and the introduction of language pedagogies emphasising meaning and communication, teachers of English in Chilean schools still tend to favour traditional methods and focus largely on discrete language. Using data from stimulated recalls, interviews and observations with preservice teachers, interviews with teacher educators and schoolteachers and analysis of official documents and materials, the article explores the design of materials by a group of Chilean preservice teachers and identifies why one of the main rationales mediating their materials design is subordinating topics, the content‐related themes guiding lessons, such as culture, historical characters and lifestyles, to discrete language. The preservice teachers' beliefs, their mentoring teachers and contradictions within the national curriculum emerged as pivotal factors reinforcing this phenomenon. Data also suggests that the ways in which teacher education standards are adopted by their teacher education programme could reinforce this subordination of topics, notwithstanding the standards' communicative orientation. The article stresses the need to provide more materials development instruction in teacher education, it highlights the need to re‐evaluate how the standardisation of teacher education is adopted by teacher education institutions and shows that researching materials design can illuminate persisting issues in language education.

Background: In a published 2016 report, it was estimated that approximately 80% of public-school teachers identified as White (United States Department of Education 2016). The duality of the issue is that the diversity of the teacher workforce has improved since 1990 but lags in comparison to the increasing diversity of the student population [Gumber, C., and J. Beckhusen. 2022. “U.S. Teachers More Diverse but Still Lag Student Racial, Ethnic Makeup”. United States Census Bureau, January 5. Accessed August 12, 2022. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/01/nations-teachers-more-diverse-but-still-lag-racial-ethnic-makeup-of-students.html.]. The discrepancy that exists in racial or ethnic diversity between teachers and students has been termed a cultural gap [Muschell, L. H., and H. M. Roberts. 2011. “Bridging the Cultural Gap: One Teacher Education Program’s Response to Preparing Culturally Responsive Teachers.” Childhood Education 87 (5): 337–340. https://doi.org/10.1080/00094056.2011.10523209]. The value proposition for a teacher workforce that mirrors society is hard to dispute. In the broadest sense, members of the education sector must coordinate efforts to recruit and retain culturally diverse teachers. While these efforts are critical, progress will likely be carried out over a longer period of time. Thus, adequately preparing current and future teachers to bridge the cultural gap is essential. Purpose: Intercultural competence (ICC) is an increasingly relevant topic for teacher preparation programs. To date, there remains a relative dearth of research on strategies that physical education teacher education (PETE) programs can use to promote ICC among teacher candidates (TCs). This study aimed to explore a yearlong curriculum strand’s impact on promoting ICC development in TCs. Methods: A mixed methods research design involving quantitative and qualitative data collection was employed. The quantitative measure was the Intercultural Development Inventory®. Qualitative measures consisted of journal entries and semi-structured interviews. Datasets were then merged to generate mixed-data narratives. Participants included 29 TCs enrolled at a mid-Atlantic University. Findings: Analyses revealed that the curriculum strand did not promote significant change in teacher candidates’ ICC levels quantitatively. Researchers used the constant comparison method to interpret the mixed data narratives. Analyses of the mixed data narratives revealed four emergent themes: (a) experience with cultural diversity; (b) confidence to teach culturally diverse students; (c) making sense of ICC; and (d) reflection on action. Conclusions: Participant data suggests that ICC is a topic that TCs value but may be lacking in their practical, applied understanding of working across cultural differences. Implications and future research on promoting ICC among physical education TCs are discussed. To our knowledge, this study will be the first application of the IDI® to explore change following physical education TCs’ participation in a yearlong curriculum strand focused on promoting ICC.

This narrative inquiry explores the experiences of LGBTQ+ teacher candidates of color in a teacher education program. Composed of vignettes written by teacher candidates and narrative analysis to frame the significance of and contexts within which the vignettes were written, this study first offers insight into the ways teacher candidates understand their own intersecting identities, with specific attention given to how events within and outside the walls of the teacher education program shaped these understandings. The faculty response to the teacher candidates’ vignettes is then shared, revealing how the perceived credibility of the teacher candidates’ vignettes by teacher education faculty limited or expanded the teacher candidates’ ability to engage their intersecting identities in the work of teaching and learning.

Purpose – This chapter explores letter writing as a narrative inquiry method in a teacher education course. The written dialog in letters by teacher candidates provided the author with deep and long-term reflection on teacher candidates' narratives of experience. In particular, the chapter examines how related literacy narratives combine critical written dialog with the written responses and counter-narratives of peers and a teacher educator.Methodology and findings – The chapter focuses on letter correspondences from three teacher candidate participants in a longitudinal study as well as response letters to those candidates from the teacher educator. Transactional inquiry and relational knowing are conceptualizations that are employed to explore how the teacher candidates and the teacher educator are curriculum makers.Value – The chapter discusses the impact of letter writing-related literacy narratives as a narrative inquiry method in teacher education programs as well as possible extensions for their use in graduate courses/research and for teacher development programs.

Diversity, equity, and justice are vital focuses in teacher education programs and research. Yet, studies show that as children and families interact with schools their lives are often ignored, silenced, or used to define them as deficit. This paper inquires into the interactions between early career teachers, children, and families. Using a semi-structured interview protocol, we explored the personal and professional situations 20 early career teachers described as shaping the knowledge they draw on in their interactions with families. Thinking narratively with the stories shared by one teacher, we explore the potential of familial and school curriculum-making worlds in teacher education and ways these understandings may open spaces and conversations that strengthen the interactions between early career teachers and families.

This article examines the accounts of actions undertaken by Early Career Teachers (ECTs) recently graduated from a social justice-oriented Initial Teacher Education (ITE) program and employed in complex school settings with high levels of student diversity, disadvantage, and poverty. The study drew on theories of teacher agency and agency more broadly to examine the workshadowing observations of the teachers’ practice in classrooms augmented by their reflective accounts in interviews. The study found that the ECTs’ agency, or contextualised social action, can be conceptualised as temporally embedded social engagement directed at addressing their students’ cultural, social and academic needs. The teachers drew on past learnings from their ITE program, committed to future-oriented innovations in teaching, and made in-the-present decisions about actions to resolve emergent contingencies such as resource shortages. We argue that these understandings are usefully enhanced by recognising contingency, consciousness, criticality and creativity as additional features of the teachers’ deliberative programs of action.