Schools across Europe are experiencing a growing number of multilingual pupils; however, teachers claim to be generally underprepared for dealing with this ever-increasing linguistic and cultural ...diversity. Initial teacher education often pays insufficient attention to multilingualism, thus there is a call for research on what pre-service teachers learn about the topic during training. Against this background, this small-scale exploratory study sets out to explore pre-service primary teachers’ (a) views of multilingualism in education in general, (b) experiences of multilingualism in education as trainee teachers, and (c) self-perceived knowledge and skills acquired and developed during training, in the context of the Netherlands. Based on 195 survey responses, descriptive statistical analyses indicate that the sampled pre-service primary teachers have slightly positive views of multilingualism in education, specifically regarding their opinions on the role of multilingualism in education, focusing on school and home languages, and their tolerance of multilingualism in the classroom and at school. A qualitative content analysis reveals that several pre-service primary teachers have had general experiences of teaching pupils with migrant backgrounds, such as in transition classes (Dutch:
), and of teaching pupils who communicate with each other only in their home languages. Challenges in teaching multilingual pupils are also reported, such as the implications of being unable to understand pupils’ home languages. Regarding their self-perceived knowledge and skills, the content analysis shows that some pre-service primary teachers in this study are aware of how to encourage collaboration between multilingual pupils to involve their languages in their learning, and have knowledge of language comparison and awareness approaches that can be implemented in multilingual classrooms. A concerning finding, however, is that according to pre-service primary teachers’ self-reported communication skills for multilingual pupils, there is a tendency to use simplified language, which may have a negative impact on pupils’ language development. These findings highlight the need for further research that employs a mixed-methods longitudinal approach to gain insights into the depth of knowledge and skills acquired during training and how views of multilingualism in education influence classroom practices. This study further reveals shortcomings of primary teacher education in the Netherlands regarding the topic of multilingualism, which are followed up by preliminary recommendations for improving training programmes; for instance, training institutions should aim to collaborate with more multilingual schools where pre-service teachers can gain first-hand practical experience.
In Bangladesh, school grounds are usually barren areas devoid of any designed features. This study explored children's, teachers' and parents' views of what would constitute an effective school ...ground for learning, socialising and playing at primary schools in rural Bangladesh. Working within the theory of behaviour settings to design school grounds, several methods were applied: focus groups with children, teachers and parents, a drawing session with children and a child-led/teacher supported model-making workshop. The results suggest that children want to connect with nature, to explore their environment, to challenge themselves, to be physically active and to socialise with friends. They also wanted their school ground to be more attractive. The parents highly valued gardening whereas teachers preferred an area with loose materials where the children could learn by themselves. None of these ideas were mutually exclusive and the subsequent design was able to incorporate elements from all groups.
Teachers' views about information and communication technology are a key affordance or barrier to classroom technology adoption and use. However, in determining factors that impact these views, much ...research has relied on variable-centered approaches that bifurcated teachers' views into mere positive or negative groups. Such approaches oversimplify key information that could serve educational authorities attempting to address low technology integration in schools. Therefore, this large-scale study employed a latent profile analysis with multilevel logistic regression analysis that aimed to (1) identify profiles of teachers' views of information and communication technologies for teaching and learning and (2) explore effects from teacher- and school-level variables on these profiles. Utilizing nationally generalizable data from 2079 full-time eighth-grade teachers from 150 different schools across South Korea from the International Computer and Information literacy study 2018, the analysis revealed five profiles of teachers' views: Indifferent, Skeptical, Ambivalent, Moderate, and Enthusiastic, with Moderate being the largest, and Highly Ambivalent and Indifferent the smallest. The findings from multilevel logistic regression analysis indicated numerous effects from teacher- and school-level antecedents and processes that matched each profile, highlighting school leaders’ ICT views. Notably, there were no effects from regional differences. Implications for leaders and policymakers are discussed in the context of professional development and reform policies.
•Profiles were: Enthusiastic, Skeptical, Moderate, Ambivalent, and Indifferent.•Positive views connected to ICT resources and collaboration.•Male and younger teachers were more likely to have positive views.•Professional development connected to lower negative views in the Skeptical profile.•Regional differences did not affect teachers' views, but principals' views did.
Indonesian students’ poor performance in the mathematics test of PISA 2015 prompted the decision by the Ministry of Education of Indonesia to pay more attention to the integration of higher-order ...thinking (HOT) in the curricula starting in 2018. This new regulation emphasizes the need to have a shared understanding of HOT in mathematics on many levels, such as curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment, and among students, teachers and policy makers. This study aims to examine HOT in Indonesian lower secondary mathematics classrooms by assessing students’ ability to demonstrate HOT skills through an open-ended mathematics problem, and by exploring teachers’ views of HOT skills through semi-structured interviews. It involved 372 ninth-grade students and six mathematics teachers from six lower secondary schools in Jakarta and Palembang. The findings show that most students could construct the mathematical model but experienced difficulty in transferring knowledge into new contexts, in applying creative thinking, and with information literacy skills. Besides, some of the teachers were familiar with the concept of HOT, but some viewed HOT as skills for talented students, or HOT problems having a high level of difficulty and long storylines. The knowledge of existing teaching strategies, familiarity with HOT problems, and colleague-support are needed to improve the development of HOT skills in the mathematics classroom.
Musical activities foster children's social ability. However, the question remains whether professional music teachers consider musical training to have an influence on extra-musical abilities or ...only on the acquisition of musical skills. We conducted an online survey to collect open-ended responses regarding this question from over 2,000 music teachers in one of the biggest extracurricular fee-charging music school groups in Japan. Teachers' free descriptions were classified into non-cognitive skills, and frequently occurring words were extracted through text mining. The results showed that, although the primary goal of music teachers who provide fee-charging lessons may be to teach musical skills to their students, they were aware of the effects of music lessons on children's non-cognitive development. Our study's main findings include: (1) despite free-descriptions, 92% of teachers reported that children acquired extra-musical abilities, and 98% of these responses were categorized as non-cognitive skills, (2) the most common responses within non-cognitive skills were "collaboration," "task performance," and "engaging with others", and (3) there was a significant positive correlation between teaching experience and frequency of mentioning non-cognitive skills. Views on extra-musical abilities, which experienced music teachers especially had, may improve less-experienced teachers' perspectives on teaching as well as their social roles and occupational awareness.
Being mainly a process of knowledge transmission, mathematics education evolves during time in accordance with the strong assumptions and beliefs which are considered as parts of the mathematics ...teaching profession. This suggests that explaining the problem-solving process, transmitting the clear and flawless information, and showing the problem-solving procedures, were parts of the role the mathematics teachers have. The main purpose of this study was to compare the mathematical teaching experiences based on the problem-solving approach among the Iranian and Iraq mathematics educators. Through survey method, views of secondary teachers of mathematics are studied. It is used of questionnaire that is proposed by Matlala's (2015). The validity and reliability has been proved by researcher using Cronbach's alpha method with a value more 0/89 This questionnaire was designed with the purpose of identifying challenges and opportunities that every individual encounter with in the way of using a problem-solving approach to facilitate mathematics learning. The statistical population of the study included all the secondary school math teachers in Iran and Iraq. Using the simple random sampling method, 16 secondary school math teachers from the Republic of Iraq (from its capital:Kurdistan) and 14 secondary school math teachers from the Islamic Republic of Iran (from its capital: Tehran) were selected. The use of an electronic questionnaire, was sent to in-service teachers during the school year 2018-2019. findings indicated that Iranian and Iraq teachers' view regard to the implementation of problem solving procedure were positive and they have applied problem solving procedure in their math classes.
One approach to enhancing the pedagogy of science education is to employ academics who are not only science-trained but also engaged in education research. As some academics begin their Scholarship ...of Teaching and Learning research careers with a pure science background, shifting in disciplinary perspectives can be a source of professional tension. The pedagogic frailty model provides a framework that helps us to integrate institutional efforts to enhance teaching improvements by maintaining a simultaneous focus on critical areas that are thought to impede academic development.
This paper draws attention to the importance of disciplinary crossover by uncovering and comparing academics' teaching perspectives, views and beliefs from three disciplines: natural science (chemistry), social science (education) and science education.
Through a case study design using the pedagogic frailty model and concept map-mediated interviews as a tool, three academics engaged in a non-linear discourse in which their conceptions could be visualised and analysed.
Analysis of the case study interviews indicated that the academics' conceptions of teaching were highly individualised. The discourse surrounding the curriculum, and the embeddedness of and connection between pedagogy and discipline, were both subject-sensitive and influenced by professional backgrounds and research areas. On the other hand, because they operated under the same institutional values and regulations, we found a considerable overlap in terms of how the academics perceived the tensions between research and teaching and academic leadership. By comparing three academics who were at a different stage in the journey from disciplinary experts (chemistry) to teaching expert (education), we were able to uncover and understand more about the ways that the teaching environment impacted upon their practices. The science educator shared aspects of the other two perspectives, which suggests that his profile was a transitory state in comparison with the chemist and the educationist.
The findings provide a glimpse of the distinctive nature of the values that underpin teaching and offer insights that can be used to promote dialogue about quality enhancement in science education.
The study sought to establish teachers’ views about scientific inquiry in teaching genetics whilst addressing socio-scientific issues (SSIs). The argument was if teachers do not fully understand the ...holistic nature of scientific inquiry, it prevents them from using SSIs effectively to facilitate learners’ understanding of abstract concepts. The study focused on genetics as a topic with SSIs and with abstract concepts difficult to present in concrete materials. Therefore, the paper aimed to learn about Life Sciences teachers’ view in using scientific inquiry in teaching genetics whilst addressing socio-scientific issues. In an explanatory sequential mixed method research design, two questionnaires were administered to 100 Life Sciences teachers, to seek their views about scientific inquiry and understanding of socio-scientific issues respectively. Interviews were administered only to six teachers whose responses based on the analysis of data from questionnaires, were considered as informed, partially informed and naïve views. Lesson plans for selected teachers were analysed. The findings showed that the teachers were aware and appreciative of the inquiry-based approaches and socio-scientific issues embedded in genetics. The teachers however required extensive knowledge and skills on the procedures of inquiry that have to be employed when addressing socio-scientific in genetics. These findings inform teachers and teacher professional development programmes on the importance of context as the source of socio-scientific issues that tend to impact on learner understanding of concepts in topics such as genetics.
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