Suchergebnisse

The world of work and occupations are changing rapidly as globalisation and digitalisation make headway. Today the occupation and its necessary competence requirements stopped being acquired once and forever. Modern professions become dynamic, should constantly reinvent themselves and be maintained by upgrading the competence. Consequently, the pedagogical competence of HEI teachers must also meet the new requirements, and the teachers should continuously widen the scope of their interests. Professional teacher training in Finland is internationally acknowledged thanks to high professionalism of instructors and due to the fact that training is based on research. The article analyses the scientific foundation of professional teacher training in Finland, its implementation and relationship with the changing world of work drawing on the example of the curriculum of HAMK University of Applied Sciences. The analysis of the curriculum shows that pedagogical studies for in-work learners meet the requirement of dynamism. They require involvement and active participation of the learners in the teaching process and its implementation receives positive student feedback.. The curriculum focuses on developing the teacher's work and provides an idealistic view on what it is to work as a teacher. A strive for continuous professional growth stems from pedagogical competence.

There has been a paradigm shift globally regarding the adoption of inclusive education policies and procedures. However, teachers still have varying views, anxieties, and preconceive misconceptions about the successful implementation of inclusive education practices in the general education classroom. This study utilized a qualitative approach to provide an informative exploration of teachers' attitudes toward inclusive education and its implementation, possible factors that influence teachers' attitude, and recommendations for promoting best practices in inclusive education. Data was collected utilizing semi-structured interviews from eight teachers throughout the New Providence District in the Bahamas. The results of the study revealed that teachers generally had positive attitudes toward inclusion. However, lack of funding, administrative support and minimal opportunities for training and development were identified as negative influential factors regarding teachers' attitude towards inclusive education.

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Parent–school engagement has become a goal of education policy reforms around the world and is seen as a critical factor in children's educational success. While the factors that impact on parent–school engagement are complex and varied, there is widespread acknowledgement that teachers play a significant role in the relationships between home and school. Teachers' views, attitudes and beliefs about working with parents and the extent to which they enter the profession well prepared for working with parents ultimately contribute to their experiences of working with them. This article considers international research perspectives on the ways that teachers are prepared in initial teacher education for working with parents, as well as teacher views and experiences. The article argues that the success of parent engagement in policy and practice requires better understandings of how the education profession currently manages and potentially could manage relationships between home and school. Findings suggest the need for international comparative research that maps educational policies promoting parent–school engagement, that identifies the preparation of teachers for working with parents and their professional development needs regarding this, and that takes teacher perspectives on working with parents more fully into account.

This article presents the results from a qualitative research study that explores the experiences of nine high school teachers with some of the common themes in critical pedagogy. The study considers teachers who may not have explicitly learned about or applied critical pedagogy in their teaching and investigates how feasible and desirable they find the common themes in critical pedagogy to be based on their teaching experiences. These teachers work in a school with a largely upper-middle class student body, so the issue of applying critical pedagogy with affluent students adds a dimension of interest to this study. Through the interviews, three themes emerge most strongly: power/authority among students and teachers, the political nature of education, and teaching about social issues in the classroom. Teachers reveal an unwillingness to share authority with students or make space for students to be experts in the classroom in a meaningful way. Some teachers are also opposed to leading the transformation from the status quo toward a more just society. Teachers demonstrate a desire to encourage students to improve society, but they believe the best way to achieve this is by teaching critical thinking skills and discussing social issues, allowing students to develop their own vision for an improved society. Most teachers reveal they do not think about how the classroom reproduces the power structure in society by reaffirming a certain set of beliefs and reinforcing the power of privileged students. Some teachers note that their students had not yet had a political awakening. The same might be said of the teachers who had not been exposed to many of the ideas in critical pedagogy. A certain level of comfort eliminates the spark that pushes one to seek social change – among both students and teachers. But a critical education must take place among both the oppressed and the oppressor if we hope to achieve a more compassionate and just society.

Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children can find it harder to achieve at school. Gabriella Jóźwiak reports on a scheme that saw councils employ virtual head teachers to help improve education for this group

This study was conducted to explore elementary school teachers' uses of reading disabilities research. A modified version of Knott and Wildavsky's (1980) knowledge utilization framework underpinned the investigation. Teachers completed a questionnaire and participated in focus groups which elicited their reported uses of reading disabilities research. Results revealed that teachers read and understand, refer to, attempt, adopt into policy, implement, and implement with desired results research on reading disabilities "sometimes." The teachers' acquisition of research through passive reception or "actively seeking and finding it" occurred less often than using, adopting, implementing or referring to the research "sometimes." These findings are significant in light of the high incidence of reading disabilities. The findings suggest that students are not receiving evidence-based instruction that has the potential to alleviate or eliminate reading disabilities. This study has implications for increased research dissemination efforts and for continued investigations of obstacles to research use and means to facilitate the use of reading disabilities research.Cette étude visait à étudier l'emploi que font les enseignants à l'élémentaire de la recherche sur les troubles de lecture. Une version modifiée du cadre d'utilisation des connaissances de Knott et Wildavsky (1980) a servi de fondement à l'étude. Les enseignants ont complété un questionnaire et ont participé à des groupes de discussion portant sur l'emploi qu'ils faisaient de la recherche sur les troubles de lecture. Les résultats indiquent que, relativement à la recherche sur les troubles de lecture, les enseignants la lisent et la comprennent, s'y réfèrent, tentent de la mettre en œuvre, l'adopte comme politique et l'appliquent avec les résultats escomptés, et qu'ils font tout cela « parfois ». Quant à l'acquisition de la recherche de façon passive ou bien par une recherche active et réussie, les enseignants ont indiqué que cela se produisait moins fréquemment. Ces résultats sont importants en raison de l'incidence élevée des troubles de lecture. Ils portent à croire que les élèves ne reçoivent pas l'instruction que propose la recherche et qui aurait le potentiel d'atténuer ou d'éliminer les troubles de lecture. Les retombées de cette étude touchent les efforts visant la diffusion de la recherche, les études supplémentaires portant sur les obstacles à l'utilisation de la recherche et les moyens de faciliter l'utilisation de la recherche sur les troubles de lecture.

Teachers and teacher educators in the US struggle with conflicting needs. They must thinkcritically and adaptively in response to the rapidly changing demographics of their students andadjust to a policy climate that emphasizes standardization, measurement, and disregard forteachers as professionals. Embattled pre-service teacher education programs in institutions ofhigher education have traditionally sought to develop teacher candidates' knowledge, skills, anddispositions. The authors argue that in the current climate pre-service teachers also mustappropriate conceptual frameworks to support their development as responsive professionals.While dispositions are beliefs and attitudes the origin and teaching of which remain in dispute,concepts like social justice, political-economic equity, and formative assessment are abstract ideasor concepts that inform practice. Conceptual tools, i.e., concepts, theories, and frameworks, guidenovice teachers in making decisions in response to the growing and rapidly changing studentpopulations they will teach as well as the policy contexts that constrain their teaching practice.The appropriation of conceptual tools contributes to development of vision and adaptive expertiserequired by responsive teacher professionals.Using an activity theory framework developed by Wartofsky (1973/1979) that draws in particularon the classification of artifacts, or tools, this article frames and critically examines teachers'need for conceptual tools, the appropriation of those tools, and a mixed methods study of thatappropriation. The study demonstrates that teacher candidates do appropriate conceptual tools,but that measurement of that process, though desirable in the current policy context, requires thedevelopment of a systematic and replicable methodology.