The Impact of Reflective Practice on Teacher Candidates\u27 Learning

Reflection is a high impact practice that develops teacher candidates’ learning. Critical reflection requires teacher candidates to continually examine their own thoughts, perspectives, biases, and actions. Reflective practice facilitates the development of new knowledge, skills, and dispositions in teacher candidates by fostering critical contemplation of actions in a real-world environment. Reflection practice is specifically used when students study education in a university course and apply what they learn in a related field experience in a K-12 school. This study was conducted in order to determine the impact of reflective practice on teacher candidates enrolled in a course focused on developmental sciences in a context of poverty. Results demonstrate what level of research is required to prepare teacher candidates to make instructional decisions as well as become self-aware of their perspectives and attitudes in teaching

Course evaluation for low pass rate improvement in Engineering education

Abstract : A course evaluation is a process that includes evaluations of lecturers’ teaching performances and their course material moderations. These two procedures are usually implemented, whether officially by the faculty of engineering or by lecturers’ own initiatives, to help identify lecturers’ strengths and weaknesses and the ways forward to improve their performances and their qualities of teaching. This paper presents different ways of implementing these two criteria from students’ and professionals’ perspectives. Official questionnaires from the faculty of engineering, personal questionnaires using Google surveys, Moodle and special designed forms have been used for moderation and evaluations. The process of evaluation is the core of a feedback procedure followed by universities in order for them to monitor the teaching quality of their staff. Satisfactory results show that such a process can improve the lecturers’ teaching performances, courses material quality, students’ satisfaction and performances, and finally the pass rate of the class

Rebels, Rogues, and Risk-takers: Insights into Personal Characteristics of National Tertiary Teaching Excellence Awardees

Challenges exist with the discourse in education around terms such as ‘best practice’, ‘excellence’, and ‘impact’, which raises questions around who decides what ‘excellent’ teaching looks like. To better understand the different facets of teaching excellence, this research project investigates the stories of twelve national Tertiary Teaching Excellence awardees in New Zealand, exploring awardees’ trajectories and practice, including views on their identity, and on what they consider to be excellence in tertiary teaching. This article focuses on the personal characteristics of this group of awardees, highlighted through analysis of their narratives. Educators, mentors, and curriculum designers can gain a deeper understanding of teaching excellence, and of how teachers perceive their own practice and their impact on others. It is hoped too that educators will recognise elements of themselves and their practice, and will feel motivated and inspired to share these with their peers

La tutoría del Programa Todos a Aprender en la formación continua de docentes: estudio de caso

La formación del profesorado es un factor determinante para transformar el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje y, por tanto, cualificar el desarrollo profesional. Esta investigación tiene como objetivo determinar el impacto de la tutoría del Programa Todos a Aprender (PTA) en la formación continua de docentes para favorecer la documentación, y las reflexiones que se derivan de la resignificación de la práctica pedagógica. Este estudio tiene su base en la metodología cualitativa (Creswell, 2013) y el método de estudio de casos (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 1989), el cual se considera apropiado para medir y registrar las conductas de los participantes en el fenómeno objeto de esta investigación. De esta forma, el estudio de caso no extrapola los resultados a otros contextos, sino que reconoce los hallazgos en los casos particulares que intervienen en él. (Latorre, Arnal y Rincón; 1992). El profesorado participante expresa que la tutoría en los procesos de formación, planificación y realización de la clase, así como la retroalimentación de la práctica pedagógica, establecen un principio de corresponsabilidad porque involucra el conocimiento, la comprensión de los aspectos metodológicos, pedagógicos y didácticos, en concordancia con la incorporación de los referentes curriculares. Se concluye que la tutoría que propone el Programa Todos a Aprender, promueve diálogos continuos en torno a la práctica pedagógica de los docentes para acercarse a la cualificación y, sobre todo, para lograr aprendizajes significativos en los estudiantes