Not just for special occasions: supporting the professional learning of through critical reflection with audiovisual information

Despite increased use of professional learning communities in the teacher education field, they do not necessarily guarantee change in teachers' daily practice. This study is a multiple case study of three school leaders in Vietnam to connect their teachers' learning and practice by utilising visual records. In the cases studied, we see a progression of models of joint reflection based on visual information, from only occasional reflection to daily critical reflection, the latter of which the authors call 'vide-flection' referring to a process for people to consider their actions, thoughts, or experiences by utilising video-recorded images. For joint vide-flection, school leaders visit every classroom for several minutes every day to observe the wellbeing and learning of pupils and video-record struggles or breakthroughs in children's learning; they share those images with teachers to jointly reflect on the situations. Through this vide-flection, teachers develop more detailed awareness of pupils needs

Challenges confronting teachers of English language learners

The number of English language learners and limited English proficient students has grown exponentially in the United States over the past decades. Given the huge cultural and linguistic diversity among them, educating this population of students remains a challenge for teachers. This paper aims to review the types of challenges that educators face when teaching limited English proficient students in the US context. Findings from existing literature show the obstacles teachers confront are social, institutional, and personal in nature. Although some research has emphasised stronger teacher education programmes as a solution to problems related to the teaching and learning of these students, these programmes are insufficient for teachers to overcome all of the challenges they face. Concerted efforts by educators, local and central administrators, academics, local communities, and lawmakers are necessary

Echoing with the voices of victims: Reflection on vietnamese lessons on the japanese experiences of atomic bombs

This article explores the case of a Vietnamese teacher whose conception of teaching changed greatly following a short but intensive series of lessons based on the Japanese experiences with atomic bombs. The following three issues are considered: 1) what types of efforts teachers should make to increase the depth of their lessons, on the basis of children's reality of learning; 2) what kinds of support teachers require from colleagues, including external resource persons; and 3) how school management should be organized to practise peace education

Key issues in productive classroom talk and interventions

Classroom talk or verbal exchanges during lesson time play a central role in students’ disciplinary understanding and intellectual development. It greatly influences not only what students learn but also how they learn it. Despite this, teachers can be unaware of teacher–student talk patterns and functions; thus, what is uttered during class time can go unnoticed. Results from classroom observational research show that this is often not utilised to maximise children’s learning - teacher talk prevails in the classroom whilst few effective verbal interactions take place among learners. Research in this field started to take shape in the 1970s and has developed greatly since the 1990s. We review some types of productive classroom talk and talk interventions discussed in publications from the 1990s onwards. Further studies need to explore a more universal talk pedagogy employed across disciplines, whereas the process of change in teachers’ beliefs and identities in adopting this pedagogical approach deserves scholarly investigations

Comparative institutional analysis of participation in collaborative learning

Recently, group learning has been introduced in various countries as part of educational reform. While there are various approaches to group learning, the focus of this study is on collaborative learning, which is based on mutual help-seeking and consultation. This requires teachers’ decision to integrate collaborative learning into their practices and all actors to participate therein. This demonstrates whether implementing and participating in collaborative learning is a game theoretic situation. However, in the majority of studies on group learning, the game theoretic aspect has not been sufficiently investigated. Therefore, this paper aims to provide a conceptual discussion on this situation in collaborative learning using a comparative institutional analysis (CIA) framework

Typologies of lesson study coordination: a comparative institutional analysis

Lesson study has attracted the attention of teachers and teacher educators over the past two decades, and practices vary from region to region and from school to school. This study, as a conceptual discussion paper, aims to discuss the modes of coordination of lesson study at the school level, based on comparative institutional analysis (CIA). CIA is a framework to investigate the ‘rules of the game’ that govern given organisations. The conditions of categorisation include three core foci: whether lesson study is essentially more subject oriented or student oriented, whether or not the entire school is involved and whether or not the members are consistent throughout the process. According to these conditions, five modes are generated, namely: subject expert mode (E-mode), subject departmental mode (D-mode), LSLC multiple layer mode (M-mode), LSLC initial concentration mode (C-mode) and LSLC initial participation mode (P-mode). These are based on the differing needs of teachers: E-mode and D-mode refer to the more subject oriented lesson study aimed at instructional improvement; M-mode refers to school reform based on the needs of students observed in the process of lessons; finally, C-mode and P-mode are introductory approaches to M-mode, requiring careful planning and management for scaling up