Mobilising teacher education: a study of a professional learning community

This paper reports on a study of a community of university educators that investigated the introduction of mobile technologies into their learning and teaching. The study was conducted by a subgroup of that community. Given the ubiquity of mobile devices, members of the community felt they needed to develop expertise in mobile learning so that they could incorporate it into their teaching. They studied their own learning, supported by a critical friend who evaluated the community's functioning and activities, providing valuable feedback. Activities of this group were informed by and focused on: development of awareness of the potential of mobile devices for learning; construction of action plans within the community; and implementation of these plans. They also included investigating best-practice approaches by interviewing experts in the field, exploring the literature on mobile learning and then initiating and testing some mobile learning pedagogies in the context of their own teacher education subjects. The community met regularly to discuss emerging issues and applications. The paper shares some of the findings gained from studying the community, and discusses the challenges and constraints that were experienced. The authors conclude with recommendations for professional learning communities aiming to learn about technology-mediated teaching practices

Viewing mobile learning from a pedagogical perspective

Mobile learning is a relatively new phenomenon and the theoretical basis is currently under development. The paper presents a pedagogical perspective of mobile learning which highlights three central features of mobile learning: authenticity, collaboration and personalisation, embedded in the unique timespace contexts of mobile learning. A pedagogical framework was developed and tested through activities in two mobile learning projects located in teacher education communities: Mobagogy, a project in which faculty staff in an Australian university developed understanding of mobile learning; and The Bird in the Hand Project, which explored the use of smartphones by student teachers and their mentors in the United Kingdom. The framework is used to critique the pedagogy in a selection of reported mobile learning scenarios, enabling an assessment of mobile activities and pedagogical approaches, and consideration of their contributions to learning from a socio-cultural perspective

Teacher retention and attrition: Views of early career teachers

The provision and maintenance of quality teachers is a matter of priority for the profession. Moreover, teacher attrition is costly to the profession, to the community and to those teachers who leave feeling disillusioned. There is a need to investigate the experiences of early career teachers to consider how these issues contribute to decisions about staying in or leaving the profession. This paper reports on an aspect of a larger study on teacher retention. It describes and analyses the experiences of teachers participating in the study and highlights implications for teacher retention. The study proposes the notion of ‘resilient stayers’, and how beginning teachers’ resilience might be strengthened and supported. It asks what combination of circumstances in the school and the system, and individual resources of resilience on the part of early career teachers, might maximise the chances of teachers choosing to remain in the profession

Teacher driven change : interpretations from the Ascent of Man

This article reports an analogical interpretation of attempted change in education. Analogies consist of a comparison of a target and source domain. In this study, Bronowski's (1973a) The Ascent of Man provides a source of analogies in the interpretation of change including: nomad, technician, technologist and scientist. The target is derived from an extended case study of a group of teachers, which recognised a teaching innovation, and attempted to promote this innovation throughout their science department in an Australian secondary school. Data about this attempt were obtained by questionnaire, discussions with teachers and students, and observations over a period of fifteen months. The teachers experienced difficulties in initiating, interpreting and sustaining their change. The analogies suggest alternative ways of thinking about educational change. This analysis indicates that the teachers were constrained by their environment and culture in their attempt to generate, test and communicate ideas. Thus, there is a need to recast the role of teachers in teaching innovation

Packaging constructivist science teaching in a curriculum resource

This paper outlines research that assessed the effectiveness of a curriculum package combined with a professional development program in promoting constructivist science teaching. Six high school science teachers from three schools attended professional development workshops and attempted to implement a science curriculum package which included an emphasis on a constructivist approach (the 5Es) and cooperative learning. The findings suggest that teachers were the critical factor in curriculum innovation, that professional development and the curriculum package influenced implementation, and that a hierarchy of skill and knowledge acquisition is associated with constructivist teaching. In some cases, the curriculum package seemed to improve teaching and learning, in other cases good teaching and learning were hindered

Self-study, teacher-researcher, and action research

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Science education initiatives : sustaining initiatives vs sustained initiative

Despite attempts to change school science there remains a dissatisfaction with it. Given this outcome it is appropriate to examine initiatives in science education. This paper reports a summary of a selected sample of these initiatives, current in Australia in the second half of 1998, and identifies trends arising. The emphasis remains on curriculum change associated with the official science education agenda in each state rather than local school-based initiatives. We may have developed ways to initiate a change and even, in some cases, to sustain specific initiatives, yet there is a need to think afresh about what we want by way of initiatives in science education

Action Learning in Schools: Reframing Teachers\u27 Professional Learning and Development

Scholarly book providing a theoretical framework for action learning which is a professional development framework with case studies and a new model for long term professional learning