Student teachers’ thinking about learning to teach: a study of student teachers of mathematics and science at the end of their initial training

publication-status: Publishedtypes: ArticleRecent dominant models of student teacher learning include apprenticeship and reflective practice, but these are now being challenged, extended and enriched by broader socio-cultural models of learning. These new models direct attention to how learning is shaped by an interplay between the characteristics of the student teachers, their lecturers and their teacher mentors, and the characteristics of the university, schools and societal contexts within which these students, lecturers and mentors work. Socio-cultural theories also reveal the importance of how learning is transferred and transformed as the student teacher moves between different contexts (eg between university and school, or between one school and another). This paper explores the nature of student teachers’ thinking at the end of their initial teacher education (ITE) programme, and questions how the student teachers learnt to think about teaching in these ways – in particular what they felt they learnt in the university and school contexts, and how they dealt with differences between the ideas which were valued in those different contexts. Data were collected by questionnaire from a volunteer sample of student teachers of science and mathematics close to the end of their ITE course. Questions generally called for free response answers which were transcribed, and then coded in a grounded fashion. Analysis was strongly influenced by a framework of ideas derived from our synthesis of socio-cultural theories of learning. From the insights gained we develop a theoretical understanding of the emerging aspects of student teachers’ thinking and learning which we summarise under the term “progressive filtering”. We also argue that Activity Theory is of relevance to student teachers’ learning and we illustrate how this theoretical framework offers additional insights that could enable ITE to address issues which have remained problematic for some time

Improving the learning of newly qualified teachers in the induction year.

notes: Published online 14 Dec 2010publication-status: Publishedtypes: ArticleNewly qualified teachers of mathematics and science are a precious resource and it important that they are provided with appropriate support and challenge during their first year in post. This study examines the developing thinking and practice of a group of such teachers in England, and the influence of their mentors within the workplace context of the school. We argue that thinking and practice is restricted by the concern to ‘fit in’; by the belief that behaviour management should be addressed before teaching can be developed; and by a lack of attention to the development of pedagogical thinking. We conclude that there is a need to change the beliefs and practices of induction mentors and develop their skills in discussing pedagogical ideas. This is most likely to be achieved within a school-wide culture of continuing professional learning

Implementation of a Practice Development Model to Reduce the Wait for Autism Spectrum Diagnosis in Adults

This study examined waiting times for diagnostic assessment of Autism Spectrum Disorder in 11 adult services, prior to and following the implementation of a 12 month change program. Methods to support change are reported and a multi-level modelling approach determined the effect of the change program on overall wait times. Results were statistically significant (b = − 0.25, t(136) = − 2.88, p = 0.005). The average time individuals waited for diagnosis across all services reduced from 149.4 days prior to the change program and 119.5 days after it, with an average reduction of 29.9 days overall. This innovative intervention provides a promising framework for service improvement to reduce the wait for diagnostic assessment of ASD in adults across the range of spectrum presentations

The BioMart community portal: an innovative alternative to large, centralized data repositories.

The BioMart Community Portal (www.biomart.org) is a community-driven effort to provide a unified interface to biomedical databases that are distributed worldwide. The portal provides access to numerous database projects supported by 30 scientific organizations. It includes over 800 different biological datasets spanning genomics, proteomics, model organisms, cancer data, ontology information and more. All resources available through the portal are independently administered and funded by their host organizations. The BioMart data federation technology provides a unified interface to all the available data. The latest version of the portal comes with many new databases that have been created by our ever-growing community. It also comes with better support and extensibility for data analysis and visualization tools. A new addition to our toolbox, the enrichment analysis tool is now accessible through graphical and web service interface. The BioMart community portal averages over one million requests per day. Building on this level of service and the wealth of information that has become available, the BioMart Community Portal has introduced a new, more scalable and cheaper alternative to the large data stores maintained by specialized organizations

Towards the improvement of learning in secondary schools: students’ views, their links to theories of motivation and to issues of under- and over-achievement

This paper reports the views of students in a secondary comprehensive school on what made them want to learn, what made it difficult for them to learn, and what teachers could do to help them learn. It relates these reported views to some established psychological views of motivation and to models derived from attribution theory. It investigates the views of students identified as under- and over-achievers through the comparison of CAT scores in Year 7 and GCSE performance, and reveals that 'conformity to the work and social norms of the classroom', and 'communication with teachers', were two key factors which distinguished under- and over-achievers. However, the differences were not always in directions which might have been predicted

Action Research: a strategy for teacher change and school development?

This paper is concerned with the reflections of two lecturers from higher education who worked through several cycles of action research with a group of teachers in a school over a period of eight years trying to improve learning in the school. Very many of the factors identified in the literature as being essential for sustained change were in place, and there were successful outcomes associated with each cycle of action. Nevertheless, our reflections on the whole process highlight some complexities of working with teachers in this way. In this paper we examine the difficulty of attending to contextual factors within the project; we identify links between teacher change and perceptions of risk; we explore a confusion which emerged over the role of such a group within the school. In addition, we argue that the deficit approach which characterises action research is unhelpful to some teachers

Induction for secondary mathematics ITE tutors working group report

Becoming a mathematics teacher educator with responsibility for the education of trainee teachers is an under-researched area. This report looks at some key issues that effect new mathematics teacher educators, including how the role has changed, whether the emphasis is on ‘training’ (in consonance with UK Government terminology) or on education (and what the difference might be), about how people learn to become teachers, and about what is known about teacher educators and how people become teacher educators. The report argues that there are huge opportunities for researching all aspects of teacher education

Induction for secondary mathematics ITE tutors

Becoming a mathematics teacher educator with responsibility for the education of trainee teachers is an under-researched area. This report looks at some key issues that effect new mathematics teacher educators, including how the role has changed, whether the emphasis is on ‘training’ (in consonance with UK Government terminology) or on education (and what the difference might be), about how people learn to become teachers, and about what is known about teacher educators and how people become teacher educators. The report argues that there are huge opportunities for researching all aspects of teacher education