Conducting a classroom dialogue for reasoning can be very challenging for teachers and, in particular for students-teachers. Research on classroom discussions provides examples of models that can be used to help teachers organize, analyse and conduct classroom discussions. One of these models is the five-practices framework (Stein, Engle, Smith, & Hughes, 2008). In this study we investigate how this framework has been applied in one course of mathematics' pedagogies for in-service student-teachers at the applied university of Amsterdam to support mathematics student-teachers in conducting classroom dialogue based on students reasoning. The study was conducted in the academic year 2017-18 and involved 15 in-service student-teachers and their teachers. The data concerns students written rapports to an individual assignment in which they were requested to use the five-practices in an hypothetical classroom discussion. The preliminary results confirm that the model can be useful for students-teachers to prepare themselves beforehand and to think about creating opportunities for dialogue to occur in the classroom. But, the practice of making connections during the classroom discussion remains misunderstood or superficially performed by the students teachers. These results suggest the need of a more fine grained description of the practice of connecting as ways to involve students-teachers in it.
Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) is used to describe the knowledge teachers use to teach a specific subject to a specific audience. Although PCK is linked to student success and motivation, relatively little is known about the PCK of geography teachers. Through a mixed methods approach, we surveyed a group of 73 Dutch pre-service teachers in their final year of geography teacher education. We used the PCK-consensus model to address both PCK-on action (teacher knowledge) and PCK-in action (teacher practice). We investigated the former through a CoRe-assignment and the latter through a quantitative survey. Teacher’s PCK-in action focussed on teacher-centred lessons with ample attention for visualisations, current events, and efforts to engage students. The results for PCK-on action confirmed the content dependency of PCK. Pre-service teachers chose different geographical topics and used different goals and strategies when teaching these topics. In this context, we also found that they experienced difficulties when teaching controversial issues. In a final step, we combined the results of both methods for 9 teachers in individual PCK portraits. These portraits show that coherence between PCK-elements and, therefore, PCK-quality is still weak for most pre-service teachers. Consequently, their fragile subject matter knowledge seems to influence their developing PCK.
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Significant attention has been paid in the international literature to the effect of in-service training on the interaction skills of teachers in early childhood education and care. The growth of pre-service teachers during teacher education has received relatively little attention to date, however. In a mixed-methods longitudinal study, we monitored the development of interaction skills among a group of Dutch pre-service teachers with repeated measures for 3 years and structured interviews. The results of a linear mixed-effects model revealed an impressive growth of interaction skills during the pre-service training. The qualitative interview data revealed progress of pre-service teachers’ professional reflection on their interaction with young children. These outcomes show the effectiveness of pre-service training for the development of interaction skills and professional reflection in early childhood education and care. However, progress is relatively modest for instructional skills and this domain needs further investment in pre-service training.
Teachers have a crucial role in bringing about the extensive social changes that are needed in the building of a sustainable future. In the EduSTA project, we focus on sustainability competences of teachers. We strengthen the European dimension of teacher education via Digital Open Badges as means of performing, acknowledging, documenting, and transferring the competencies as micro-credentials. EduSTA starts by mapping the contextual possibilities and restrictions for transformative learning on sustainability and by operationalising skills. The development of competence-based learning modules and open digital badge-driven pathways will proceed hand in hand and will be realised as learning modules in the partnering Higher Education Institutes and badge applications open for all teachers in Europe.Societal Issue: Teachers’ capabilities to act as active facilitators of change in the ecological transition and to educate citizens and workforce to meet the future challenges is key to a profound transformation in the green transition.Teachers’ sustainability competences have been researched widely, but a gap remains between research and the teachers’ practise. There is a need to operationalise sustainability competences: to describe direct links with everyday tasks, such as curriculum development, pedagogical design, and assessment. This need calls for an urgent operationalisation of educators’ sustainability competences – to support the goals with sustainability actions and to transfer this understanding to their students.Benefit to society: EduSTA builds a community, “Academy of Educators for Sustainable Future”, and creates open digital badge-driven learning pathways for teachers’ sustainability competences supported by multimodal learning modules. The aim is to achieve close cooperation with training schools to actively engage in-service teachers.Our consortium is a catalyst for leading and empowering profound change in the present and for the future to educate teachers ready to meet the challenges and act as active change agents for sustainable future. Emphasizing teachers’ essential role as a part of the green transition also adds to the attractiveness of teachers’ work.
