In general, teacher educators are considered to be educational specialists whose main task is to communicate content-based concepts to prospective teachers. However, unfortunately, most studies on teacher professional development overlook this specific language-oriented aspect of content-based teaching. Therefore, we address the aforementioned research gap and argue that teacher educators’ evaluation of their language-oriented performance in educational communication enhances the quality of their content-based teaching. Accordingly, we examine how the language-oriented performance of teacher educators is evaluated by both individual teacher educators (sample size N=3) and their students (N=32) in a small-scale intervention study. The findings of the study reveal that there is a relationship between the order of application of five language focus areas (i.e., language awareness, active listening, formalizing interaction, language support, and language and learning development, as noticed by the students), and teacher educators’ ability to apply these areas in accordance with their objectives related to content-based teaching.
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PCK is seen as the transformation of content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge into a different type of knowledge that is used to develop and carry out teaching strategies. To gain more insight into the extent to which PCK is content specific, the PCK about more topics or concepts should be compared. However, researchers have rarely compared teachers’ concrete PCK about more than one topic. To examine the content dependency of PCK, we captured the PCK of sixteen experienced Dutch history teachers about two historical contexts (i.e. topics) using interviews and Content Representation questionnaires. Analysis reveals that all history teachers’ PCK about the two contexts overlaps, although the degree of overlap differs. Teachers with relatively more overlap are driven by their overarching subject related goals and less by the historical context they teach. We discuss the significance of these outcomes for the role of teaching orientation as a part of PCK.
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The quality of teaching has a clear impact on student success, but how can good teaching be defined? The European QualiTePE research project, funded by the Erasmus+ programme and involving ten European countries, seeks to adress this question specifically for Physical Education (PE). The QualiTePE instrument was designed for use in teacher training and further training to enable criteria-based observation and assessment of the quality of Physical Education lessons. The instrument is designed for diverse PE teaching and learning scenarios, alongside teacher resources, facilitating the practical assessment of teaching quality in PE. The QualiTePE instrument quantifies teaching quality by assessing specific, observable teaching characteristics via questionnaire items. Each assessment is conducted by three different population groups: 1) the students 2) the PE teacher 3) an observer. The comparative analysis of the data collected from these three perspectives enables systematic and criteria‐based feedback for (prospective) teachers, identifies areas of improvement, and informs content development for PE across Europe. The QualiTePE digital web-based evaluation tool for assessing the “Quality of Teaching in Physical Education” is now available in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Slovenian, Czech and Greek.
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In today’s foreign language (FL) education, teachers universally recognise the importance of fostering students’ ability to communicate in the target language. However, the current assessments often do not (sufficiently) evaluate this. In her dissertation, Charline Rouffet aims to gather insight into the potential of assessments to steer FL teaching practices. Communicative learning objectives FL teachers fully support the communicative learning objectives formulated at national level and embrace the principles of communicative language teaching. Yet, assessments instead primarily focus on formal language knowledge in isolation (e.g., grammar rules), disconnected from real-world communicative contexts. This misalignment between assessment practices and communicative objectives hampers effective FL teaching. CBA toolbox The aim of this design-based PhD research project is to gather insight into the potential of assessments to steer FL teaching practices. To this end, tools for developing communicative classroom-based assessment (CBA) programmes were designed and implemented in practice, in close collaboration with FL teachers. Rouffet's dissertation consists of multiple studies, in which the current challenges of FL education are addressed and the usage of the CBA toolbox is investigated. Findings reveal that assessing FL competencies in a more communicative way can transform teaching practices, placing communicative abilities at the heart of FL education.
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This reports is about content and language integrated learning (CLIL) in multilingual primary classrooms. While in theory CLIL offers many opportunities for inclusive education in multilingual settings, questions remain as to how integrated language teaching can be realised, and what teacher knowledge is required for this. This research used a CLIL Teaching Wall activity and interviews with UK and Dutch primary school teachers to capture teacher knowledge underlying decision-making in actual multilingual classrooms. The report presents a framework of CLIL teacher knowledge that emerged from this work.
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Many studies have suggested that personal practical knowledge is essential for professional development. Recently, there has been growing recognition of the importance of teacher educators’ personal practical knowledge of ‘language’ for student learning development. However, the need for teacher educators to first understand their own language-oriented development in content-based classroom interaction has not received as much emphasis. The current intervention study investigates how eleven experienced teacher educators understand their language-oriented development through the control of task difficulty, small-group instruction and directed response questioning. Data were examined by conducting content and constant comparison analyses. The results showed that the intervention affected the educators’ language-oriented development, which in turn affected their awareness and decisions made to improve their methods of initiation and response during classroom interaction. The results call for more concrete ways to expend teacher educators’ practical knowledge of language to further develop and enhance their language-oriented teaching performance in content-based classroom interaction.
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To promote student writing development, integrated approaches such as genre-based writing instruction (GBWI) are advocated in tertiary education. However, most subject lecturers are not used to centralise writing in their subjects as they focus on content teaching. Capitalising on teacher learning within GBWI is therefore necessary. Design-based research can offer a fruitful learning environment for such innovative type of content and language integrated instruction. In a multiple case study (n=2) in Dutch higher professional education, we aimed to explore what subject lecturers can learn in a design-based research project in terms of scaffolding students’ writing. Qualitative data on teacher learning were collected through logs and interviews before, during and after three GBWI interventions. These data were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using transcription software. Results showed the subject lecturers reported multifaceted learning outcomes, particularly concerning changed knowledge and beliefs. Some of these were directly related to GBWI (e.g., metalanguage, deconstruction, text features) whereas others were related to scaffolding language in subject learning more generally, and to the lecturers’ teaching roles. Both lecturers also reported learning outcomes in terms of changed practices, but to a lesser extent. This may be related to the challenging character of enacting GBWI in the subjects. On a more general level, this study has yielded valuable insights into what factors are at stake when subject lecturers learn to enact GBWI. Further, it has shown the potential of a design-based research learning environment which we view as part of a causal field instigating subject lecturers’ professional development.
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This text is based on the publication: Wolff, R. & M. de Jong (2018), Doceren voor een inclusieve klas. Een literatuurstudie ter voorbereiding op docenttrainingen in het hoger (beroeps)onderwijs. (Teaching for an inclusive class. A literature study as preparatory input for teacher trainings in higher (vocational) education) Diemen/Rotterdam: Inholland/Risbo
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Online supplements to Smit, E., Tuithof, H., Savelsbergh, E., & Béneker, T. (2023). Geography teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge: A systematic review. Journal of Geography. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221341.2023.2173796 Supplement 1: Extended information on selected studies Supplement 2: Full references of studies used in the review Supplement 3: Codebook Abstract: Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) is the knowledge teachers use to teach a specific subject to a specific audience. The importance of PCK to quality teaching is widely recognized. However, an overview of research about geography teachers’ PCK is missing. To fill this gap, we conducted a systematic review. We analyzed 43 empirical studies, but only 9 used PCK as a framework. Most studies addressed instructional strategies or teaching orientations. The studies were too diverse to draw conclusions on geography teachers’ PCK in general. But portraits of 16 geography teachers emphasized the necessity of geographical knowledge and teaching experience for PCK-quality.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has forced higher education (HE) to shift to emergency remote teaching (ERT), subsequently influencing academic belonging and social integration, as well as challenging students' engagement with their studies. This study investigated influences on student engagement during ERT, based on student resilience. Serial mediation analyses were used to test the predictive effects between resilience, academic belonging, social integration, and engagement.
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