The aim of this research was to evaluate the integration of video conferencing technologies in a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) Programme in the United Kingdom for the pedagogical development of trainee teachers. Two types of video conferencing were employed in this case study of a Primary PGCE course. Firstly, weekly multi-point video conferences over VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) took place between a group of trainees whilst on school-based teaching experiences. Secondly, many-to-many video conferences were employed to enable trainees to observe remotely a number of classroom lessons, following which they had the opportunity to interact „live‟ with teacher and pupils. The underpinning goal of this study was to understand the process by which trainees „become teachers‟ within their university community of practice (CoP) moving towards the school CoP, with the identity issues involved, and to explore ways that technology potentially supports, sustains or expands this process. Wenger‟s conception of a CoP, a group of people who share a concern about what they do and who interact regularly to share what they learn in order to learn more and learn how to do it better theorised the dynamics of the group of trainees, as revealed in this qualitative research. Interview evidence was taken from trainees, university PGCE tutors and experienced teachers. It was found that video conferencing technologies genuinely enabled thinking about thinking, reflexivity, and a passion for teaching and communicating for a number of trainees within CoPs. Learning was itself the trajectory for trainees to „become teachers‟. The synchronous, immediate and communicative nature of video conferences enhanced this trajectory through the collective reflective work of all involved participants and bridged the two diverse but essentially overlapping CoPs, communities of pre-service and in-service teachers respectively.

The title of this study shows the aims on which the research questions were based. These included the areas in which the student teachers felt confident as well as those they perceived to be more difficult. This study adopted a phenomenographic approach in order to provide further insight into each student teacher’s subject knowledge. The purpose of this study was to discover the individual and distinct ways in which student teachers understood fractions. The study was undertaken in two universities with a group of thirteen undergraduate and postgraduate Initial Teacher Education students. The creation of a comfortable, supportive working atmosphere and the use of self-selected small groups, enabled a range of rich and honestly reflective data to be collected. Observations were made of groups working on two collaborative tasks involving the sequencing of fractions by magnitude and finding, followed by diagnostic interviews. Each interview was structured by the student’s individual selections from a range of questions where they indicated which they felt were most and least accessible. A constructivist perspective was adopted where the students had the opportunity to reconstruct their own understanding of fractions through the explanation and discussion of their existing ideas. A range of successful strategies was demonstrated, especially the use of mathematical anchors as a means of comparison and the use of residual or gap thinking to consider differences in magnitude. Improper fractions and reunitising were difficulties cited by many in the group. A certain level of anxiety and lack of flexibility in their chosen approaches was evident with the common assumption that there was a particular method which should be adopted; this was usually based on their “secondary school” experiences.

Sure Start, the national initiative created in 1998 and implemented through local programmes, sought to improve the life chances of children living in areas of deprivation. Children’s services were to be ‘joined up’ to deliver new and different ways of working. The inclusion of teachers was integral to some programmes, although little research was available to document this. This study sets out to examine how teachers responded to the challenge of promoting babies’, toddlers’ and young children’s learning within a multiagency and community context. It investigates how teachers’ roles were constructed; the nature of their everyday activities, how they responded to multi-agency work; how innovative work arose and what triggered change. Qualitative and ethnographic in nature, the study incorporates empirical evidence from six Sure Start Local Programmes (SSLPs). Research methods were designed to access teachers’ thinking within a situated perspective. In addition to work shadowing and scrutiny of documents, data was gathered from 25 semi-structured interviews with team members, managers and teachers. Three complementary theories of social learning; Activity Theory, Communities of Practice and Professional Craft Knowledge, were brought together to interpret findings. Teachers demonstrated varying levels of participation within SSLPs. Those moving towards full participation had undergone identity transformation, and contributed to the construction of a new practitioner: The Sure Start Teacher. Through engagement in front-line joint work with practitioners from other agencies, expansive learning has occurred and this in turn has stimulated innovative practice. The role of teachers in SSLPs can be described as: exchanging knowledge and skills within a multi-agency team; facilitating intergenerational learning in the locality and providing a pedagogic lead within a framework of joint work with members of the Sure Start community.

The overall aim of the research was to develop a better understanding of creativity in assessment, in order to facilitate achievement of the programme aim of developing creative teachers. This illuminative evaluation, within an interpretivist, social constructivist paradigm, was undertaken as practitioner research on an undergraduate primary education programme. During my reading and initial research I developed the Creativity Pyramid, which combined a wide range of phrases drawn from definitions of creativity, set in four hierarchical layers. I analysed existing assignment documents and school placement booklets for phrases related to creativity, using my Creativity Pyramid. In order to discover perceptions about creativity in campus-based assignments and school placement, I interviewed tutors (n=9) and students (n=7), held a virtual focus group and used semi-structured questionnaires with two year groups (Year 2, n=32; Year 1, n=55). I used an inductive approach to coding this data before identifying themes. The research showed there were opportunities for creativity in assessment on the programme, except in exams. Assessment for learning, which was more prevalent in school placement, was found to promote creativity. The campus-based assignments which were perceived as more creative were often those which required engaging an audience, such as presentations and creating resources. These assignments also had stronger constructive alignment of creativity aspects between the assignment brief and marking grid. Using the findings I developed the Creativity Cascade, which indicates facilitators and inhibitors of creativity in the cascade from tutor and teacher-mentor to student-teacher to pupil. The main recommendations were to establish a shared definition of creativity, to use this to ensure constructive alignment in all aspects of assessment, to review the core subject assignments and to increase the use of assessment for learning.

The main aim of this thesis is to explore the continuing professional development (CPD) of expatriate English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers employed in the foundation English programme of federal universities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In order to understand the phenomenon of CPD from the perspective of experienced teachers in the context this study explores their perceptions about CPD; along with their choice of CPD initiatives and the reasons and factors which impact on their choice. It also explores teachers’ suggestions about improving CPD in their context. It is expected that the results of this thesis will create awareness of these aspects among experienced EFL teachers, their institutions, local CPD organisations and as well as the community of experienced expatriate tertiary teachers of EFL. It is also expected that the study will raise implications to consider for improving the CPD experience of teachers in the context. Data was obtained using face to face individual and focus group interviews with volunteers who were foundation EFL teachers with a minimum of five years teaching experience in the context. Results revealed that participants in the study valued CPD as lifelong professional evolution that resulted in evident change. High preference emerged for participation in learning through participation in activities that provided opportunities for dialogue and collaboration. However, participants experienced less empowered and without a voice in the implementation of the institutional CPD agenda. Similarly disillusionment was experienced with CPD organisations’ standardized initial teacher education focused CPD. The study highlights how when teachers feel less empowered in their existing professional and occupational communities, they exercise their agency in finding alternative means of professional development. One result of this situation is the emergence of teacher initiated communities where learning takes place in an environment of mutual shared understandings. This also illuminates the existence of untapped expertise in the context which if exploited can benefit federal institutions; their teachers, CPD providers and subsequently others in the context. The main implication arising from this study is for federal universities, teachers and CPD providers to work in tandem and attempt to establish teacher learning communities of practice within the institution for situated learning within the context of practice.

This thesis focuses on the perceptions of Kuwaiti EFL student-teachers to methods of teaching and learning EFL writing in Kuwait, and the extent to which their perceptions of EFL writing may be affected by these methods. It draws on the finding of ten interviews with student-teachers from one of the higher educational colleges in Kuwait. Students were asked to describe how they perceive EFL writing and methods of teaching and learning practices in their EFL writing classrooms. They were invited to discuss the nature of their teachers’ role in their classrooms and assess the extent to which that role enhanced or undermined their attitudes to EFL writing. Students discussed how they felt about EFL writing and their teaching practices. They discussed ways in which their perceptions of EFL writing could be enhanced and explained how their teaching practices influenced their views of themselves as writers. In the literature, there are no theories for L2 writing to date and L2 researchers have tended to assume that the models of L1 would apply equally to L2 writers, with appropriate modifications. This, it is argued, is not necessarily the case as cultural and language differences between L1 and L2 create difficulties that are not accounted for by L1 research, as L2 writers use their identity and their way of making meaning when they write in L2. The study addresses the gap in L2 writing literature, and more research is needed to understand how to support L2 writers in achieving writing fluency. This research suggests that change is needed in pedagogical practices in the teaching of EFL writing. EFL writing teachers in this study demonstrated little awareness, both of how to acknowledge their students’ out-of-school experiencs of writing and of writing as a social practice. The study recommends that the teaching of writing takes more account of the ‘writing process’ approach, with attention given to pre-writing activities and to revision processes, and that more attention is paid to genres in writing, as socially-constructed forms of meaning-making. It also recommends that teacher feedback is developed to be more purposeful and formative. Writing needs implicit learning and intensive practice and it cannot be acquired like speaking. Through learning EFL learners will be more familier with the structure of EFL language and they will understand how use this structure to acheive different social purposes in particular context of use. Well-rained EFL writing teachers will have the ability to help EFL learners write more efficiently. Thus, this research suggests that the students’ pre-service training programme and teachers’ in-service professional developmental programme for EFL writing need to be seriously improved to cope with the social needs of their students, the needs of their society and the needs of developing education internationally. EFL writing needs to be viewed as a vital communicative medium and students should be taught in a way that helps them interact with others by that medium. This research recommends further studies to explore methods of teaching and learning EFL writing and EFL in general to develop a strong voice in debate, to listen to the voice of EFL students, to enhance the methods of teaching practices, and to increase students’ self-efficacy in their ability to be efficient in their EFL writing in particular, and EFL in general.

This thesis aims to examine teacher professional learning as situated within the Maltese context. The focus is on understanding the way particular teachers learn, the way they conceptualise learning, and the professional learning experiences, and contexts, which they define as meaningful. Theoretical perspectives of learning are explored in order to provide a framework to interpret the complex nature of teacher professional learning. The sociocultural and situative notions of learning have significantly contributed to an understanding of the way individuals learn, and are the main components of the theoretical framework of this thesis. Data are collected and analysed through qualitative means. A purposive sample of a small community of teachers from three different schools is interviewed, during the course of one year, and these data are supplemented with written anecdotes from an online forum of this teacher community. Within the semi-structured interviews and the online community discussions, teachers are given the opportunity to explore their insights on teacher professional learning, discuss their professional learning experiences and define the ways these experiences relate to their classroom practices. Grounded theory is used to partly analyse these data and generate concepts which reflect the multi-dimensional ways teachers learn and conceptualise their learning. The data suggest that teachers learn in unique and different ways and that learning contexts and influences impact significantly on teachers’ conceptualisations of teacher professional learning, their identity formation and their dispositions to learn. A number of proposals aimed at policymakers and key stakeholders are put forward regarding the way teacher professional learning in Malta can be organised. The thesis also includes suggestions for teachers who would like to enhance their professional learning experiences.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.