The aim of this study was to explore the use of an online community of practice that would support Home Economics teachers in gaining the experience and knowledge necessary in order to integrate ICT effectively in their classroom practice. The project, which was conducted on a virtual learning environment, provided a channel and opportunity for teachers to acquire the knowledge and skills required to encourage ICT use. Rogers' (2003) diffusion of innovation process was the principal framework utilised and structured the process on the online community of practice. The participants, who were teachers and student-teachers of Home Economics, were led systematically from one phase to another of the framework in order to implement and confirm this innovation in the Home Economics class. The effectiveness of the online community of practice for the dissemination of knowledge, for improving classroom practice and hence as a professional development medium were researched in this study. A mixed-method approach was used in the methodology of this case study. In this study I undertook a reflective process into my own pedagogical practices and Rogers' (2003) framework and through this method I tried to offer support and confidence to Home Economics teachers to expose them to effective technology integration. Analysis and evaluation were obtained from data collected through both quantitative and qualitative methods. A questionnaire was used to map out main responses whilst interviews and the forum discussions were used to draw out more in depth findings in order to answer the research questions. The data were analysed both inductively and deductively drawing from Rogers' (2003) theoretical model view and a content analysis method was utilised for the discussion forums and interactions on the online community of practice. The applicability of Rogers' model for this professional development exercise was also analysed as a result of the effectiveness of the community of practice and its implications for the educational community. The findings show that through this online activity teachers' knowledge relating to the positive use of ICT in education can be confirmed. Teachers also gained confidence in use through the sharing of ideas, through online feedback and through exposure to a community which brought teachers together in an asynchronous learning environment. The findings show that what teachers need most is the 'how-to' knowledge when an innovation is being diffused into set practice and this online community seems to have been an effective medium to deliver this. However, there were barriers which hindered more active participation, which greatly affected the knowledge construction on the online community of practice. In conclusion one can say that support for technology integration should be provided for teachers from more formal policy driven and monitored professional development settings. An online community of practice can be the ideal medium to offer this even if not exclusive and over a long span of time, to provide the ongoing support which is necessary for technology integration. Teachers must also take up the challenge to make a significant paradigm shift in practice but also in training in order to maintain a more flexible and autonomous approach to professional development in technology and pedagogic practices.

This study examined a two-week in-service training agenda as an aspect of teachers' professional development using a two-stage case study design. The case study site was a private school in Lebanon. Lebanon is involved in educational reform and therefore the examination of the entrenched two-week in-service agenda was timely and enlightening. The case study identified factors that contribute to meaningful professional development and identified the parameters within which professional development can function. The study employed a multi-method design in which key constructs were examined using more than one methodology. The multiple methods included ethnographic observation of the in-service programme, semi-structured observation of a purposive sample of teachers teaching, semi-structured interviews of all senior management personnel, as well as a purposive maximum variation sample of teachers, a purposive convenient sample of two student groups and review of relevant documents. This rigorous approach addressed validity issues often associated with case study design as well as enabled the findings of this study to potentially be utilised in policy formulation or used to establish theoretical insight. A constant comparison method of data analysis was employed to categorise the data and generate themes. Specifically, the study asserts that for an in-service agenda to function as meaningful professional development it must be embedded into the school routine, incorporate ways in which adult learners learn best; be practical, transparent, include new and relevant content, be on-going and include follow-up and critical reflection. The study also discovered that the management of the process is critical and that leadership attributes of a transformational and distributive nature facilitate the process. Finally, the study also asserts that the organisational structure of the school plays a vital role in the on-going, embedded professional growth of teachers. The study maintains that organisational structures should be conceived with the goals and vision of the institution in mind and not adopted for habitual or traditional reasons.

The Seminar Hakibutzim Teachers Training College in Tel Aviv trains students to teach different subjects. The pedagogic instructors have the most responsibility for training students as it is they who impart teaching skills and evaluate students' ability and suitability to teach. However, they have long been dissatisfied with their students' handling of professional dilemmas in teaching practice. Dilemmas, which are ambivalent and lacking a clear solution, are an inherent part of teaching; however, students who are inevitably at the stage of constructing their professional identity, find dilemmas hard to handle. This leads to frustration and, in extreme cases, students ignore their dilemmas. The college has felt it necessary to change the training programme curriculum and try to provide professional tools that will help students handle their dilemmas. The main aim of this action research was to improve my method of training prospective teachers to cope with professional challenges and especially dilemmas. To this end, I developed a new teaching unit for the Early Childhood Training Program. When I taught this topic for the first time, I analysed the skills and abilities students needed to handle professional dilemmas. The research lasted two years (two research cycles), during which time I planned and taught the new teaching unit. Each research cycle comprised two elements: a college-based element, in which students learned the tools to cope with professional dilemmas, and the practical element, when students applied what they had learned in college to their school teaching practice. The study identified three levels of dilemma management in each of the skills examined: these were Low, Intermediate and High. In the second research cycle, improvements were observed in the way students managed professional dilemmas. The results of the study can be applied in every teacher training college.

This thesis describes an investigation into the important process of communication between tutors and student teachers in the context of teacher education. In particular it investigates the learning dialogue which takes place in the context of 'whole class' talk, and considers whose authority is being called upon or deferred to, both implicitly and explicitly, in these contexts -- that is to say, whose 'voices' are being heard.;The research takes the form of two case studies of individual tutors, each interacting with a student group as part of the taught sessions within their course. It adopts a broadly qualitative methodology and its data comprise transcriptions taken from video recordings of the whole class sections of these sessions, the analysis of which is guided by a framework drawn from the literature reviewed.;The studies identify a number of techniques and approaches used by the tutors in these contexts. Most importantly, findings indicate that friendly empathetic relationships with the students are actively created by the tutors and are a fundamentally important means of shaping the talk and attempting to support learning. Evidence indicates that the strength of the student voice varies, but that, notwithstanding the relaxed ethos in these classrooms, and despite the constraints of government control, it is ultimately the tutors' voices which prevail.;The thesis argues that personal relationships are an essential and integral part of the meaning created by these students; and that teacher educators must recognise emotional aspects of student teachers' lives to be inseparable from their learning and from their developing confidence as thinking professionals. It is suggested that nurturing these emerging student 'voices' carries with it a heavy responsibility, and that tutors should use these relationships, together with a passion for their subject, to encourage, enthuse, support and even persuade, but not to indoctrinate.

No description available.

The subject of this research is interaction and language use in an institutional context, the teacher training classroom. Trainer talk is an interactional accomplishment and the research question is: what structures of talk-in-interaction characterise trainer talk in this institutional setting? While there has been research into other kinds of classroom and into other kinds of institutional talk, this study is the first on trainer discourse. The study takes a Conversation Analysis approach to studying institutional interaction and aims to identify the main structures of sequential organization that characterize teacher trainer talk as well as the tasks and identities that are accomplished in it. The research identifies three main interactional contexts in which trainer talk is done: expository, exploratory and experiential. It describes the main characteristics of each and how they relate to each other. Expository sequences are the predominant interactional contexts for trainer talk. But the research findings show that these contexts are flexible and open to the embedding of the other two contexts. All three contexts contribute to the main institutional goal of teaching teachers how to teach. Trainer identity is related to the different sequential contexts. Three main forms of identity in interaction are evidenced in the interactional contexts: the trainer as trainer, the trainer as teacher and the trainer as colleague. Each of them play an important role in teacher trainer pedagogy. The main features of trainer talk as a form of institutional talk are characterised by the following interactional properties: 1. Professional discourse is both the vehicle and object of instruction - the articulation of reflection on experience. 2. There is a reflexive relationship between pedagogy and interaction. 3. The professional discourse that is produced by trainees is not evaluated by trainers but, rather, reformulated to give it relevant precision in terms of accuracy and appropriacy.

The thesis is concerned with the evaluation of in-service programmes for language teachers. The main focus is on UK-based face-to-face provision for teachers of English to speakers of other languages, although some reference is made to programmes for teachers of languages other than English. A number of questions are posed: • What procedures are currently used by UK institutions to evaluate in-service programmes for language teachers? • How satisfactory is the approach to evaluation in use in UK institutions in the eyes of key respondents and judged by such criteria as validity and reliability? • What procedures other than those in common use might contribute usefully to programme evaluation? These questions are explored by means of survey techniques and case studies. On the basis of the resulting evidence, it is argued that there is a need for review of existing evaluation practices and for the dissemination of good practice. The thesis is structured as follows: Chapter 1 defines key terms, presents the case for programme evaluation and offers a rationale for the focus adopted. Chapters 2 and 3 deal respectively with theoretical issues and evaluation method and provide a context for the empirical work described in subsequent chapters. Chapter 4 reports the findings of a survey into current evaluation practices in UK institutions, and Chapters 5-8 comprise case studies in which the potential contribution of specific programme evaluation techniques is examined. Chapter 9 makes recommendations for future practice.

This thesis employs a biographical method to understand the phenomenon of teacher professional development in South Africa. It was conducted between 1992 and 1995, and involved interviewing 60 black teachers from Johannesburg and Durban. It examines a relatively under-researched area in South Africa - namely, the perceptions and experiences of black teachers with regard to their professional development. Black teachers have, hitherto, been treated as a homogeneous group, with little account taken of unique backgrounds from which they respond, both subjectively and objectively, to various structures, and ideological modes of domination and contestation. Instead, teachers' accounts show that no matter how strong and pervasive certain aspects of their shared professional culture may be and how effectively they have been socialised into it, their actions and attitudes to professional development are partly rooted in each teacher's own biography and view of the world. The findings suggest that teachers are not merely pushed into development: rather, they make conscious choices based on the interaction between their personal and professional lives, and the material socio-political contexts. Also emerging from this analysis is the view that teachers' conceptions of professional development are influenced by beliefs, 'myths' and practices found in the African culture. Most notable is the communal culture of '<I>ubuntu botho</I>' - a person is a person through others. Based on these results, the study provides fresh insights into teacher development in a South African context. It suggests that the discourse of teacher development is dynamic and can no longer be analysed using a conventional neo-Marxist perspective to critique socio-economic and political structures, or a neo-liberal skills-oriented approach.

No description available.

This study investigates the implementation of the concept of assessment for learning in the context of computer education courses in teacher education in Macau. It aims to promote reflection in students' learning with the use of technology. The concept of assessment for learning was infused into the courses taught by the researcher. Opportunities for self-assessment, peer-assessment and constructive feedback were set up for students to examine their own learning through the online technoiogy, of blogging and digital portfolios. One hundred and seventeen teachers and teacher candidates, taking Computer, Applications, Educational Technology and Information Technology in Education experienced a curriculum based on the concept of assessment for learning for a period of thirteen to fourteen weeks. Nineteen of them experienced a longer period of about twenty-seven weeks. Students were requested to reflect on the course content weekly using blogs and the journal content of the blogs serves as the main source for data analysis. In addition, a questionnaire was given to students to seek their v'iew on the use of blogs for reflection and communication purposes. Analysis of data from different sources such as questionnaire, students' journals and their digital learning portfolios show that students do engage in the reflective process. However, the quality of reflection for most students was not deep. Students did make use of the journal to communicate with. the tutor. The communication pattern of students using online environment shows that they support their peers by words of encouragement, affirmation and empathy. Students value the feedback provided by both the tutor and their classmates. Major problems encountered by students are: the requirement to write a weekly journal and knowledge of what constitutes reflective journal content. The study concludes that assessment for learning is a viable approach that can be supported through blog and digital portfolios. However, the successful implementation of the assessment for learning requires the active facilitation of the tutor to engage students in the process of reflection and communication.