This thesis aims to take a step or two towards a theoretical model of where teacher education ‘stands’ as a social practice, a career, a discipline, and a profession. It does this through the specific lens of ‘professional identity’, a concept often referred to in the teaching and teacher education literature but one that is also often ill-defined and seldom made the empirical focus of the studies reported. Taking as its starting point a definition of professional identity as ‘the valued professional self’, the thesis recounts the findings of a phenomenological study of the professional self-image and identities of nine preservice teacher educators from six different institutions in Aotearoa New Zealand. The research involved a grounded analysis of the transcripts of some 39 extended interviews with the teacher educators, conducted over a five-year period. The period during which the thesis was written has been one of considerable educational change in New Zealand, and one little short of an upheaval in relation to the institutional structuring of teacher education nation-wide. During the period of the study colleges of education with a century and a half of history as independent, stand-alone and specialist institutions, have gone through a complex process of merging with their local universities, while neo-liberal reforms of all tertiary institutions have placed particular strains and constraints on the pedagogical structures and processes that are typically implemented in teacher education programmes. Being on the brink of a new era in teacher education has thus brought teacher educators’ identity - their place in the educational world and what it is that they and their field fundamentally ‘stand for’ - both into relief, and for some, into question. The teacher educators in the study followed a path into teacher education typical in New Zealand but perhaps increasingly untypical in many other countries - from practitioner to academic - and in one sense it is an account of how they severally and collectively have come to terms with their own identities as professionals during that journey and at a time of considerable institutional turmoil. But the research also attempts to get beyond their individual stories to address broader issues of how one might best ‘get at’ a professional identity in the first place, as a matter of interview analysis and method, whether or not there are some distinctive but common elements that might distinguish the professional identity of the particular group we call teacher educators, and if there are, then what those distinctive characteristics might be. The research studied the teacher educators’ professional identities through several related lenses or perspectives that taken together might be seen as constituting or covering the key facets of the phenomenon we call a professional identity. It interrogates their storied accounts of how and why they became teacher educators: their professional motivations, goals and career histories. It also examines through a snapshot in time what they saw as the occupational scope of their jobs and the various roles they undertook, and the relative emphasis or value priority given by individuals to each job or role. Through a third lens, it describes and theorises the particular knowledge base(s), pedagogies and professional expertise they felt they needed to do the job effectively, and what they saw as teacher educators’ distinctive ‘expertise’. Using metaphor analysis, it also explores the emotionalities associated with the various personae they found themselves ‘being’ as teacher educators - the highs and things that gave them ‘heart’, along with the tensions, incongruities and dilemmas associated with ‘being’ teacher educators. A final perspective explores their sense of collective identity as a professional community and the various other professional groups with whom they felt more, or less, collective affinity. The thesis concludes by proposing a conceptual model of teacher educators’ professional identity as an identity that overlaps with that of teachers in schools as well as with that of academics in other fields, but which is nevertheless distinguishable from both these. In particular, it is simultaneously more multifaceted in scope than the former and more performative in nature than the latter. The study suggests that teacher educators’ professional identity may be particularly characterised by the comprehensiveness of its specialist expertise, by a strong sense of ethical commitment and other-centredness, by a conception of teacher education as the embodied enactment of its own knowledge-base and expertise, and, ultimately, by an abiding ambivalence about teacher educators’ and teacher education’s place in the world - the professional discomfort that characterises working across ‘the spaces in between’.

The purpose of this study was to investigate to what extent constructivist classroom characteristics existed in ELT Methodology II courses in ELT departments. Secondly, the aim was to explore the extent to which constructivist learning activities and evaluation strategies were perceived to be useful by the students and the instructors. Thirdly, the study also attempted to find out the extent to which the students and the instructors in ELT departments had constructivist conceptions of learning and teaching. Finally, it was aimed to find out whether students&rsquo / perception of constructivist classroom characteristics differed according to certain variables such as university, sex, type of high school the students graduated from, expected average score in the course and perceived competency in English. Subjects of the study involved 410 students taking ELT Methodology II course (&Ouml / zel &Ouml / sretim Y&ouml / ntemleri II) during 2001-2002 academic year in ELT departments of four universities (Middle East Technical University, Gazi University, &Ccedil / ukurova University and Dicle University) and 15 instructors teaching this course at these universities. Data were collected between May &ndash / July 2002 through administration of a questionnaire (Constructivist Classroom Characteristics Questionnaire) to the students, interviews with the students and the instructors and observation of students&rsquo / microteaching practices in ELT Methodology II classes. Data analysis was carried out through both quantitative (frequencies, means, standard deviations, one-way ANOVA) and qualitative analysis techniques. The results of the study indicated that majority of the students and the instructors perceived the classroom characteristics to be constructivist although there were a few differences in their perceptions. Observations of microteaching also showed that classroom characteristics were constructivist with respect to the variety of the learning activities used by the students, feedback procedures in the classroom and negotiation and cooperation among the students. Secondly, both the students and the instructors perceived constructivist learning activities and evaluation strategies to be more useful compared to the traditional ones. Thirdly, majority of the students and the instructors held either cognitivist or constructivist conceptions of learning. On the other hand, the students were behaviorist in their conceptions of teaching while the instructors were constructivist. Finally, the results indicated that perception of constructivist classroom characteristics differed according to universities, expected average score and perceived competency in English whereas it did not differ according to student sex and the type of high schools the students graduated from. The results revealed that the learning activities, evaluation strategies, students&rsquo / learning experiences and instructors&rsquo / roles in the classroom should be reconsidered and improved in order to make ELT Methodology II classes more constructivist in nature.

The quality of teaching occurring in schools is directly linked to the quality of preservice preparation that teachers receive (Darling-Hammond, 2000). This is particularly important in the area of music teacher education, given the unique challenges that classroom music teachers commonly face (Ballantyne, 2001). This thesis explores early-career music teachers' perceptions of the effectiveness of their preservice teacher education programs in Queensland. It also explores influences impacting upon early-career music teachers' perceptions of effectiveness and early-career music teachers' perceived needs in relation to their preservice preparation. The study addresses the research questions through the use of questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. In Stage 1 of the research, questionnaires were completed by 76 secondary classroom music teachers in their first four years of teaching in Queensland, Australia. In Stage 2 of the research, 15 of these teachers were interviewed to explore findings from the questionnaire in depth. Findings suggest that preservice teachers perceive a need for teacher education courses to be contextualised, integrated and allow for the continual development of knowledge and skills throughout their early years in schools. This research provides an empirical basis for reconceptualising music teacher education courses and raises important issues that music teacher educators need to address in order to ensure that graduates are adequately prepared for classroom music teaching.

Assessment for Learning (AfL) has been seen as a key aspect of teaching and learning for almost two decades, since the seminal review by Black and Wiliam (1998a). However, the research has largely been conducted with practising teachers rather than student teachers. This thesis attempts to fill this gap in relation to AfL, and illustrate that understanding how student teachers learn to use conceptual resources, such as AfL, can inform the work of all those who support the learning of teachers in training. The present study investigated how four secondary geography student teachers on a one year post-graduate training programme in England worked with ideas associated with AfL in their teaching during two school placements. The study asked how and why they used AfL or, as became evident, Assessment of Learning (AoL) in their teaching and what their use of AfL might tell us about their learning to teach in schools. The thesis adopted a cultural-historical approach to investigate the actions in activities of the student teachers as they learnt to teach. The four students were followed over two terms in their two placement schools to gather data on their trajectories as learners and beginning teachers. Data collection methods were: (i) semi-structured interviews with the four students; interviews with their teacher mentors and other school staff; and (ii) regular post-lesson interviews with the student teachers, following observations of their teaching. The cultural-historical approach led to examining AfL as a potential tool to be used by the student teachers in their teaching. Engeström's (1990, 1999, 2007) work on tool use and mediating artefacts was deployed to analyse the student teachers' use of AfL and what they saw as its purposes. The attention to purposes of tool use in the study was also informed by Hedegaard's (2012, 2014) work on motives in institutional practices, the activities in the practices and the actions taken by student teachers. This approach pointed to how the institutional motives and demands embedded in school practices influenced their learning. The study also paid attention to the identity work being done by the student teachers. This work was most apparent when the student teachers moved from their first to second placement school and worked with a different set of demands in institutional practices. One early finding was that although school colleagues and student teachers were using the label AfL, closer examination revealed that they were actually using AoL. Key findings from the final analyses were as follows: there was considerable variation in how the geography specialist teacher mentors interpreted and used AfL; some mentors were strongly mediating the AfL/AoL expectations evident in the school inspection system in England; there was evidence of some strong and challenging mentoring, but it was not consistent across the experiences of the students; the students' own sense of the kind of teacher they wanted to become could be tracked in ways which revealed how they coped with the different school demands and what they saw as university expectations; the transition between placement schools was significant for the student teachers in ways that had not been anticipated by the design of the programme. Following the student teachers as learners offered insights into their experiences in the black box of school placements during teacher education. Consequently, the implications for the design of teacher education programmes are a key part of the discussion stimulated by the findings.

abstract: In an attempt to gain a greater understanding of the interpretations and attitudes of higher education faculty in education programs teaching critical pedagogy, social justice, student empowerment and related concepts I conducted interviews with twenty faculty members in education programs in the New York City area. It is a study looking at the philosophies and conceptions of faculty and the relationship between those philosophies and their actions in the classroom. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed for trends and patterns. The nature of the questions focused on various aspects of critical pedagogy and allowed for an easy transition to preliminary categories based on the interview questions. The data was reviewed again for similarities and trends, and then again for comparison between the three identified perspectives: Professionalization Perspective, Democratic Student Development Perspective, and Critical Action Perspective. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2015

abstract: ABSTRACT There is a continuing emphasis in the United States to improve student's mathematical abilities and one approach is to better prepare teachers. This study investigated the effects of using lesson study with preservice secondary mathematics teachers to improve their proficiency at planning and implementing instruction. The participants were students (preservice teachers) in an undergraduate teacher preparation program at a private university who were enrolled in a mathematics methods course for secondary math teachers. This project used lesson study to engage preservice teachers in collaboratively creating lessons, field testing them, using feedback to revise the lessons, and re-teaching the revised lesson. The preservice teachers worked through multiple cycles of the process in their secondary math methods class receiving feedback from their peers and instructor prior to teaching the lessons in their field experience (practicum). A mixed methods approach was implemented to investigate the preservice teacher's abilities to plan and implement instruction as well as their efficacy for teaching. Data were collected from surveys, video analysis, student reflections, and semi-structured interviews. The findings from this study indicate that lesson study for preservice teachers was an effective means of teacher education. Lesson study positively impacted the preservice teachers' ability to plan and teach mathematical lessons more effectively. The preservice teachers successfully transitioned from teaching in the methods classroom to their field experience classroom during this innovation. Further, the efficacy of the preservice teachers to teach secondary mathematics increased based on this innovation. Further action research cycles of lesson study with preservice teachers are recommended. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2013

abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate critical literacy practices in two prehistoric exhibits in a natural history museum. Bourdieu's habitus and Bakhtin's dialogism served as theoretical frames to collect and analyze data. Data were collected and triangulated using field notes, interview transcriptions, archives, and other data sources to critically scrutinize textual meaning and participant responses. Spradley's (1979) domain analysis was used to sort and categorize data in the early stage. Glaser and Strauss's (1967) constant comparative method was used to code data. My major findings were that museum texts within this context represent embedded beliefs and values that were interwoven with curators` habitus, tastes and capital, as well as institutional policies. The texts in the two Hohokam exhibits endorse a certain viewpoint of learning. Teachers and the public were not aware of the communicative role that the museum played in the society. In addition, museum literacy/ies were still practiced in a fundamental way as current practices in the classroom, which may not support the development of critical literacy. In conclusion, the very goal for critical museum literacy is to help students and teachers develop intellectual strategies to read the word and the world in informal learning environments. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Curriculum and Instruction 2013

abstract: With the unveiling of the National Educational Technology Plan 2010, both preservice and inservice K12 teachers in the United States are expected to create a classroom environment that fosters the creation of digital citizens. However, it is unclear whether or not teacher education programs build this direct instruction, or any other method of introducing students to the National Education Technology Standards (NETS), "a standard of excellence and best practices in learning, teaching and leading with technology in education," into their curriculum (International Society for Technology in Education, 2012). As with most teaching skills, the NETS and standards-based technology integration must be learned through exposure during the teacher preparation curriculum, either through modeling, direct instruction or assignments constructed to encourage standards-based technology integration. This study attempted to determine the extent to which preservice teachers at Arizona State University (ASU) enrolled in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College (MLFTC) can recognize the National Education Technology Standards (NETS) published by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and to what extent preservice teachers are exposed to technology integration in accordance with the NETS-T standards in their preparation curriculum in order to answer the questions of whether or not teacher education curriculum provides students an opportunity to learn and apply the NETS-T and if preservice teachers in core teacher preparation program courses that include objectives that integrate technology are more likely to be able to identify NETS-T standards than those in courses that do not include these elements In order to answer these questions, a mixed-method design study was utilized to gather data from an electronic survey, one-on-one interviews with students, faculty, and administrators, and document analysis of core course objectives and curriculum goals in the teacher certification program at ASU. The data was analyzed in order to determine the relationship between the preservice teachers, the NETS-T standards, and the role technology plays in the curriculum of the teacher preparation program. Results of the analysis indicate that preservice teachers have a minimum NETS-T awareness at the Literacy level, indicating that they can use technology skills when prompted and explore technology independently. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Educational Technology 2013

Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo analisar o Programa de Educação Continuada Formação Universitária (PEC) Municípios - 2ª edição (2006-2008) e sua relação com alunos-professores de Educação Infantil participantes. Diante da complexidade desse Programa, que é uma das iniciativas empreendidas no Brasil, para certificar, no âmbito do ensino superior, milhares de professores de Educação Infantil, em serviço, das redes públicas de ensino, fez-se necessária uma delimitação no amplo universo a ser pesquisado, para aprofundamento sobre o tema. Optou-se, então, pelo Material Impresso de Educação Infantil do PEC-Municípios, porque esse material atua como eixo organizador das atividades propostas a alunos-professores e por trazer temas e assuntos relevantes referentes a esse nível de ensino. Além da análise do PEC-Municípios (origem, princípios, formato e atividades pedagógicas) e do seu Material Impresso de Educação Infantil (estruturação, temas e concepções), por meio de documentos oficiais, esta pesquisa avalia também como essa iniciativa foi apropriada por uma parte de seu público-alvo: os professores de Educação Infantil do polo de Catanduva, interior de São Paulo, participantes do Programa. Em outras palavras, foram analisados, sob a ótica dos próprios docentes, efeitos e/ou contribuições do PEC-Municípios, a partir de sua estrutura e de teorias acerca da Educação Infantil, sobretudo, em seus discursos e concepções pedagógicas. Para tanto, foram aplicados questionários a alunos-professores participantes do Programa. Os dados coletados por esse instrumento passaram pelo crivo da análise de conteúdo, segundo Bardin (1977), mais especificamente pela análise categorial. Pelos resultados, avaliou-se que o PEC-Municípios é um curso de formação de professores de Educação Infantil em serviço com princípios, formato, atividades e conteúdos inovadores, proporcionando sólida formação teórica e de qualidade, propiciando, segundo respostas dos próprios alunos-professores, participantes, reflexões, apropriações de conhecimentos, concepções e relações com a prática cotidiana, além de possibilitar outros processos formativos. O PEC-Municípios se apresenta, então, como um possível modelo para se repensarem antigos cursos de reciclagem e de capacitação, além de poder ser um programa de formação inicial de professores de Educação Infantil a ser incentivado e desenvolvido por outras instituições que se proponham também a serem realmente formadoras de profissionais da Educação Infantil, em um contexto que exige docentes bem qualificados e mais atuantes, para contribuírem com a sociedade em que vivem. Desse modo, os resultados positivos desta proposta de formação de professores de Educação Infantil não são receitas a serem seguidas, mas sim, um convite a refletir sobre as contribuições que ela trouxe e sobre o que ela pode ensinar sobre o tema, com vistas a contribuir para o fazer docente. / This research aims to analyze the Continuing Education Program-University Education PEC-Cities 2nd edition (2006-2008) and its relation with Early Childhood Education student-teacher participants. Due to the complexity of this program, which is one of the undertaken initiatives in Brazil, to certify in higher education, thousands of in service teachers in Early Childhood Education from public schools, there was a need to limit the wide field to be searched so that the subject could be more deeply researched. We decided on the Early Childhood Education Printed Materials PEC-Cities for this material acts as the main thrust of the proposed activities for students-teachers and brings relevant issues and concerns related to this level of education. Besides the analysis of the program (origin, principles, format and teaching activities) and of its Early Childhood Education Printed Materials (structure, themes and concepts), by means of the access to official documents, this study also evaluates how this initiative was appropriate to a part of its target audience: teachers of the Early Childhood Education center in Catanduva, state of São Paulo, who took part in the program. In other words, effects and / or contributions from PEC-Cities were analyzed from the perspective of those documents, considering their structure and theories about Early Childhood Education, particularly those found in speeches and educational ideas. So as to achieve our aim, we applied questionnaires to students-teachers who were participating in the program. The data collected by the instrument had its content analysis tested according to Bardins (1977) category analysis. From the results, it was estimated that the PEC-Cities is a training course for Early Childhood Education teachers which is in accordance with its principles, format, activities and content, providing solid and quality theoretical orientation. It also provides students-teachers with subjects, thoughts, appropriation of knowledge, concepts and relation with daily practice, enabling further conceptual processes. Thus PEC-Cities presents itself as a feasible model to rethink old \'recycling\' and \'empowerment\' courses, and it can be an Early Childhood Education Program teachers training to be promoted and developed by other institutions which intend to form real good education professionals in a context that requires well-qualified and active teachers who are supposed to contribute to their society. As a conclusion, the positive results of this proposal for teacher training in Early Childhood Education are not recipes to be followed, but an invitation to reflect upon the contribution they have brought and what can be learned about the subject, aiming to effectively contribute towards the teaching activity.

Que relações os professores estabelecem com os cursos de formação continuada dos quais participam? Quais os sentidos dessa formação que ocorre em exercício? Com base nessas questões, empreendemos uma pesquisa que procurou refletir sobre o lugar ocupado pela formação de professores na atualidade, especialmente a continuada, ou seja, aquela que acontece após o ingresso na profissão. Realizamos oito entrevistas semidirigidas com professoras e um ex-professor e, embasados nos referenciais da área, encontramos algumas funções que podem ser atribuídas a essa formação, tais como: aquela proveniente da racionalidade técnica, conduzindo o professor a cumprir um papel mais de aplicador de saberes produzidos em outras instâncias, em que o foco de seu trabalho encontra-se nos meios para se alcançar finalidades previamente estabelecidas; as que visam a aproximá-lo do proletariado ou transformá-lo num profissional do ensino, como estabelecem as perspectivas da proletarização e da profissionalização, respectivamente; a chamada formação compensatória, que surge para suprir as chamadas carências da formação inicial; a de desenvolver as competências profissionais necessárias ao professor; aquela que intenciona conferir teorias ou práticas que despontam como novidades no cenário pedagógico; entre outras desenvolvidas ao longo do trabalho. Apontamos que os sentidos atribuídos à formação continuada e as implicações desta na prática docente estejam mais atrelados à singularidade do sujeito isto é, à sua condição de sujeito ao desejo inconsciente do que às ferramentas trabalhadas nos cursos, em que pesa sobretudo a dita ciência pedagógica. Baseados no método clínico e na transmissão, ambos da psicanálise, seguimos propondo modos de trabalho que pressupõem o professor como sujeito do desejo, não limitando-o ao indivíduo da cognição, tais como: a análise pessoal, grupos de discussão e escrita de relatos, narrativas e diários. / What are the relations between the teachers and the continued education courses that they take? What are the meanings of these continued education courses? We were based on these questions in order to carry on a research that intents to think about the place occupied by the teacher education nowadays, specially the continuous education courses, which are the ones that happen after the beginning of the work as a teacher. We had eight interviews with female teachers and one interview with a male ex-teacher and, based on the references about teacher education, we found a few purposes that can be related to teacher education, which are: that one that came with the technical rationality, leaving the teacher in an application role (teachers apply the knowledge that was produced in other places) and making them focus on the means, not on the purposes of their job; the ones which intend to get the teachers closer to the proletariat or to a professional of the education, as the perspectives of proletarianization and professionalization, respectively; the so called compensatory education, that was created to compensate bad instruction in the graduation; the one to develop professional competences which are considered necessary for a teacher; the one that intends to give theories or practices that emerge as innovations in pedagogical scenarios, among others which are developed throughout their work activity. We point that the meanings of the continuous education courses and their implication in reality are more related to the singularity of the person, in other words, to the teacher\'s condition as subject to unconscious desire, than to the tools given in the courses. Based on the clinic method and in the transmission, both from psychoanalysis, we propose ways of working which assume the teacher as a subject of desire, not only as an individual of cognition, such as: the personal analysis, groups of discussion and the write of reports, narratives and diaries.