Reasoning and normative beliefs: not too sophisticated

Does reasoning to a certain conclusion necessarily involve a normative belief in support of that conclusion? In many recent discussions of the nature of reasoning, such a normative belief condition is rejected. One main objection is that it requires too much conceptual sophistication and thereby excludes certain reasoners, such as small children. I argue that this objection is mistaken. Its advocates overestimate what is necessary for grasping the normative concepts required by the condition, while seriously underestimating the importance of such concepts for our most fundamental agential capacities. Underlying the objection is the observation that normative thoughts do not necessarily cross our minds during reasoning. I show that proponents of the normative belief condition can accommodate this observation by taking the required normative belief to guide the reasoning process and offer a novel account of what such guidance consists in.     

Learning to teach through video playback: student teachers confronting their own practice

The aim of this study was to examine the use of video playback with student teachers to promote teacher learning and to analyse patterns of reflection. A total of 14 student teachers video recorded their lessons in the practice setting and later confronted their performance, facing their videotaped lesson during the course of an interview with their university supervisor. The interviews were then transcribed and coded. Our results indicate that video playback facilitates student teacher learning and that the quality of reflection ranges from routine to dialogic. This suggests that further research into how to elicit higher levels of reflection is needed. The role of the supervisor in promoting deeper thinking should be further examined.     

Transactions in doing design-based research for designing curriculum: a self-study

Design-based research (DBR) is an emerging methodology in teacher education research that researchers claim has strong potential in systematically designing and using instructional strategies and tools to develop, enact, and sustain effective learning environments. Studies have been conducted employing this methodology, but very little research has been made on the process of engaging in DBR for designing curriculum. Through a self-study, I found that using DBR as a model for creating curriculum draws from personal meaning-making, where I tapped on my own education, background, and experiences in literacy instruction to create curriculum. The other dimensions to the DBR process were more intangible and thus harder to negotiate. These included the political aspects, where decision-making was needed regarding course components. Keeping positive relationships with stakeholders was another challenging dimension in order to achieve a collectively meaningful curriculum. Finally, dispositions on literacy instruction also implied tension on the process since dispositions are not necessarily aligned with some DBR principles.     

Using video-supported reflection in peer groups to increase instructional effectiveness

This article reports upon the findings of research that explored change in teachers’ reflective thought and practice on a core set of complex teaching practices after the teachers participated in video-supported reflection model. Five 4th–7th grade teachers participated in the model that paired video-supported collaborative reflection with a research-based observation instrument, Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS). Classroom observation data was collected by video and scored to determine change in teaching practice. All video-supported collaborative dialogue sessions between peers were videotaped and transcribed. Findings point to the developmental process necessary when learning to critically reflect upon and enact complex instructional practices that are not already prominent in practice. Individual development of practice progressed as the collaborative dialogue group expanded their capacity for describing, understanding, and evaluating practice based upon a new schema of effective practice, intentionally enacting change resulting in significant increases in teacher performance.     

Portraying reflection: the contents of student teachers’ reflection on personal practical theories and practicum experience*

This research focused on personal practical theories of Finnish student teachers, on how they argued for them and what they contained, and the data were analysed using Korthagen’s ‘onion’ model of reflection (e.g. 2004). The framework of this research consists of reflection and personal practical theories (PPTs). Personal practical theories are viewed as important for a teacher’s identity: they guide the teacher’s work, action, and reactions before, during, and after a teaching event. Reflecting on teaching, then again, has been one of the most significant issues and focus of numerous studies for several decades. This is a case study of six elementary school student teachers, who had constructed their PPTs before the practicum. We examined their reflections using the onion model of reflection, according to which a person reflects on different levels. The data were collected by interviewing the student teachers after their final practicum. The results show that most of their reflection focused on Environment and Behaviour, so it was located mostly in the outer layers of the onion model. The categorization of the reflection also showed that Competence was the smallest category.     

Not just for special occasions: supporting the professional learning of teachers through critical reflection with audio-visual information

Despite increased use of professional learning communities in the teacher education field, they do not necessarily guarantee change in teachers’ daily practice. This study is a multiple case study of three school leaders in Vietnam to connect their teachers’ learning and practice by utilising visual records. In the cases studied, we see a progression of models of joint reflection based on visual information, from only occasional reflection to daily critical reflection, the latter of which the authors call ‘vide-flection’ referring to a process for people to consider their actions, thoughts, or experiences by utilising video-recorded images. For joint vide-flection, school leaders visit every classroom for several minutes every day to observe the wellbeing and learning of pupils and video-record struggles or breakthroughs in children’s learning; they share those images with teachers to jointly reflect on the situations. Through this vide-flection, teachers develop more detailed awareness of pupils needs.     

Relations of positive and negative expressivity and effortful control to kindergarteners’ student–teacher relationship,academic engagement,and externalizing problems at school

The current study examined the role of naturally-occurring negative and positive emotion expressivity in kindergarten and children’s effortful control (EC) on their relationships with teachers, academic engagement, and problems behaviors in school. Further, the potential moderating role of EC on these important school outcomes was assessed. Emotion and engagement were observed at school. EC was assessed by multiple methods. Teachers reported on their student–teacher relationships and students’ externalizing behaviors. Children’s emotion expressivity and EC were related to engagement and relationships with teachers as well as behavioral problems at school. Children low in EC may be particularly vulnerable to the poor outcomes associated with relatively intense emotion expressivity as they struggle to manage their emotions and behaviors in the classroom.     

Career guidance in multicultural societies: identity,alterity, epiphanies and pitfalls

This paper provides a scoping approach to the issue of career guidance in multicultural societies. It starts off by exploring the meaning of ‘culture’, moving away from ‘back-pack’ approaches that consider culture as a set of worldviews and dispositions that are readily shed or put on, to anthropological understandings of culture as deeply held ways of meaning making that permeate all levels of one’s life and one’s relationship with others. Such complex approaches to culture challenge career guidance workers to problematise notions they hold of themselves and of others, and to face up to the challenge of alterity. In effecting this troubling reaching inwards and reaching outwards, and in striving for the epiphany of ‘knowing’, a number of pitfalls need to be acknowledged and overcome. These include our own incipient monoculturalism, the romanticisation, essentialisation and exoticisation of culture, as well as restricted notions of equality.     

Educating career guidance practitioners in the twenty-first century

ABSTRACT

Rapidly changing policy contexts in England have dramatically affected the provision of career guidance, and the training and development of its practitioners. This paper takes an autoethnographic and self-reflexive approach to exploring the experience of a Senior Lecturer in Career Guidance who manages a centre that offers the Qualification in Career Guidance (QCG), and the Level 6 Diploma in Career Guidance and Development. Key questions are considered, such as: the effects of policy context on the type of qualification and curriculum offered, and their differences; the challenges of engaging learners in theoretical concepts and reflective approaches; and the tensions between ‘training’ practitioners and ‘educating’ them to develop a strong core of professionalism. The paper also considers the extent to which the learners develop as ‘knowledgeable social actors’.     

Good looks and good practice: the attitudes of career practitioners to attractiveness and appearance

Empirical evidence attests the impact that career image has on objective career success, yet little is known of how career practitioners conceptualise and operationalise this information. This article presents the quantitative findings of an online survey of career practitioners (n?=?399, 74% female, 89% white and 75% from the U.K.) exploring their attitudes and practices towards issues of appearance and attractiveness. Career practitioners who participated in this survey acknowledged that beauty, self-presentation and interpersonal skills influence career success, and 96% of them considered conversations about career image as part of their professional remit. The career practitioners felt relatively comfortable and well informed in their discussions in this arena, but would welcome further guidance and training to inform their practice. Ethical and practical implications for the profession are considered.