Section archive - Instruction in Teacher Training

This article describes the design of an assignment structure that promotes teacher reflection on important issues related to a major education reform in Hong Kong. This article reported a grounded model explaining how this innovative assignment structure promotes reflection. The model situated the reflective assignments within the local teaching context in Hong Kong. The model also highlighted the importance of different forms of assistance and guidance in facilitating teachers’ reflective engagement in completing these cognitively demanding assignments.

The main goal of this self-study was to determine the extent to which an instructor's pedagogical knowledge and practice would be enhanced though the use of Just-in-Time Teaching. The findings reveal that the JiTT strategy has indeed strengthened many areas of the instructor's pedagogical content knowledge. The JiTT activities allowed the instructor to assess easily the prior understandings of her students so that she could better address any misconceptions or gaps in their science knowledge. The in-class follow-up to each activity also forced the instructor to expand her understanding of instructional methodologies. Finally, the findings reveal that the JiTT strategy has indeed strengthened many areas of the instructor's pedagogical content knowledge.

In the author's introductory educational psychology course, students write biweekly journals reflecting on their own lived experiences in light of course concepts and ideas. In this article, the author shares typical journal questions and excerpts from the responses of two recent classes to show how students can engage journal questions at differing levels. The author discusses choice, respect, and agency as three essential conditions for effective use of student journals in preservice teacher education.

This paper reports the findings from the first nationwide survey of Australian primary pre-service teacher educators coordinating units and programmes with CBM content. Stand-alone units were offered in 68% of programmes and embedded in 96% of programmes. They commonly included applied behaviour analysis, decisive discipline, positive behaviour intervention and support, and choice theory/reality therapy, among the 36 approaches/models listed. More than half of the stand-alone units and only 20% of embedded units were coordinated by an academic with a stated CBM research interests.