Cm Gardner

The Complexities of Learning to Teach: “Just What Is It That I Am Doing?”

This chapter explores the findings from a study designed to pursue opportunities to strengthen pre-service teacher education. At the heart of the study was the identification and exploration of several tensions that emerge from the practicum experience with a view to examining and reducing the reported gap between teacher education course-work at university and the experiences of student-teachers during their inschool placements. A particular focus of the study was the use of an integrated technological format, WebCT, used to promote discourse and collaboration in the pursuit of providing additional support for student-teachers. WebCT incorporates a range of learning tools: information can be made available through the lecture tool; interaction is facilitated through real-time chat, asynchronous discussion during which contributors may choose anonymity, and e-mail; and student-teachers can be engaged in reflection and the provision of feedback through completing surveys. The WebCT survey tool was used to gather sets of data from 43 third year and 68 fourth year Tasmanian student-teachers in 2002. Each data set was allocated a number for identification purposes. Roman numerals denote which item in the survey elicited each response. In cases of data from discussion threads each contribution is identified with the message number.

Changes, Changes! Challenges perceived by early career and later career teachers and administrators

DOI: 10.3102/0013189X09333703

Teacher Involvement in Australia

This chapter begins with a brief description of the Australian school system as represented in Tasmania. This provides a backdrop for a report of the design and results of the Australian component of this study. Results of the research conducted with 50 principals and 105 teachers about their respective views on teacher involvement in school-based decision-making are presented and discussed with reference to our knowledge of schooling cultures and the workloads and worklives of educators in Australia.

Young Adults’ Stories of Gambling in a Research Situation: A Narrative Inquiry

Narrative research is rarely undertaken in the field of gambling research. For this reason, the present study used narrative methods to explore young adults’ personal accounts of gambling in a research situation. It had three interrelated aims: namely (i) to delineate the gambling-related identities of young adults; (ii) to examine how these gambling-related identities were constructed; and (iii) to identify the use of narrative techniques that contributed to narrative credibility. Study participants were young adults aged 18–24 and living in Tasmania. Data were collected through telephone interviews and written stories. A reduced data set comprising one interview transcript and two written stories was selected for the purposes of intensive analysis and publication. The analysis shows how participants who supplied this data set explained and justified their involvement in gambling, managed their identities and endeavoured to construct a shared reality. Some methodological issues arising from the study are discussed.