Donna Mathewson Mitchell

Thinking through Practice: Exploring Ways of Knowing, Understanding and Representing the Complexity of Teaching.

In recent times there has been a cross-disciplinary amplification of interest in the concept of practice. In this context, there is a growing body of research considering how teaching and teacher education might be viewed using the conceptual lens of practice. In this article, I explore practice theories to identify common themes and principles that constitute a conceptual framework for the investigation of the lived experience of teaching. From this foundation, a methodological framework based on collaborative inquiry and postmodern emergence is derived. Examples are offered of the way the conceptual framework and methodological approach have been activated through the first stage of a research programme that collaboratively engages the dual voices of academic researcher and classroom practitioners as co-researchers. Analysis of qualitative data reveals the potential and limitations of this practice-based foundation as a way to know, understand and represent the complexity of teaching. In conclusion, the article develops a number of propositions as the basis for further research.In recent times there has been a cross-disciplinary amplification of interest in the concept of practice. In this context, there is a growing body of research considering how teaching and teacher education might be viewed using the conceptual lens of practice. In this article, I explore practice theories to identify common themes and principles that constitute a conceptual framework for the investigation of the lived experience of teaching. From this foundation, a methodological framework based on collaborative inquiry and postmodern emergence is derived. Examples are offered of the way the conceptual framework and methodological approach have been activated through the first stage of a research programme that collaboratively engages the dual voices of academic researcher and classroom practitioners as co-researchers. Analysis of qualitative data reveals the potential and limitations of this practice-based foundation as a way to know, understand and represent the complexity of teaching. In conclusion, the...

Acts of Discovery: Using Collaborative Research to Mobilize and Generate Knowledge about Visual Arts Teaching Practice.

Visual arts teachers engage in complex work on a daily basis. This work is informed by practical knowledge that is rarely examined or drawn on in research or in the development of policy. Focusing on the work of secondary visual arts teachers, this article reports on a research program conducted in a regional area of New South Wales, Australia. The research engages in a collaborative process of educational connoisseurship and educational criticism to examine and discuss classroom practice. The process is underpinned by a belief in research as an act of discovery and is guided by a framework that provides a language and grammar of practice. Drawing on qualitative data, discussion focuses on how the collaborative process enables the mobilization and generation of new knowledge. The article concludes by considering the relationship between teaching practice, research, and policy development and by recommending support for collaborative research-based initiatives that foreground the knowledge of teachers.

Examining the lived experience of bullying: a review of the literature from an Australian perspective

Bullying in schools is a significant and continuing issue in education. This is despite widespread attention within the professional education community and beyond, into the wider public arena. In this paper, we review the existing literature on bullying in schools, with a particular focus on the Australian secondary school context, to develop a position that questions the bully/victim binary pervading public discourse and educational research. In doing this, we identify common themes within the literature including: definitions of bullying; responses and interventions to bullying; discourses of bullying in schools; and the role of stakeholders involved in managing and responding to bullying incidents. Based on this review, we argue that much of the literature approaches the topic from an individual and psychological point of view, and there are multiple problems related to both methodology and representation. There appears to be an absence of research about the broader social contexts and processes in which bullying occurs, while there is a strong argument for its importance. From this basis, we briefly speculate on alternative approaches that potentially address such concerns and allow for new approaches to a continuing problem, in Australia and internationally.

Inhabiting a Teaching Body: Portraits of Teaching

How does someone who has not previously ‘taught’ in a formal sense become habituated to the forms of bodily disposition that characterize them as a teacher? What discourses and practices frame the production of a recognizably well-prepared teaching body as a product of pre-service teacher education? Working from the premise that teacher education is ‘a practice producing subjects’, concerned with the initial and continuing formation of ‘teaching subjects’, that is, teachers as ‘knowledgeable and capable educational agents’, this chapter builds on concepts of practice, the body, and the teaching ‘self’ as increasingly expert in its field. Informed by theories of practice, subjectivity and performance, the chapter focuses on exploring and understanding the materiality of the body in the practices that supporting the preparation of beginning teachers and the development of expertise in continuing teachers in classroom settings. Two representations of practice here are provided here – one of an expert practitioner, one of a novice – within a consideration of how the idea of an appropriate and standardized teaching body is taken for granted as ‘naturally’ conforming to normative discourses of the (good) teacher formulated in the language of professional standards which seek to frame and (re)produce professional practice for pre-service and in-service teachers.

(Re)turning to practice in teacher education: embodied knowledge in learning to teach

Abstract Contemporary research conversations about the utility of practice theories to professional education support the reconceptualisation of pre-service teacher education in ways that provide strong preparation for continued professional learning. This paper reports on an empirical inquiry that introduced a theoretically informed practice-based intervention in a pre-service teacher education course in order to judge the utility of such an approach for student learning. Innovations within the Study of Teaching programme illustrate the bringing together of pedagogies of observation, pedagogies of enactment, and pedagogies of reflection toward an integrated theory of teacher education that focuses on the teaching body as a central site for research and for the building of preparatory knowledge and skill for ongoing learning. Data was collected from pre-service teachers involved in the programme through video and audio recordings along with individual and focus group interviews, questionnaires and student reflection on video recordings. These were analyzed within an emerging theoretical framework derived from both practice-theoretical literature and international empirical research into core practices. Initial findings suggest that a focus on practice within pre-service teacher education may enhance traditional understandings of ‘practice-based’ approaches that situate the study of practice outside of the university, in school settings. These findings have implications for the ongoing reform of teacher education in increasingly regulated contexts framed in terms of teacher quality.

Evolving Practice: A Relational Framework for Developing Understandings of University Teaching Practice

As a teacher educator I am concerned with developing understandings of my teaching as it evolves over time, in relation to the university teaching context and more broadly in terms understandings of teaching practice. In this paper, I outline the development of a framework designed for this purpose. The Relational Framework for Investigating Teaching Practice (RFITP) enables the systematic collection of information about teaching as a formative and cyclic process. Implementation of the framework is explained and data reported on to illustrate the use of this framework in a project involving self study. While this particular example draws on teaching in an online environment, implications for understanding and developing teaching in the particular context of university teacher education are explored.

The recursive practice of research and teaching: reframing teacher education

ABSTRACT As a field, Teacher Education has lived with continued criticism from governmental and research bodies on the quality of professional preparation and the lack of a strong research base. We respond to such criticisms by considering possibilities for further exploration of the research of practice and the practice of research in both initial and continuing teacher education. As both a theoretical and methodological challenge, this is tied recursively with research and practice in teacher education, for teacher educators, about teacher education. We draw on the theoretical resources of practice theories, to argue that teacher education practice must be informed by the study of the practice of teaching as well as research addressing the teaching of practice. In conclusion, we make a methodological case for reframing the roles of teacher and researcher within a “thirdspace” to consider the practice of researching teaching as recursive and always regenerative.

Purposeful practice: Using technology to enhance teaching and learning in visual arts

This chapter examines the integration of information communication technology to enhance teaching and learning in visual arts classrooms. It draws on a participatory action research project conducted with teachers in schools to explore the distinctive nature of secondary visual arts teaching practice. From this data the author presents three examples that particularly illustrate the use of technology for practice. The first example presents a teacher who uses technology as a vehicle for student-centred learning. The second example provides an account of a teacher who uses social media and mobile technology as a pedagogical tool to connect with students. The third example tells the story of a teacher-educator working in an online environment. Together these examples illustrate a diversity of ways that technology is integrated into teaching at the level of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. The implications of this diversity are explored relative to teacher identity, student experience and relationships to place.