Juanjo Mena

An analysis of three different approaches to student teacher mentoring and their impact on knowledge generation in practicum settings

Mentoring in Teacher Education is a key component in the professional development of student teachers. However, little research focuses on the knowledge shared and generated in mentoring conversations. In this paper, we explore the knowledge student teachers articulate in mentoring conversations under three different post-lesson approaches to mentoring: dialogue journaling, regular conferences and stimulated-recall conferences. Propositional discourse analysis identified 4534 propositions that were subsequently classified into four types of knowledge: recalls, appraisals, rules and artefacts along with the precision of arguments therein. Additionally, log-linear analyses were conducted to search for differences among the three mentoring approaches. The results indicate that dialogue journaling demonstrated more appraisals of practice, regular conferences emphasised rules and artefacts, and stimulated-recall favoured more precision in the type of the arguments stated. The three mentoring styles favour different but complementary understandings of practice and point to the impact of various approaches to mentoring on the sort of knowledge shared and generated in post-lesson mentoring conferences.

Challenge-based gamification as a teaching' open educational innovation strategy in the energy sustainability area

The purpose of this paper is to show a PhD dissertation research plan-and its current status- about the use gamification to promote Challenge- Based Learning through online teaching (MOOCs). The research question specifically aims at measuring the relationship between the impact of challenge-based gamification in online teaching on the level of educative innovation in terms of solving problems related to sustainable energy. This dissertation is part of the Strategic Initiative of Energy Project that was started by the National Council for Science and Technology in Mexico (CONACYT), the Energy Ministry (SENER) and the Tecnológico de Monterrey, which aims for massive training on the topics of energy and sustainability. For this purpose, there are being designed ten MOOCs (massive open online courses), which should include innovative teaching strategies such as gamification and challenge based learning. The gamification is an innovative educational strategy whose purpose is to place the student in scenarios or simulations involving achieving attractive challenges so as to increase their level of commitment (engagement) and competitiveness. Around 1,000 participants will take the MOOC and will constitute the study sample of this study. Questionnaires, open-ended interviews, and challenge-base learning tasks will be delivered to participants. A mixed method research analysis for both quantitative and qualitative data will be conducted. Intended results may probably point to differences between those participants who use gamification and those who do not in terms of being more successful in solving real-life energy problems. At present, only the theoretical framework and the instruments have been developed.

Collaboration, Multiple Methods, Trustworthiness: Issues Arising from the 2014 International Conference on Self-study of Teacher Education Practices

Abstract This article reviews 65 studies presented at the 10th international self-study of teacher education practices conference in 2014 to determine whether emerging self-study research incorporates the five major characteristics of self-study: self-initiated inquiry that is situated and improvement-aimed; undertaken collaboratively; uses multiple research methods; and demonstrates trustworthiness. We present an analysis of 63 empirical studies with reference to the five major characteristics and several additional criteria. Our analysis indicates that most of the self-studies reported at the conference were conducted within the context of faculty teaching programs with case analysis as the predominant approach; also, most were carried out collaboratively. Multiple research methods were preferred over single methods and the most frequent analysis was presented in the form of themes and topics. This review corroborates that empirical studies generally meet the major characteristics of self-study research, although not every self-study reviewed was conducted with a defined collaborative theoretical framework. Collaboration, use of multiple research methods, and trustworthiness emerged as three characteristics that were not always addressed adequately or carefully.

Australia’s supervising teachers: motivators and challenges to inform professional learning

ABSTRACT This paper offers an overview of what motivates and challenges Australian supervising teachers to work with preservice teachers in their classrooms. In the contemporary Australian context of new National Professional Standards for Teachers, a new national curriculum and new standards for Initial Teacher Education programs, what motivates and challenges supervising teachers becomes a focus for professional learning through analysis presented in this paper. Data are reported from a national data set that includes 314 responding supervising teachers who took the Mentoring Perspectives Inventory from 2012–2014. The MPI data are aggregated in this paper to suggest that the wider system of teacher education could benefit from attention at various levels of interest to develop the underlying knowledge base of supervising teachers and our understanding of how they are challenged and motivated in their work with preservice teachers.

Eliciting Teachers’ Practical Knowledge through Mentoring Conversations in Practicum Settings

This interaction is a fragment taken from a mentoring conversation that took place in a Primary school in Salamanca (Spain). The Student Teacher was giving a lesson about the states of matter to 5th graders (11 years old). After the explanation, when classroom pupils were working in pairs, Sara, a student, asked aloud for clarification of the term “condensation”.

The Use of Gamification as a Teaching Methodology in a MOOC About the Strategic Energy Reform in México

The arrival of online programs in education is pushing educators to promote new ways of teaching to engage students. Nonetheless, most higher education teachers are not trained in the practices of e-learning. In this paper, our purpose is to study whether the use of gamification better promotes learning in online courses. Over 6,000 participants enrolled in the MOOC “Conventional and green energy sources” as a part of the activities of the “Binational Laboratory on Smart Sustainable Energy Management and Technology Education” project. About 1,000 eventually completed it. Main results indicate that for all participants’ profiles (i.e., gender, age, and educational level) the completion of a gamification challenge favored higher final test scores on the contents of the course. This lead us to think that gamification improves students’ performance in online teaching. However, there are technical limitations associated to the courses platforms that need to be solved for teachers to be able to implement non-traditional learning approaches.

Towards equality in higher education: Innovative Teaching experiences in computer education

Education for Equality offers a methodological proposal to address teaching-learning processes with a gender perspective in educational centers, mainly in primary and secondary schools. However, in the university context the initiatives and methodological proposals are still scarce. On the other hand, the scarce presence of women in technological careers is an international problem that must also be addressed from the University. Therefore, in this work we will present two experiences developed in teacher innovation projects at the University of La Laguna and at the University of Salamanca to educate students about subjects related to technology.

Teacher education for gender, sexuality, diversity and globalization policies

This is the opening paper of a special issue that focuses on certain cultural tendencies that have emerged as topical issues in the school curricula, in both flourishing and struggling against their social frames, namely: gender, sexuality and diversity. At the same time, new approaches to teacher education have ranged from varieties of feminism to critical race theories, postcolonial studies and queer theories. So, the first reaction from our collection of papers points out that teacher educators are the ones who share the responsibility to know, use and endorse these pedagogies of learning as reference frameworks for practice. Therefore, we offer this collection for the wider international audience interested or invested in the field, for a further reflection on the topical issues and provocative questions of our very challenging times in education and educating.

Introducción de la Perspectiva de Género en la docencia de Ingeniería del Software - [Introduction of the Gender Perspective in the Teaching of Software Engineering]

Gender inequality is a global problem, but is especially latent in the context of the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, especially at the university level and, therefore, labor. Motivating women to study engineering is one of the objectives that can be found in the strategic plans not only of large technology companies but also of organizations, institutions and governments. The incorporation of the gender perspective in higher education curricula is considered a key factor when young people understand the social reality. In this context emerges the project of teaching innovation whose goal is to incorporate the gender perspective in the curriculum of the Degree in Computer Sciences of the University of Salamanca. This paper describes the first phase of the project, a case study in a compulsory subject, Software Engineering I.

The construction of teaching practical knowledge in teachers training within the practicum

The purpose of this paper is to show a PhD research plan -and its current status- about the construction of teaching practical knowledge in teachers training within the practicum. The main objective of this research is to describe how student teachers learn from their own practice by recording your actions on video, viewing and comment on the actions taken during the session in the classroom. Also, check what kinds of pedagogical knowledge emerge under different situations of reflection (individual reflection, reflection peer tutor and reflection). This research arises from the European Project (ACTTEA 2012-2015) which foremost purpose is to know how pre-service teachers learn from their practicum experience, that is to say, what kind of practical knowledge they activate when they engage in practical teaching situations. Eighty-eight Student Teachers participated in this study for Spain. Similar samples were gathered in the other partner countries: Finland, The Netherlands and Estonia. The analysis was carried out on three levels that are progressively more accurate: the first analysis is to analyze (both positive and negative) critical incidents that students get their recordings and categorize the most common issues. A second thematic analysis in which three main types of knowledge produced by teachers in training through reflection is identified: narrative knowledge (memories and rating); inferential knowledge (rules and artifacts) and explanatory knowledge (practical and theoretical justifications). And finally it carried out a propositional analysis for the purpose of dividing the speech smallest possible semantic units, which are what we call propositions. Currently, they have collected and analyzed all project data and is developing the theoretical framework.