Ole Kristian Bergem

Coherent teacher education programmes: taking a student perspective

Abstract This study draws upon survey data of 486 student teachers from five different programmes based in five different countries (one programme in each country), and programmes that have varied in their efforts to become more coherent. We explore students’ perceptions of the coherence within their teacher education programmes and across the five programmes to investigate whether teachers in these programmes actually experience their teacher education programmes to be coherent. Descriptive analyses and analysis of variance were used for this purpose. Students in a programme which has explicitly made efforts to connect theory and practice over a period of 15 years do report more coherence. Students from a programme that has been constantly working on improvements but not a major redesign conceptualized around coherence, report experiencing less coherence. Based on students’ reports across all programmes, we conclude that the relationship between courses and field placements is in need of tighter links. Investing in collaboration across settings, i.e. field placement settings and university, remains a challenge for all teacher education programmes, even those engaged in substantial change efforts. Investigating how teacher educators might create closer links to school sites is a promising means of developing our understanding of teacher education programme coherence.

Teaching and Learning in Lower Secondary Schools in the Era of PISA and TIMSS

This book is the 12th volume in Springer’s series on Professional learning and development in Schools and Higher Education (Series Editors: Christopher Day and Judyth Sachs). The previous volumes in the series covered issues regarding teacher learning, professionalism, and practice in schools and higher education. This book, in particular, presents and discusses a number of video studies through theoretical lenses and methodological approaches intended to continue opening up the black box of classroom teaching and learning practices. In this regard, the book is an important addition to the existing literature on video studies, advancing work done earlier by researchers such as Stigler, Gallimore and Hiebert (2000), Ulewicz and Betty (2001), Clarke, Keitel and Shimizu (2006) as well as Janik and Seidel (2013). In the era of PISA and TIMMS, these kinds of work may prove increasingly important to provide the necessary counter balance when studying the dynamic processes in education systems and not just focusing on the products or narrow outputs of a system. Another goal of this book is to expand the discussion about students’ and teachers’ behaviours and practices in the classrooms – beginning with in-depth inquiries into Norwegian secondary school classrooms, and extending this discussion to Europe and other regions. The first chapter provides an overview of the book, as well as key theoretical and methodological dimensions adopted by the contributors of this book. The four key dimensions that serve as analytical lenses as well as a theoretical backdrop are instructional clarity (clear goals, explicit instruction, content-focused instruction); cognitive activation (quality of the task, cognitive challenge, content coverage); discourse features (student engagement, quality of teacher–-student interaction); and supportive climate (creating an environment of respect and rapport). The authors argue that these dimensions are essential for high-quality instruction, and video studies provide a unique approach to study these dimensions. The chapter then discusses video study designs and strategies for data collection and analyses. The aforementioned dimensions are analysed individually and together, quantitatively and qualitatively – in parallel for some cases – to develop a more nuanced understanding about the complexities of classroom learning. This trove of rich data includes: video recordings from 140 videotaped lessons, 57 videotaped interviews with pairs of students, 42 audiotaped student interviews, 18 interviews with teachers, as well as copies of students’ work and assignments. These data were originally collected under the PISA+ (2010) project to examine some of the issues identified in Norway’s PISA 2000 and 2003 results in science, mathematics and reading. The subsequent eleven chapters are sectioned off into three parts. The first part, which includes chapters 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, focuses on instructional patterns within and across science, mathematics and language arts classrooms. The findings indicate distinct differences between the three subjects, with specific challenges and patterns within each subject. One of the most interesting chapters in the book is Chapter 2, where the authors break away from what they refer to as false conceptual dichotomies and use multi-level coding schemes to analyse instructional practices together with the type of interaction that took place in the science classrooms they observed. The use of multiple analytical lenses in a parallel fashion led to a more nuanced understanding of the possibilities of classroom interaction for the purposes of facilitating learning. Other chapters (3, 4) in this first section reveal the teachers’ struggles in implementing effective practices in the classroom and the support they require in making advances in their professional practice. Inter-subject classroom comparisons also revealed interesting similarities and differences (Chapter 2, 4 and 5). For example, while teachers in language arts classrooms in Norway seemed to vary their instructional practices,

Usually We Are Not Where the Teacher Is

A robust finding in educational research is that student learning is positively affected by teacher support and that teacher support is particularly critical for students’ engagement in their own learning (OECD 2005; Hattie 2009; Baumert et al. 2010; Bryk et al. 2010), a vital factor for achieving good learning results (Kumar 1991; Boyd et al. 2009; Hill and Grossman 2013). Meichenbaum and Biemiller (1998) argue that teachers, in order to optimize their support of student learning, must take into consideration and be sensitive to the different stages in the learning process, and plan and balance the classroom activities accordingly.

Rethinking algebra teaching in the light of 'orchestration of signs'- Exploring the 'equal sign' in an Norwegian mathematics classroom.

Algebra continues to be the focus of reform efforts and research in mathematics education in many countries worldwide (e.g., Kieran, 1992 & 2006; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), 2000; Watson, 2009). There is a general concern (e.g., from policy makers, teachers and Higher Education councils) that students leave compulsory schooling with inadequate understandings of and preparation in algebra, and that they seem to be ill-prepared for future educational or professional opportunities (Moses & Cobb, 2001).

Conversations as Learning Tools in Mathematics: What Do Pupils Actually Learn?

The theme of this chapter is to discuss challenges associated with the use of classroom conversations as learning tools in mathematics in lower secondary school. Conversations as learning tools – be it whole class discussions or conversations in pairs and groups – have received a lot of positive attention within mathematics education over recent decades. Researchers around the world have argued that students generally should be given more opportunities to actively participate in academically related mathematical conversations and discussions (Cobb et al. 1997; Cobb et al. 2000; Sfard 2000, 2001; Sfard and Kieran 2001; Van Oers 2001; Jaworski 2005; Kazemi & Franke, 2004; Lampert and Graziani 2009).

I Prefer to Take One Subject a Day

Since the late sixties numerous initiatives have been introduced in order to reform classroom practices in mathematics (e.g. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics 1989, 2000; KUF 1996; KD 2006, 2007). A common denominator for many of these reform initiatives has been to implement and stimulate more student-centered methods of learning and instruction and increase the opportunities for students’ active engagement and participation in classroom mathematical activities. In Norway, the use of work plans is one of these reform initiatives. The work plan is a document that describes what the students are supposed to do and learn in different school subjects during a certain period of time, including hand-ins and both oral and written assignments (Klette 2007). Thus, work plans are supposed to inform the students about topics to be covered, learning goals, assignments, degrees of student participation and forms of assessment. From a pedagogical point of view a work plan is a tool that makes it possible to differentiate between the students with regard to time, pace, progression, content, localisation, and individual/group activities (Moen 2004). The use of work plans has largely emerged from the field of practice, and aims at providing the students with more opportunities for active and autonomous learning (Carlgren 2005; Carlgren et al. 2006; Klette 2007). Using work plans can thus be considered an attempt to comply with the requirements in the Norwegian curriculum related to differentiation, self-regulated learning, student participation, and individually adapted teaching/learning (Klette 2007).

Mathematics Is My Favorite Subject

Attitudes toward mathematics is a construct that has attracted a lot of interest in educational research, both in small-scale qualitative studies (Boaler 1998) and in large-scale international studies (Mullis et al. 2008; OECD 2010), as well as in comprehensive meta-analyses (Ma and Kishor 1997; Marzano 2003; Hattie 2009), and as a basis for theoretical discussions of mathematical belief structures (Goldin 2002). This interest is triggered by the assumption that there is a close relationship between affective factors, motivational factors and student proficiency in mathematics (Nardi and Steward 2003; Op’t Eynde et al. 2001). Support for this supposition has been provided in national studies (Hensel and Stevens 1997), and also in large-scale international studies like PISA and TIMSS (Mullis et al. 2008; OECD 2010). An urgent challenge in educational research is therefore to discover and examine key factors that support the development in students of positive attitudes towards mathematics.

Developing Mathematical Proficiency and Democratic Agency through Participation – An Analysis of Teacher-Student Dialogues in a Norwegian 9th Grade Classroom

A central line of argument within mathematics education has been that learning mathematics provides individuals with tools to make considered choices, and that developing mathematical proficiency is beneficial because it informs human individual actions. In line with this argument, it is claimed that a mathematic literate population will contribute to society’s political, ideological, and cultural maintenance and development, and as such, strengthen a nation’s democratic processes (Niss, 1996).