10. Teacher Education Research
Paper
Exploring the Development of Pre-service Teachers’ Perceptions of Teacher Morality through Embodied Pedagogy: A Case Study
Yuhang Wu1, Miao Pei2
1University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong S.A.R. (China); 2Beijing Normal University, China
Presenting Author: Wu, Yuhang
The moral nature of teaching and teachers’ ethical responsibilities have been explored for decades (Schjetne et al., 2016). Nevertheless, the implementation of teacher morality remains challenging in practice. Teachers’ insufficient understandings of teacher morality has been identified as a significant contributing factor to this issue. For instance, many teachers rely on formal codes of professional ethics as the basis for understanding teacher morality. But this approach tends to be far from adequate when it comes to complex educational activities in practice (Campbell, 2008).
Pre-service teachers are prone to be confused under such circumstances due of their limited practical educational experiences. Their perceptions of teacher morality heavily depend on what they have been taught. However, despite the inclusion of moral education in teacher education programmes worldwide, there is a lack of emphasis on the extent to which pre-service teachers are able to internalise and construct their personal understandings of teacher morality. Teacher educators tend to impart moral norms and theories relevant to the teaching profession, with relatively little attention to the cultivation of individual values and the resolution of ethical dilemmas (Willemse, Lunenberg, & Korthagen, 2005; Pantić & Wubbels, 2008).
Therefore, there is need for exploring innovative approaches that can foster the development of pre-service teachers’ perceptions of teacher morality. Embodied pedagogy has emerged as an effective approach to enhancing learning. It emphasizes the integration of learners’ body, cognition and context, providing a new approach to developing pre-service teachers’ perceptions of teacher morality (Nguyen & Larson, 2015; Liu et al., 2022). Previous research has also revealed the impact of embodied experiences, such as physical actions, tactile sensations, and visual stimuli on cognitive activities relevant to morality (Schaefer et al., 2014, 2015; Gan, Fang, & Ge, 2016). However, most of the studies on incorporating embodied pedagogy into teacher education are theoretical studies, and there remains a lack of empirical evidence collected from educational practice. Therefore, this study aims to explore how do pre-service teachers’ perceptions of teacher morality develop through embodied pedagogy.
The conceptual framework is constructed based on embodied cognitive theory and conceptual metaphor theory. Embodied cognitive theory emphasizes the integral role of body in cognitive processes, suggesting that our cognition is shaped by our bodily experiences within certain contexts (Wilson, 2002). Conceptual metaphor theory conceptualises cognition as a “mapping” process from a familiar and concrete “source domain” to an unfamiliar and abstract “target domain” (Lakoff, 2006).
According to this conceptual framework, embodied pedagogy is interpreted as a transformative process where pre-service teachers actively engage their bodies in classroom activities, and therefore construct new understandings of teacher morality. They participate in various activities and gain direct embodied experiences, i.e., concrete source domain. Then teachers gradually go through the mapping process under the guidance of teacher educators, including connecting their present embodied experiences with past and future educational practices, as well as combining concrete activities with abstract theories. Consquently, they reach deeper and more comprehensive understandings of teacher morality, i.e., abstract target domain. Their perceptions of teacher morality are characterised through two dimensions: one focuses on the abstract concepts of moral values that the teaching profession requires, while the other involves teachers’ moral behaviours in educational practice.
This research was conducted in a course on teacher morality where embodied pedagogy was utilised at B University in China. The study participants involve all the nine pre-service teachers enrolled in this course. Multiple qualitative data collection methods were employed, including classroom observations, focus group interviews, teachers’ written assignments and reflective reports. The data was analysed and compared to gain insights into the development of pre-service teachers’ perceptions of teacher morality through embodied pedagogy.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedA qualitative research paradigm was employed to explore the development of pre-service teachers’ perceptions of teacher morality. This research was conducted in a course named “Theory and Practice of Teacher Morality: Based on Embodied Pedagogy” at B University in China. This course was offered during the autumn semester in 2023, spanning for 12 hours in total. It was an elective course for students pursuing a master’s degree in education. The research involved all the nine students who enrolled in this course. They were in their first year of postgraduate studies and expressed their intention to become secondary school teachers after graduation. Therefore, they are referred to as “pre-service teachers” in this study. It is worth noting that these pre-service teachers had some prior practical educational experiences. The teacher educator responsible for delivering this course is a professor at B university, with several years of research experience in the fields of teacher morality and teacher embodied learning.
The research data was collected through multiple resources. Firstly, classroom observations served as the main source to uncover pre-service teachers’ experiences. The researcher was present during all classroom activities, capturing significant moments using field notes and video recordings. Secondly, teachers were requested to submit a series of written assignments, including analyses of a practical case relevant to teacher morality. Additionally, they also need to submit their reflective reports at the end of each session.
Thirdly, two focus group interviews were conducted to learn about pre-service teachers’ experiences and understandings from their own perspective. One took place at the beginning of the first session, and the other after the course was completed. The guideline of the first interview involved some basic questions regarding their general views on teacher morality, while some questions were added to the second interview based on the observations and textual data described above.
The collected data was organised and analysed aiming to derive meaningful insights. Different types of data were integrated to comprehend pre-service teachers’ experiences from different perspectives. Classroom observations and assignments provided valuable information for the research to interpret teachers’ perceptions, while interviews and reflective reports being employed to listen to teachers’ voices from their own perspective. Furthermore, a qualitative comparative analysis was conducted following a chronological pattern. This contributes to exploring how embodied pedagogy triggered changes before and after embodied pedagogy.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsResults demonstrate that the changes in pre-service teachers’ perceptions of teacher morality triggered by embodied pedagogy are mainly reflected in three aspects.
Firstly, embodied pedagogy contributes to the development of a cross-domain mapping from pre-service teachers’ concrete bodily experiences to abstract teacher morality. It begins with their embodied experiences during classroom activities, which serve as the basis for their perceptual development. The interactions between their bodies and the classroom environment, teaching and learning tools, and bodily interactions with other pre-service teachers and the teacher educator are also significant. Subsequently, they are able to construct embodied representations of abstract teacher morality based on their bodily experiences.
Secondly, pre-service teachers tend to establish a double-directional connection between abstract concepts of moral values and practical moral behaviours. On one hand, they use practical moral behaviours in educational settings as a means to describe the performances and connotations of abstract moral values that teachers should possess. On the other hand, they identify, comprehend and explain the abstract concepts of moral values in practical behaviours in certain cases.
Thirdly, through embodied pedagogy, pre-service teachers connect the acquired knowledge relevant to teacher morality with their past and future educational practices. More importantly, they construct their own personal understandings and individual meanings of teacher morality. With regards to the past, pre-service teachers interpret and analyse their existed educational experiences based on their understandings of teacher morality. In terms of the future, they are able to envision the values that they aspire to possess and anticipate their potential responses when faced with ethical dilemmas, respectively representing moral values concepts and practical moral behaviours. Here, they reproduce and re-interpret their prior and anticipated future experiences, facilitating a shift from a focus on the present moment to a consideration of future circumstances.
References(1) Campbell, E. (2008). The ethics of teaching as a moral profession. Curriculum Inquiry, 38(4), 357-385.
(2) Gan, T., Fang, W., & Ge, L. (2016). Colours’ impact on morality: Evidence from event-related potentials. Scientific Reports, 6(1), 38373.
(3) Lakoff, G. (2006). Conceptual metaphor. Cognitive linguistics: Basic Readings, 34, 185.
(4) Liu, Q., Wu, Y., Zhou, W., & Pei, M. (2022). The theoretical foundation of embodied teacher moral learning approaches. Teacher Education Research, 34(6), 10-15.
(5) Nguyen, D. J., & Larson, J. B. (2015). Don’t forget about the body: Exploring the curricular possibilities of embodied pedagogy. Innovative Higher Education, 40, 331-344.
(6) Pantić, N., & Wubbels, T. (2010). Teacher competencies as a basis for teacher education–Views of Serbian teachers and teacher educators. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26(3), 694-703.
(7) Schaefer, M., Denke, C., Heinze, H. J., & Rotte, M. (2014). Rough primes and rough conversations: Evidence for a modality-specific basis to mental metaphors. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9(11), 1653-1659.
(8) Schjetne, E., Afdal, H. W., Anker, T., Johannesen, N., & Afdal, G. (2016). Empirical moral philosophy and teacher education. Ethics and Education, 11(1), 29-41.
(9) Tang, H., Lu, X., Su, R., Liang, Z., Mai, X., & Liu, C. (2017). Washing away your sins in the brain: physical cleaning and priming of cleaning recruit different brain networks after moral threat. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 12(7), 1149-1158.
(10) Willemse, M., Lunenberg, M., & Korthagen, F. (2005). Values in education: A challenge for teacher educators. Teaching and Teacher education, 21(2), 205-217.
(11) Wilson, M. (2002). Six views of embodied cognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 9, 625-636.
10. Teacher Education Research
Paper
Career Choice Motivations among Israeli Teacher Candidates: a Question of Religion?
Eva Rutter, Jonas Scharfenberg
University of Passau, Germany
Presenting Author: Rutter, Eva;
Scharfenberg, Jonas
This paper investigated whether there were variations in career choice motivations of Israeli teacher education students depending on their religious background. Given the division in society and the education system, the question arose whether religion might have a so far overlooked influence on the motives for choosing the teacher profession.
The FIT-Choice framework served as a theoretical framework for the study. Motives were analysed looking at group differences by religion in the motivations for entering the teaching profession. While most motives were homogenous among religious groups in Israel, some exhibited significant differences affiliated to religious values.
This indicates that by ignoring religious affiliation, voices of underrepresented groups might be silenced resp. not respected in their special views. This leads to conclusions for dealing with underrepresented (religious) groups within teacher education settings in ways that help to attract and retain them for the teacher profession.
Objectives and purposes
The project from which this paper originated compared the career choice motives of future teachers from different countries, among them Israel. The Israeli cooperation partners decided to swap a descriptive item asking for the nationality of participants with one that asked to which religious group they belonged.
As religion and the feeling of national belonging are reported to be strongly combined in Israel (Breit and Wolff, 2012) the initial oversight of religion's role in the international project may have been attributed to cultural bias. We took the chance of the unplanned coincidence and argued in line with Suryani et al. (2016) that it might be important to take religion into account as additional information for countries where religion plays a significant role in society. This could pose an opportunity to give a voice to specific religious groups within the Israeli education system which might have been underrepresented so far.
Theoretical framework
In 2009, the Israeli population (7.55 million people) was made up of 74.5% Jewish, 20.3% Arab (Muslim, Christian or Druze) and 4.2% classified as ‘other’ (Breit and Wolff, 2012).
Furthermore, religious affiliation encompasses more than mere religious beliefs in Israel as it stretches out into the educational system, where segregation takes place as there are different schools for different religious groups (ibid.).
Breit and Wolff (2012) address the fact that there is a systemic difference in PISA and TIMMS performance when comparing Hebrew and Arab schools (ibid.). The Hebrew schools perform better than the national average and the nationwide exams show a significant better performance of Hebrew than Arab schools as well. Thus, the authors call Israel a “divided society with divided schools”.
There are hints of systemic differences within the group of teachers in existing research as well: Garra-Alloush et al. (2021) addressed the question of career choice motives among female Arab students of EFL (English as a foreign language) in Israel. The authors combined the affiliation to a religious group with career choice motives in Israel by using FIT choice (Watt and Richardson, 2007) as a theoretical framework.
The FIT- choice framework describes “factors influencing teaching as a career choice” (Watt and Richardson, 2007) and was validated first for Australian universities. It is based on the expectancy-value-model by Eccles et al. (2000) and differentiates between extrinsic and intrinsic higher-order factors. It has been widely used and validated in many countries, making it suitable to compare countries (Suryani et al., 2016). Suryani (ibid.) added in her Indonesian FIT-choice-study religious influences as an important factor to be considered (ibid, p. 180).
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedWe used a paper and pencil version of the FIT-Choice questionnaire by Watt and Richardson (2007) that was translated into Hebrew.
The questionnaire consisted of Likert-scaled-items regarding study choice motivations (n=7), career choice motives (n=37), beliefs regarding the teaching profession (n=13) as well as sociodemographic information (n=12).
For sociodemographic information, we knew the religious background of the participants, but not if they themselves visited a religious school as pupils. Regarding the Jewish participants, we did not know if they belonged to the group of orthodox or secular jews.
We conducted descriptive, univariate analysis to describe data, Levene tests were used to test for variance homogeneity between groups using SPSS. Participation in the study was anonymous and voluntary. The participants consented to the use of their data for research purposes (informed consent).
The items regarding the career choice of future teachers were grouped to form the factors
already validated by Watt and Richardson (2007). We conducted reliability measurements for the given sample that showed acceptable reliability for most, but limited reliability for some scales (lowest α: expert career with 0.44). For group differences, values between 0.5 and 0.7 can still be accepted (Lienert et al., 1998). The low alpha scores are in concurrence with other studies that had issues to reproduce all FIT choice scales (Watt et al. 2012) and had to be taken into account as a limitation when interpreting the results.
Data sources:
We collected data from 106 freshmen teacher education students at a teacher training college in Israel in 2018. Our sample included students from the following religious backgrounds: The participants were 68% Jewish, 1.9 % Christian, 8.5 % Muslim and 16 % Druze. We aggregated the last three groups to the group “Arab” as this is also done for statistical reports in the country.
The distribution seems to account for the country in general. Israel’s Arab population is further divided in 70% Muslim, 9% Druze and 21 % Christian. Thus, in our sample the Druze population is slightly over- and the Christian population slightly underrepresented (Central Bureau of Statistics, 2008). The underrepresentation of Muslim participants could be due to structural barriers that limit their access to tertiary education (Breit and Wolff, 2012).
Almost all the participants were female. This is in accordance with other international data that depict teaching as a “female profession” (Drudy, 2008). Jewish participants were older due to the draft for mandatory military service.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsWe could identify six out of 12 motives with significant group differences (two-sided t-tests (Levene)) regarding to religion: “shape the future of children”, “social influence”, “teaching as a demanding job”, “status”, “pay” and “time for family”.
The Jewish participants ranked the first three motives higher, whereas the Arab participants ranked the last three significantly higher than the Jewish ones.
This can be related to different values or value rankings varying between religious groups.
Family, for example, plays an important role among Muslims and can therefore influence career decisions, probably especially for women (Garra-Alloush, 2021).
The motive “Teaching as a demanding job” is ranked higher among Jews although they rank status and pay lower in their career choice, at first view a puzzling result. However, due to the higher PISA performance of Jewish schools, the demand of teaching might be perceived higher, while at the same time due to the higher education level of Jewish students, teaching might not necessarily mean a social upward mobilty. But especially Muslims have limited access to tertiary education and possibly they regard teaching more than other groups as a high status job that is well paid.
Scholarly significance of the study:
Due to the sample size we can only draw conclusions carefully. Religion seems to play a role when examining motives to become a teacher. There could be different cultural or religious values and meanings behind concepts like status and pay. We recommend to consider cultural values when researching career choice motives among teacher students.
To examine this further, research should be extended to qualitative investigation.
To adress teacher education candidates more adequately, teacher education settings should respect their heterogeneity. This could be a means to first respect different cultures and minorities, fight teacher attrition within underrepresented groups and to enhance social equity.
ReferencesCentral Bureau of Statistics (2008): The arab population in Israel 2008. State of Israel
Central Bureau of Statistics (2009): The population of Israel 1990-2009. Demographic characteristics. State of Israel
Drudy, S. (2008): Gender balance/gender bias: The teaching profession and the impact of feminisation. Gender and education, 20(4), 309-323
Eccles, C. and Wigfield, A. (2000): Expectancy-Value Theory of Achievement Motivation. In: Contemporary Educational Psychology 25, 68-81
Garra-Alloush, I., Chaleila, W. and Watted, A. (2021): Close to the heart or close to the home? Motivational factors influencing EFL teaching as a career choice among female arab citizens of Israel students. In: English Language teaching. 14:1, p.48-57
Guri, S.-R. (1990): Four Models of teacher training in Israel: some lessons and implcations for teacher educators, Journal of education for teaching, 16:3, p. 225-233
Korb, K. A. (2010). Do Students in the Faculty of Education Choose Teaching as a Last Resort Career? Implications for Teacher Preparation Programmes. International Journal of Educational Studies, 1, 117-121.
Kuttab, D. (2015): Israel's Christian schools demand equality with Jewish schools.
AL-Monitor
online: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2015/05/palestine-israel-schools-christian-jewish-orthodox-education.html#ixzz894LrcAam
Lienert, G. A. and Raatz, U. (1998): Testaufbau und Testanalyse [Testconstruction and Analyses]. 6th edition, Psychologie VerlagsUnion: Weinheim, Germany
Pacchiani, G. (2023): Jewish schools need staff, Arab teachers need jobs – but it’s not so simple. In: The Times of Israel. Online: https://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-schools-need-staff-arab-teachers-need-jobs-but-its-not-so-simple/
Suryani, A., Watt, H.M.G. and Richardson, P.W. (2016): Students’ motivations to become teachers: FIT-Choice findings from Indonesia. Int. J. Quantitative Research in Education, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 179-203
Watt, H.M.G. and Richardson, P.W. (2007): Motivational Factors influencing teaching as a career choice: development and validation of the FIT-Choice scale. In: the Journal of experimental education, Vol. 75, No. 3, pp167-202
Watt, H.M.G. and Richardson, P.W. (2012): An introduction to teaching motivations in different countries: comparisons using the FIT-choice scale, in: Asia Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 40:3, 185-197
Wolff, L. and Breit, E. (2012): Education in Israel: The challenges ahead. Research paper 8, The Joseph and Alma Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies, University of Maryland
Zuzovsky, R. (1996): Practice in teacher education: an Israeli perspective. In: European Journal of Teacher education. 19:3, p. 273-285
10. Teacher Education Research
Paper
“We’re not alone”: Building Communities of Practice in Rural/Regional Settings
Matthew Thomas, Trevor McCandless, Harsha Chandir, Julianne Moss, Brandi Fox, Jacqui Peters
Deakin University, Australia
Presenting Author: Thomas, Matthew
Helping early career teachers to develop professional competencies has been a central aim of developing a Multi-Provider Professional Practice Model in Rural/Regional Victoria, Australia. A component of this learning program sought to reassure teachers that they already possessed strong skills and that what they were experiencing in schools was normal for early career teachers. The shortage of teachers in rural and low socioeconomic schools (SES) in Victoria, Australia is a pressing issue affecting the quality of education.
The recent wave of teacher shortages exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic has put unprecedented pressure on schools and teachers with more teachers leaving the profession than ever before. It has been recognised that partnerships between universities, local communities and government can impact teacher education and recruitment and strengthening these partnerships provides a strong basis for improving rural student outcomes. Since many were the only early career teacher in their school, they had nothing to compare their experience to. Too often this made them feel isolated and unsure of their capabilities.
Our strengths-based mentoring approach sought to show early career teachers the benefits of interacting within communities of practice alongside peers at the same point in their career journey. This contrasted with other professional learning they had experienced, which they believed mostly provided generic teaching strategies or presenting methods to get the most from interactions with their more experienced mentors. For many participants, this professional learning provided a rare opportunity for them to connect with teachers at the same stage in their professional journey.
In many cases, teachers made it clear they found this experience transformational in terms of their perception of their professional identity. Not least because it showed they were not alone. Another key strength of the program was that it provided a space for participants to interact and discuss a key problem of practice they had been experiencing with their fellow early career teachers. These problems of practice were generated by the teachers themselves.
The teachers were asked to engage with the problem and explore the motives, influences, and perspectives that enable and constrain early career teachers' capacities. Teachers noted the commonalities encountered by early career teachers in rural schools around relationships, community, social justice, resources and well-being. Many pointed out that they felt uncomfortable raising these concerns with staff at their schools, as it might highlight their lack of experience and skills.
As such, the exercise highlighted the benefits of a community of practice by the experience itself. This community of practice engaged with the experiences, constraints and enablers that contributed to understanding the unique circumstances faced by teachers in these remote settings, specifically in the development of capable teachers who could sustain working in rural and low SES schools, addressing the critical issue of teacher shortages in these areas.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe community of practice intervention was organised so that those running the professional learning would not know the nature of the problem of practice being discussed nor what advice was provided in response to this. This was an intentional feature of the exercise, since it was important for the participants to develop trust between themselves both in the types of problems they could bring to the group and in their own and their peers’ professional knowledge. Feedback from participants also did not ask for specific details of the problems of practice they discussed. Rather, participants were asked to discuss the general themes of their problem of practice, including relationships, community, social justice, resources and well-being.
Being an early career teacher in a small, regional/remote school with students from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds, many of whom suffer intergenerational trauma, is challenging but crucial work. These early career teachers learning that they were not alone and that they had the skills necessary to make a difference provided them with the confidence to build their resilience. Providing the lived experience involved in interacting with a community of practice, especially the skills of careful listening, probing questioning for clarification and an openness toward alternative solutions to the problem was shown to provide these teachers with insights into the benefits of communities of practice with one’s peers and in developing their self-confidence in their already substantial skill sets.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsBeing an early career teacher in a small, regional/remote school with students from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds, many of whom suffer intergenerational trauma, is challenging but crucial work. These early career teachers learning that they were not alone and that they had the skills necessary to make a difference provided them with the confidence to build their resilience. Providing the lived experience involved in interacting with a community of practice, especially the skills of careful listening, probing questioning for clarification and an openness toward alternative solutions to the problem was shown to provide these teachers with insights into the benefits of communities of practice with one’s peers and in developing their self-confidence in their already substantial skill sets.
ReferencesLave, J. & Wegner, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge University Press.
Shulman, L.S. & Shulman, J.H. (2004) How and What Teachers Learn: A shifting perspective. Curriculum Studies. 36/2, 257-271
Webber, E. (2016). Building Successful Communities of Practice: Discover how connecting people makes better organisations. Drew Publishing, London
|
