Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 19th May 2024, 10:17:53pm IST
Exploring the Relationship between Teachers' Mentors' School Experiences and University Teaching: A Duoethnographic Narrative to Re-conceptualise Teacher Education
Paulina Moya-Santiagos1, Tatiana Cárcamo-Rojas2
1UCL Institute of Education, United Kingdom; Universidad Andrés Bello, Chile; 2Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de la Educación, Chile
There have been numerous attempts to relate teaching development to teaching practice. However, little is known about how mentors of future teachers in Chile have used their school experiences to create university course syllabi and change or adapt their methodologies. In fact, their voices remain severely underrepresented in the design of national curricula, university modules, and teacher development courses. This research aims to address this gap by presenting a joint critical autoethnography of two Chilean female English language teachers who have experience in public schools and currently teach in tertiary education. Data were collected via a duoethnographic approach, a methodology that presents and analyzes two juxtaposing dialogic narratives to provide detailed, critical, and autobiographical accounts of both teachers' experiences regarding central issues in professional development. Drawing upon sociocultural theory, this study explores the sociocultural factors that influence mentors' incorporation of school experiences in course design and methodology adaptation. The findings highlight the benefits of experienced school teachers serving as mentors in teaching programs, as they can offer student teachers opportunities for deep reflection to address classroom realities and challenges often overlooked in university curricula. These critical reflections and interpretations of theory and practice in pedagogy can inform teacher education and re-conceptualize future pedagogical practices, where contextualized discussions and analysis of diverse student characteristics and contexts, as well as professional identity, workplaces, and voices of student and in-service teachers, play a central role in the design of teaching programs in Chile.
In Pursuit of Critical Literacy: Understanding the Experiences of Teachers in Northern Ireland
Donna Hazzard1, Geraldine Magennis-Clarke2, Eithne Kennedy3
1St Mary's University College, United Kingdom; 2St Mary's University College, United Kingdom; 3Dublin City University
Introduction
This proposed presentation will reflect on the impact of a successful and award winning critical literacy project, conceived and designed by Dr Donna Hazzard. The project has been carried out in Northern Ireland primary and post-primary schools annually, from 2017 to present. In the academic year 2021 - 2022, approximately 120 schools and over 9,000 pupils participated.
Methodology
This study adopted a qualitative research design. Research methods included questionnaires to participating teachers supported by several semi-structured interviews. Data was analysed and coded thematically.
Impact
The impact of the Young News Readers Critical Literacy project is reflected in its ongoing success. Since its conception in 2017, this Northern Irish project has been taken up annually by approximately 120 primary and post-primary schools, involving 9,000 Key Stage Two and Three children and young people.
Findings
Though data shows varying levels of knowledge and understanding of critical literacy, this innovative critical literacy project is having a positive impact on teachers’ engagement with the nebulous and complex concept that is critical literacy.
The data signals a philosophical assertation and commitment among some participants to transform pedagogy to empower children and young people by equipping them with the knowledge, behaviour and skills needed to recognise power relations in their everyday lives. Participants communicated the need for a curriculum and classroom practice that is grounded in the lives of students, critical in its approach to the world, hopeful, joyful, kind, academically engaging and rigorous. All of which are key attributes of having a critical literacy perspective.
Future goals
As a transformative pedagogy, critical literacy has potential to develop tendencies and sensibilities that will help create active, critically conscious citizens. Our goal is to develop and extend engagement with critical literacy across schools in Ireland and beyond.
