MANTHAN July 3 rd 2012 * Analysis of the Study: Work in Progress

1. Pedagogical practices of Teacher Educators* Rajashree Srinivasan Azim Premji university MANTHAN July 3rd 2012 *Analysis of the Study: Work in Progress

2. Background • Work of teacher educators is a complex. • Developing one’s knowledge as a teacher educator is complex and personally demanding (see e.g. Berry, 2004; Bullough, 1997; Dinkelman, Margolis, & Sikkenga, 2006). • What is the professional knowledge base of teacher educators • Methodology to understand the work of teacher educators • Why this research?– personal meaning 2

3. Review of Previous Research • Work from Asian Context, Indian Context, West and Europe • Most studies focus on teaching strategies of teacher educators (Hau-Fai Law etal., 2007; Martin et al, 2001), Hallet, 2010 • On Dilemmas (Tilemma and Hayon, 2005) ; Cochran-Smith and Fries, 2002) • Theoretical articles that view teacher educators’ PP as complex and specific to contexts • Few studies focus on Dichotomy--- traditional and constructivist • Self-study (Loughran, 2003, 2011), Berry (2009) • NCFTE(2009), Batra (2010), Pandey (2008), Goyal (1980), Sood and Anand(2001) 3

4. Conceptual Framework Vision of education and teacher education Culture Policy context Socio-political context 4

5. Objectives • To examine the pedagogic practices of teacher educators • To elicit their thinking behind the pedagogical practices • To understand what constitutes the professional knowledge of teacher educators • To explore the challenges faced by teacher educators in their classrooms (The objective was not to recommend particular practices but to understand how is it placed in the TE system in the way it is nor were any assumptions made about dichotomies) 5

6. Definitions Teacher Educator—An individual engaged in secondary pre-service teacher education Pedagogic practice- An act of teaching-learning which is mediated by learner context.

7. Sampling • Thirty teacher educators teaching in the Secondary Teacher Education Program in Bangalore constituted the sample • Snow-ball sampling was used to gather data Those with more than five years of experience as a teacher educator in Secondary teacher education programs • Six teacher educators each from the disciplines of Science Education, Social Science Education, Language Education, Mathematics Education and Foundation courses constituted the sample 7

8. Method Semi-structured interviews were designed to elicit descriptions about how they taught and the thinking behind their pedagogical practice Questions related to their conceptions about teaching and learning, the challenges they faced while in the classroom, Audio-taped wherever the teacher educators were comfortable. The interviews were transcribed verbatim. The interview lasted 60-120 minutes 8

9. Profile of Teacher Educators Gender Age Experience 9

10. Analysis • Content analyzed • Themes were identified. (1) Specific teaching practices (2) Sensitivity towards student needs (3) Dilemmas (4) Views on NCF and NCFTE (5) Opportunities for their professional development Two sets of factors --- Internal/external 10

11. Themes-SPECIFIC TEACHING PRACTICES 11

12. Themes—Sensitivity towards Students needs • Strong commitment to the needs of the students • Highly sensitive to the students who come from rural backgrounds and other disadvantaged students • Create special time for teaching these students • Help students with reading texts, planning and feedback Highlight: 1. The ones from the disadvantaged sections are more motivated than others 12

13. Themes—Views on NCF and NCFTE • Only fifty percent of the teacher educators had good understanding about what was contained in the NCFTE, 30 percent had a fair understanding about NCFTE, and 20 percent said they had not read it completely. • All the respondents said the documents had not made any difference to their pedagogic practices • None of them discussed with the students either • All of them stated that till it is transformed into a syllabi by the Bangalore University, the NCFTE is of no value. • All teacher educators felt they were to follow the dictates of the University 13

14. Themes—Dilemmas • Motivating students to learn versus allowing them to stay uninterested 2. How much do we teach for the exams and how much for them to be good teachers 3. Wanting students to be independent learners and their roles as teacher educators 4. Guiding students versus students expecting faculty to give their suggestions • Need for theory-practice balance. 6. Time to be allocated for lecture versus time for discussions 14

15. Themes—Opportunities for Professional Development of teacher educators • Ninety percent of them felt that there should be formal opportunities for development as teacher educators. • Only twenty percent (six)of them were engaged in research • Lack of books of advance levels in their own institution libraries, paucity of time for reading, lack of access to journals prevented them from updating their knowledge • Most of them expressed the need to attend courses on research methods, on newer assessment practices in teacher education, on NCFTE, CCE, RtE • Forty percent of the teacher educators asked the researcher about professional development opportunities for teacher educators • Teacher educators spoke about the need to have online courses and journals where they could be writing to. • Workload is too high to focus on our professional development

16. Some key emerging findings (problem of TE) • Pedagogy of teacher education is primarily technicist-deterministic in its orientation • Learning to teach is not viewed as problematic • Dilemmas denote orientations towards practice and most teacher educators envisage very few opportunities to act upon them. • Strong commitment to the needs of the students • Need to think of practice through participation 16

17. Other themes that need to be examined • Personal History • Moral Aspects • Institutional context • Agency • Teacher-student relationship

18. Thank you