Learning to be a teacher: a study in a practicum group of Physical Education Pre-service Teachers

Author(s):

Patrícia Gomes(presenting / submitting)Paula Queirós Paula Batista

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

18. Research in Sports Pedagogy

Format:

Poster

Session Information

18 SES 05.5 PS, General Poster Session

General Poster Session

Time:

2014-09-03

12:30-14:00

Room:

Poster Area E (in front of B001-B003)

Chair:

Contribution

Many studies about teachers focus teachers’ lives, their careers and career paths, their autobiographies and their personal development and also different perspectives about Professional Identity (PI) changes over the time (Nóvoa, 1992). The complexity of the identity concept is recognized by different authors, all considering that PI is a complex and dynamic concept, continuous, not static, and constructed in the relationship with the self in a community during one’s professional path (Cattley, 2007). The evidences in the literature show that the PI can also be recognized through the discourse, history, experiences and daily practices. In fact, the discourse-based approaches tend to describe identity as a fluid, dynamic and shifting process (Benwell and Stokoe, 2006). Concerning to the process of PI construction it notice that arises in interaction with others and in teachers’ case not only with the peers but also with the students, parents, school and norms that the school imposes to teachers. Thinking about interaction and about learning through practice, take us to the concepts of community and community of practice. Lave and Wenger (1991) believe that the construction of the PI takes place within a community of practice, defining community of practice as a group of persons who shares a common propose, that work together and that construct new knowledge together. Clarke (2008) explains that this relationship, depending on the practices of day-to-day life, is constantly reshaped, renegotiated and reworked. Particularly, in the context of initial teacher training, many researchers emphasized that, the shock with the real context, the school, is abruptness, in result of the full responsibility and the roles as school teachers (Flores and Day, 2006). In this sense, Pre-service teachers (PSTs) need to deal with a large number of demands from the school and also from the faculty. At the same time, they try to establish their own territory in the process of defining their PI. In this study the interest in examining the PSTs’ experiences and reactions to teaching in a school. This purpose leads us to consider the extent to which the social structure of the school can determine a teacher’s behaviour in reaction to teaching expectations. In this framework it is important to consider the relationship between “structure” and “agency” (Giddens, 1984). Structure refers to the rules and resources, which seem to influence or limit the choices and opportunities that individuals possess (MacPhail and Tannehill, 2012). So, even the intervention of the PSTs in the school and classes is constrained by the traditional practices of a certain school. Agency refers to the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices (MacPhail and Tannehill, 2012). In the school context, is evident that opportunities for learning provided by work are governed as much by the position and disposition of the individual, as by the organization and practices of the workplace (Hodkinson and Hodkinson, 2004). Structure and agency are understood as inextricably linked, therefore, the workplace learning encourages revisiting the structure/agency dynamic, illustrating how individuals and their learning contexts of work cannot be considered separately (MacPhail and Tannehill, 2012). Although, we are interested in the discourse of the PSTs in order to better understand their daily life and the process of constructing their PI, we should take into consideration that discourse implies a mode of acting (Clarke, 2008). It is also important consider the PSTs’ tasks and their daily practices. Thus, the aim of this study was to examine how physical education PSTs constructed their PI (Flores and Day, 2006) through processes of structure and agency in a practicum group (considered as a community of practice) (Lave and Wenger, 1991).

Method

The data collection resulted from a non-participant observation over a period of 15 days at a practicum group constituted for three PSTs (two women and one man), in a secondary public school of Porto, Portugal. At the time of this study, Isabel was 22 years old, Rita was 24 years old and Manuel was 22 years old. The observation comprised 8 visits to the school, between 22nd March and 8th April 2011, in the term of the 2nd school period. The practicum represents the final year in the Master degree of Teacher Physical Education Program. During this year, students were organised within groups, with 3 or 4 students, distributed by cooperating schools. A cooperating teacher, from the school, and a faculty supervisor, supervised the PSTs. At school, the cooperating teacher organizes the tasks of the main practicum areas (Organization and education management and learning; Participation in school and Community relations; professional development). Each PST was responsible for one class (from the cooperating teacher) during the entire academic year. They participated not only in the teaching tasks, but also in parents meetings, staff meetings, and school activities. The observations have lasted the whole day and the observations include: lessons, informal gatherings between the PSTs, the cooperating teacher and with their peers and others activities related to the practicum like the PSTs participation on the school sports club of gymnastics (after the curricular period of lessons). During the observation period it was taken field notes; made informal interviews, focused in the PSTs daily activities; videotaped lessons; observing collective and individual seminars and other informal situations. Using different methods to collect data, we were able to triangulate them to increase their validity. Pseudonyms were attributed in order to guarantee the anonymity of the participants. To videotape the classes we have obtained an authorization from the PSTs and from all the students. Data analysis was based on qualitative methods using constant comparative method to determine how the PSTs construct their PI (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Strauss and Corbin, 1990). All the data (field notes, videos and interview contents) were analysed independently by two researchers using the NVivo 9 to better organize the information.

Expected Outcomes

In practicum context the PSTs assume both the role of teacher and student and they were constantly subjected to a diverse set of tasks. If initially the PSTs were felling some of these tasks as imposed, along the practicum they had begun to realize these same tasks as necessary and fundamental to improve their skills. In fact, over time the PSTs has won the capacity to act independently and to make their own free choices (agency). This set of tasks, specifically the production of documents required by the faculty, the planning and the reflection were the tasks perceived most by the PSTs as very useful and essential to teaching. In addition, the PSTs played other tasks on their own initiative (agency). Their bigger investment was in their own lessons. Classroom observations from peers and from the cooperating teacher, were common task to all of the PSTs. Sharing this task among the practicum group (as a community of practice) was also a significant moment concerning the learning process to the PSTs, where they were able to discuss some methodologies, adopted exercises, good practices within the lessons, strategies that they could adapt to their class, among others. We can, then, perceive, that the PSTs learn to teach, not only with the formal preparation of the lessons but also within the instructional action itself (Zeichner, 1993), through classroom observation (Lortie, 1975) and through the interaction with their peers and cooperating teacher through communicative action (Habermas, 1982). The capacity to agency seemed to be an important factor in the development of PSTs IP. If on one hand, the structure of the school didn´t provide conditions to this agency, on the order the tasks imposed by structure of faculty seemed to cause some initial disorders that were gradually overcome and overtaken by conquest of autonomy.

References

Benwell, B. and Stokoe, E. (2006). Discourse and Identity. Edinburgh University Press. Cattley, G. (2007). Emergence of Professional Identity for the Pre-Service Teacher. International Education Journal, 8(2), 337-347. Clarke, M. (2008). Language Teacher Identities: co-constructing Discourse and Community. Multilingual Matters. Flores, M. A., and Day, C. (2006). Contexts which shape and reshape new teachers' identities: a multi-perspective study. Teaching and Teacher Education, 22(2), 219-232. Giddens, A. (1984). The Constitution of Society. Stanford: Polity. Glaser, B. G. and Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago: Aldine. Habermas, J. (1982). Teoria de la acción comunicativa: comple-mentos y estudos prévios. Madrid: Cátedra. Hodkinson, H., and Hodkinson, P. (2004). Rethinking the concept of community of practice in relation to schoolteachers’ workplace learning. International Journal of Training and Development, 8(1), 21–32. Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. Cambriedge: Cambridge University Press. Lortie, D. (1975). Schoolteacher. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. MacPhail, A., and Tannehill, D. (2012). Helping Pre-Service and Beginning Teachers Examine and Reframe Assumptions About Themselves as Teachers and Change Agents: Who is Going to Listen to You Anyway?. Quest, 64(4), 299-312. Nóvoa, A. (1992). Os professores e as histórias de vida. In A. Nóvoa (org.), Vidas de Professores (p.11-30). Porto: Porto Editora. Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. (1990). Basic of qualitative research of ground theory, procedures an techniques. London: Sage. Zeichner, K. M. (1993). A formação Reflexiva de Professores: Ideias e Práticas. Lisboa: Educa.

Author Information

Patrícia Gomes (presenting / submitting)

Faculty of Sport

Pedagogy of Sport

Porto

Paula Queirós

Faculty of Sport, Portugal; Centre for Research, Education, Innovation and Intervention in Sport, University of Porto, Portugal

Paula Batista