Pre-service Elementary Mathematics Teachers' Self-reflections About Their First Teaching Practices

Author(s):

Gönül Kurt Erhan(presenting / submitting)Merve Kaplan Koştur

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

10. Teacher Education Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

10 SES 05 C, Reflectivity in Teacher Education

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-23

13:30-15:00

Room:

K1.04 Auditorium 3

Chair:

Oliver McGarr

Contribution

Teaching practice contributes to pre-service teachers’ development in several aspects (Beck & Kosnik, 2002; Brooks, 2006; Burton, 1998). Practicing in the field provides opportunity for pre-service teachers to use the theoretical knowledge they acquired through their education.

There are various studies investigating pre-service teachers majoring in different fields of science which focus on their views about teaching practice courses (Boz & Boz, 2006; Oksuz & Cevik, 2014; Yenilmez & Ata, 2012). Many of them emphasize the suggestions about how to conduct teaching practice course from the perspective of pre-service teachers, mentor teachers, and/ or supervisor teacher in the faculty. However, pre-service teachers' first teaching practices have been overlooked by the researchers. We emphasize first teaching practice as it is officially the first and usually an unforgettable experience among pre-service teachers' teaching experiences. It is known that pre-service teachers usually attribute an emotional meaning to their first teaching practice which has an important role on their future carrier. From this point of view, in order to focus on the very first experience, the aim of this study was to investigate self-reflections of pre-service elementary mathematics teachers on their experiences at the collaborating school.

It was considered necessary to report some of the definitions of important terms used in this study. The following definitions were explained constitutively in order to provide clear understanding for the readers.

Pre-service elementary mathematics teachers (PEMTs): PEMTs were the seniors at a private university in Turkey majoring in Elementary Mathematics Education (EME). PEMTs spent six hours a week under the supervision of mentor teachers at collaborating schools in the context of Teaching Practice course. They also attended the faculty meetings two hours a week to share their observations and experiences about their teaching practices. PEMTs were teacher candidates who are going to teach mathematics students at fifth to eighth grade after the graduation.

EGT 406 Practice Teaching course: EGT 406 is a compulsory course for undergraduate students including teaching practice at collaborating schools for six hours a week during the semester. The course requires class observation, active participation to educational activities, planning and designing lesson plans, and preparation for teaching.

Aim of the study:

Pre-service teachers, before flying solo in a classroom as in-service teachers, are given opportunities to develop their teaching skills through observing their mentor teachers, preparing course materials, taking on at least one instructional responsibility by themselves, and experiencing about how to control the classroom in the context of Teaching Practice course (Allen & Wright, 2014). Such experiences are valuable for pre-service teachers as they might affect their future experiences whether positively or negatively. In order to meet positive outcomes from teaching experience, reflections taken from pre-service teachers are considered as having an important role as they give opportunity to monitor their own teaching process. With those reflections, PEMTs are able to identify and correct any unexpected teaching behaviors. Thus, enabling pre-service teachers to reflect about their own experiences was the main concern of this study. From this perspective, the aim of this study was to reveal pre-service elementary mathematics teachers' self-reflections regarding their first teaching practices at collaborating schools. Based on this aim, the research question was identified as follows. What are the pre-service elementary mathematics teachers' self-reflections about their first teaching practice at collaborating schools within the context of EGT 406 Teaching Practice course?

Method

In this study, it was aimed to provide rich and holistic descriptions of the pre-service elementary mathematics teachers' (PEMTs') self-reflections about their first teaching practice at collaborating schools without making any manipulation in their natural settings. As we were trying to understand how PEMTs evaluate themselves regarding their first teaching experiences and what meanings they ascribe to those evaluations (Merriam, 2009); the design of the study fits the phenomenological research. In this study, purposive sampling was used. Patton (2002) suggested the use of purposive sampling to obtain in-depth information. The participants of the study were seventeen seniors attending EGT 406 Practice Teaching course and studying at Elementary Mathematics Education program in the spring semester of 2015-2016 at a private university in Turkey. The researchers, one of whom were the course instructor and the other one was the research assistant of the course, assigned PEMTs to write a self-reflection report considering their first teaching practice at collaborating school. The content of the required report was not limited to any framework to make PEMTs feel free to reflect their own experiences from their own perspectives. However, they were told that they could consider each process covering the teaching practice such as planning before the course, performing the course, and after the course. It was emphasized that there would not be any right or wrong self-reflection report to make PEMTs feel comfortable and eliminate their concern about getting high grades. They were just warned about bringing the reports on time. The main data of this study were gathered from PEMTs' self-reflection reports about their first teaching practices at collaborating schools within the EGT 406 course, as we were seeking to analyze their individual experiences by focusing on “how they perceive it, describe it, feel about it, judge it, remember it, make sense of it” (Patton, 2002, p. 104). The reports were 2-3 pages per person in average. The content analysis method was employed for the data analysis. PEMTs' reports were read thoroughly by each researcher separately. First, the codes were highlighted on the page and similar codes were clustered to form categories. After coding, two researchers created tables presenting the codes and identified categories based on the data. To provide frequency of the codes, the final codes were tallied and added on to the tables.

Expected Outcomes

PEMTs' self-reflection reports were analyzed through content analysis techniques. Based on the preliminary findings of the study, the PEMTs' self-reflection reports were mainly grouped into three categories; before, during, and after the course. The three categories were identified under two domains namely affective and cognitive domains which partially reflect Zimmerman's (2005) and Pintrich's (2005) self-regulated learning models. The results were presented in tables covering the sub categories and categories. In the before the course category, the affective domain has three sub-categories namely, having anxiety, introducing the course, and the sources of motivation. The cognitive domain has three sub-categories namely, planning course materials, planning time, and setting goals. In the during the course category, the affective domain has two sub-categories namely, having anxiety and motivating students. The cognitive domain has four sub-categories namely, achieving the course objectives, providing meaningful learning, classroom management, and time management. In the after the course category, the affective domain has one sub-categories namely, being satisfied of the teaching practice. The cognitive domain has three sub-categories namely, being achieved the course objectives, time management, and students' participation. The analysis of data also revealed PEMTs' overall evaluations about their first teaching practices and their general views about teaching profession. PEMTs reported suggestions and recommendations about the teaching practice in their reports. PEMTs argued that the number of teaching practices should be more than one or two class hours for their well preparedness as mentioned by Clift and Brady (2005). Considering the findings above, the teaching practice was seen as having a crucial role on PEMTs' future practices both in affective and cognitive domains. It can be concluded that PEMTs' eagerness to the teaching profession was increased. The findings of this study, as a Turkish case, can be used to compare with other cases in different countries for enabling a cross-cultural perspective about teaching practice.

References

Allen, J., & Wright, S. (2014). Integrating theory and practice in the pre-service teacher education practicum. Teachers & Teaching, 20(2), 136-151. Beck, C., & Kosnik, C. (2002). Components of a good practicum placement: student teacher perceptions. Teacher Education Quarterly, 29(2), 81–98. Boz, N., & Boz, Y. (2006). Do prospective teachers get enough experience in school placements? Journal of Education for Teaching, 32(4), 353–368. Brooks, V. (2006). A 'quiet revolution'? The impact of Training Schools on initial teacher training partnerships. Journal of Education for Teaching, 32(4), 379–393. Burton, D. (1998). The changing role of the university tutor within school-based initial teacher education: issues of role contingency and complementarity within a secondary partnership scheme. Journal of Education for Teaching, 24(2), 129–146. Clift, R. T., & Brady, P. (2005). Research on methods courses and field experiences. Studying teacher education: The report of the AERA panel on research and teacher education, 309-424. Merriam, S. B. (2009). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons. Oksuz, Y., & Cevik, C. (2014). Evaluation of prospective teachers and practice classroom teachers opinions of problems encountered in practice schools (Bayburt University sample). Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 116, 2909-2914. Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks. CA: Sage. Pintrich, P. R. (2005). The role of goal orientation in self-regulated learning. In M. Boekaerts, P. R. Pintrich, M. Zeidner (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation (pp. 451-502). San Diego: Academic Press. Yenilmez, K., & Ata, A. (2012). Pre-service Mathematics Teachers' Views about Applications of School Experience. Journal of Education and Instruction Studies, 1(3), 55-63. Zimmerman, B. J. (2005). Attaining self-regulation: A social cognitive perspective. In M.Boekaerts, P. R. Pintrich, & M. Zeidner (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation, (pp.13-39). London: Elsevier Academic Press.

Author Information

Gönül Kurt Erhan (presenting / submitting)

Baskent University

Mathematics and Science Education

Ankara

Merve Kaplan Koştur

Baskent University, Turkey

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