Session Information
10 SES 09 B, Research on Programmes and Pedagogical Approaches in Teacher Education
Paper Session
Contribution
The paper is based on a doctoral study done by the first author. The study had four research questions: students’ conceptions of learning and teaching, their own school memories of learning and teaching, their conceptions of their own practice teaching, and their actual teaching behavior during the lessons.
It is evident that teaching in the actual school situations depends on several contextual, situational and autobiographical factors (Ropo 2004, Connelly & al. 1997; Meijer & al. 1999, Sotto 1994, Grossman, 1995). In this paper we focus on lesson discourses and student teachers’ perceptions and actions related to lesson discourses.
Practical motive for the study are the student teachers’ lacking decision-making skills. They are typically a big challenge for teacher education. This may be at least partly due to their lacking recognition of the discourses of the situation. Also the student teachers’ options for positioning and actions may be undeveloped. Positioning refers to communication strategies a student applies towards a partner of a discourse.
The purpose of this paper is to develop a discourse model of school teaching for the student practice in secondary teacher education in Finland. The empirical research question was: What kind of discourses mathematics and science teacher students recognized in the math and science lessons during the practice sessions at schools.
Background
The word "discourse" is shorthand for "discursive formation," which is what Foucault (1972) called communication that involves specialized knowledge of various kinds. Foucault's definition of discourse is “systems of thoughts composed of ideas, attitudes, courses of action, beliefs and practices that systematically construct the subjects and the worlds of which they speak". Discourse according to Foucault (2005) is related to power as it operates by rules of exclusion. Discourse is therefore controlled by objects, what can be spoken of; ritual, where and how one may speak; and the privileged, who may speak.
A discourse is a group of statements that provide a language for talking about a topic. When statements about a topic are made within a particular discourse, the discourse makes it possible to construct the topic in a certain way. Discourse is about the production of knowledge through language. But it is itself produced by a practice: a ‘discursive practice’—the practice of producing meaning. All practices have a discursive aspect. The relationships and differences between the statements within a discursive formation must be regular and systematic. (Hall 1999.)
Classroom communication can be characterized as pedagogical and knowledge related discourse. Existing discourses determine what is right or wrong, but they also regulate the relations between the actors. E.g. knowledge is traditionally ‘owned’ by the teacher who transmits it to students.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
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