Contuning education during uncertainty speech
Answers
Answer:
Explanation:
Highlights
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Student teachers' uncertainties in lesson planning can be identified with linguistic cues.
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Pre-lesson conferences can prepare student teachers for the uncertainty of actual practice.
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Student teachers' uncertainty mainly pertained to instructional design and content.
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Student teachers with higher pedagogical content knowledge discussed their uncertainties more openly.
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Cooperating teachers can take on different roles to support inquiry and knowledge development.
Abstract
This qualitative study examined transcripts and video-data from 32 pre-lesson conferences of 14 cooperating teacher-student teacher dyads during the teaching practicum. It used a linguistic approach to capture student teacher uncertainty, while also considering their teaching experience and pedagogical content knowledge. Cooperating teachers' responses to uncertainty were explored in relation to student teachers’ instructional quality (as perceived by the student teachers and their pupils). This study illustrates the potential of using uncertainty as a learning opportunity and suggests new possibilities for how cooperating teachers could constructively respond to uncertainty in mentoring conversations.
Teaching practicums constitute an important part of teacher education (Flores, 2016) and are highly valued by student teachers (Hascher, Cocard, & Moser, 2004). During a teaching practicum, a student teacher is given the opportunity to try the “art of teaching”, and as a result, a teaching practicum usually creates a mixture of anticipation, anxiety, excitement, and apprehension (Poulou, 2007). To support student teachers effectively, Le Maistre and Paré (2010) suggested that instead of only providing clear-cut solutions to problems, teacher educators should provide student teachers with realistic and ill-defined problems which model the uncertainty of actual practice.
Managing uncertainty and developing a positive attitude towards it is important because uncertainty is an enduring component of teaching and forms a part of teachers' daily work in classrooms (Floden & Clark, 1988). Uncertainty can be troubling for student teachers when they enter the teaching phase of their teacher education programs. Here they are confronted with a lot of important decisions, such as choosing between several instructional designs, deciding on the content of a lesson that needs to be appropriate to pupils’ knowledge and abilities, and trying to implement their plans while keeping control of the classroom.
Collaboration is often cited as a strategy to positively influence student teachers' acceptance and management of uncertainty (e.g., Capobianco, 2011). Collaboration with a cooperating teacher,1 who challenges student teachers’ thinking, and encourages reflective experimentation with new practices and ideas, can help to build a shared sense of purpose and tolerance towards the uncertainty of the profession (Helsing, 2007). Schuck and Buchanan (2012), and Loughran (2005) emphasized the need for teacher educators and cooperating teachers to prepare and encourage student teachers to accept and embrace uncertainty. But conceding uncertainty may be uncomfortable for cooperating teachers, as their acting role as somebody who “has to know” might pressure them to provide perfect solutions (Schuck & Buchanan, 2012). Therefore, while collaboration with a cooperating teacher during the teaching practicum may offer the context for student teachers to familiarize themselves with the uncertainty of teaching, it is unclear how teacher-related uncertainties are dealt with in lesson conferences between cooperating teachers and student teachers and how these uncertainties can be transformed into useful learning opportunities.