title: Being and Becoming Reflexive in Teacher Education

authors: Norsworthy, Beverley Elizabeth

subjects: teacher education

abstract: Initial teacher education is constantly in the spotlight regarding its quality and its effectiveness.  The literature contains many claims from those who believe that it is ineffectual.  The notion of the reflective practitioner was introduced and embraced as an antidote to these claims, and as an approach to break the influence of technocratic beliefs and expectations which pre-service teachers bring with them to their initial teacher education.  Typically reflection targets the practicum experience.  However, this study focuses specifically on the contribution of course work to the development of a reflective beginning teacher.  

This qualitative study invited pre-service teachers to provide insight into their initial teacher education experience: initially within a Teaching of Science methods paper, and then some 18 months later at the conclusion of their three year Bachelor of Education (Teaching) professional preparation.  A critical reflexive interpretive methodology which sought authenticity within its meaning-making process developed from an initial consideration of self-study research methodology.  Of particular importance was that the enquiry was authentic, participants' voices were valued and recognition was given to the implications embedded within the context within which the study occurred.  Methods of data collection included in phase one were: a pre-course questionnaire, a Gestalt-like activity, and pre-service teachers' email reflections based on Hoban's (2000a) categories of learning influences, and meta-reflections from the Teaching of Science paper.  The journal I kept during this phase was also drawn upon as data.  Phase two data collection included a vignette, and a three part final questionnaire to which 40 pre-service teachers and nine teacher educators responded.  

The findings suggest that pre-service teachers' understanding of the nature of education is critical to the way in which they experience the course work within initial teacher education.  This understanding shapes their perception and consideration lens through which course work is experienced.  On entrance to initial teacher education this lens is described, for many pre-service teachers, as technocratic.  Education is seen as a commodity, something to acquire, teaching is telling and initial teacher education is dependent on the teacher educator providing the necessary tools and techniques so the beginning teacher can do the right thing.  

This study suggests that such a stance toward educational experiences is a hindrance mechanism when teacher educators seek transformative teaching, learning, and reflexivity.  However, when that view of education is as a process of growth and transformation toward a valued 'way of being', the perspective and consideration lens is described as professional.  Rather than focusing on what a teacher does, the focus is on whom the teacher is and how this influences the teaching and learning process.  Teacher educators and the institution which is the context within which course work occurs also demonstrate a mixture of technocratic and professional lenses.  Important factors within initial teacher education which contribute to transformation from technocratic to professional lens include relational and pedagogical connectedness.  These factors lead to valuing, ownership and justification of learning where assessment tasks are tools for personal development and where critical consideration of multiple perspectives has an important role.  Relational connectedness (to self, peers, and teacher educators) is important for developing a safe, but challenging, dialogical space in which paradoxes, challenges and pre-service teachers' vulnerable sense of disorientation may be engaged.  Pedagogical connectedness relates to the fit between what the teacher educator says and does.  For example, a powerful approach to learning is where the pre-service teachers learn to be reflexive, by being reflexive.  The study indicates the importance of institutional congruency so that what is espoused is experienced through language, assessment, teaching approaches and contextual culture.  However, pre-service teachers' perception and consideration lens determines the degree to which course work is transformational.  Where a technocratic lens is dominant, reflection becomes a task to be completed.  Where a professional lens is dominant, reflection becomes an iterative process for improving practice by becoming professionally self aware through identifying assumptions in decisions and responses within the learning/teaching relationship, and judging those assumptions for their appropriateness in the light of a developing and critiqued personally owned educational vision.

text: Being and Becoming Reflexive in Teacher Education Initial teacher education is constantly in the spotlight regarding its quality and its effectiveness.  The literature contains many claims from those who believe that it is ineffectual.  The notion of the reflective practitioner was introduced and embraced as an antidote to these claims, and as an approach to break the influence of technocratic beliefs and expectations which pre-service teachers bring with them to their initial teacher education.  Typically reflection targets the practicum experience.  However, this study focuses specifically on the contribution of course work to the development of a reflective beginning teacher.  

This qualitative study invited pre-service teachers to provide insight into their initial teacher education experience: initially within a Teaching of Science methods paper, and then some 18 months later at the conclusion of their three year Bachelor of Education (Teaching) professional preparation.  A critical reflexive interpretive methodology which sought authenticity within its meaning-making process developed from an initial consideration of self-study research methodology.  Of particular importance was that the enquiry was authentic, participants' voices were valued and recognition was given to the implications embedded within the context within which the study occurred.  Methods of data collection included in phase one were: a pre-course questionnaire, a Gestalt-like activity, and pre-service teachers' email reflections based on Hoban's (2000a) categories of learning influences, and meta-reflections from the Teaching of Science paper.  The journal I kept during this phase was also drawn upon as data.  Phase two data collection included a vignette, and a three part final questionnaire to which 40 pre-service teachers and nine teacher educators responded.  

The findings suggest that pre-service teachers' understanding of the nature of education is critical to the way in which they experience the course work within initial teacher education.  This understanding shapes their perception and consideration lens through which course work is experienced.  On entrance to initial teacher education this lens is described, for many pre-service teachers, as technocratic.  Education is seen as a commodity, something to acquire, teaching is telling and initial teacher education is dependent on the teacher educator providing the necessary tools and techniques so the beginning teacher can do the right thing.  

This study suggests that such a stance toward educational experiences is a hindrance mechanism when teacher educators seek transformative teaching, learning, and reflexivity.  However, when that view of education is as a process of growth and transformation toward a valued 'way of being', the perspective and consideration lens is described as professional.  Rather than focusing on what a teacher does, the focus is on whom the teacher is and how this influences the teaching and learning process.  Teacher educators and the institution which is the context within which course work occurs also demonstrate a mixture of technocratic and professional lenses.  Important factors within initial teacher education which contribute to transformation from technocratic to professional lens include relational and pedagogical connectedness.  These factors lead to valuing, ownership and justification of learning where assessment tasks are tools for personal development and where critical consideration of multiple perspectives has an important role.  Relational connectedness (to self, peers, and teacher educators) is important for developing a safe, but challenging, dialogical space in which paradoxes, challenges and pre-service teachers' vulnerable sense of disorientation may be engaged.  Pedagogical connectedness relates to the fit between what the teacher educator says and does.  For example, a powerful approach to learning is where the pre-service teachers learn to be reflexive, by being reflexive.  The study indicates the importance of institutional congruency so that what is espoused is experienced through language, assessment, teaching approaches and contextual culture.  However, pre-service teachers' perception and consideration lens determines the degree to which course work is transformational.  Where a technocratic lens is dominant, reflection becomes a task to be completed.  Where a professional lens is dominant, reflection becomes an iterative process for improving practice by becoming professionally self aware through identifying assumptions in decisions and responses within the learning/teaching relationship, and judging those assumptions for their appropriateness in the light of a developing and critiqued personally owned educational vision.

year: 2008

title: An Exploration of Models for Collaborative Leadership of Virtual Learning Network e-Learning Clusters in New Zealand

authors: Buchanan, Philip Conway

subjects: Collaborative

abstract: Faced with the massive challenge of personalising learning for a digital generation, educators need to change.  Collaboration and collaborative leadership, having been widely researched and implemented, are now considered to be strategic components of systemic transformation.  Many jurisdictions have trialled or instituted collaborative or cluster-based projects to address the collaborative learning and leadership challenges associated with transformation through e-learning.  New Zealand’s emergent Virtual Learning Network and e-learning clusters have developed new system leadership from grass-roots rural schools with the Ministry of Education’s strategic support.  Can these innovative collaborative projects continue to improve and sustainably contribute to educational transformation in NZ?
This small-scale qualitative investigation focussed on semi-structured interviews to gather data from five experienced rural cluster Lead Principals who have successfully lead some of the stronger rural Virtual Learning Network e-learning clusters across rural New Zealand. The key research question which guided the interview questions and analysis was:
What are the most appropriate and effective models for managing and leading collaborative relationships and shared long-term projects for clusters of secondary schools? 
The aim was to discover the conceptions and use of collaborative processes, structures and leadership which theoretical and empirical research suggest are critical components of system-wide reform.  
Research findings reveal a high degree of congruence between theory and the practice of these five Lead Principals.  Their understanding and practice of shared, distributive and collaborative leadership, with a clear commitment to building leadership capacity, was based more upon their personal style supported by some knowledge of the international literature, rather than formal policies. However, while these maturing clusters have outlasted many others, they continue to face challenges of viability, effectiveness, and sustainability, in spite of the Ministry of Education’s support for critical background infrastructure.  The data shows that while there are strong collaborative support strategies in and for these clusters, two key areas could be addressed more effectively.
This study suggests that collaborative transparency and accountability needs strengthening in a drive for consistent quality and effectiveness.  Also, while new structural cluster models may be emerging in the search for sustainability, the well-established cost of managing collaborations has not yet been accepted by the MoE, leaving 100% of the burden of management costs on the mostly small rural schools.   It is therefore recommended that the MoE find a way around the current school-based funding model to at least partially fund regional management of these transformative collaborations, perhaps within the government’s current drive to build performance management and accountability.  New Zealand’s systemic transformation and its current leadership within the e-learning revolution may depend on it.

text: An Exploration of Models for Collaborative Leadership of Virtual Learning Network e-Learning Clusters in New Zealand Faced with the massive challenge of personalising learning for a digital generation, educators need to change.  Collaboration and collaborative leadership, having been widely researched and implemented, are now considered to be strategic components of systemic transformation.  Many jurisdictions have trialled or instituted collaborative or cluster-based projects to address the collaborative learning and leadership challenges associated with transformation through e-learning.  New Zealand’s emergent Virtual Learning Network and e-learning clusters have developed new system leadership from grass-roots rural schools with the Ministry of Education’s strategic support.  Can these innovative collaborative projects continue to improve and sustainably contribute to educational transformation in NZ?
This small-scale qualitative investigation focussed on semi-structured interviews to gather data from five experienced rural cluster Lead Principals who have successfully lead some of the stronger rural Virtual Learning Network e-learning clusters across rural New Zealand. The key research question which guided the interview questions and analysis was:
What are the most appropriate and effective models for managing and leading collaborative relationships and shared long-term projects for clusters of secondary schools? 
The aim was to discover the conceptions and use of collaborative processes, structures and leadership which theoretical and empirical research suggest are critical components of system-wide reform.  
Research findings reveal a high degree of congruence between theory and the practice of these five Lead Principals.  Their understanding and practice of shared, distributive and collaborative leadership, with a clear commitment to building leadership capacity, was based more upon their personal style supported by some knowledge of the international literature, rather than formal policies. However, while these maturing clusters have outlasted many others, they continue to face challenges of viability, effectiveness, and sustainability, in spite of the Ministry of Education’s support for critical background infrastructure.  The data shows that while there are strong collaborative support strategies in and for these clusters, two key areas could be addressed more effectively.
This study suggests that collaborative transparency and accountability needs strengthening in a drive for consistent quality and effectiveness.  Also, while new structural cluster models may be emerging in the search for sustainability, the well-established cost of managing collaborations has not yet been accepted by the MoE, leaving 100% of the burden of management costs on the mostly small rural schools.   It is therefore recommended that the MoE find a way around the current school-based funding model to at least partially fund regional management of these transformative collaborations, perhaps within the government’s current drive to build performance management and accountability.  New Zealand’s systemic transformation and its current leadership within the e-learning revolution may depend on it.

year: 2013

title: The anthropologist as tribal advocate

authors: Hopa, Ngapare K

subjects: economic conditions

abstract: My colleague has outlined some of the major issues facing New Zealand and its indigenous Polynesians - the Maaori - who not so long ago were ranked among the most documented in the world and the country as THE laboratory of race relations.
The present disadvantaged and dependent status of Maaori people show how illusory that notion is and, for New Zealand anthropologists, the challenge it presents in helping Maaori to attain socio-economic sovereignty within the 'partnership' promised by the Treaty of Waitangi.
In the late 60s and since, a few 'radical' mostly 'native' anthropologists can be said to have risen to the challenge that Gough (1968) and others, laid down, but it cannot be said, even now, that the profession as a whole in New Zealand, has been responsive.
Perhaps it is still committed to the myth of scientific objectivity, or, after regarding themselves as champions of a powerless and marginal people, has not recovered from the accusation of impotency during the social ferment of the 70s and since. To be fair, there were a few individuals who were allied with the protest movement but whose contributions were not acknowledged. They rode out the storm however and have continued to contribute significantly to the Maaori cause.

text: The anthropologist as tribal advocate My colleague has outlined some of the major issues facing New Zealand and its indigenous Polynesians - the Maaori - who not so long ago were ranked among the most documented in the world and the country as THE laboratory of race relations.
The present disadvantaged and dependent status of Maaori people show how illusory that notion is and, for New Zealand anthropologists, the challenge it presents in helping Maaori to attain socio-economic sovereignty within the 'partnership' promised by the Treaty of Waitangi.
In the late 60s and since, a few 'radical' mostly 'native' anthropologists can be said to have risen to the challenge that Gough (1968) and others, laid down, but it cannot be said, even now, that the profession as a whole in New Zealand, has been responsive.
Perhaps it is still committed to the myth of scientific objectivity, or, after regarding themselves as champions of a powerless and marginal people, has not recovered from the accusation of impotency during the social ferment of the 70s and since. To be fair, there were a few individuals who were allied with the protest movement but whose contributions were not acknowledged. They rode out the storm however and have continued to contribute significantly to the Maaori cause.

year: 1988