10. Subject:
Pre-service teachers
Object:
To act as teachers
of English
Rules:
School and
University norms
and culture
Community:
Teacher educators
Teacher mentors
School Staff
D o L:
Roles and tasks as
teachers/students
Mediating Tool:
PRACTICUM
Outcome:
Become teachers
of English
Engeström (1987)
Editor's Notes
Second Language Teacher Education (SLTE) has long been grounded on the assumption that teaching programs should include elements of content expected to be taught (language) and teaching practices (how best to teach it) (Johnson, 2006) but also on knowledge of Self. This knowledge of Self implies bringing past experience to a level of consciousness awareness (Levis & Farrell, 2007).
Chilean SLTE has now incorporated practicum experience, however, teacher experience develops during the induction years. Teacher education is normative and lifelong and socially mediated (Johnson, 2006).
Studies suggest that “teacher education programs have a responsibility to encourage and enable present and prospective teachers to reflect seriously on how they construct and reconstruct their teaching Self”
Reflective model “is based on the assumption that teachers develop professional competence through reflection on their own practice” (Barahona, 2014, p.47)
What is reflective thinking : Dewey - active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge and comes from feeling of doubt or conflict related to teaching
Others have added that it should be systematic, recursive and cyclical (Lee, 2005)
What can RT do for pre-service teachers?
Impact practicum experience
Develop effective teaching habits
Re-elaborate knowledge
Theorization of practice
REFLECTIVE TEACHING: Learning from experience and becoming aware of thoughts and beliefs.
What is reflection-in-action? For Schön it is examining personal beliefs and experiences and how they connect to theories-in-use. In this way practitioners can inform their practice by drawing form a collection of ideas, images and actions (Farrell, 2012c).
Farrell
On: Reflect on past experience carry out an activity
In: Reflect I the moment to adapt in-situ an activity
For: Reflect for future activities
2014 – Uzum, Petron and Berg – US Middle School
Cultural Historical Activity theory - Is a research tradition which sees culture as crucial in learning and development
Theory is founded on the seminal work of Vygotsky (1978) and later developments of Leont’ev’s (1978) and
Engeström’s activity theory (1987, 2001).
VYGOTSKY
Mediation - learning is a collective activity mediated by tools and context.
Internalization from a Vygotskian point of view refers to a process which starts interpersonally, first at a social level and later at an individual level- intrapersonal
CHAT provides an understanding that “human development relies on the appropriation of pre-existing cultural tools and that this appropriation occurs through social interchange”
.
Mediation is crucial in any activity. Mediation occurs between the various components of the activity system through third parties (Kuutti, 1996).
Contradictions: Inherent element of any activity – motive force for change, and development – here RT plays a vital role
ACTIVITY SYSTEM
ACTING AND LEARNING ARE TIGHTLY BOUND
SUBJECT MEDIATED BY RULES
OBJECT AND COMMUNITY MEDIATED BY DIVISION OF LABOUR
Activity theory, based on Vygotsky’s understanding of learning, sees learning as a
collective activity mediated by tools and contextual conditions. Figure 4.3 below is a
representation of the structure of human activity. According to Engeström (1987),
the upper level of the activity is driven by an object-related motive; the middle level
of individual (or group) action is driven by a conscious goal; and the bottom level of
automatic operation is driven by the conditions and tools of the action (Engeström
1987).
A T can contribute in iluminating the changes in individual teachers’ thinking and practice (Barahona, 2015, p68)
A T allows the examination of teachers’ learning as a dynamic activity in different contexts mediated by teachers’ beliefs and classroom activities.
Grossman et al 1999, England – novice teachers appropriated different concepts about language teaching.
AT has been used to study how teachers learn to teach.
The relationship between community and subject is mediated by rules of behaviour which are explicit and implicit norms and conventions governing social interaction.
The relationship between community and object is mediated by the division of labour which is “the explicit and implicit organisation of a community as related to the transformation process of the object into the outcome” (Issroff & Scanlon, 2002,
p. 78). The components of community, rules and the division of labour shows how human behaviour is socially bound and depicts the unification of consciousness and activity or thinking and doing. This means that acting and learning are tightly bound
together (Jonassen, 2000).