Section archive - Professional Development

This article focuses on a micro-political discussion related to everyday stakeholder interactions that are endemic to the lesson study process. The authors aim to investigate issues pertaining to power relations that exist between teachers and their students, teachers and their peers, and teachers and external consultants. Their approach is conceptual in nature; simultaneously, we present several detailed examples revealing key issues related to lesson study implementation in Asian countries such as Singapore, Vietnam, and Indonesia. The authors have demonstrated that a post-structural theoretical perspective can illuminate the complex nature of lesson study, in relation to key concepts of power, identity, and discourse that need to be reflected upon by practitioners, school leaders, and consultants alike.

The goal of this article was to explore the ways in which language played a role in the teachers’ evolving expertise and enactment of equitable science assessment. The findings revealed that the teachers became more knowledgeable about the role of language in assessment and incorporated scientific discourse while assessing in their teaching practicum. Yet, the teachers did not adopt a permanent and individualized stance toward how to address language while assessing, instead straddling opposing decisions. The author referred to this straddling as a “tension.” Two tensions emerged.

This research examined differences in the levels of domain-specific and general efficacy across groups of preservice and inservice teachers. The participants divided into four classifications: the preservice teacher—prior, preservice teacher – post, novice teacher and experienced teacher. The findings revealed that experienced teachers held the highest general teaching efficacy as well as the highest efficacy with regards to domain-specific areas such as student engagement and classroom management.

In this article, the author argues that there is a lack of research into the role of the facilitator of discussions of video for professional development. A key purpose of this article is to expose aspects of the role of the facilitator of teacher learning, not reported in previous research in the use of video. Hence, the author documents research he undertook into the use of video as a tool for teacher learning. In analysing empirical data from one school, he suggests five key aspects or decision points in working with teachers on video: selecting a video clip, setting up the discussion norms, re-watching the video, moving to interpretation, and metacommenting. The author argues that having presented key aspects of the role of the facilitator of video use, a further look at the detail of the data from discussions serves to highlight some of the complexities involved in just one of the categories.