Research in teacher education repeatedly suggests that the background and underlying beliefs held by pre‐service teachers about teaching and assessment act to shape their interpretations of ideas, powerfully influencing their praxis and their developing teacher identity. This paper explores how a young New Zealand secondary science teacher, raised and educated in Māori‐medium and then English‐medium New Zealand schools, develops his identity as a teacher as he navigates a range of educational contexts and experiences. His views on assessment provide a focus. The paper presents a case study drawn from a two‐year longitudinal study, comprising a series of interviews with the teacher, as he transitioned from a university graduate to a qualified science teacher working in his first school. The complexity of teacher identity development is highlighted, particularly for teachers for whom cultural identity and indigenous world view is important. It suggests that beginning teachers need more time in their pre‐service teacher education to reflect on the influence their formative educational experiences have on who they are becoming as a teacher.
Increasingly school change processes are being facilitated through the formation and operation of groups of teachers working together for improved student outcomes. These groupings are variously referred to as networks, networked learning communities, communities of practice, professional learning communities, learning circles or clusters. The formation and support of these types of groups to build capacity has been a major feature in the professional support landscape for New Zealand schools for a number of years, with sustainability and longevity of these groups seen as success criteria. A professional learning community approach was adopted by the New Zealand Ministry of Education to help schools implement the revised New Zealand Curriculum by facilitating the development of community members' capacities and expertise in school curriculum design. In this article I report on my experience as the facilitator of one professional learning community of nine schools that worked together over a two-year period. Three significant phases in the life of this community are identified and illustrated: establishing, converging, and diverging. I contend that sustainability and longevity are not necessarily key determinants of a community's success, but that success can be attained through the community's ability to flexibly achieve its purposes and prepare for future change.
Flipped classroom pedagogy is increasingly seen to be useful in the tertiary education sector and has recently been more frequently offered in nursing education. This literature review aims to critically examine empirical published work which reports of the impact of flipped classroom pedagogies on nursing students’ learning and performance. Global themes identified include student performance outcomes, engagement and enhanced/diminished student satisfaction. Synthesis of the findings of this literature review indicates that in nurse education the flipped classroom supports retention of knowledge, improves performance outcomes in areas as diverse as caring and examination results and there is enhanced student satisfaction with this method of learning. Enhancements to student learning and achievement using the flipped classroom model are connected to extra time and opportunities available for development of critical thinking and complex reasoning skills in class. As well, improvements are linked to the flexibility and self-efficacy accorded to students by the provision of learning opportunities in the form of deeply personalised online support. There is also evidence to suggest that students initially find this method stressful but with tutors and faculty staff providing information and rationale for the flipped classroom approach this stress can be reduced.
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