This case study contributes with a new coteaching design, in which experienced teachers from two different aesthetic subjects are planning, teaching and evaluating together in higher education, more specifically in general preschool teacher education. The aim of the study is to analyse how two drama teachers and a music teacher reflect on their coteaching. Coteaching, when teachers teach together with shared responsibility to meet their students’ learning needs, is a pedagogical approach to enable an active learning process. Research and practice in coteaching have emerged, mostly designed with coteachers within the same subject. However, more research is needed about teachers from different subjects coteaching together. The theoretical framework is sociocultural, with special emphasis on aspects of learning from ‘the other’ in praxis by working in a zone of proximal development (ZPD). Analysed data consist of field notes and audio-recorded teacher group conversations. Main findings show synergies in subject parallels, based on the analysis of coteachers’ reflections as learning processes within their ZPD. In conclusion, a major contribution in terms of synergy in coteaching appears in subject parallels related to specific subject matter concepts, where music and drama are intertwined in the classroom as “music-drama”, as a new dimension.
This paper concerns the complex relationships between external facilitators and teachers in action research, as they work in a critical friendship to develop interaction in specific ways that open up rather than shut down communication and learning. The aim is to contribute with knowledge about interpersonal communication between academic facilitators and teachers in a development process where the teachers had a lack of influence in the initial phase of the project. The findings reveal that communication in a context of incompatible positions and professional distance did not lead to further communication, whereas communication in a context of confidence, mutual reliance, and challenge opened up possibilities for further dialogue. We identified three aspects affecting communication: absence of ownership of specific problems, trust without relationship, and courage before trust. Implication for the action research community is the importance of making strategies for critical friendship explicit. This assists for teachers to internalize the role.
This case study focuses on mentor group conversation meetings with primary student-teachers, demonstrating how student-teachers´ reflections on classroom experiences might influence their understanding of the complicated relationship between teaching, subject matter content and the context. The aim is to study how mentors´ and student-teachers´ reflections affect (or not) the student-teachers´ development of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). The theoretical framework derives from a sociocultural perspective, emphasising the collective character of teaching and learning. The empirical material consists of video documented mentor group conversations during one semester within an academic school context. Findings show development of PCK, highlighting a transition from pedagogical knowledge and contextual knowledge, to a blending of subject matter knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and contextual knowledge. This blending only occurred when the student teachers reflected on their teaching. Findings demonstrate the need to systematically explore student-teacher reflections of their teaching in practice to discern how different knowledge bases integrate into PCK.
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