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"Toom, Auli"
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‘Making it possible’: the complex dynamics of university foreign language teacher agency for research in funding applications
Teacher agency for research, which refers to teachers’ decision-making and initiative acts in the context of academic engagement, plays a pivotal role for teacher learning, teacher research, and thus teachers’ professional development. Despite the burgeoning number of studies that have examined teachers’ research and publishing experiences, it is unclear how university teachers exercise their agency for research in funding applications. This study examines how foreign language teachers at a university in China practice agency in the application of the National Social Science Fund of China from a Complex Dynamic Systems Theory perspective. Narrative frames and semi-structured interviews were used to collect the data, and thematic analysis was adopted to elucidate the complexity and dynamics of teacher agency for research. Revealing that there are subsystems of teacher agency for research in funding applications, i.e., agency beliefs, agency practice, and agency emotions and that the developmental trajectories of their agency for research are situated and relational, the findings highlight the need to view teacher agency as complex systems and dynamic entities. This study not only offers a conceptual framework as to unravel teacher agency for research in funding applications but also provides a tentative pathway for teachers exercising agency in applying for external funding both in the context of China and beyond.
Journal Article
Professional Agency for Learning as a Key for Developing Teachers’ Competencies?
Teacher’s professional competencies have been discussed extensively in the literature, often linked to educational policy discourses, teaching standards, student learning outcomes, or the intended outcomes of teacher education. Extensive, but fragmented and loosely theoretically or empirically based lists of teacher competencies are provided without much clarification of how, when, and why teachers learn and identify the competencies they need. Teacher competencies and how they are related to the core of their work as thinking practice have been discussed extensively by a range of stakeholders. However, what is actually needed in order to attain such competencies has been less studied. This paper contributes to the gap in the literature on active and intentional learning of teacher competencies by elaborating the relationship between teacher competencies and professional agency for learning. Through this, our aim in this article is to provide a better understanding of the topic, both theoretically and empirically. Drawing on earlier research, we have elaborated on the relationships between a teacher’s professional competencies and agency for learning among pre- and in-service teachers. We also aim to answer the question: what characteristics of teacher education lead to student teachers becoming competent and agentic? Why should we focus on those features during pre-service teacher education and as part of a teacher’s career?
Journal Article
The involvement of teaching assistants in professional learning communities
Teaching assistants (TAs) have a notable role in supporting individual students, groups, and classes in learning and in daily practices, both in mainstream and special education at the primary and secondary school levels. To enhance teaching assistants' learning, they should be integrated members of schools' professional learning communities. Despite this, most research about professional learning communities has concentrated on studying professional learning communities from teachers' and principals' perspectives. The purpose of this study was to identify how Finnish teaching assistants perceive their own and their schools' capacities. Teaching assistants' perceptions about personal capacities indicated that collaborative knowledge construction is regarded as a strength, including shared inquiry with teachers, and reflection of common and own practices. Perceptions about interpersonal capacities indicated that collaboration, shared values and vision, collective responsibility of student learning and shared practices with teachers are regarded as strengths. The dimensions of relationships and climate, including relationships based on trust and respect, were also reported as strengths. Within organizational capacities, structural conditions, such as participation, time allocation, professional development and in-service training and stimulating leadership have been reported as aspects that could be stronger from teaching assistants' perspectives. Methodologically, this study confirms the nature of professional learning community as a multidimensional and multi-layer construct, with interrelated dimensions and capacities.
Journal Article
Good Teachers for Tomorrow's Schools
Good Teachers for Tomorrow's Schools explores purpose of education, values in education and talents in education to map foundational, pedagogical and practical aspects of good teaching. It provides valuable research-based perspectives for scholars, teacher candidates, teacher educators and professional teachers.
eBook
Investigating the Characteristics of Knowledge-Related Learning Assignments in Upper Secondary School
This study reports on whether students have the opportunity to acquire generic competencies when they work with knowledge-related assignments at upper secondary school. We investigated 30 assignments. The data included lesson observations and interviews with teachers. The main categories of teaching practices were theory-based, and the subcategories and the levels of intensity were based on qualitative analysis of the data. The most common categories were Object-orientedness, Epistemic challenge, Process-like emphasis, Intensity of collaboration, Cross-fertilisation, and Information practices. The least common categories were Cross-fertilisation, Process-like emphasis, and Object-orientedness. Cluster analysis produced three groups: Open and challenging assignments with guidance and support (eight cases), Demanding assignments without support (seven cases), and Well-defined, teacher-directed assignments (15 cases). Assignments of the first type support students’ knowledge-related competencies the best. The second type of assignment is demanding because students work independently with limited support for challenging assignments. Assignments of the third type were well-structured and teacher-centered assignments.
Journal Article
How Do Physics Teacher Candidates Substantiate Their Knowledge? An Analytical Framework for Examining the Epistemic Dimensions of Content Knowledge in Higher Education
Supporting teacher candidates’ learning of coherent and well-ordered content knowledge is one of the most important educational aims in subject teacher education. To reach this aim, teacher educators need suitable tools to enhance the formation of such knowledge. In this article, we present an analytical framework to examine conceptual knowledge, meaning the ability to define the relevant concepts pertaining to a task; relational knowledge, i.e., the ability to consider interrelations between the concepts; and strategic knowledge, i.e., the ability to use the knowledge by providing (experimental or modeling) procedures, which build new knowledge. A sample analysis of 16 teacher candidates’ written reports is presented to illustrate how this framework can be used. The aim of the study was to reveal what kind of variation in teacher candidates’ content knowledge can be found. This study suggests that teacher candidates’ written reports can reveal remarkable differences in the epistemic dimensions of content knowledge. The framework shows the differences among the teacher candidates as well as produces information for teacher educators of the critical aspects, when and where to intervene, and where to focus using different teaching practices.
Journal Article
Considering the Artistry and Epistemology of Tacit Knowledge and Knowing
The concepts of tacit knowledge and tacit knowing have been of interest to philosophers and epistemologists as well as behavioral and social scientists. The tacit dimension can be found in both individual and collective practices in versatile, implicit, informal, and unintentional ways. There is no clear, broadly accepted definition of tacit knowledge, but rather its complexity and ambiguity are generally acknowledged. In this essay, Auli Toom begins by presenting some general definitions of tacit knowledge and knowing, and she then draws on four perspectives to construct a more thorough understanding of these concepts. According to Toom, tacit knowledge can be considered using either its philosophical foundations or psychological foundations. In addition, tacit knowledge can be understood as an accumulated product of thinking and action, and also as a process during action. Toom observes further that while tacit knowledge is perceived as an individual and personally accumulated knowledge base, its collective and organizational characteristics are widely recognized. Toom concludes by considering the situational and contextual nature of tacit knowledge.
Journal Article