Abstracts - Earli

K 331 August 2007 08:30 - 10:30Room: 0.83 EötvösSIG Invited SymposiumResearch on Teaching and Teacher Education; gaps and possibilitiesfor European researchChair: Elaine Munthe, University of Stavanger, NorwayOrganiser: Elaine Munthe, University of Stavanger, NorwayDiscussant: Elaine Munthe, University of Stavanger, NorwaySIG11 on Teaching and Teacher Education will devote its Invited Symposium to discussing someresearch gaps in European research and will invite participants to join in on a discussion of whatresearch is needed for the future development of European research on teaching and teachereducation and how SIG11 can contribute to this. The papers presented cover different areas; HarmTillema, the Netherlands, questions research methodology concerned with studies of teachers’reflection and how for instance researchers’ choices and deliberations in designing a study canameliorate critical subjectivity while analyzing and interpreting accounts of teaching. MichalZellermayer, Israel, approaches the question of research from a teacher education standpoint. Shewill analyze the new scholarship in teacher education colleges during the last decade and willshow that, rather than competing with the universities in research on teacher education, they havedeveloped research for teacher education with immediate implications for curriculum andteaching. Katrin Hjort, Denmark, addresses relations between the more traditional professionalknowledge of the teachers and the new types of knowledge about teaching required at the momentare in focus. Types of knowledge and politics of knowledge will be a main concern, and what kindof research is needed to develop knowledge on supporting teachers’ professional practice. KirstiKlette, Norway, has professional repertoires in classrooms as a departure point. She will discussresearch gaps revealed throughout classroom studies in the Nordic countries, the poor link,engagement and conversation between knowledge gained within the research field of educationand its practical dissemination and use. Finally, she will address the need to develop moreoperational, technical and instrumental tools that could support and contribute to research basedteaching and learning.“Working in the interpretive zone”: researcher’s construction of knowledge in studies of teaching.Harm Tillema, University of Leiden, NetherlandsIn doing research on teaching one has to acknowledge the ways in which researchers’ intentionsinteract with the process of study, and how they serve to shape research outcomes. Such arecognition calls for attention to working in the interpretive zone (Wasser & Bressler, 1996).Based on our own studies on teachers’ reflective expertise (Mena Marcos & Tillema, 2006;Tillema & Orland Barak, 2006) it is exemplified how articulation of researchers’ choice anddeliberation in designing a study could ameliorate critical subjectivity while analyzing andinterpreting accounts of teaching and clarify interactions between researcher and teacher. Bycontrasting researchers’ intentions and subsequent interpretations of data or ‘findings’ aconceptual figure is created to illustrate the need for clarity on researchers’ construction ofknowledge in studies on teaching. One study will be used as a case, and the findings of this studyare elucidated against the conceptual figure which comprises four pitfalls of working in the– 585 –