Abstracts - Earli

Development of teacher students’ pedagogical thinking and practiceSari Yrjanainen, University of Tampere, FinlandMarita Makinen, University of Tampere, FinlandArja Lundan, University of Tampere, FinlandEero Ropo, University of Tampere, FinlandPurpose of the paper is to investigate teacher students’ pedagogical thinking about class teachingand their actual teaching practice during the teacher education. Theoretical framework is based onsocio-cultural and socio-constructivist approaches that emphasize the importance of contextualityin knowledge construction. We aim at finding out 1) how student teachers describe theirconceptions of learning and scaffolding and how these conceptions change during the academicyear of teacher education, 2) how subjects describe their teaching behavior in the class situationsand how they reason about their pedagogical thinking during the lessons, 3) how students positionthemselves as teachers during the lessons. Our qualitative data consisted of narrative essays bymathematics teacher students. The texts were analyzed as narratives. The data of the selectedstudents were collected in February 2006 and 2007 during the authentic teaching situations at thepractice schools. The students’ practice lessons were videotaped and the data were collected on thescaffolding of school pupils in those situations. After the videorecording the researcher watchedthe recording with each student using the think-aloud method. The analysis is based on thehermeneutical and autobiographical approach and we have used discourse analysis also. Students’conceptions of pupil learning were classified into five categories. Results of the video analysesfrom 2006 showed that the selected five students could be categorized into three classes. Theresults showed that students were in the phase in which their idea of teaching seemed to be in thelevel of teaching the subject matter; in this case mathematics and science. The results will benefitboth the processes of curriculum planning for teacher education and mentoring processes duringthe students’ teaching practice.Novice teachers: Strengths and difficulties as perceived by physical education beginning teachersand interpreted by teacher mentorsElla Shoval, Zinman College of Physical Education & Sport Scien, IsraelIlanan Erlich, Zinman College of Physical Education & Sport Scien, IsraelNaomi Fejgin, Zinman College of PE & Sport Sciences at Wingate I, IsraelThe goal of this study was to portray the strengths and the difficulties of novice physical educationteachers as perceived by the teachers themselves and to analyze the significance of the findings.Data was collected by open-ended questionnaires and structured interviews that were conductedwith 62 physical education beginning teachers. The analysis regarding the significance of the datawas performed by 24 teacher mentors, who were participating in a special course for teachermentors. The analysis was performed in small groups, and the significance that the mentorsattributed to the findings was validated and corroborated by findings from the research literature. Itwas found that the physical education beginning teachers face similar difficulties as theircounterparts teaching academic subjects. Five characteristics of physical education beginningteachers were defined: (1) Novices sense a high degree of dependence. (2) Novices ignore thewider educational circle. (3) Novices emphasize the importance of values. (4) There is a gapbetween the novices’ eagerness to initiate activities and the environment’s lack of appreciation forsuch initiatives. (5) Novices have limited knowledge of practical pedagogy. Three needs emergefrom the findings: (1) the right to make mistakes in independent decisions and the right to getsuitable support to foster professional development, (2) harnessing theory to practice and acquiringthe capability to construct the links between them independently, (3) and opportunities to acquire– 748 –