Exploring a Senior Teacher’s Change in a Learning Community for Improving Pre-service Teachers’ Quality

Abstract

Abstract-In this study, we investigated a senior teacher's change in a learning community which aimed to improve the teaching quality of pre-service teachers. The senior teacher had been teaching Chinese in junior high schools for more than 30 years. In addition to the senior teacher, the participants of the learning community were from a university including three pre-service teachers, two teacher educators (researchers), and a Chinese subject matter expert. At the beginning, the university participants sat in the senior teacher's class and observed his teaching. Then, all the participants prepared a new lesson together and then observed the senior teacher's teaching of this lesson, followed by a discussion meeting. Afterwards, three steps of preparing, teaching, and discussing a lesson repeated to improve each pre-service teacher' teaching practice. Based on the multiple data we collected, the senior teacher appeared to give his students more freedom during the teaching process, and he gained new insights on selecting and designing instructional materials. Furthermore, the senior teacher examined digital materials enthusiastically, and finally used technology in his class initiatively and frequently.

Exploring ICT professional development of experienced female EFL teachers

“…In addition, they try to develop an internal program (in-house training) to assist as a forum for discussion, sharing experiences, and offering one another solutions to optimize the process of imparting the lessons. As mentioned by Chang and Hsu (2017) and Harfitt (2018), community learning contributes real impact to expanding knowledge, boosting courage, confidence, and willingness to embrace digital literacy for the benefit of teachers' professional development.…”

“…The result in each country, a higher proportion of female teachers than male teachers reported integrating ICT into instruction, also stating they have confidence and optimism when utilizing ICT, they could set a robust role model for the young women in their class (Gebhardt et al, 2019). In this case, experienced female teachers require support and equal opportunities to expand their digital competence, such as establishing a teacher-learning community to increase confidence, courage, and willingness for their ICT professional development (Chang & Hsu, 2017).…”