The discursive production of classroom mathematics

Smith, Kim; Hodson, Elaine; Brown, Tony

doi:10.1007/s13394-013-0076-5

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Conceptions of ‘theory’ were used as an indicator of the trainees developing more generic conceptions of teaching as they gained experience of schools. A supplementary element focused on trainee conceptions of mathematics, as an example of a specific subject area within this model, as an alternative gauge (Smith et al ., ; Brown et al ., ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Sliding subject positions: knowledge and teacher educators

Brown

Rowley

Smith

2015

British Educational Res J

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In England, adjustments to policy in teacher education have had implications for how subject knowledge is understood and for how job descriptions are defined. That is, the interface between teacher educator and subject knowledge representation has been changing. This paper reports on a wider study that considers the experience of university teacher educators adjusting to new academic and operational conditions. On the one hand, the teacher educators are confronted with their subject specialism being set according to new learning objectives and to new time and curriculum constraints. On the other hand, their professional identity is reshaped in response to structural changes to teacher education where earlier job definitions had been reconfigured or removed. The paper analyses resultant conceptions of subject knowledge and of teacher education emerging through this changing interface and how these conceptions are variously located across staffing arrangements. A Lacanian model of subjectivity provides a theoretical approach to depicting teacher educator and pre-service teacher identification with subject knowledge. The paper provides a theoretical account of how the teacher educator/trainee interface has been reshaped in line with the market-led terminology that governs current practices. Specifically, the analytical tools enable us to dismantle and restructure the prevalent symbolic order guiding current teacher practice and understanding, particularly our entrapment within specific discourses and identity constructs that shape our interactions with subject knowledge.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Sliding subject positions: knowledge and teacher educators

Brown

Rowley

Smith

2015

British Educational Res J

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“…There is a culture of "getting it done" or "giving the method" rather than teaching for understanding: "Does that make sense… is that realistic?" An occasional decision to "step back" from the formal in the name of building understanding, "light bulbs were going on everywhere", was seen as an exception rather than the norm in the anecdotal material (Smith, Hodson and Brown 2013b). The thrust in English schools over recent years has been towards supporting skills-based agenda.…”

Section: Contrasting the Two Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Political Shaping of Teacher Education in the STEM Areas

Brown¹

2017

The SAGE Handbook of Research on Teacher Education

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league tables, which are supposedly indicative of wider economic competitiveness. They have been seduced by the appeal of raising standards in a statistically defined world. What had been introduced to measure school performance, however, now defines what it is and polices its boundaries. That is, such comparisons have transformed the content of what they compare and the demands on the teachers preparing to meet these newly defined challenges. A possible consequence of this has been an overly restrictive understanding of mathematics and science through being referenced to their socioeconomic potential. But whilst these subjects have become a priority across nations through research funding and the like, growth in these subjects is hampered by a shortage of people qualifying either because of perceived or actual difficulty, or because of their lack of popularity for other reasons. Yet policy responses to these economic priorities and actual teacher supply have been conceptualised in diverse ways across different countries. This chapter examines some examples of policy initiatives consequential to this recasting of mathematics and science. It firstly explores the impact on teacher education in these areas with reference to two very different state-led responses to changing teacher preparation. In some countries teacher education increasingly comprises a vocational employment-based model of training located primarily in schools. England is a prominent example, with similar models being introduced in New Zealand and the United States. This approach is in sharp contrast to models followed in continental Europe subject to the Bologna Process, where student teachers spend much more time in university (e.g. five years in Finland where a masters' degree is required). These two approaches reveal radically different conceptions of how teacher quality might be improved in the name of international competitiveness. In the first, teacher education has been wrested from its traditional home within the academy where universities play a support role to what has become "school-led" training where government funds for teacher education have been diverted to schools. Teacher professional identity has been referenced to skill development within this frame and the wider assessment culture. The second model, meanwhile, is similarly concerned

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“…8, 42). The research study here outlined is informed by a body of literature explicitly concerned with pedagogic subject knowledge (Green, 2006;Grossman, Wilson, & Shulman, 1989;Leach & Moon, 1999;Shulman, 1986;Smith, Hodson, & Brown, 2013;Winch et al, 2015). This study's particular focus is on student teachers' conceptualizations of their own practices, how they relate to these conceptualizations ('Who am I becoming?')…”

Section: Thinking About Pedagogic Subject Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%