Faculty of Education - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 2 of 2
-
ItemTeaching together, working together, and being together: Teacher collaboration in Innovative Learning Environments( 2020)For New Zealand primary school teachers, the spatial transition from traditional to Innovative Learning Environments (ILEs) also contains an underlying assumption that increased pedagogical and professional collaboration will be commensurate. However, for many teachers, collaboration has previously constituted a ‘visited activity’, conducted away from the interface with students and the act of teaching, providing little experience upon which to draw. Working through theoretical perspectives on both teacher collaboration and educational space, and within the case study context of early-adopter primary schools, this thesis contributes to educational research by investigating and analysing the theoretical background, conceptual underpinnings, and enacted experiences, of teachers collaborating in ILEs. The study uses data collected from qualitative semi-structured interviews with individuals and groups, practice observations, and documentation to produce four major findings. Firstly, insights into the nature of teacher collaboration in ILEs, according to how they have been envisioned, rationalised and realised. Secondly, insights into enacted approaches to teaching and learning in ILEs, highlighting four factors: pedagogical intention, collaborative practices, joint teaching strategies, and structural components e.g. shared language. Thirdly, demonstrated links between teacher collaboration and space, found to be a profoundly spatial phenomenon that is experienced via multiple proximities, relationalities, and visibilities. Fourth and finally, a model through which to support the theorisation of teacher collaboration in ILEs: Terrains of teacher collaboration in primary school ILEs. This model theorises that teacher activities are the product of working together, teaching together, and being together. It highlights the nature of the terrain between rhetoric, rationale, and implications, and the everyday realities of enactment. Here the imperative is one of explication – and the need to make explicit the implicit. The study provides important implications for educational theory and practice. Practically, the findings assist school leaders and teachers to recognise, reflect on, and respond to aspects of teacher collaboration in ILEs. The study provides language and a model through which to assist this professional learning. Theoretically it draws attention to the centrality of space and spatiality in teacher collaboration and forms a starting point from which to begin further theoretical work.
-
ItemThe pedagogy of engagement: classroom management vs. facilitating learning( 2019)This thesis explored the way upper primary teachers think about student engagement and how they operationalise the concept within their classrooms. Student engagement has been frequently linked to academic success, and improving the engagement of students continues to be a priority for policy makers and practitioners alike. Despite an abundance of research, it remains questionable whether researcher conceptions of student engagement adequately represent the way teachers experience the concept. Teachers' perspectives on student engagement and their engagement-related practices were investigated over two studies using an exploratory sequential mixed methods design. In Study One, in-depth interviews were conducted with 16 teachers to explore their beliefs about student engagement in learning. Teachers described six qualitatively different forms of engagement and disengagement, as well as a complex process for facilitating student engagement within lessons. A typology of engagement and a pedagogical framework for engaging students were proposed based on the findings. Study Two sought to test the validity of the typology as a representation of teachers' descriptions of student engagement and its usefulness in coding teachers' engagement-related interactions within observed lessons. Four teachers were interviewed and four lessons observations for each teacher were conducted. In addition, 72 students within those classrooms were surveyed to explore their perceptions of aspects of the learning environment, including their understanding of teacher expectations for student engagement. Qualitative analysis of interview and observation data revealed that teachers varied in their expectations for student engagement within lessons, their views on the role of peers in student engagement, and in the frequency with which they intervened within lessons to facilitate different forms of student engagement. Quantitative analysis of survey data suggest that students in different classrooms perceive different expectations for how they will engage in learning experiences. A model is proposed for thinking about the pedagogy of student engagement, providing an alternative vantage point from which to explore the concept, one that is grounded in the real-life experiences of teachers facing the ongoing challenge of engaging students in classroom learning experiences.