How do teachers think quality? Poster presented at 16th Biennial Conference on Teachers and Teaching July 1-5, 2013 - Ghent, Belgium

• How do teachers think quality? This question is important since the teaching profession seems to be characterized by constant work intensification (Sarfatti-Larson, 1980). Repeated research show a steady increase in the number of tasks teachers are expected to perform (Apple 1989, Faber 1991, Hargreaves 1994, Day 2000, Grundy & Bonser 2000, Sutton 2007, Day & Gu 2007, Aili & Brante 2007, Chang 2009, Steen-Olsen & Eikseth, 2010). Teachers must therefore constantly prioritize between competing tasks and (to the extent they are pursuing quality of teaching) the question that arises is - how do they construct  realtions between tasks that are performed before the lesson and the teaching quality. In this paper we present an explorative study of how teacher formulate themselves about their daily work tasks in relation to the quality of their teaching. 60 teachers were invited to answer a semi structured web-questionnaire about work tasks they had perform during the day, once a day during two weeks. They were askedto choose two tasks that, from their perspective, had impact on the quality of their teaching in the nearest future. In addition to this they were asked to give each task a name, describe its content and under which circumstances it had been performed, and to specify in which way the task had impact on the teaching nearby. The material includes total 325 respectively 12 received questionnaires. The analysis focus is on teachers’ meaning-making of what quality is, and the relation between the work before teaching and the outcome of the teaching. A grounded content analysis was performed. The seven tasks identified by the teacher teams in the second questionnaire were analyzed in conjunction with a random sample of answers from the individual questionnaire regarding the same tasks. These tasks are labeled by the teachers name for the work task: Work with individual development plans, Planning of next day’s teaching, Planning of thematic work, Planning a school cinema visit, Production of material and Pupils’ choice. Some categories for the type of quality impact the teachers report have been construed such as for example “Absolute conditions” for links to a work task to the teaching such as the necessity to have ordered the groceries  before a lesson in cooking or ordered a bus for the transport to a school cinema visit. Another example is “Quality in a presentation” for links between high concentration works such as putting pedagogical considerations into a specific content. The way the teachers construe the reasons for tasks being important to quality are discussed in relation to earlier research about teachers’ professional language, characterization of teacher work, and teacher thinking.   Aili, C. & Brante, G,. (2007). Qualifying Teacher Work: Everyday Work as Basis For the Autonomy of the Teaching Profession. Teachers & Teaching, 13 (3), pp. 287-306. Apple, M., (1989). Teachers and texts. New York: Routledge & Keegan. Chang, M-L., (2009). An Appraisal Perspective of Teacher Burnout: Examining the Emotional Work of Teachers. Educational Psychology Review 21 (3), pp. 193-218. Day, C., (2000). Stories of change and professional development: The costs of commitment, In C. Day, A. Fernandez, T. Hauge & J. Møller (Eds). The life and work of teachers. International perspectives in changing times. London: Falmer Press. Day, C. & Gu, Q., (2010). The New Lives of Teachers, London: Routledge. Farber, B., (1991). Crisis in Education: Stress and Burnout in The American Teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Grundy, S. & Bronser, S., (2000). The New Work Order and Australian Schools, In: C. Day, A. Fernandez, T. Hauge & J. Møller (Eds). The life and work of teachers. International perspectives in changing times. London: Falmer Press. Hargreaves, A., (1994). Changing teachers, changing times. Teachers’ work and culture in postmodern age. London: Cassell. Sarfatti-Larson, M,. (1980) The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis},University of California Press. Steen-Olsen, T. & Eikseth, A., (2010). The Power of Time: Teachers' Working Day--Negotiating Autonomy and Control. European Educational Research Journal, 9(2), pp. 284-295. Sutton, R., (2007). Teachers’ Anger, Frustration, and Self-regulation. In P. Schutz & R. Pekrun. (Eds), Emotions in Education. pp. 259-274. San Diego: Elsevier.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Pedagogik (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Pedagogy (hsv//eng)

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