Opening Keynote Speech

Introduction

Imagining possible ways to enhance quality teaching for creating equitable learning opportunities for diverse learners needs to recognize the historically and socially developing opposition between global imperatives that impose uniformity in education and the local cultures that are diverse. The diverse ways of knowing that students bring to formal education are largely overlooked in the stress to homogenize teaching and learning. However, there is much theoretical support to view diversity as a necessary aspect of learning in a dialogic meaning making process (e.g., Bakhtin, 1981) and research literature on teaching and learning uphold the value of multiculturalism (Ladson-Billings, 2014; Parkhouse, Lu & Massaro, 2019; Ratnam, 2020). The ISATT collaborative projects are premised on the epistemological principle that reimagining teaching to diversity involves support to teachers/educators to experience first hand what it means to learn from diversity so that they are able to provide similar support to the diverse students they teach.

Purpose and significance

The ISATT collaborative projects involves 72 members from Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America. This provides a rich opportunity for members from diverse sociocultural contexts to gain a firsthand understanding of what learning with diversity means. They learn about, with and from each other as they engage collaboratively in exploring new possibilities for the future of teaching and learning through five studies on research topics which address the persisting challenges of enhancing quality teaching and teacher education.

Symposia Part 1 reports the findings of the first three of the five research topics of the ISATT collaborative project.

1. Filling the gaps of online practicum for pre-school and primary education in-service teachers
2. Integration of AI-based tools as part of teacher training: a step towards digital inclusion?
3. The changing roles of teachers in contemporary education

Mentoring has moved center stage in professional education over the last two decades, and it is now a central component of initial and in-service professional learning in public service professions. Data points to the importance of mentoring for promoting quality teaching and for retaining teachers in the system, given the fact that teacher attrition rates of up to 50% worldwide with a shortage of 69 million teachers ( as of 2023). Mentoring is also a key component of principal preparation. Supporting the professional learning of newly appointed principals as instructional leaders contributes to leadership stability. Stable, effective school leadership is a key factor in teacher retention. Although it is not just a matter of numbers, the declaration of the “right to induction” undeniably has a long way to go before becoming a reality. Added to these troubling figures, many cases of mentoring in diverse socio-cultural teaching contexts around the world lack a formalized system of expert mentor support and guidance within the institution, which can be eventually deterrent to novices’ professional development. Thus, after almost four decades of research, mentoring still needs to earn its due place within the institutional discourse of expert practice in the service of professional learning. There is also a need to reconsider mentoring in the rapidly changing world of work and learning, characterized by immigration, increased mobility of persons and ideas, globalization and digitalization. These have fundamentally altered learning and teaching in the professions, raising new challenges and caveats related to issues of equity, quality and ethics. Drawing on studies conducted in Belgium, Chile, Israel, Portugal and Spain, this symposium addresses the above challenges in response to the diversified demands of particular socio-cultural teaching settings and contexts. Our discussant from Israel will consolidate emergent insights and implications for mentoring for quality teacher retention.

<p>Keynote</p>

If educators are serious about challenging racism within contemporary society, they must consider how education systems progress diversity in the profession and anti-racist praxis for social change, rather than complicity in maintaining the status quo that undermines diversity in ideas, knowledge and experience.

This symposium includes four papers which demonstrate work in progress in Scotland to support the recruitment, retention and progression of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) teachers, and to progress racial literacy and leading for anti-racism across the profession.

Paper One discusses the impact of the SAMEE Leadership and Mentoring programme designed for BME teachers. The programme provides safe, positive spaces for BME teachers to acknowledge their experiences, affirm their skills and competencies, define actions to support career progression and develop into race-cognisant advocates.

Paper Two discusses the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS, 2024) Sponsoring for Diversity in Teacher Progression strategy, a new call to action in Scottish education with a key focus on supporting BME teachers’ career progression, through spotlighting, networking and advocacy.

Paper Three reflects on the impact of the national Building Racial Literacy (BRL) programme for Scottish educators. BRL promotes anti-racism as a baseline professional value, empowering educators to understand, identify and implement racial literacy and anti-racist behaviours and processes in their thinking and practice.

Paper Four presents the rationale, andragogy and early impact of Leading Anti-Racism (LAR), a partnership between a university and a school district, with participants from both contexts in the same learning space. LAR aims to deepen personal and professional understanding of race, racism and the concept and practice of leading (for) anti-racism.

The discussant will draw on each paper to explore challenges and opportunities, to diversify the profession and to realise the potential for our teaching workforce to understand and challenge racism and its multiple manifestations.

<p>Keynote</p>

Introduction

The standardization and uniformization imposed from above in education through systems of scrutiny and accountability (Hall & Pulsford, 2019) globally, make diversity seem a problem. One of the significant possible ways of enhancing the quality of teaching which makes it multiculturally inclusive lies in helping educators reimagine diversity as a necessary resource for transformative learning. Toward this, educators need to experience firsthand how learning is promoted in interaction among peers from multicultural contexts.

Purpose and significance

The ISATT collaborative projects involves 72 members from Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America. This provides a rich opportunity for members from diverse sociocultural contexts to gain a firsthand understanding of what learning with diversity means. They learn about, with and from each other as they engage collaboratively in exploring new possibilities for the future of teaching and learning through five studies on research topics which address the persisting challenges of enhancing quality teaching and teacher education.

Symposium Part 2 reports the findings of two of the five research topics of the ISATT collaborative project.

1. Social justice pedagogies in teaching
2. The Dynamics of Geographic Space When Working with International Teacher Educators in Collaborative Research.

The symposium Part 2, like Part 1, offers an understanding of the development of authentic learning dialogue in the sense-making going on among educators from diverse international contexts with different perspectives, experiences, and expertise. Collaborations transcend borders and the cross-pollination of ideas sparks innovation and expands the boundaries of knowledge.

Reference

Hall, R., & Pulsford, M. (2019). Neoliberalism and primary education: Impacts of neoliberal policy on the lived experiences of primary school communities. Power and Education, 11(3), 241-251. https://doi.org/10.1177/1757743819877344

In the first two decades of the 21st century, Clinical Approaches to teacher education gained significant ground, with programs and associated research advanced in countries including the United States, England, Scotland, and Australia (see Burns and Mutton, 2015; Conroy et al. 2013; Kiewaldt, 2013; McLean Davies et al, 2015). These programs, reflecting the “practicum turn” (Mattsson et al, 2011) in teacher education, a commitment to quality teaching taken to scale, and the desire to raise the status and quality of teacher education experiences, sought new partnerships between schools and universities, reimagined assessment, and in some national contexts, gained significant support from policymakers (AGDE, 2015) and school communities, transforming approaches to professional learning (McLean Davies et al., 2017). These programs also faced criticism and skepticism, particularly concerning the appropriateness of clinical nomenclature for teacher education (McKnight 2020), and the resources needed to sustain these models.

In light of the UNESCO SDG4– to ‘Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all,’ this symposium asks what value and opportunities, if any, Clinical Models of teacher education hold in the context of a global teaching workforce crisis, and intense policy animation around questions of teacher quality internationally. It considers how clinical models have been sustained and/or evolved over the past two decades. Four different national contexts–Australia, Scotland, England, and Wales, will be represented in this symposium’s four papers - which will draw on national and comparative research to give an account of the clinical model as it has been developed in each country, and to consider opportunities and innovations for these models. In this way, collectively, the symposium will have explicit synergies with the conference substrands that seek to explore the characteristics of quality teaching, innovative approaches to curriculum design, and effective partnerships for equity and inclusion.

The quality of teaching depends in part on how teachers interact with students. According to the socioconstructivist theory (Vygotsky (1934/1985) and the socio-cultural approach (Bruner, 1983), learning depends on the quality of the teacher’s support for the participation of disabled and able-bodied students in the physical education (PE) sessions.

A first study reveals the small amount of time devoted to in the training of pre-service teachers to the skill of «mastering the French language for communicative purposes». Using a recent coding grid (Ahmadi et al., 2022), the analysis of the verbal behaviors of 8 PE teachers (4 experts and 4 beginners) reveals disparities in support of the three basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence and relatedness, LaGuardia & Ryan, 2000). A second study rooted in the self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2017) focuses on the analysis of the needs satisfaction and motivation of 186 students, and their agentic engagement (Reeve, 2013) in PE, as indicators of quality teaching (Reeve & Cheon, 2021). A third study examines the invariants and specific features of the guidance provided by an expert teacher to two groups of students with similar disabilities during six dance sessions integrated into an inclusion project at a Medical Educational Institute (IME). Verbal and non-verbal guidance procedures are quantified according to Harbonnier-Topin and Barbier (2014) grid and the teacher’s postures are described to determine the specificity of the support guaranteeing the quality of educational interaction.

The common theme is the analysis of the quality of the teaching-learning process, using mixed-method research to provide an in-depth understanding of the interactions observed so that the needs of the learners can be taken into account. Moreover, they open up perspectives vocational training opportunities focused on the content and communication modalities that support students and encourage them to engage proactively in their development and well-being.

STEM education gained importance in the early 2000s to equip students for a knowledge-based economy driven by constant innovation. An educated workforce well-grounded in STEM skills was seen as critical to maintaining a competitive edge in the global economy and prosperity). Despite STEM education and industries’ diversity outreach efforts, STEM is beset by socioeconomic, gender and racial inequity. Addressing these issues points to the need for going beyond the narrow instrumental and competitive economic goals of STEM to embed it in the more encompassing social and environmental goals of education. The real challenge to STEM education is not merely preparing students for STEM jobs, but promoting in them their higher-order abilities as critical consumers, creative and ethically astute citizens to address the global crises impacting social and environmental wellbeing.

This symposium brings together researchers from four diverse contexts to present their research findings about the nature of support in STEM teaching and teacher education that can help educators adopt and teach to the broader goals of sustainable development that renders STEM education that is inclusive and socially just.

Presentation 1 uses word test to explore the challenges posed by STEM instructional language of English in South Africa to students speaking other languages and its implications for making STEM education more democratically accessible.

Presentation 2 identifies the problems of accessibility to quality STEM teacher preparation in the Czech curriculum context using discursive and content analysis.

Presentation 3, set in the US, employs narrative inquiry to demonstrate how science as inquiry, culturally responsive pedagogy and multi-faceted mentoring merge to create more socially just STEM education.

Presentation 4 from India, illustrates how STEAM can broaden the base of STEM education to achieve sustainable development for all using the Vygotskian Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) framework.

Keynote

In the contemporary educational scenario, the interconnection between emotions and cognition in the teaching and learning process is widely recognized. Cognitive neuroscience studies highlight the crucial role of emotions in the formation of memories and decision-making, directly influencing attention, motivation and learning (Pessoa, 2008; Immordino-Yang & Damásio, 2007). At the same time, there is a growing understanding of the relevance of socio-emotional skills for the integral development of students. Their inclusion in Basic Education curricula is driven by the perception of their importance for the academic, professional and personal success of students (Casuso-Holgado et al., 2020). In this context, the research question developed was: "How do future teachers in the Natural Sciences Area understand and learn affectivity as an integral part of pedagogical practice, especially considering the development of socio-emotional skills?" Nóvoa (2009) highlights the importance of training teachers who promote the socio-emotional development of students, advocating inclusive and welcoming learning environments. The research included the participation of 19 students from the Pedagogical Residency Program in the areas of Chemistry and Physics, as well as from the Supervised Internship in Chemistry at the Federal University of Viçosa, Brazil. The analysis of the responses to the discursive questions in the questionnaires made it possible to identify categories that reflect the participants' conceptions on the topic, presented below: Value and importance of affection in the teaching of Science; Affection as a facilitator of the teacher-student relationship; Affection as a stimulus to student interest and participation; Challenges and limits of affection in the school environment. The integration of socio-emotional skills in science teaching provides significant benefits, including the creation of an inclusive and welcoming learning environment, promoting student engagement and a positive atmosphere. In addition, the development of these skills prepares students to face real-world challenges, interact effectively, and cultivate a scientific mindset.

Research aim

This project explores experiences of Scottish secondary school students from a spectrum of rural to urban settings through the perspective of teachers. The aim is to understand geographical inequalities across secondary schools Scotland-wide, with a focus on practical chemistry education received by students.

Methods

To gain data and understand any issues with practical chemistry education, online surveys were created and delivered to both science faculty heads and chemistry teachers. The surveys contained a high number of open-ended questions to allow participants to provide detail and help to understand their perceptions as fully as possible.

Findings

The largest difference found between rural and urban schools is the lack of access to outreach opportunities for rural schools. The travel costs and transport links cause major issues, alongside their geographical struggles to attend or receive support from outside agencies. Urban teachers believed that rural teachers had the advantage of building better relationships due to perceived smaller class sizes.

Interestingly, the size of the school seems to have the largest impact on resources available for practical chemistry education. A larger school receives more funding and so often has more well-resourced laboratories. Although, there are more rural schools that are smaller in size, it is not their geographical location that is necessarily impacting their access to adequate resources.

Relevance to the Conference theme and specific strand

This is a preliminary study to help understand inequalities in the practical chemistry opportunities offered in national qualification classes across the rural/urban landscape of Scotland. Greater understanding of any geographical-linked challenges faced by teachers and the barriers faced by students entering higher education could inform policy and practice to support learning and transitions. This is the first time that the urban and rural setting has been considered, with these findings relevant to subjects beyond chemistry.

This study aims to explore teachers' perceptions of gamification in the context of an educational game focused on the Amazon Rainforest and its conservation. Specifically, it examines how continuous teacher training, essential for professional growth, can enhance teaching practices and foster appreciation for environmental education, particularly regarding the Amazon. The theoretical framework is based on how continuous education allows teachers to adapt to evolving educational demands, helping them incorporate innovative methodologies into their classrooms, and also on gamification, which uses game elements such as competition, challenges, and interaction to engage participants and increase student motivation and engagement in educational settings.

The research utilized a course on gamification involving school science teachers from the North, Northeastern and Southeast regions of Brazil. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with seven participating teachers after the course, to gain insights into their experiences and perceptions on gamification’s effectiveness, implementation challenges, relevance to Amazon education, and professional development impacts. The analyses were conducted using discourse analysis of the collected interviews, allowing for a deeper understanding of the teachers' views and experiences.

The findings indicate that while teachers are enthusiastic about incorporating gamification into their teaching, they face several challenges. Some struggle with the technological aspects, particularly in regions lacking adequate technological resources. Additionally, teachers outside the Amazon region often have a limited understanding of the rainforest's realities, which hinders their ability to convey accurate information. Conversely, teachers within Amazon bring pratical, real-world perspectives to their classrooms but frequently require ongoing support. This highlights the need for continuous education tailored to each teacher’s context, along with further investment in infrastructure. These efforts are crucial as teaching about the Amazon has a global impact, raising awareness about its conservation and the critical role it plays in regulating the Earth's climate and preserving biodiversity.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, a cultural revolution has been taking place and influencing the culture of learning: new information technologies, together with other sociocultural changes, are opening space for a new culture of learning. Science Education in the 21st century enables the education of citizens, with equity, who can learn how to learn, acquire knowledge, as well as develop cognitive and socio-emotional skills and abilities to make a critical reading of the world (POZO; CRESPO, 2009; SENNA, 2019; TENREIRO-VIEIRA; VIEIRA, 2021). In this context, during the discipline “Updated Technological Approaches for Teaching Chemistry” of the Master's Degree in Chemistry at UFV, the Guided Reflection Process (ABELL AND BRYAN, 1997) was developed with a view to promoting several studies on the teaching of Chemistry for 21 students. The qualitative research was initiated by the students' conceptions about Science and Technology. Among the concepts expressed, the most evident was the concept of empirical-inductive and atheoretical (CACHAPUZ et al, 2005). Conceptions about the characteristics of innovative teachers were investigated, with strong agreement on characteristics such as: carrying out group work; knowing how to propose and solve problems; seeking to learn continuously; sharing knowledge and good practices. A task was requested to answer the research question: How to develop Scientific Literacy from a STSA approach for teaching Chemistry? Everyone answered the question very well, developing Didactic Sequences (SANCHEZ BLANCO et al., 1997), with different themes - Water; Energy; Batteries; Oils and Fats; Gases; Soap and Oil; Garbage; Cell Phones - using several TDIC studied during the discipline, such as: Mentimeter; Padlet; CK-12; PhET Colorado; Wordwall; C-Map Tools; Google Classroom, Forms. From the Guided Reflection Process, important skills were developed aiming at the professional development of the teacher, with autonomy, dedication, self-confidence, new visions, creativity and the ability to take risks.