Teachers' and Student Teachers' Characteristics Based on the Factor-Analysis of Aids to Instructional Designs

Koichi MITSUHASHI, Shokichi YAMAZAKI
2006 Educational technology research  
tn t.his study, a questionnaire was administered to student Teachers and their teacher educators with the aim of gnthering intbrmntion thut cttn be used te improve and stremgthen the tetiching praetice program. 'I'he data were analyzed to make clear what t'actors aid teaehers and student teachers when they are engaged in activities at the overall preparatory stages ot' instructiona] design.(1) Using tactor-una]ysis, we extracted ttRd interpreted 13 fuctors such as teucher's munuu]s tbr
more » ... , organization ot' teaching, encouragement, and rettdiness, among others, After considering the correspundence between the extrticted factors und the scripts of instructional design and preparatory activities, the t'actors were arranged and classified us follows: a) int.erpretation ttnd understanding ot' teaching materiuls (teacher"s manuals tbr the textbooks, textbooks); b) presentation (concretization) of teaching materials (eneourngement, response und reply, studies of' tenching muterials, learning uctivities); e) structure of the teaching process (strueture ei'te"ching, simulution); und so on. (2) W'hi}e enguged in instruetiontt] design, student teachers make use of' only ubservable and prominent uids whi]e teaehers, on the other httnd, use 1tttent as well as observable aids in the whole process ot' teaching. Furthermore, t.here are common churucLeristics in terms oi' the kind ef school, Namely, elementary scheo] teachers und student teuchers put emphtisis on the predictubility ei' chi]dren's letirning activities, while junior high school teaehers and student teachers place great importunce en how te expluin the centents ot' each subject. (3) The aids used by student teaehers in each region and school are alflected by their advisors there. (4) At the beginning of their teaching prot'essien, teaehers design instruction by tbcusjng on presentation (concretization) of tettching materiHls. As they hecome meTe experieneed, they learn to make substantial and ,worthwhile classes, going through almost all ot' the tbllowing processes: a) understanding the learners, b) structuring the teaching proeess, and c) adjusting and censiderimg issues through (concrete) tria1 clusses. These prouesses uru a]1 included in the scripts of instructiontt] design. Kei, u'otzts : instructiontt1 design, fttcter-ana]ysis, teachers, student tettchers, tetiching pructice, experience jn teaching prot'ession L]NTRODUCT]ON Kishimoto and Kudake (1986) c]assified teachers' abilities into three major areas: ability to teach, ubility to instruct students and ttbility te manage a classroom. As for the most appropriate period in which to nurture these abilities, it was argued that the first 10 years after becoming e teacher is crucial in mastering the ability to teach (i.e., skills for teuching, developing lessens and instrueting each subject) and the ability to instruct students (skiHs for understanding students). The ability to teach was further *This paper was 71]chnoL, Xiol.26,originally publlshpd in lpn. .L Elr2,c. No,3, pp,129-141 (2002) divided into four ski]]s: skj]ls for formuluting lesson plans, implementjng these plHns, se}Fevaluuting lessons and observing and anaiyzing other teachers' lessons. In the process of truining teachers, emphasis is pjaced on the acquisit.ion of skills for formulating lesson plans, and the teaching practiee pgays a crucial role in aequiring the skills needed to make teaching p]uns by clarifying ancl systematjzing goa]s as well as by developing, using and interpreting teaching materials (Ikuta 1987). Takeda (1976) intruduced the example of a certain teacher who endeavored to improve his lessons by emulating his colleugues. This teacher once noticecl that one of his colleagues constant]y struggled in front of his textbooks, trying to find the most suitable wav to teach the material. 47 Japan Society for Educational Technology NII-Electronic Library Service JapanSocietyfor Educational Technology 48 After observing this colleague's struggles for n long period of time, the teueher coneluded that his eolleague's excellent lessons were the fruit of such eenstunt efforts. As indicated in this examp]e, one of the characteristics of instructiona] design is that teuching plans are developed through an introspective thinking process based on knowledge and skills acquired by individual teachers through experience and curefu1 study ofteaching materials, , children s individual differenees and the level of the learners' understanding. Also, excellent lessons are ereated and developed over time by deepeRing thoughts. To devise and examine the teaching-learning process, objective methods and procedures have been developed and proposed without relying solely on teachers' experiences. For exumple, Numano (1976) proposed the combining of goal analyses and flowcharts, Sakamoto and Takemura (1976) discussed the COMET method that classifies teaching material into dimensions and Nishinosono (1976) presented a theoretical simulation system to examine teacher-learner interaction by using that interaction as a symbolic operation.
doi:10.15077/etr.kj00004963300 fatcat:zw2h6bgvx5cz3bzb3wrwy7zmfu