Paradigm shift in teacher education research

1. Paradigm shift in teacher education research Bal Chandra Luitel School of Education, Kathmandu University Presented at the first annual meeting of Teacher Educators’ Society – Nepal (TESON) on 27th December 2004.

2. Areas of teacher education research • Change Pedagogy, Pedagogical content knowledge, Pedagogical perspectives • Semiotics of classroom arrangement, Diversity management in our classroom • Making inclusive pedagogy, Reconciling multiple identities • Metaphors of teaching and teachers’ practices • Ontological beliefs and their influence in teaching practices, My epistemology of teaching and practice, Many more…

3. The old paradigm • Probing approach of research in teacher education • Reality-as-externally-controlled notion of pedagogical perspectives: Experimental research, control of variables, focus on transmission model of teaching • Focus on knowledge base of teaching rather than transferability and constructability of knowledge • Focus on what rather than how • Prescriptive, impositional, external interventionism and value-free research.

4. The old paradigm: The canon of singular world We, Indians Americans Europeans… Singular world and singular identities Pedagogy is the same; research approaches are the same; we see the world from the same eye! Whose eyes have we been using? Whose validity criteria?

5. Existing Nepali Teacher Education Research • Probing, probing and once again probing • Focus on achievement, counting student heads; crisis in conceptualizing the notion of achievement; performance or achievement?? • Actually, very few degree-oriented research has a focus on teaching practices. They also capture only the slice of classroom lives. • Scholarly work in teacher education research is in limelight • Prescriptive and impositional approach to pedagogical subscription in teacher education research

6. Nepali Teacher education research • FoE M.Ed research: Focus on achievement tests, opinionare: • KUSOED: Also focus on substantially easily accessible data rather than layered and interpretive data; gradually moving ahead on interpretive approach to research • Consultancy-oriented research: Severe lack of scholarly enterprise. Canon of Research, report and recommendations. • Individual level: Very few research reports/articles have got publication outlets in international journals and conferences

7. Image of Nepali Teacher Education Researcher The champion Nepali teacher education researcher Never goes in the classroom If goes, does not teach If teaches, does not stays full teaching hours If stays, does not utilize the time appropriately If utilizes, does not make sense what he is preaching

8. New paradigm of teacher education research Cultural worlds Natural World Cultural worlds determine contextual pedagogical research problems. Pedagogical perspectives are framed by cultural worldviews. TE research should emerge from within the cultural frame.

9. New paradigm of teacher education research • Narratives of classroom lives; Focus on transformative approach to teacher education research: self study, autoethnography, interpretive approach, action research, case studies; Insiders’ active participation in research: Concept of teacher researcher. • Meaning making approach rather than probing approach of research; How part of pedagogy

10. New paradigm of teacher education research • Metaphorical approaches (Postmodern alternatives): knowing as phronesis, poesis, reconceptualizing self, (de)constructing, (hi)storying, transforming and professional development. • Multicentric traditions: One can use Vedic representational approach to knowledge representations (I have used Katha Upanishad) • Observational and interpretive standpoints: Research focus should be on how multiple cultural worlds shapes our pedagogical perspectives.

11. New paradigm of teacher education research • Classroom as hyperreality… research should capture minutaof activities • Research for pedagogical thoughtfulness rather than pedagogical imposition • Contextualism versus Universalism • Praxis oriented research rather than purely academic one: Focus on activism • Use of sociological and anthropological perspectives in designing teacher education research • Paradigm appropriate research criteria: Validity Criteria

12. Proposed approaches for Nepal… • Teachers direct involvement in research to explore their own pedagogy: Self-study, action research, reflective inquiry, collaborative inquiry(Possible area: How can I improve my practice of teaching mathematics? How my cultural beliefs help/restrain my science teaching practice? How has my linguistic capital helped to enhance my language teaching pedagogy) • Farewell to elitist approach to teacher education research: (Elitist research: Establishing office in metropolis and sending out cadres to collect out there data and processing it…making recommendations/ prescriptions)

13. Proposed approaches of … • Participatory and egalitarian(ethically) approach to teacher education research: The TE researcher is that person who performs filed work, captures the complexities of classroom lives, tries to transforms participants, performs all types of activities required to complete the research • Focus on multicentric knowledge traditions and their use in teacher education curricula • Need to focus on micro level of research rather than on macro and meso level • Inter and Transdisciplinary and emergent research approaches

14. An ideal teacher education researcher • Primarily, s/he a classroom teacher • Teaches and reflects upon his own pedagogy • Conducts inquiries into his own practice in a view to improve his pedagogical perspectives • Tries to capture the minuta of activities to interpret hidden and manifest meaning of pedagogical slices • Impacts other pedagogically through his/her research activities

15. An ideal teacher education researcher • Allows and facilitates his participants to capture multiple pedagogical worlds • Collaborates with other educators for sacred tasks such as improving pedagogical practices, constructing new pedagogies, new epistemic products … • Conducts inquiry into her/his own students’ learning practices. • Tries to understand various paradoxes of teaching and learning through interpretive eyes!