2021 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Using ePortfolios to Investigate the Long-term Impacts of Language Teacher Education Programs
| Project/Area Number |
20K02845
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| Research Institution | Iwate University |
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Principal Investigator |
Hall James 岩手大学, 教育学部, 教授 (80361038)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
小川 春美 岩手大学, 教育学部, 准教授 (30598561)
宮川 洋一 岩手大学, 教育学部, 教授 (70552610)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2020-04-01 – 2023-03-31
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| Keywords | ePortfolio / Teacher Development / Reflective Practice / WordPress / multi-author blog / Critical Incidents |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
This research has the following phases:
(1) Identify student-teacher (ST) principles and practices from ePortfolios(EPs) written between 2015 and 2020 and use the results to improve the EP design and enhance the guidance given to STs on reflective practice.
(2) Track how graduates' teaching principles changed from their pre-service to in-service periods.
(3) Based on (2), make further enhancements to how reflective practice is implemented in the pre-service teacher education program to better prepare STs to handle the dilemmas they may face as professional educators.
Because of the ongoing COVID pandemic, stage two has been delayed for two years. However, we have made substantial progress in stage 1. The current EP is a WordPress multi-author blog. Each ST's posts are aggregated in a specific page which constitutes their EP. A post tagging plugin for EP posts was developed. Using this plugin, STs choose keywords for their posts related to pedagogical concepts and skills they encountered in their teacher education program. This enables readers of EPs to understand the primary pedagogical concepts that informs an ST's professional goals, principles of teaching and learning, and teaching practicum experiences. The head researcher presented about this at the 2021 JALT CALL conference, and a paper on tagging and using a WordPress multi-author author blog for EPs is scheduled to be published in 2022 subject to revisions.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
4: Progress in research has been delayed.
Reason
An essential part of this research is to identify those English teaching principles and practices learned at university that have stayed with student-teachers after entering the profession and those that have not been useful. This requires the researchers not only to interview the student-teachers but to observe their lessons. Because of restrictions with the pandemic, the researchers have been unable to do this for two years.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
This year, it is our goal to make progress on stage 2 and interview at least 15 teachers who graduated between FY 2017 and 2019.
In July, the new ePortfolio (EP) site will go live and be used by FY 2022 undergraduate students. The current EPs consist of student-teacher's educational philosophy, development goals, and critical incidents in their teaching practicum. The newer version will include more of STs' university-class and on-site teaching experiences by adding their lesson-study posts and links to comments they have made on other EPs and class discussion activities. Between August and September, the EP data of former students and lesson study data will be migrated to the new site.
Between September and February, the researchers will conduct interview research and classroom observation of in-service teachers who have completed teacher education at the researchers' university.
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| Causes of Carryover |
The researchers have been unable to use travel expenses and thus have not been able to carry out the project as intended. In FY 2022, if the project can be carried out as originally planned, remaining research funds from FY2020 and FY2021 will be used.
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| Remarks |
Sites 1, 2, & 3 will be merged into site 4.
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