Teacher Development

Jharkhand has made remarkable strides in foundational education. According to recent NITI Aayog and UDISE+ reports, the state achieved a historic milestone by dropping its primary school dropout rate down to 0%. However, as students transition into secondary (Classes 9-10) and senior secondary (Classes 11-12) education, the ground shifts. While the state has successfully reduced its secondary dropout rate from 23.2% down to roughly 3.5%, maintaining this momentum and pushing for complete retention requires a targeted approach. Keeping adolescents in school in a state characterized by dense forest terrains, rich tribal demographics, and distinct socioeconomic pressures means solving challenges unique to these higher grades. The statistics show a clear trend: Jharkhand has become highly effective at keeping young children in school, but it faces a steep bottleneck as those students reach adolescence.

Age Salo (PhD) is a teacher of Estonian language and literature in the Hugo Treffner Gymnasium (Estonia). Her main research interests are teachers' beliefs, effective teaching practices and teacher's professional development. Krista Uibu is a professor of primary education in the Institute of Education at University of Tartu (Estonia). The wider fields of her research are teachers' teaching practices and their dynamics, teaching styles and instructional approaches; relationships between primary school teachers' teaching practices and their pupils' language competence. She has a long-standing involvement in large research projects and is a member of the senior research staff.

This autoethnographic exploration traces my evolving understanding and practice of reflective writing, highlighting its significance in both personal and professional contexts. Initially, my exposure to reflective practices within South Africa's education system, and later as a university student, was surface level, with minimal guidance on engaging meaningfully in reflection. My early reflections were largely descriptive, recounting events rather than critically analysing them. It was during my Master of Education programme, while conducting action research to develop students' writing skills through portfolios, that I began to engage deeply in reflection, both as a student and as an educator facilitating reflective practices in others. Through this process, I realised that reflection requires explicit instruction and consistent practice, particularly in educational contexts that prioritise rote memorisation over critical thinking. As a university educator, I revised my approach to teaching reflection by incorporating guiding questions, peer review activities, and technology-based platforms to foster deeper engagement. This shift significantly improved students' reflective abilities, especially in fields such as nursing and education. Now, as a PhD student, reflection remains a central tool in my academic growth and research journey. Overall, this self-reflective journey highlights the importance of intentional and structured approaches to teaching reflection, ensuring it serves its transformative purpose in education by fostering critical thinking, self-awareness, and lifelong learning.

The study presents the Online Writing Collaboration Project (OWCP) as an innovative digital environment designed to enhance EFL students' writing skills and develop their cross-cultural understanding through authentic online interaction. OWCP is a large, international platform with more than 2,600 members from countries including the USA, Singapore, China, Egypt, Jordan, Bulgaria, and Korea, and over 50 professors from Saudi Arabia, the United States, and Egypt. American tutors work with students on a one-to-one basis, creating a rich intercultural learning environment. The system includes multiple components-forums, e-courses, live chat, live tutoring, e-books, online connections, tutorials, discourse sections, and an e-journalmaking it a comprehensive hub for collaborative writing and cultural exchange.

Teaching internships serve as a critical bridge between teacher education programs and classroom practice. However, pre-service teachers assigned to regional and resource-limited schools often encounter unique challenges that may shape their career trajectories. This narrative inquiry explored the internship-related challenges faced by pre-service science teachers in Masbate secondary schools, examined how these challenges influenced their intention to become science teachers, and drew implications for improving science teacher education programs.Using Clandinin and Connelly's (2000) narrative inquiry approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven pre-service science teachers who completed their teaching internships in Masbate secondary schools. Data were analyzed using a four-phase three-dimensional narrative framework (personal, social, temporal). Three major categories of challenges emerged: pedagogical and resource-related challenges (lack of laboratory equipment, frequent power interruptions, limited teaching aids), stakeholder-related challenges (student apathy, reading comprehension difficulties, variable mentor support), and contextual challenges (large class sizes, hybrid learning modalities, post-disaster infrastructure damage). Despite these difficulties, six of seven participants expressed continued intention to become science teachers, citing love of science, fulfillment from student learning, and mentor support as sustaining factors. One participant reconsidered the profession due to financial pressures and employment system concerns. Internship challenges do not automatically deter pre-service science teachers from the profession. Self-efficacy gained from overcoming challenges, passion for science, and supportive mentoring relationships play crucial protective roles. Systemic barriers, particularly employment corruption and financial instability, weakened career intention even when internships were successful.

En este trabajo se investigó un proceso de capacitación a profesores(as) en estrategias de Reflexión Colectiva Sistemática (RCS), en un liceo técnico público de La Serena, Chile. Se explora cómo explican los docentes su disposición a la reflexión colectiva en su desempeño profesional. Participaron 31 profesores(as), de diversas disciplinas, y directivos. Se utilizó una metodología cualitativa, donde se emplearon documentos y entrevistas semiestructuradas. Los resultados muestran, sobre las Teorías Subjetivas (TS) de los docentes, distintos tópicos relacionados con la disposición ante la RCS, incluyendo factores que facilitan o dificultan el proceso reflexivo, de tipo "interno y externo". A modo de discusión, se enfatiza en el impacto de las ts de los docentes sobre su ejercicio profesional, en particular sobre sus prácticas reflexivas colectivas.

This handbook has been written keeping in mind both the student-teacher and faculty. It presents the B.El.Ed. programme in perspective: its vision and context, the programme of study, its salient features, syllabi outline of theory courses and guidelines for the conduct of the practicum courses and its influence on the culture of learning. Select comments by student teachers and graduates throw further light on the chief objective of each course. The Handbook is bilingual in nature thereby allowing students to freely consult the material in the language they are most comfortable with. Guidelines presented for each practicum course hope to facilitate the conduct of the
course and to achieve an equivalence amongst institutions. The tasks, assignments and workshops must not be viewed as a given. The Handbook suggests that tasks and assignments be reviewed periodically thus ensuring the space for innovation available in the programme.

ISBN 81-901362-2-4

La escritura en inglés como lengua extranjera constituyó una destreza compleja que exigió planificación, textualización, revisión, reescritura, conciencia lingüística y acompañamiento pedagógico. En la enseñanza de lenguas, esta destreza no debía reducirse a la producción de un texto final, pues implicó procesos recursivos en los que el aprendiz tomó decisiones sobre contenido, organización, coherencia, cohesión, corrección y adecuación comunicativa. El presente artículo tuvo como objetivo analizar el papel de la interacción asincrónica y la retroalimentación digital en la reescritura de textos en inglés como lengua extranjera, a partir de una relectura cuali-cuantitativa de datos derivados de una investigación previa sobre escritura mediada por un entorno virtual. El estudio original se desarrolló con 20 estudiantes de nivel intermedio-avanzado del Centro Venezolano Americano del Zulia. El corpus estuvo conformado por composiciones escritas producidas en dos momentos: una versión inicial sin interacción y una versión revisada y publicada después de recibir retroalimentación de pares, docente e hipertexto. Los datos se organizaron mediante listas de cotejo validadas por expertos y se analizaron desde indicadores cualitativos y cuantitativos. La relectura mostró que la retroalimentación digital favoreció la corrección formal y la toma de conciencia sobre adecuación, coherencia, cohesión, variación léxica y densidad textual. Se concluyó que los entornos virtuales de escritura, cuando fueron pedagógicamente mediados, constituyeron espacios formativos para la interacción, la revisión textual y el desarrollo de una competencia escrita más reflexiva y situada.

Chinese language education in Zambia has undergone three significant stages of development, with the establishment of the Confucius Institute in 2010 marking a pivotal milestone. While the progress of Chinese language education in Zambia has been commendable and has successfully integrated into the national education system, it faces several challenges. Addressing these issues is essential not only for the continued promotion of Chinese language education in Zambia but also for facilitating more effective cultural exchanges between Zambia and China.

Teacher leadership plays a key role in shaping students' academic engagement, classroom climate, and social development. In increasingly diverse Swedish schools, understanding students' perceptions of teacher leadership has become particularly important. This study examines students' perceptions of teacher leadership styles in Swedish classrooms, focusing on the qualities associated with effective leadership. Using a quantitative design, data were collected through a structured questionnaire administered to 81 students in two Swedish schools, the majority of whom had immigrant backgrounds. Findings indicate a clear preference for the authoritative leadership style, which students associated with warmth, structure, and mutual respect. Democratic leadership was viewed positively, though less strongly, whereas authoritarian and laissez-faire styles were viewed less favorably. These findings highlight the importance of balanced leadership approaches that combine clear expectations with supportive teacher-student relationships, particularly in culturally and linguistically diverse educational settings.

With the introduction of any new initiative into the mathematics classroom, there is often an assumption that it will produce visible and measurable effects in teaching approaches and pupil progress. Yet, there is a body of research that tempers such optimism, drawing attention to a series of mitigating factors, for example, the deep-seated nature of teachers' practices, their implicit or stated beliefs and values, and their lack of detailed awareness of how they perform in the classroom. Rather than make associative links between these factors and the success of the initiative, our intention is to examine the ways in which teachers are trying to interpret what the new scheme requires of them and how in turn, engaging with it causes them to re-describe both their pedagogic understanding and classroom practices relationally to earlier approaches. Employing data from a small project, we seek to examine four teachers' moves to grapple with this attempted shift from one teaching paradigm to another by considering how certain key terms serve to anchor the teachers' conceptions of themselves during this transition and find that their responses can be idiosyncratic and varied depending on the approaches in which they have been previously embedded. By using theoretical ideas from some neo-Marxist writers we examine these discursive shifts and their relevance to conceiving curriculum change. We suggest that the individual's teaching practice develops as a result of it being understood and enacted through a succession of ideological filters, each adding to the cumulative experience of the teacher.

This study examined how the teachers and School Management Teams (SMTs) at elementary schools in the Oliver Reginald (O R) Tambo Coastal District handled conflicts. The objectives were to determine the reasons behind conflict, assess how they affect school operations, and to investigate the methods to enhance conflict resolution. Using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, data from 14 participants including ten teachers and four SMT members was gathered using a mixed-methods strategy. The results showed that interpersonal and organisational elements play a major role in conflict. The primary causes of conflict included but were not limited to ineffective interaction, opaque decision-making, perceived partiality, SMT members' leadership styles, ambiguous expectations, and unbalanced workload distribution. Taskrelated and organisational conflicts were also prevalent, but interpersonal conflict was shown to be the most prevalent. These disputes disrupted the teaching and learning procedures by having a detrimental impact on, staff morale, professional relationships, teamwork, and on the general school climate. The results, which were based on the transformational leadership theory, show that leadership techniques that prioritise openness, justice, cooperation, and shared decision-making can lessen conflict and promote a positive school climate. By putting these tactics into practice, staff relationships, the school environment, as well as the teaching and learning outcomes are all likely to improve. The study also found several successful conflict management techniques. Strengthening channels of communication, encouraging participatory decision-making, and putting in place formal mediation procedures to settle conflicts amicably are among the study's recommendations. Formal professional development programs that emphasise communication, negotiation, mediation, and conflict management are also crucial for both the teachers and SMT members. By highlighting the crucial role that structured interventions *

Neuroeducation is a discipline that is based on knowledge of the brain, how it learns and how this knowledge allows to improve learning teaching processes, where teaching is approached from other possibilities, especially at a time when education requires substantial changes leading to quality education, as proposed in the fourth Sustainable Development Goal. This article is the result of a research process that aims to develop a pedagogical proposal aimed at improving the motivation of students of the bachelor's in physical education, starting from strategies focused on the model Brain-Targeted Teaching (BTT) based on the principles of Neuroeducation. The control group sample (GrCtr) is defined as the Movement Analysis module (n = 38) and the experimental group (GrEx) as the Physiology of Physical Activity module (n = 24). A study of mixed methods was carried out using a quasi-experimental pretest posttest design. Data collection was carried out through the application of the self-regulatory learning questionnaire. For the data analysis, normality tests were applied finding that the data have no normal distribution; for what, we try to normalize the distribution to meet the assumptions of parametric tests through logarithmic transformation and square root, even so, no significant changes are presented, therefore, the non-parametric U-test of Mann-Whitney is used, finding statistical significance in five items of the questionnaire. The results obtained suggest an association between the implementation of the proposal and favorable changes in specific components of academic motivation in university students.

The study titled “Management of Institutions’ Technology Initiatives on Teacher Development and Pedagogical Practices Across Generational Cohorts” investigated how school technology programs influence teacher growth and classroom practices. It examined institutional initiatives such as ICT resources and access, policy support, capacity building, digital resources, and the integration of technology into pedagogy. The research aimed to determine the level of these initiatives, teacher development, and pedagogical practices across generational groups, as well as to identify significant differences and relationships among these factors.

      Using a descriptive‑correlational design, the study surveyed purposively selected 100 elementary teachers in Sta. Rosa City, Laguna. The survey instrument was validated by experts and pilot tested for reliability. Data analysis involved descriptive statistics to assess levels and correlation tests to explore relationships. The study was anchored on Fullan’s Change Theory, Bandura’s Self‑Efficacy Theory, the TPACK framework, and the SAMR model, providing a strong theoretical foundation.

      Findings show that institutions implement technology initiatives at a high to very high across all generational cohorts, particularly in providing ICT resources and policy support. Teachers from all generational cohorts demonstrate strong development in digital skills, professional learning, instructional innovation, collaboration, and ICT self efficacy. Pedagogical practices were also rated high to very high, highlighting technology enhanced lesson planning, student centered learning, collaborative methods, creativity, and blended learning.

      At the same time, some indicators of institutional initiatives and teacher development showed significant relationships, particularly when leadership‑driven programs and structured support were present, while non‑significant results appeared when limited to basic resource access, especially among older cohorts. Similarly, several indicators of institutional support and pedagogical practices showed significant relationships, such as training‑driven initiatives and collaborative work, while non‑significant results were observed when teaching relied only on simple digital resources, particularly among younger cohorts.

      Therefore, it is concluded that institutional technology initiatives are essential drivers of teacher development and pedagogical innovation. Recommendations include generation sensitive professional development, digital hubs, mentoring, and stronger collaboration through professional learning communities.