Chinese Pre-Service Students’ Cross-Cultural Perceptions on Canadian Generalist Teachers Contextualized in Reciprocal Learning Program: A Narrative Inquiry

Standing

Graduate (PhD)

Type of Proposal

Oral Research Presentation

Challenges Theme

Building Viable, Healthy and Safe Communities

Faculty

Faculty of Education

Faculty Sponsor

Dr. Shijing Xu

Proposal

In Canadian elementary schools, teachers are under increasing pressure to be generalist practitioners in all subjects which are becoming more and more specialized and complex based on elementary curriculum (Pollock & Minszak, 2015) and at same time they are under pressure to be specialist teachers in certain subject areas such as math(Stokke, 2015). According to Ontario College of Teachers, “Ontario applicants who complete their application for a certificate of qualification and registration on or after March 31, 2020 must pass a Mathematics Proficiency Test in order to become certified, whether or not the application was started before that date”. How Chinese pre-service teachers from a different teaching tradition view a totally different teaching tradition can provide valuable insights to Canadian policy makers and educators, especially when high-risk test and accountability are highly stressed in Canada. This study is to explore Chinese pre-service teachers’ cross-cultural perceptions on generalist teachers in Canadian elementary schools when they did their cross-cultural placement through Reciprocal Learning Program with narrative inquiry as its methodology. Reciprocal Learning as Partnership (Xu & Connelly, 2017) shapes the theoretical framework. Chinese students’ weekly reflection, weekly debriefing and casual talks are the data of this study and thematic data analysis is the method of data analysis. The results show that from Chinese pre-service teachers’ cross-cultural understanding, generalist and specialist teachers have both advantages and disadvantages. Chinese teachers need to be cautioned to borrow this type of teaching method, and Canadian teachers need to be more specialized in some subjects such as math and science.

Special Considerations

Pollock, K., & Mindzak, M. (2015). Specialist teachers: A review of the literature. Retrieved 18 January 2018 from the World Wide Web: http://www.etfo.ca/DefendingWorkingConditions/IssuesInEducation/SpecialistTeachersDocuments/RE VIEWLITERATURE.pdf

Stokke, A. (2015). What to do about Canada's declining math scores? Social Science Research

Xu, S., & Connelly, F. M. (2017). Reciprocal learning between Canada and China in teacher education and school education: Partnership studies of practice in cultural context. Frontiers of Education in China, 12(2), 135-150.

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Chinese Pre-Service Students’ Cross-Cultural Perceptions on Canadian Generalist Teachers Contextualized in Reciprocal Learning Program: A Narrative Inquiry

In Canadian elementary schools, teachers are under increasing pressure to be generalist practitioners in all subjects which are becoming more and more specialized and complex based on elementary curriculum (Pollock & Minszak, 2015) and at same time they are under pressure to be specialist teachers in certain subject areas such as math(Stokke, 2015). According to Ontario College of Teachers, “Ontario applicants who complete their application for a certificate of qualification and registration on or after March 31, 2020 must pass a Mathematics Proficiency Test in order to become certified, whether or not the application was started before that date”. How Chinese pre-service teachers from a different teaching tradition view a totally different teaching tradition can provide valuable insights to Canadian policy makers and educators, especially when high-risk test and accountability are highly stressed in Canada. This study is to explore Chinese pre-service teachers’ cross-cultural perceptions on generalist teachers in Canadian elementary schools when they did their cross-cultural placement through Reciprocal Learning Program with narrative inquiry as its methodology. Reciprocal Learning as Partnership (Xu & Connelly, 2017) shapes the theoretical framework. Chinese students’ weekly reflection, weekly debriefing and casual talks are the data of this study and thematic data analysis is the method of data analysis. The results show that from Chinese pre-service teachers’ cross-cultural understanding, generalist and specialist teachers have both advantages and disadvantages. Chinese teachers need to be cautioned to borrow this type of teaching method, and Canadian teachers need to be more specialized in some subjects such as math and science.