Qualified teacher or quality teacher? Appraising old answers with new ideas

Qualified teacher or quality teacher? Appraising old answers with new ideas

• Li, Shuying Sean The Hong Kong Institution of Education

• M Teachers & Education for Teachers
  • MH Teacher Evaluation : Teacher Effectiveness

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Unknown or Unspecified

This paper examines teachers' quality teaching in the dynamic and contingent classroom setting through classroom anecdotes obtained during the author's most recent research project in Hong Kong. It raises the research question of how we should interpret the meaning of 'quality teacher'. Experiential stories of unexpected/contingent classroom moments have been obtained through teacher/student interviews and writing exercises (three schools with 20 teachers and 200 students participated), and interpreted using the technique of hermeneutic phenomenological inquiry. Emerged themes from the analysis show that quality teaching is creative and risk-taking; it is relational, embodied and normative, and culturally constructed. Quality should not be confused with qualifications. While people tend to understand quality teaching in the language of management and technology, this paper reminds us that we need to seek a broader understanding. Nonetheless, rather than finding new answers or solutions, this paper intends to raise more questions and allow reader to reflect further on this lasting topic of quality teaching and teacher qualities.

Paper presented at the 2nd East Asian International Conference on Teacher Education Research: Teacher Education for the Future: International Perspectives, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, China.

• English

Conference Papers

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/206a2134

2015-09-17