MultiLEAP Webinar - Vygotskian praxis in teacher professional development (29 October)

Welcome to MultiLEAP Webinar on October 29 at 10.00–11.30 (UTC+3)!
Please share this invitation within your networks! Students are also welcome!

We will listen to three teachers’ experiences in engaging in such partnerships with researchers with the goal to resolve challenges they faced in their teaching practice. While these challenges were different, the goal in these partnerships was similar--achieving greater equity in classroom assessment. Neither researchers nor teachers would be able to resolve these challenges alone—rather the reciprocal engagement by both researchers, introducing theoretical principles and frameworks to develop teachers’ conceptions of classroom assessment and learner development (assessment literacy) and teachers’ contributions as practicing professionals that resulted in resolving teacher challenges.

The seminar will be opened and closed by Dmitri Leontjev, U. of Jyväskylä, and Mark deBoer, Akita International University, Japan, who will also moderate the discussion.

The three presenters in the seminar will be:

Pirjo Pollari

My partnership with Dmitri Leontjev started a few years ago. First, we had a shared interest in how to resolve the struggle between external high-stakes assessment and formative classroom assessment and feedback. There, the researcher acted as a sounding board to me and my challenges and, also, through mediation, helped me to realise and modify some of my feedback practices. Next, encouraged by our partnership and how it has fostered my thinking, I would like to embed more dynamic assessment and scaffolding also in more ‘formal’ – yet still classroom – assessment situations.

Pirjo Pollari is an EFL teacher and teacher trainer at the Teacher Training School of the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. In addition to her primary work, teaching students aged 13-19 English and educating future EFL teachers, she does in-service teacher training as well as research, both mainly focusing on assessment.

Victoria Kareva

In this presentation I will share my experience of using asynchronous mediation in an attempt to create an environment which would help the teachers on the teacher-training course to develop their understanding of the course material. The conclusions the researchers and I arrived at made me introduce a number of practices that made the current course I am administering more manageable for the teachers. Having read a considerable amount of literature on mediation, I also experienced some changes in my attitudes to the process of teaching and what it entails in the greater scope of my teaching practice.

Victoria Kareva is an EFL teacher and teacher trainer at the Ural Federal University, Russia. In addition to her primary work, teaching university students English and preparing learners of all ages for taking international exams, she is the tutor of in-service teacher training course CELT-S, she conducts research in the spheres of various aspects of language acquisition.

Rebecca Clegg-Sasaki

How can we make teaching feel better for us and for our students? In this presentation I will explain a process whereby when I was able to reflect on my own teaching approaches through dialoguing with other teachers (the researchers) I was able to tread more steadily into a mode of teaching that was more joyful for me and I believe, my students. With the emphasis on “mediated action” guiding our discussions about student learning and theoretical texts, I was able to clarify my own practices to manifest a pedagogical approach that is more aligned with my concerns and values as a teacher yet is still able to navigate the institutional system, which often seems at odds with those values. My hope for this presentation is that through sharing my struggle, we can re-center an approach where we less rely on the use of the red pen and instead make a commitment to the more organic growth of student efficacy, for the benefit of the teacher and the student.

Rebecca Clegg-Sasaki is a lecturer in the English for Academic Purposes Program at Akita International University. Her research interests focus on academic writing, teacher education and translation.

Looking forward seeing you on Friday 29th of October at 10.00 am (UTC+3)! 

The aim of MultiLEAP is to strengthen multidisciplinary research, collaborate within the faculties and enhance professional development of staff. MultiLEAP focuses on the wide array of skills, or multiliteracies, needed across the lifespan in the 21st century in working life, education, and home. The core themes of MultiLEAP are participation, access, equity, agency, and well-being. MultiLEAP supports research, for example, by organizing thematic events and by providing funding. Read more: jyu.fi/multileap.