الإنتاج البحثي لأعضاء هيئة التدريس بالكلية V.8 - Flipbook - Page 11
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Al-Thani, H., Chaaban, Y., & Du, X. (2022). Reconceptualizing Teacher Education in
Qatar: A Complex Dynamic Systems Approach. In Handbook of Research on Teacher Education:
Pedagogical Innovations and Practices in the Middle East (pp. 395-410). Springer Nature.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-2400-2_23
Dominant conceptions of teacher learning and the consequential and desired enactment of such
learning into practice tend to be linear, reductionist, and process–product driven. However, recent
interest in complexity theories has challenged these conceptions and highlighted the dynamic,
multiplicitous, and evershifting nature of teacher learning. As teacher education constitutes the
initial contexts where future cohorts of teachers are prepared for teaching, their successes and
failures are placed under scrutiny whenever teacher quality is debated among education
stakeholders. Therefore, this chapter takes a conceptual stance toward initial teacher education,
specifically pertaining to the preparation of graduating teachers from the largest teacher education
program in Qatar. The chapter begins with contextualizing teacher education in Qatar within its
historical, sociocultural, economic, and political roots. We then highlight the challenges and
complexities emerging from the interactions among these systems and their influence on graduating
teachers’ learning and practice. All the while, we argue that linear perspectives fall short of
acknowledging the complexity of teacher learning and fail to provide convincing evidence for the
preparedness of our graduating teachers and the variability of their practice. Framed by complexity
theories and grounded in empirical research conducted in Qatar, we offer a reconceptualization of
teacher education as embedded within complex dynamic systems.
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Al-Thani, H., Chaaban, Y., & Du, X. (2022). Teacher educators’ simplex system in
navigating the process of responding to disruptive education – a case from Qatar. Research in PostCompulsory Education, 27(2), 242–266.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13596748.2022.2042907
The study explored teacher educators’ experiences in navigating the process of responding to
disruptive education due to the COVID 19 pandemic. From a complexity theory lens, the concept
of simplex system was used to examine three teacher educators’ narratives on their teaching
experiences prior to, during and post pandemic, as they responded to institutional top-down policy
mandating the emergency shift from face-to-face to full-scale synchronised online teaching.
Findings of the study suggested that the teacher educators all struggled within the intrapersonal
space, consisting of beliefs, motivation, efficacy and emotions during the emergent transition to
full-scale online teaching, while they also experienced change of interpersonal relationships with
students and colleagues. The study also revealed variations in their individual coping strategies for
self-organisation in response to the emergent policy change, utilising their individual sources and
prior experiences. The study called for the need to better understand teacher educators’ simplex
system at both the individual level and institutional level. Further, it was highly recommended that
teacher educators become actively involved in the policy making process and communications; in
order to enhance their understanding of complex situations and support their agentic actions in
accomplishing their goals.
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