The seminar courses in teacher education - Teachers' Perceptions and Implications for Instruction

Submitted by: Revital Heimann
Abstract: The seminar course taught in all academic institutions is the summit of the bachelor's degree studies in which academic writing plays an essential role. The uniqueness of the seminar from the teacher's point of view is the focus on inquiry methods, and the efforts needed to accompany each student thoroughly through the research process towards the end goal of writing an academic paper.
The perceptions of the teachers explicitly or implicitly shape the course plan and affect the instruction methods in higher education (Zhu, 2004; Kane, Sandretto, & Heath, 2014; Solbrekke & Helstad, 2016). Few studies have explored these perceptions in higher education, specifically the role of academic writing in teacher education (Kane, Sandretto, and Heath, 2014).
Our research aim was to expose teachers' perceptions and teaching methods of the seminar course. As teacher educators our interest was to understand the perceptions of the teachers on the seminar course and how teachers act in order to overcome the difficulties of their students.
A semi-structured interview (18 questions) with 26 teachers on the seminar course was conducted and recorded. All records were transcribed and content analysis was undertaken. The analysis revealed six perceptions that were either explicitly stated or indirectly extracted from their descriptions of course activity. These perceptions of the roles of seminar course pertained to the aims of the seminar course: gaining knowledge in the subject matter; enhancing general academic skills; developing personal and professional identity; generating connections between theoretical and practical knowledge in teaching; contributing to the academic community and nurturing involvement in the civic community and effecting change.
These perceptions partially concur with approaches to teaching academic writing mentioned in the literature (Björk et al., 2003; Rienecker & Jörgensen, 2003;) as well as to approaches in teacher education (Beck, 2012).
In our presentation, we will share the teacher's perceptions in the seminar course and demonstrate how these were applied to course instruction and link these perceptions to theories of both academic writing and teacher education.

Bibliography
Beck, S. (2012) Ways of Learning to Teach. A Philosophically Inspired Analysis of Teacher Education Programs. Netherland, Sense Publishers.
Kane, R., Sandretto, S. & Heath, C. (2002). Telling Half the Story: A Critical Review of Research on the Teaching Beliefs and Practices of University Academics Review of Educational Research 72(2), 177–228.