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RECOGNISING CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT IN OUR LEARNING AUTOBIOGRAPHIES

Duffy, Kate and Ross, Dionne (2016) RECOGNISING CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT IN OUR LEARNING AUTOBIOGRAPHIES. In: 8th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies, 4-6 Jul 2016, Barcelona.

Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present the analysis of video autobiographical accounts from future educators about their educational experiences in order to identify instances of character development. Emerging themes can inform the development of teacher education programmes towards the deliberative cultivation of these qualities for our future teachers. This paper presents the analysis of
53 video autobiographies (Digital Stories) from students in their first year of an undergraduate Education Studies programme. The students are aspiring future educators and the aim of the video autobiography is to encourage reflection on their experience of education and to illuminate the elements that have inspired them to want to pursue a career in education.
A grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin 1998) approach was adopted to draw out themes emerging from the autobiographies. The analysis showed that qualities of character (Carr 2007), demonstrated to them by their teachers was significantly influential in their success at school and their motivation to enter the profession. With many autobiographies noting “that is the kind of teacher I want to be”.
Recent publications in the UK, such as the APPG for Social Mobility (2014) and the Carter Review of Teacher Education (2015) have noted that character should be taught in schools and that this may require an increase in its focus within teacher education. The deliberate cultivation of „qualities of character‟ as described by Carr (2007) is also advocated by many authors (Goodlad et al 1991; Sockett 1993, Campbell 2003/2013, Sanger 2008, Mahoney 2009, Sanger & Osguthorpe 2013). Their views stress the importance for the profession, not only to make a contribution to the development of character in their learners but to be aware of both the implicit and explicit ways that this may happen. This paper comes from the premise that virtues and character can be taught and that it can and does happen, often implicitly through the character of the teacher. It presents an argument for the deliberate cultivation of character within teacher education to raise awareness of this as professional expertise. It also makes recommendations about how this might look in practice.
Keywords: character development, teacher education, learning autobiographies

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More Information

Additional Information: ISBN: 978-84-608-8860-4
Related URLs:
Depositing User: Dionne Ross

Identifiers

Item ID: 9447
URI: http://sure.sunderland.ac.uk/id/eprint/9447
Official URL: https://library.iated.org/publications/EDULEARN16

Users with ORCIDS

ORCID for Kate Duffy: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-7014-462X
ORCID for Dionne Ross: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-1685-5620

Catalogue record

Date Deposited: 18 May 2018 12:53
Last Modified: 18 Dec 2019 16:06

Contributors

Author: Kate Duffy ORCID iD
Author: Dionne Ross ORCID iD

University Divisions

Faculty of Education and Society
Faculty of Education and Society > School of Education

Subjects

Education > Educational Research
Education > Higher Education
Education

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