IMPROVING TEACHER EDUCATION: WAYS OF DEVELOPING METACOGNITION, MEDIATION AND EDUCATIONAL EMOTIONAL AWARENESS IN TEACHERS OF PUPILS WITH DYSLEXIA

Submitted by Madeleine Mohammed
for the degree of M.Phil.
of Brunel University
2001



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Abstract




In the account of the research I look at metacognition, mediation and educational emotional awareness in order to try to describe, develop and ultimately facilitate their development in the teachers whom I help educate because I believe that teachers can improve their practice if they utilise these areas in their own learning. I believe a result of that utilisation can be improved learning for their pupils and I am interested to find practical ways in which that might take place in the context of teacher education in dyslexia. In order to do this I have carried out a review of the literature surrounding the main concepts in which I explain the concept of metacognition, the link between metacognition and intuition and explore the role of metacognition in cognitive skills training. I go on to explain mediation and discuss the influence of Vygotsky and Feuerstein on mediated learning experience. I then explain the nature of emotion in an educational context, linking the areas of cognition, emotional intelligence and dyslexia and exploring the link between metacognition, mediation and emotion.

I have undertaken an action research case study that I present in the form of a narrative which, in part, is an autobiography of my own learning. I have based the case study on my monitoring one year of a post graduate teacher training programme I ran for teachers of people with dyslexia. I attempt to clarify my understanding of the chosen methodology of action research in the context of qualitative research. I go on to describe the principles and process of using action research, the methods of data collection and the selection of data for analysis. I present four examples of sessions from the course in order to describe and analyse them so that they will form evidence for my claims to improve both teacher education and my own practice as a teacher educator.

Finally I explore the criteria by which my research might be assessed and I go on to link these criteria to a discussion of the contributions to knowledge I claim to have made in the substantive area of dyslexia and teacher education, a new theory of learning concerned with educational emotional awareness and the authentic representation of teacher researcher knowledge.