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The integration of children's literature, specifically mathematical story picture books, in mathematics education has demonstrated significant benefits. Nevertheless, its actual implementation largely hinges on teachers' beliefs. This exploratory mixed-methods study examines the beliefs of 78 teachers regarding the integration of children's literature into mathematics teaching and learning, with a focus on identifying its barriers and enablers. Data were collected through an open-ended survey and semi-structured interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis framed by the concept of belief indication. The study identifies 15 barriers (across five themes) and 16 enablers (across six themes) that, teachers believe, affect their decisions to integrate children's literature into mathematics teaching and learning. This paper contextualizes the findings within the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), a framework from social psychology, to provide actionable recommendations and compare findings from studies conducted in Asian and Western countries. Ultimately, this research offers a broader understanding of teachers' behaviors and their receptiveness to educational reforms, such as the integration of children's literature, across diverse cultural and international settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers' practices and beliefs about instructional media are crucial in teaching English, as they can motivate students' enthusiasm if teachers use them engagingly. Despite their importance, teachers' practices and beliefs regarding instructional media in Islamic secondary schools in Indonesia have received less attention. The purpose of this qualitative study was to discover how teachers used instructional media and their beliefs towards employing it to teach English. We gathered information from two female English teachers at selected Islamic junior high schools in Aceh, Indonesia through observations and interviews. The results revealed that teachers utilized photos, whiteboards, overhead projectors, and flashcards to teach English. In their English foreign language classrooms, they used instructional media to facilitate students' learning by explaining the materials, and giving exercises. Teachers believed that instructional media could help boost students' interest, facilitate the learning process, and promote the achievement of teaching and learning objectives. They specified that curriculum and topic lessons are essential factors to consider when selecting instructional media for teaching English. They alleged that students' feedback, participation in seminars or workshops, self-discovery, and new curricula could all have an impact on their beliefs. Future research should look into potentially more comprehensive accounts of teachers' practices and beliefs about instructional media in varied secondary school contexts as well as how engaged students in more interactive classroom activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers' beliefs are very influential in the success of learning in the classroom. The teacher is the person who knows best how to successfully use learning materials to achieve learning objectives. This study aims to explore how teachers' beliefs in Javanese language learning materials in the local content curriculum, especially for the Central Java region. The method used in this research is qualitative method. Data obtained by questionnaires and Focus Group Discussion (FGD). Data analysis is carried out by grouping the teachers' beliefs points towards the Javanese language teaching material. The results show that more than 70% of teachers believe that the Javanese language teaching materials contained in the local content curriculum are too difficult for students both in terms of language and content. Meanwhile, based on the FGD analysis of curriculum documents and Javanese textbooks, it is also found that some teaching materials are not in order and are not in accordance with the development of students, thus making students find it difficult to understand the material. This causes the learning objectives of the Javanese language tend to have not achieved maximum results. The results of this study can be a recommendation for stakeholders to evaluate the curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, mobile phones have been used for teacher professional development (TPD). However, the potential use of smartphones, a current-generation of mobile phones, to develop teachers’ pedagogical, social, personal, and professional competences remains underexplored. This mixed methods study, examining the potential use of smartphones for TPD by delving into English teachers’ beliefs, employed a sequential explanatory approach. A quantitative survey was completed by 81 participants, followed by qualitative interviews with 8 selected participants. All the respondents were English teachers in elementary, junior, and senior high schools in 11 provinces in Indonesia. The survey was tested for validity and reliability, and analysed using the descriptive statistics method, while the semi-structured interview was analysed using the content analysis method. Almost all teachers had very favourable and favourable beliefs about the use of smartphones for TPD, perceiving that a smartphone could facilitate the enhancement of their pedagogical knowledge, communication skills, positive characters and English proficiency. Very few teachers had unfavourable beliefs, but among those who did, they believed traditional face-to-face TPD was more beneficial and that smartphones would only lead to addiction. This study recommends that smartphones be optimally applied by English teachers for TPD activities and that governments facilitate such implementation by constructing smartphone TPD models and applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores, for the first time, the pedagogical orientations of Indonesian teachers in the context of inclusive education. A mixed-method approach was used for an analysis of questionnaire data from 140 teachers and qualitative interviews from 20 teachers in four inclusive schools. The findings suggest that, in general, the implicit orientation of teachers is social constructivist. This orientation is also reflected in their reported classroom practices. Although less common, more directive pedagogical approaches appear to have an impact upon the flexibility of roles within two teacher inclusive classrooms. Whilst the number of disabled pupils within each class was a significant issue for interviewees, no pupils were deemed unteachable in their classrooms. Furthermore, what is described by the teachers as a “special pedagogy” typically entailed additional teaching time and modified assessments, and consequently could be framed as “good teaching for all”. The questionnaires also contained responses from student and special school teachers and support the view that teachers’ beliefs about inclusive pedagogy are mediated by experience and occupation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have been conducted to investigate teachers' knowledge and beliefs and they confirmed that knowledge and beliefs are an influential factor in teachers' decision making in the classroom. However, little research has been undertaken to investigate how teachers' knowledge and beliefs in influence the implementation of language policy. This study aims at investigating primary school teachers' knowledge and beliefs about the English program in primary schools in Indonesia, focusing on their pedagogical knowledge and how it influences the way they teach English when English is positioned as a local content subject in the curriculum The study reveals that in the absence of official curriculum teachers are required to draw on their existing knowledge and beliefs but the existing knowledge and beliefs of teachers in Indonesia are often not well developed. With no curriculum to guide their teaching, teachers' rely on textbooks. They consider that the textbook can be regarded as a substitute for a curriculum because the textbook contains information about the themes, the objectives of teaching, materials, and exercises. That is, textbooks have many of the features that teachers said were important in curriculum as guides for teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the pedagogical beliefs of practicing teachers in two countries--Indonesia and Australia. It investigates what teachers deem to be important in planning and implementing teaching for effective student experiences in the classroom. Pedagogical beliefs are directly related to teachers' decision-making in planning and implementing their teaching; thus, they are directly relevant to attempts to understand and reform practice. In this study, pedagogical beliefs are constructed along the dimensions of Productive Pedagogy, a teaching framework developed in Australia and is increasingly used as research and professional development tool in a variety of educational settings. This paper argues that the main benefit of this type of research is not the measurement of teachers' beliefs but the potential of leading to action to improve teaching. It is hoped that further research might not only look at measuring beliefs but understanding of the contextual factors that give rise to these and to conduct interventions to change these towards improving practice. This study points to the observation that a universal program that is designed to reform teachers' beliefs and actions in teaching cannot be one-size-fits-all. It has to take local conditions into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]