Exploring the professional development needs of new teacher educators situated solely in school: pedagogical knowledge and professional identity (original) (raw)
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Teachers and Teaching , 2017
The landscape of teacher education is undergoing significant change in many countries and this is often associated with a move towards greater school involvement in the preparation of teachers. One aspect of teaching expertise that is particularly challenging for primary student teachers is the development of subject knowledge across a wide range of subject areas. Subject knowledge for teaching is multi-faceted and is itself linked to broader questions about curriculum and the content that should be taught. It is timely, therefore, to consider how subject knowledge development might be reconceived in a school setting and how university and school staff might work in new ways with student teachers to this end. Communities of practice theory is employed as a framework for analysing the learning environment and evaluating these future possibilities. It is argued that collaboration with peers, with their mentoring teachers and with a wider professional community is an under-exploited way of integrating facets of subject knowledge: giving this time and status through structured activities might be a particularly fruitful form of hybrid working in situ. The paper concludes by proposing four principles to underpin this sort of practice.
Dama Academic Scholarly Journal of Researchers , 2019
The landscape of teacher education is undergoing significant change in many countries and this is often associated with a move towards greater school involvement in the preparation of teachers. One aspect of teaching expertise that is particularly challenging for primary student teachers is the development of subject knowledge across a wide range of subject areas. Subject knowledge for teaching is multi-faceted and is itself linked to broader questions about curriculum and the content that should be taught. It is timely, therefore, to consider how subject knowledge development might be reconceived in a school setting and how university and school staff might work in new ways with student teachers to this end. Communities of practice theory is employed as a framework for analysing the learning environment and evaluating these future possibilities. It is argued that collaboration with peers, with their mentoring teachers and with a wider professional community is an under-exploited way of integrating facets of subject knowledge: giving this time and status through structured activities might be a particularly fruitful form of hybrid working in situ. The paper concludes by proposing four principles to underpin this sort of practice.
School-Based Teacher Learning: A Reflective Approach
Journal of Nusantara Studies (JONUS), 2016
Professional development is an important issue for every teacher. The recent trends in education favour teacher-centred, participant initiated and managed, school-based teacher development programmes, for example action research, lesson study, communities of practice, etc. Although there is no doubt that such initiatives offer ample learning opportunities for practitioners, it is important that higher level school or institutional development strategies be also considered, besides teachers’ individual learning agendas. This paper argues that it is possible to merge the needs of both individual practitioners and schools through a reflective, school-based developmental programme which is organised and supported by the school administration for the benefit of all involved. Being conceptual, the paper outlines a model for such a professional development course and discusses the principles it should be based on, its knowledge base, including possible content areas, skills, and learning p...
Critiquing teacher professional development: teacher learning within the field of teachers' work
2010
This study is an empirical account of the professional development ('PD') practices which constituted part of the work of a group of teachers and school-based administrators working together in a cluster of six schools in southeast Queensland, Australia, during a period of intense educational reform. The data comprise meeting transcripts and interviews with teachers and administrators involved in a reform-oriented professional development initiative over an 18 month period. To analyse these teacher learning practices as teachers' work in this context, the article draws upon Bourdieu's theory of practice, particularly his understanding of the social world as comprising multiple social spaces, or 'fields', each characterised by contestation over the practices of most value. The data reveal the field of teachers' work, in which much of the teacher learning transpired, as influenced by a broader instrumental culture; this culture developed in response to teachers' concerns about how to respond to state educational provision initiatives in a more neoliberal global era. These instrumental logics were evident in superficial compliance with and reflection upon educational reform, and the continuation of individualistic, workshop-based PD practices. However, at the same time and in keeping with fields as contested, there is also evidence of teachers' participation in more sustained PD practices-involving teachers actively engaging with the content of educational reform, participating in robust reflection about their practice, and collaborating in substantive communities of learners. The findings also suggest the need to explicitly support substantive PD within the field of teachers' work in order to challenge more administrative and instrumental pressures to engage in reform. Such a response will assist in fostering the conditions for the generation of a more truly studentcentred, collaborative and reflective habitus amongst teachers.
Abstract There have been considerable changes in initial teacher preparation in England. Since 1992, university departments of education and schools have equal responsibility in preparing teachers. The principal route for educating new teachers is through the one year Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) courses. The aim of this study is to explore the perceptions of secondary science student teachers, newly qualified teachers and PGCE tutors about the role of the PGCE courses in knowledge base (Subject Matter Knowledge- SMK and Pedagogical Content Knowledge- PCK) development. Participants’ perceptions were revealed through in-depth interviews and a short questionnaire. The results show that there is a difference between the philosophies of the universities and the schools in terms of the support provided, participants’ conceptions concerning the process of learning to teach and the role of ‘experience’, the difficulty in the implementation of the reflective practitioner model in schools, and the difficulty in relating the theory to the practice. Unless students’ perceptions are challenged through informing them about the nature of the reflective practitioner model and students’ own role in this model, it will be difficult for the teacher education courses to have a strong effect on students’ professional development.
Challenges in school-based teacher professional development
Gláuks - Revista de Letras e Artes
Teacher education has a long tradition of prescriptive curriculum-based and skills-centered models that convey simplistic conceptualisations of teacher learning. Only recently, this trend has shifted towards promoting teachers' agency in their own professional development. In this work, we reflected on the challenges faced ?while building one partnership based on teachers' inquiry during and over the pandemic. The intervention was targeted to promote classroom dialogue and should have employed the use of video recordings to capture and analyze teachers' practice. The main point addressed here was the teachers' tacit rejection of the video recording and the building of a new tool. Moreover, the cordial culture among teachers and researchers did not offer space for critical reflection on practice. Overall, despite the school leadership being willing and committed to the ?programme, the implementation revealed how the schooling system does not value or ?create condition...
Developing an inclusive model for 'teacher' professional development
2005
This paper reports on the findings of a recent teaching grant awarded in 2004, from the Australian Teacher Educator's Association (ATEA). The grant enabled a professional development teaching (PDT) team to be established at Norlane West primary School, Geelong. The team comprised of twelve 'teachers' who included two teacher educators, six Year 5 and 6 teachers and four student teachers. The aim of the project was to examine how a team of new and experienced teachers developed and changed their teaching repertoire and their professional identity through a process of teaching, learning and reflection. What made this particular project unique was the inclusion of student teachers in the PDT team and the action reflection cycle adopted by all members of the team. The reflective cycle consisted of a teacher educator, teacher and the team of student teachers all participating in a filmed teaching experience, editing and reflecting on their own teaching and then sharing t...
International Research, Policy and Practice in Teacher Education, 2018
Within the context of the European Commission's recent policy gaze on teacher education (European Commission 2010; 2013; 2015) this chapter contributes to an improved understanding of the hybrid, poly-contextualised identities of school-based teacher educators. At a time of systemic change in the education systems of many countries, teachers in schools are increasingly being asked to be responsible for the education and training of future teachers. Within the English backdrop of a rapidly changing landscape for teacher education we present initial findings from a small-scale study exploring, through interview data, how the knowledge-bases and identities of two groups of insiders, university and school-based teacher educators, were perceived by those hybrid teacher educators (Zeichner 2010) working in schools. Our findings reveal: differences in school-based teacher educators views on their work and the work of university-based teacher educators; on the role of educational research has in the work they do; and the ways in which different professional pathways (e.g. occupational/university; primary/secondary) influence views on what it means to be a teacher educator.