Developing conceptual frameworks for creativity, ICT and teacher education

This paper presents the first phase of a study in teacher education, which explored how a conceptual framework for creativity with information and communication technology (ICT) might be developed and expressed in professional development for primary education pre-service and newly qualified teachers. The Creativity and Professional Development Project (C&PD) involved 16 education ICT specialists in the final stage of their BA in an English University. They participated in the project to investigate their classroom practice in the use of ICT to promote creativity in the making of digital video movies, and to reflect upon the development of their pedagogy with ICT in primary classrooms. The analysis focuses on the student teachers’ experience of engaging in creative activities to prepare, teach and evaluate a school-based project, and identified themes of their understandings and personal experience of creativity, the contribution of ICT, and their reflections on professional development. This analysis raises the issue of designing learning experiences, which promote and support creativity with ICT in the context of teacher learning. A conceptual framework to describe creative practices with ICT in teacher education was developed from the study.     

Diversity study circles in teacher education practice: An experiential learning project

This paper addresses the dilemma of trying to prepare primarily white preservice teachers for educational arenas in which they will interface with students of colour and many who are socially disadvantaged. This paper describes how diversity study circles can be integrated as integral to education that is multicultural in the development of preservice teachers’ critical self-reflection as a bridge to developing a critical lens for classroom practice and a democratic society.     

Sexuality,schooling, and teacher identity formation: A critical pedagogy for teacher education

Offering an alternative to normative teacher education that excludes meaningful sexuality and gender education from its curriculum, this article presents a critical teacher education multicultural curriculum based in the United States that included an autoethnographic narrative assignment as reflective space for teacher candidates to consider their identities as shaped by lived experiences with gender and sexuality. Using a categorical analysis of a cohort of 38 teacher candidate autoethnographies, discussed are insights revealed about their lived histories. Patterns included gender identification, heteronormativity, patriarchy, sex education, schooling experiences, teacher complicity, and teacher identity effects and sense of agency along with implications for educating future teachers.     

Rethinking the use of video in teacher education: A holistic approach

Video case studies are commonly used in teacher training programmes, usually to develop one specific area of competence. The need for an integrative model that meets diverse learning objectives and competences led to a study on how to effectively use videos to guide student-teachers towards professional development. The analysis of case studies helped develop a four-pronged holistic proposal that places student-teachers in the role of both teacher and learner allowing the co-construction of teaching knowledge and the acquisition of digital competences and media literacy. This article outlines the pedagogical scheme and provides qualified evidence that supports arguments for its basis.     

Preparing teacher leaders: Perceptions of the impact of a cohort-based, job embedded, blended teacher leadership program

This qualitative study was designed to examine teachers’ and principals’ perceptions of the impact of a graduate program designed to prepare teacher leaders. Impact was investigated through interviews with 20 graduates and 6 principals. Using Mezirow’s concept of transformational learning, the study documents perceived transformation of teachers’ frames of reference: two related to teaching (adopt an inquiry stance; learn to view oneself as an autonomous professional), and two related to leadership (adopt a leadership stance; view student learning as a communal responsibility). The study includes implications for the design of graduate level teacher education programs to enhance their impact and effectiveness.     

Recent tensions and challenges in teacher education as manifested in curriculum discourse

This study seeks to contribute to discussions on the development of teacher education by analysing teacher educators' talk concerning curriculum reform. The curriculum is understood as a mediating construction between teacher educators and the social context, and the development of the curriculum is seen as a negotiation process between global discourses and local actors. Our aim was to understand the contrasting discourses used by teacher educators in talking about curriculum development, on the grounds that such discourses frame interpretations that direct the implementation of teacher education as a whole. Five contrasting interpretative repertoires were found. We illustrate these and discuss what they imply for the development of teacher education.     

Teacher education, preservice teacher beliefs, and the moral work of teaching

This paper presents a case for attending to preservice teachers’ beliefs that are relevant to the moral work of teaching within teacher education research and practice, and examines what it would look like to do so. The case for attending to candidate beliefs is grounded in a learner-centered approach to teacher education and in the literature on the role of beliefs in teacher learning and change. The authors demonstrate how attending to preservice teacher beliefs is particularly critical for the task of preparing candidates for the moral work of teaching, and present a conceptual framework that can guide that task and teacher education research and practice designed to support it.     

Institutional separation in schools of education: Understanding the functions of space in general and special education teacher preparation

The purpose of this spatial study is to understand the function space play in a combined credential program in the US in helping or hindering the program’s inclusive mission. The study examines how physical and social manifestations of general and special education are (re)organized in the new program. The data provides evidence for the pervasive separation between general and special education within the new program. This study points to the importance of examining space in relation to teacher education reform as a way to highlight where policy, institutional, programmatic, physical, and pedagogic changes are needed to support inclusive teacher preparation.     

Situated learning theory and the pedagogy of teacher education: Towards an integrative view of teacher behavior and teacher learning

Lave and Wenger have greatly influenced existing views of learning and teaching, but relatively little has been written about the implications for the understanding of teacher behavior and teacher learning, and for the pedagogy of teacher education. Based on their work, a three-level model of learning is used to analyze the friction between teacher behavior in practice and the wish to ground teachers' practices in theory. Supported by empirical data on teacher learning and brain research, this model reconciles the situated learning perspective with traditional cognitive theory, and leads to concrete implications for the pedagogy of teacher education.     

Competition, economic rationalization, increased surveillance, and attacks on diversity: Neo-liberalism and the transformation of teacher education in the U.S.

This paper discusses recent developments in U.S. teacher education that are tied to the global neo-liberal project. The focus is on how changes experienced throughout the world have played out in the U.S. Three areas are addressed in particular: the commodification of teacher education, hyperrationality and increased accountability, and attacks on multicultural education. The paper closes with a look at the future for teacher education in the U.S.     

国际课程标准对我国职教师资硕士教育的挑战

联合国教科文组织(UNESCO/UNEVOC)于2004年在杭州举办“职业教育教师培养创新创优国际会议”,通过了“国际职业教育师资硕士课程框架”。这一框架标准作为全球职教师资硕士学历教育的基本质量要求,对提高成员国职教师资培养水平、促进该领域国际间学历证书互认以及学术交流具有重要的意义。     

面向TPACK发展的设计型教师教育课程——缘起、模式及启示

美国密歇根州立大学Mishra和Koehler首创的设计型教师教育课程,提倡"通过设计学习技术"来推进教师的TPACK知识发展,是一种代表性的新型教师教育课程。通过文献分析揭示出该教师课程的本质特征:其理论缘起于对"设计"与TPACK发展之间内在关联的深刻认识;其课程模式采取基于"深度玩耍"的设计型学习;其课程活动遵循"微型设计→大型设计→TPACK整体反思"的螺旋上升式。设计型教师教育课程对于我国教师教育技术能力培养具有重要的启示:在教师的发展定位上,从技术"消费者"转向技术"设计者";在课程内容上,从普适的技术"处方"转向整体的TPACK"境脉";在课程活动上,从技术应用的传授灌输转向技术设计的深度体验。     

Evidence of impact: Transforming teacher education with preparing tomorrow's teachers to teach with technology (PT3) grants

This article uses the framework of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK; Mishra & Koehler, 2006) to analyze findings across projects from the U.S. Department of Education's Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) initiative. Approaches such as mentoring methods course faculty, teachers, and creating technology-rich instructional materials were associated with increases in preservice teachers' technological knowledge and their frequency of technology-rich instruction during field experiences. Lastly, the authors provide implications and directions for future analyses of technology integration efforts.     

Equity,democracy, and neoliberal assaults on teacher education

Although in the long run, neoliberalism has a track record of undermining equity and democracy, in the short run it has directed attention to education needs that have been inadequately addressed. This article sketches what teacher education in the US can do to advance equity and democracy in five areas: recruitment and admission, early fieldwork, professional coursework, student teaching, and on-going professional development. The article then examines three neoliberal pressures teacher education: (1) away from explicit equity-oriented teacher preparation, and toward preparing teachers as technicians; (2) away from defining teacher quality in terms of professional knowledge, and toward defining it terms testable content knowledge; and (3) toward shortening university-based teacher education or by-passing it altogether. It concludes by emphasizing the importance of collaborating with underserved communities as a way of pushing back against neoliberalism.     

Re-conceptualizing partnerships across the teacher education continuum

This research, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council–Teaching and Learning Research Programme (ESRC–TLRP), explored student and beginning teachers' experiences of teacher education in Northern Ireland. Within a situation of teacher over-supply, many newly qualified teachers have little or no induction. This paper focuses on the views of key induction providers on the effectiveness of partnership arrangements. These stakeholders believed that an improved model of partnership was needed, particularly for induction, and a more collegial model could offer a positive reconceptualisation of early teaching experience enabling reciprocal professional learning.     

Policy reform: testing times for teacher education in Australia

In Australia as well as elsewhere, initial teacher education has become centre stage to a political agenda that calls for global competitiveness in the knowledge economy. The common problem cited has been declining educational standards linked with the quality of teaching and teacher education. The avalanche of review and policy reform has exposed teacher education to neoliberal demands as well as political and public scrutiny. A policy web of interconnected concerns related to selection, curriculum, professional practice, graduation as well as employment fuels current reforms.     

In pursuit of teacher quality in diversity: A study of the selection mechanisms of new secondary teacher education programmes in Taiwan

As the definition of teacher quality changes with time, the selection mechanism of students into teacher education programmes may also change accordingly. In Taiwan, before the 1994 teacher education reform, selection of pre-service students was based solely on academic achievement. Afterwards, the selection was delegated to individual teacher education programmes with varied missions for teacher education. This study examines the degree of diversity and selectivity of the selection mechanisms of these programmes. Data from 48 programmes, including institutional documents, telephone inquiries and governmental reports, were collected and analysed. The results show that the selection mechanisms of these programmes are diverse enough to reflect a variety of characteristics of teacher quality, and rigorous enough to ensure a certain level of quality. Related issues on teacher selection are further discussed.     

Promoting inclusive education in secondary school in Norway: a national programme for teacher development

There is a great need in many countries for extended and new teacher competence to meet the challenges of inclusive education. This paper presents a national programme for developing new teacher competence in secondary schools in Norway. The programme was developed and implemented during the 1990s, its aim being to start a continuing process in schools directed at promoting inclusive education and improving the quality of education for pupils with special educational needs. Further, the paper presents some findings from a national survey of 2240 teachers and school administrators in 104 schools one year after the implementation of the programme. The survey partially replicated a survey carried out before the programme started. The purpose was to give an overall picture of the situation with respect to teacher competence in special needs and inclusive education, and the impact of the competence building programme on teacher practice, and to identify possible system changes in schools.     

Building caring relationships between a teacher and students in a teacher preparation program word-by-word, moment-by-moment

Our purpose was to illustrate the process by which caring relationships between students and their teacher educator developed in the context of preservice reading preparation that made use of online communication as one class activity. Describing the development of caring relationships between three students and their teacher, we showed that caring could not be considered a one-way characteristic of what teachers do and are, but rather that it depended on students’ reciprocal responses. Findings indicated that the trajectories of caring relationships developed differently, each influenced by differences in entering expectations, critical events, and a negotiation of what the relationship meant.     

Taking the next step: Connecting teacher education,research on teaching,and programme assessment

We cite four disconnections among teacher education programmes, research on teaching, and programme assessment that contribute to a paucity of systematically collected evidence and the inability of teacher educators to fully address the “outcomes question” [Cochran-Smith, M. (2003). Assessing assessment in teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 54, 187–191] now central to the conduct and future of teacher education programmes. To reduce those disconnections, we present the Development, Research, and Improvement model of programme assessment [Metzler, M. W., & Tjeerdsma, B. L. (1998). PETE program assessment within a development, research, and improvement framework. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 17, 468–492] that has guided a comprehensive, longitudinal, and research-based assessment project at Georgia State University in the United States for 13 years. We situate this work in the framework of Self-Study of Teacher Education, now gaining attention worldwide as a legitimate approach to bridging the methodological and evidentiary gap between teacher education programmes, research on teaching, and programme assessment. Examples of data collected in the longitudinal programme are described, along with illustrations of how those data have guided decisions about our teacher education programme, and how those findings can add to the empirical knowledge in teacher education.