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.     

Fostering meaning-oriented learning and deliberate practice in teacher education

Meaning-oriented learning and deliberate practice may be expected to promote student teachers’ continuous professional development. We interviewed twelve expert teacher educators to explore their understanding of these concepts, as well as pedagogies to stimulate them in teacher education. The experts understood deliberate practice in two ways: an enactment conceptualization focusing on pupil learning, and a regulation conceptualization focusing on teacher learning. Pedagogies were operationalized in twelve design principles, which integrated ideas previously scattered in the literature, and added to it with respect to anticipatory reflection, diverse ways of “modeling”, and student teacher agency in creating a powerful learning environment.     

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.     

Curriculum reform in Turkish teacher education: Attitudes of teacher educators towards change in an EU candidate nation

Educational development is one way through which Turkey enhances progress towards its social goals and prepares itself for European Union membership. A major effort to upgrade the Turkish educational system was made through a multi-phased comprehensive reform of the sector introduced during the 1990s. One part of this reform, perhaps most crucial to the long-term effectiveness of other developments in education, was a transformation of the approach to teacher education. This paper utilizes recently conducted research to assess the nature and extent of that reform as well as identifying the factors which enhanced its effectiveness.     

From assistant teacher to teacher: challenges and pathways in situated pre-service teacher education

Vocational pathways to Higher Education have a key role in opening teacher education to under-represented groups but bring with them particular challenges. Teacher educators need to address the challenges faced by these learners, of not only connecting their learning but also challenging their knowledge, and doing so in an invested work environment. This paper shares my experiences as a teacher educator working with two groups of Indigenous and non-Indigenous para-professional pre-service teachers in remote and urban Central Australia. I identify four key role-shifting challenges individuals face in developing their professional practice and locate them in two interdependent areas: social sphere challenges arising out of the situated learning setting of professional experience, and those occurring in the personal sphere of professional identity. I suggest that the new ways of mentoring and the development of student’s reflexive capacity needed to address these challenges can best be mobilised by re-positioning the role of professional identity at the centre of both professional experience and academic learning.     

Curriculum development in medical education: From acronyms to dynamism

Medical education is a rapidly expanding discipline with its practitioners drawn from a mix of backgrounds. Among them there is an increased understanding of the centrality of the curriculum process in the translation of educational ideas in practice. There are four main trends that underlie this increased understanding: a widened conception of the major elements of curriculum and their interactivity; a more conceptual and global view of curriculum, the incorporation of ideas from the educational literature and the need for a dynamic overarching model of curriculum. The latter will provide a framework for the ongoing curriculum challenges in the field.     

Higher education challenges in Yemen: Discourses on English teacher education

We investigated Yemen's higher education challenges by focusing on the English teacher education program. Interpretative analysis of policy statements and interviews revealed several factors that are hindering the quality of the program. Deeply aware of the socio-political dimensions impeding progress, the university lecturers shared convoluted visions for improving higher education and, in reflecting on the mission and realities of their program, voiced their quest for social justice and recognition by university administrators. The administrators acknowledged key problems in teacher education, but proposed no specific corrective measures. The findings highlight the urgent need for systemic change in Yemeni higher education.     

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.     

Enhancing quality: Listening to participant voices to improve our Master's program in special education

Newly inducted special education teachers must be well-prepared to address changes in today's schools, including increased student diversity, implementation of tiered systems of support, and the need for increased collaboration with general education teachers and specialists. The purpose of this qualitative study was to develop and implement a data-based continual improvement approach to identify the strengths of our special education Master's program and address changes needed to ensure that graduates are ready to engage with the demands of their chosen profession. Using data gathered from 24 recent graduates and 20 field mentors, we describe our model and what we have done with our results over two years. An important finding is that our students greatly value the relationships they form during the program and the relationships the faculty model, and participants attribute our graduates' skills in collaboration to our program's modeling of collaborative processes and positive relationships. Implications for effective approaches to continuous improvement of special education teacher preparation programs are discussed.     

From “time pass” to transformative force: School-based human rights education in Tamil Nadu, India

This article presents data collected at the level of practice to highlight one non-governmental organization's approach to human rights education and how household-, school-, and community-level factors mediated student impact. Findings suggest that a variety of factors at the three levels contribute to the program's successful implementation in government schools serving marginalized students (where most HRE programs are in operation in India today). These responses emerge along a continuum from ‘time pass’—a commonly used term in India for anything that does not directly contribute to greater performance on high-stakes exams—to ‘transformative force’, wherein students internalize knowledge and values related to human rights and take action based on it. Responses to HRE were characterized in four areas and representative examples are provided of each: (1) personal changes; (2) attempts to intervene in situations of abuse; (3) reporting (or threatening to report) abuse; and (4) spreading awareness about human rights.     

The retention question in context-specific teacher education: Do beginning teachers and their program leaders see teachers' future career eye to eye

This paper discusses the challenge of retaining teachers in hard-to-staff schools by examining how it is addressed in three context specific teacher education programs, which prepare teachers to teach in urban public, urban Catholic, and Jewish Day Schools in U.S.A. The findings of this study suggest that counter to teaching force trends teachers from the three programs that we studied expressed high motivation to serve as teachers or leaders in their particular schools and communities. In particular, we found that teachers' career commitments developed around the religious or civic missions promoted by their respective programs. Finally, teachers' career perceptions seem to correlate, though not entirely match, with those of their program leaders.     

From cohort to community in a preservice teacher education program

It is often suggested that student teachers be placed in cohorts during their preservice program. In this paper we describe how we implemented a cohort model and examine the effects on our student teachers. We found there were many positive effects, such as a high level of participation in whole class and small group activities, greater awareness of the value of collaboration, and greater willingness to take risks in collegial relationships and in the practicum. However, the approach proved to be quite demanding for the faculty; strong institutional support will be needed if the model is to be widely implemented.     

Addressing diversity in US teacher preparation programs: A survey of elementary and secondary programs’ priorities and challenges from across the United States of America

Data gathered from 142 public university elementary and secondary teacher preparation programs across the United States (representing the preparation of approximately 23,000–30,000 new teachers annually), indicated that race/ethnicity was the most emphasized diversity topic followed by special needs, language diversity, economic (social class), gender, and sexual orientation. The majority of programs addressed diversity topics across program classes. States were similar in the priority assigned to various diversity topics, with the exception of California, which placed greater emphasis upon language diversity but less upon special needs as compared to other states. In addition, there appeared to be little to no relationship between the faculty demographics (gender and race) and the priorities placed upon gender and racial diversity in programs. The project also surveyed program coordinators’ assessments of the various challenges to the inclusion of diversity topics. Finally, the data suggested that possible relationships might exist between faculty attitudes/knowledge regarding diversity topics and student attitudes.     

Curriculum studies in initial teacher education: the importance of holism and project 2061

Initial teacher education programmes, in order to comply with the requirements for teacher registration, are usually expected to introduce student teachers to the mandated curriculum. Often this is done uncritically, so students tend to accept rather than examine the underlying epistemological model which partitions knowledge into distinct ‘pillars of wisdom’. But there is little agreement over how knowledge is to be partitioned, which raises the question of if it can be partitioned at all. A different philosophical model—holism—is proposed based on the metaphor of a spider's web, and the Queensland ‘New Basics’ project is given as an example which fits this alternative approach. A second problem is in the overcrowding of the curriculum and here Project 2061 offers a set of robust criteria for making rational decisions about curriculum content.     

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.     

“They taught me”: The benefits of early community-based field experiences in teacher education

Research in teacher education suggests that field experiences in community settings can offer pre-service teachers a context for understanding the link between theory and practice. This paper documents the experiences of pre-service educators participating in a service-learning experience at a Children's Defense Fund Freedom School in the south-eastern United States. Pre-service teachers engaged in critical reflection, online journals, and daily debriefing sessions and praised the benefits of a service experience in an urban context and explained how interactions within the programme gave them the insight into the teaching profession. The author argues that this project successfully bridged the gap between teacher education theory and practice.     

Inclusivity through exclusivity: An evaluation of the provision of a special education needs (SEN) placement within second level art & design teacher education in the Republic of Ireland

It is a feature of Irish second-level teaching that teachers will encounter pupils with special educational needs (SENs). To prepare them, the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) has designated SEN placements as part of the ITE programme, whereby students are immersed in SEN settings. These placements have been acknowledged as good practice by Merriman & Rickard, on behalf of the National Parents and Siblings Alliance (2013). Over the ten-year duration of this specific SEN placement, this immersion has led to positive outcomes for both the student teachers and the centres in which they have been placed.     

Move over Nelly: lessons from 30 years of employment-based initial teacher education in England

Recruiting, preparing and retaining high-quality teachers are recurrent themes of local, national and international education agendas. Traditional university-led forms of teacher education continue to be challenged, and defended, as nations strive to secure a teaching force equipped to achieve high-quality learning outcomes for all students. One commonly adopted policy solution has been the diversification of teacher preparation routes: the alternative certification agenda. In this article, we examine the entire history of one alternative route in place in England from 1997 to 2012, the Graduate Teacher Programme. Using one example of an employment-based programme, we argue that opportunities to engineer innovative and creative spaces in the face of the current teacher preparation reform agenda need to be seized. This case study, which is contextualised in both the international debates about alternative teacher certification routes and the current policy agenda in England, demonstrates the extent to which successive administrations have failed to learn from the lessons of the past in the rush to recycle policies and claim them as their own.     

Using action research in middle level teacher education to evaluate and deepen reflective practice

The study examined the role of action research in promoting critical reflective thinking among twenty preservice teachers engaged in a year-long middle level program. Data from collaborative discussions, final written documents, presentations, and follow-up surveys revealed that conducting action research (a) engaged them in inquiry into their own practice, (b) was a means to reflect upon and determine ways to change their teaching practices, and (c) promoted critical reflection in a collaborative learning environment. Results underscore the importance of preservice teachers critically reflecting to gain insights into teaching and student learning as they are engaged in action research.     

Curriculum development for teacher education in the Southern Philippines: A simultaneous process of professional learning and syllabus enhancement

This paper reflects on the process of curriculum development in 21 tertiary education institutions in the Southern Philippines. Assisting capacity-building of the teaching profession is an ongoing need in developing countries, but rarely does it extend to pre-service education. In this study of one aspect of a three year AusAid-funded education development project, the process of developing syllabi for English, mathematics, science and practicum/pedagogy courses was an unfamiliar activity for the majority of the sixty Filipino teacher educators and their colleagues. These educators were used to following institution prescribed syllabi without question. The focus of this study was the educators’ participation in the intensive process of syllabus review, construction and enhancement which occurred concurrently with a series of regular professional development activities based on the needs and interests of the educators. The process was documented as it evolved and was evaluated at key stages. A major outcome was the enhancement, or construction, of more than 200 syllabi across the 21 tertiary institutions. However, an unexpected and significant outcome of the process was the development of strong cross-institutional and even cross-regional relationships and a level of collegiality not previously experienced by the participants. It is argued here that such an approach to curriculum development raises the potential for sustainable long-term outcomes in international development projects.