Teacher educators’ identity: a review of literature

Research suggests that the development of a teacher educator identity is a central process in becoming a teacher educator. Recently, there has been an increasing interest in the concept of teacher identity. However, teacher educator identity seems to be still under-researched. In this article, a review of literature on teacher educator identity is provided. Fifty-two research papers were analysed to identify challenges and tensions teacher educators experience during their induction, factors which influence the development of their professional identity, and the features that induction programmes should have. The findings suggested that new teacher educators generally develop negative self-views about their abilities and professional identities. Self-support and community support activities were found to facilitate teacher educators’ transition and enhance their identity development. Key features of academic induction were identified as acting as a learning community, cultivating supportive and professional relationships, encouraging self-enquiry and research and involving teacher educators in reflective activities.     

What and how teacher educators prefer to learn

In which areas and domains do individual teacher educators prefer to work on their professional development? What kind of learning activities do they want to take on and with whom? Are there significant differences in these preferences between teacher educators? This article reports on a recent survey (N = 268) about the professional development of teacher educators and differences in learning preferences between less and more experienced teacher educators and between university-based and school-based teacher educators. Findings show, for example, that while most university-based teacher educators were mainly interested in improving their teaching, less experienced school-based teacher educators were more focussed on aspects such as coaching skills. In this study, ‘learning profiles’ have been developed for four categories of teacher educators. These profiles may help to create more meaningful arrangements for teacher educators’ initial education and further professional development in a context where teacher education is required to have a more school-based as well as a more research-based orientation.     

Teacher educators working on their own professional development: goals,activities and outcomes of a project for the professional development of teacher educators

This article reports on the professional development of teacher educators within the context of a national project, ‘Professional Quality of Teacher Educators,’ where a professional standard and a standards‐based procedure of (self‐)assessment and professional development have been created and effectively implemented. This project offered a unique opportunity to analyze the goals, activities and outcomes of the process of professional development of teacher educators in a situation in which this development is promoted by the professional group as a whole. In our research, we used 25 completed portfolio's made by teacher educators participating in the standards‐based procedure of (self‐)assessment and professional development. We found that teacher educators, participating in this procedure, prefer the development of their knowledge and skills over the development of their attitudes and beliefs. For their professional development, the teacher educators experiment with new activities within the work‐situation and interact with colleagues within their professional community, more than that they study theory or reflect on their work. The participating teacher educators experience a positive impact at the personal level (change in cognition and behavior). More than one‐third of them share outcomes with others. Above, they report a more positive self‐esteem and more enthusiasm for teacher education. This article may motivate other countries or institutions to invest in the professional development of teacher educators. Further research is necessary on the essence of the professional qualities of teacher educators and the relation of their professional development with student learning.     

Pedagogical aspects of integrating wikis in pre-service teacher education

The study examines pedagogical approaches in using wikis in teaching and learning in teacher education colleges. It focuses on: instructors’ motivation for wiki-based teaching; course types; teaching methods; evaluation; content structure; characteristics of student collaboration and learning outcomes; involvement of instructors in the learning process. The study is based on semi-structured interviews with 11 teacher educators from six colleges of education in Israel. The authors discuss added value and challenges of wiki-based teaching, the impact of assessment on shaping the learning process, as well as general conclusions regarding wiki-based pedagogy.     

Teacher educators for new times? Redefining an important occupational group

Teacher educators are an occupational group currently experiencing increased scrutiny by international policy makers and researchers alike. This occupational group however is increasingly difficult to define and identify in a complex, internationally changing teacher education policy reform environment. The question posed is an enduring one: who is a teacher educator? The answer is more complicated. To better understand this occupational group, a literature review and local policy analysis study using the Australian context was conducted to reveal more about their identity; career trajectories and; professional learning needs. Analysis revealed that three sub-groups belonging to the broader teacher educator occupational group have emerged as a result of shifting teacher education policies. Namely, university-based; school-based and community-based teacher educators, each with an important role to play and each positioned differently within the research and policy landscape. Findings suggest that all three groups are important to educating teachers across their career and to best meet the needs of all students for new times. Recommendations are made for future research and practice into how these groups can work collectively together, within and across the multiple sites of learning to teach.     

Mentor teacher professional identity development in a year-long teacher residency

In this article I examined the professional identity development of five mentor teachers in a year-long, clinically rich teacher residency partnered between a university-based teacher education program and schools in a southern state of the United States. Qualitative data were collected through classroom observation and individual semi-structured interviews with a focus on participants’ mentoring activities and the ways they enacted and described their identities. Participants came to new mentoring beliefs and practices as they navigated the residency and developed a multifaceted identity to mediate their learning to become mentors and teacher educators. Implications for mentor teacher professional support, teacher preparation, and future research were discussed.     

Why is Finnish teacher education successful? Some goals Finnish teacher educators have for their teaching

In recent years, Finnish research‐based teaching, according to international surveys, has been shown to lead to excellent results. Previous research has demonstrated that teacher education has often had difficulties in incorporating theory into practice, and that the effects of teacher education on the prior beliefs and views on teaching and learning of student teachers have been weak. The aim of the present qualitative study was to find out how the Finnish teacher education system deals with these problems by investigating the current goals Finnish teacher educators have for their own teaching in theoretical courses. A total of 18 teacher educators were interviewed in five focus groups on different teacher education programmes in Finland. The interview results showed that Finnish teacher educators transmit theoretical and pedagogical aspects by using them in their own teaching, which is research‐based. They also aim to educate reflective and exploring teachers by using a variety of methods in their own pedagogy. The exemplary role the Finnish teacher educators have can be helpful in influencing prospective teachers' behaviour and thinking.     

Self-Study Enabling Understanding of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: An Exploration of Collaboration among Teacher Educators for Special and Inclusive Education

ABSTRACT

While teaching is increasingly being accepted as a discipline, there is a growing emphasis on teacher educators researching their own practice to advance the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). This study sought to explore the extent to which self-study contributes to teacher educators’ understanding of the SoTL within the discipline of teaching. While self-study is generally accepted as a scholarly approach, the aim here is to address the call in the literature for self-study researchers to evince a commitment to a practice-based and theory-building research agenda by linking with public theories, in this case the SoTL. Additionally, given that self-study is collaborative in nature, findings here may help to address the dearth of knowledge reported in the literature about teacher educator collaboration. A self-study approach was adopted to explore a journey of two teacher educators as they designed, implemented and evaluated new modules in special and inclusive education within an initial teacher education programme in the Republic of Ireland. Analysis and synthesis of data from 24 student teachers and two teacher educators provide insights and understandings into the collaborative interactions and factors that enabled and hindered these interactions. This may support other teacher educators in developing a collaborative pedagogical culture to enhance greater understanding of the SoTL We argue for adopting self-study as a scholarly approach to engage with other theories, such as the SoTL, thus contributing to the broader field of teacher education research.     

Understanding Teacher Educators and Their Pre-Service Teachers through Multi-Media Case Studies of Practice

The challenges facing those who seek to prepare mathematics teachers are well established in the literature. Most of the research to date has focused on the perceptions and understandings of pre-service teachers, but not on the perceptions and understandings of teacher educators. In this study, we explore how four teacher educators understand their pre-service secondary teachers as the pre-service teachers attempt to make sense of teaching through the investigation of a multimedia case study of practice. We found that the teacher educators adopted two different implementation strategies: one strategy tended to be open-ended and exploratory; the other was more focused on the teacher educators' goals of anticipating student understanding and developing mathematical content knowledge for teaching. We also found that, in using the case study, teacher educators elicited pre-service teachers' thinking about the complexities of the teacher's role in small group work, about the value of explicitly revealing the teacher's reflections on the lessons, about the role of planning and preparation, and about the limits of pre-service teachers' abilities to understand and appreciate students' thinking and to extend lesson ideas. Both teacher educators and their pre-service teachers gained perspectives on the role of a teacher's mathematical content knowledge. These results imply that multimedia case studies of practice can serve as vehicles for revealing the knowledge and practice of teacher educators, as they engage in supporting the professional development of pre-service teachers.     

教师教育与发展的文化历史观———学习教学》评介

本文评介了Viv Ellis,Anne Edwards 和Peter Smagorinsky 主编的《教师教育与发展的文化历史观—学习教学》。文章首先指明了该书的出版对于教师学习研究领域的意义,然后对本书的主要内容和结构进行了介绍,并且结合国内的外语教师学习研究现状进行了评论。作者希望通过本书的评介让国内的外语教师教育工作者与研究者了解社会文化理论各流派的由来与发展状况,明晰社会文化视角下教师学习研究的核心问题,进而思考如何结合中国实际开展有创新的本土化研究。     

Everyday life and everyday learning: the ways in which pre-service teacher education curriculum can encourage personal dimensions of teacher identity

This article presents and discusses the findings of a research project, the main objective of which is to identify curriculum components that promote personal development as a nuclear part of teacher professional identity formation through pre-service teacher education. Curriculum is viewed as an ecological scenario with different subsystems and both as formal and informal. Identity formation is conceived as an ever-provisional result of a double transaction: the biographical one and the relational one. The curricula of four different historical periods of pre-service teacher education in Portugal and the professional identity of teachers trained within them were characterised through collection and analysis of documents and biographical narratives. Crossing results from the four periods, the quality of school climate emerges as an important variable to the quality of the teachers’ identity. The lifelong learning ethos seems to emerge when the training curriculum connects everyday learning with everyday life, namely by urging the students’ involvement in school life, peer learning activities and peer and teacher educators’ informal learning activities.     

The Dialectic Relationship between Research and Practice in Mathematics Teacher Education

This paper addresses issues linking research in student teacher learning with reflection on practice in mathematics teacher education. From a situated perspective on learning and practice, we explore our own practice as teacher educators while researching student teacher learning in our classrooms. We describe a study on student teacher learning, considering student teacher learning as a “process of becoming”, and how the results of this research have affected our development as mathematics teacher educators and members of a community of inquiry. Our work shows how in the mathematics teacher education context the relationship between theory and practice becomes an element of both teacher educator and researcher development.     

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.     

Uncovering a hidden professional agenda for teacher educators: A mixed method study on Flemish teacher educators and their professional development

Taking into account the pressing need to understand more about what teacher educators’ professional development characterises, this article adopts a mixed method approach to explore Flemish (Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) teacher educators’ professional development needs and opportunities. Analysis results of a large-scale survey study with 611 teacher educators and analysis of five qualitative focus groups (with 24 teacher educators) are presented. The results confirm the lack of attention for teacher educators’ professional development in the Flemish teacher education system. Moreover, the findings indicate a structural need for participation in professional development activities that are linked to teacher educators’ own practices, organised as long-term sustainable professional development trajectories, and formally recognised. To conclude, a professional development agenda for research, policy and practices related to teacher educators’ professional development is discussed.     

Teacher educators' competences in fostering student teachers’ proficiency in teaching and learning with technology: An overview of relevant research literature

Teacher educators play an important role in preparing student teachers to integrate technology into their classrooms. This article presents an overview of research literature on teacher educators' competences in preparing their students to teach with technology. A literature search yielded 26 relevant research articles. Four domains of competence were identified: technology competences, competences for pedagogical and educational technology use, beliefs about teaching and learning and competences in professional learning. The literature focuses on teacher educators’ competences in using technology for teaching. Research on the competences that teacher educators need and have as second-order teachers is lacking. Recommendations for future research are discussed.     

Investigating Finnish teacher educators’ views on research‐based teacher education

In this article, we examine teacher educators’ views on research‐based teacher education. Finnish research‐based teacher education has four characteristics: (1) the study programme is structured according to a systematic analysis of education; (2) all teaching is based on research; (3) activities are organized in such a way that students can practice argumentation, decision‐making and justification when inquiring about and solving pedagogical problems; and (4) the students learn formal research skills during their studies. According to the results, teacher educators appreciate the research‐based approach to which the university is committed, although they were sceptical about how well this vision transfers to the students.     

An analysis of the processes of change in two science teachers educators' thinking

This study examined the processes of change in thinking as a means of learning about the professional development of two science teacher educators. A qualitative methodology was used. The main research tool was a semistructured in‐depth interview. The primary data analyzed came from two science teacher educators, selected from a broader set of seven. Findings emphasize the importance of questions regarding the knowledge possessed by teacher educators and of the questions regarding the role of science teacher educators. That is, the knowledge of an expert science teacher educator was more than a list of givens; it was personal and context‐bound. This study contributes new insight into the processes of teacher educators' professional development and change in their thinking. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 44: 1219–1245, 2007     

Training early childhood teachers for sustainability: towards a ‘learning experience of a different kind’

In this study, we discuss findings from a small-scale project evaluating an in-service teacher training programme focused on ‘perspective transformation’ in early childhood education and education for sustainability (EfS). A bespoke professional development programme was developed for Turkish early childhood teachers, based on a variety of Mezirowian-inspired adult education activities. Data were gathered using a mixed method research design, from 24 early childhood educators, through learning diaries, a Learning Activities Survey and follow-up interviews. Initial findings illustrate the range of transformations possible in the teachers’ perspectives during and after the training workshops. Influential factors in facilitating perspective transformation are shown to be the content, structure and sequencing of the training, and peer support. We conclude that transformative learning techniques offer a viable framework for engaging practicing early childhood teachers with EfS and also discuss implications for teacher preparation in both areas.