Redefining what it means to be a teacher through professional standards: implications for continuing teacher education

This article connects with an international debate around the place of professional standards in educational policy targeted at enhancing teacher quality, with associated implications for continuing teacher education. Scotland provides a fertile context for discussion, having developed sets of professional standards in response to a recent national review of career-long teacher education. That review called for a reprofessionalisation of the teaching profession and the revision of the standards was an element of this process. Scotland is utilised as a lens through which one country’s response to international trends is viewed, with a focus on ‘teacher leadership’ and ‘practitioner enquiry’ as policy endorsed sets of practices. The analysis demonstrates the complex and contested nature of these terms and the tensions posed between the need to meet professional standards as part of teacher education and aspirational dimensions of the current policy project of reprofessionalisation. The article concludes by considering the implications for continuing teacher education.     

A study of in-service teacher educator roles,with implications for a curriculum for their professional development

In-service educators have a crucial role to play in meeting the professional learning needs of teachers of the future, according to the Council of Europe’s ‘ET 2020’, although it is less clear what that role entails. This empirical study, undertaken in a university school of English language in Turkey, explores the everyday experience of a team of wholly school-based in-service educators and develops a model of their role based on an analysis of questionnaire, interview and focus group data. The results attest to the complexities of the in-service educator’s role, revealing them to be more than simply effective teachers. Catering for affective needs, coaching a broad range of clients, interpreting contextual variables and providing appropriate feedback represent some of the challenges in-service educators are facing in the research context, which set them apart and suggest important lessons for the development of an in-service educator training curriculum.     

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.     

Dancing in the ditches: reflecting on the capacity of a university/school partnership to clarify the role of a teacher educator

This paper used the data collected from reflective diaries, semi-structured interviews and surveys to identify and examine common themes identified in the roles required and/or perceived for teacher educators by both teachers and teacher educators. Collaboration, discussion and critique enabled personal reflection as teacher educators worked as partners to schools in a state-sponsored teaching and learning skills project. We have termed the collaboration in such an interactive project as one of ‘dancing in the ditches’, often requiring both groups to get out of their comfortable spaces and engage with each other in constantly moving situations. The teacher educators were required to be change agents at the interface of theory and practice and their experiences reflected individual journeys, but their reflections have ongoing implications for clarifying and professionalising the role of teacher educators.     

Biography,Identity, and Inquiry: The making of teacher,teacher educator,and researcher

This is a self-study of my professional and cultural biography and identity, a history which directed me first toward the work of urban teaching and then into teacher education and research into comparative educational issues of racial and national identity. I use this inquiry to demonstrate how biography and identity influences the lived experience of teaching and the researcher's stance. I also examine areas where preservice urban teacher education programs must improve. My personal recommendations describe experiences that would have better prepared me for urban teaching. Suggestions include expanding coursework in the historical, political, and sociocultural influences on urban education and in designing culturally responsive curricula. I also recommend restructuring field experiences to offer richer classroom-based learning opportunities for preservice teachers and extending fieldwork into urban communities. Finally, I suggest ongoing inservice teacher education in learning-community models that respond to educators' context-specific teaching concerns.     

The teacher I wish to be: exploring the influence of life histories on student teacher idealised identities

This paper examines the influence of life histories and apprenticeship of observation on the formation of student teachers’ idealised identities. The life histories of 15 student teachers are decoded. Through eliciting from the student teachers the teacher they wish to be, the paper focuses on the interplay between the personal histories and ideal teacher identities for the future. The implications of the findings for initial teacher education are considered.     

职业学校教师专业学习团队——一种基于校本课程开发的教师专业发展途径

教育质量是职业学校发展的生命线,提高职业学校教育质量的关键在于教师专业的发展,而校本课程开发是教师专业发展的有效途径。本文提出职业学校要依托校本课程开发这一平台,以建构教师专业学习团队为途径,通过促进教师专业发展来提高职业学校的教学质量。     

Action research in initial teacher education: an explorative study

The aim of the study was to describe students’ and teacher educators’ practical experience with action research and to identify a number of special points for consideration (opportunities and limitations) which could play a role in putting research into practice in concrete terms in the courses. Students and teacher educators on three Dutch initial teacher education programmes which treat action research as both a means of professional development and a necessary professional qualification were involved. These were programmes for specific teaching levels and subjects in Dutch schools. Four special points for consideration are identified: action research and the educational core qualifications of the profession; difference between action research by student teachers during their initial education and experienced teachers in their own workplace; students’ mixed experiences and perceptions of research; and embedded research‐based activities in the programme. The authors conclude that action research should be considered from different perspectives: as a professional approach, a body of skills that is needed to make the connection between knowing that and knowing why; and as a way of improving practice by systematically building up practice‐based knowledge.     

Teacher Educator Identity Development of the Nontraditional Teacher Educator

The development of a professional teacher educator identity has implications for how one negotiates the duties of a teacher, scholar, and learner. The research on teacher educator identity in the USA has been largely conducted on traditional teacher educators, or those who have started their careers as public school teachers and then went on to the collegiate level as teacher educators. This auto-ethnography considers the professional identity formation of a nontraditional teacher educator, one whose professional career did not include a career as a public school teacher. Although there are common influences on professional development between the traditional and nontraditional teacher educator, such as biography, institutional contexts, and personal pedagogy, there are significant differences in the process as those influences are experienced. This research proposes an extended process for nontraditional teacher educators, including the search for legitimacy and belonging in the community of educators.     

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.     

Supporting the professional development of teacher educators in a productive way

This study reports on what 13 teacher educators going through a procedure to become registered as a teacher educator in 2011–2012 learned, what goals they formulated for their further professional development and what activities they planned to achieve these goals. The methods used in this study are mainly the same as were used at the time the first cohort went through the registration procedure in 2002. The 2012 cohort participated in a supportive programme, whereas the 2002 cohort did not. This enables a comparison of the results of both studies and thus some insight into the possible benefits of integrating a registration procedure with a supportive programme for the professional development of teacher educators.     

Reimagining the role of mentor teachers in professional experience: moving to I as fellow teacher educator

New accreditation requirements for Australian initial teacher education programs require that universities and schools establish quality partnerships to ensure strong links between pre-service teachers’ university-based learning and school-based professional learning experiences. This paper focuses on the shifts of identity, thinking and practice that occurred for five school-based mentor teachers as they co-created new professional experience practices alongside university-based teacher educators in a Teaching Academies of Professional Practice (TAPP) project. Interview data was analysed through the theoretical framework of Dialogical Self Theory to examine how the repositioning of mentor teachers as fellow teacher educators allowed for expansion in the understanding and enactment of their role. The findings of this study suggest that partnerships between schools and universities can enhance learning opportunities for all participants when commitments are made to creating collaborative and dialogical spaces to support new approaches to teacher education.     

Consequences of personal teaching metaphors for teacher identity and practice

Past research has clearly indicated that teachers’ metaphors can serve as a framework that moves our understanding of teaching forward by making more explicit the intuitive knowledge teachers hold about themselves, their classrooms, and their practice. Making explicit how metaphors uncover the understandings that guide the practices of in-service teachers, individually and collectively, can provide insight into the assumptions they hold about teaching and teaching practice. The purpose of this study was to explore how in-service teachers’ self-constructed metaphors revealed their perceptions of their roles, obligations, and assumptions about teaching and learning, and consider the implications of such exploration for teacher education and development. The four experienced teachers who participated in this study constructed personal teaching metaphors for which they provided an explanation. Analysis of the metaphors using positioning theory provided evidence that teaching metaphors capture the individual identity and specify the plotlines of teaching and the obligations, duties, and responsibilities of the teacher as well as the role of the teacher and others in the teacher’s practice. We found that each metaphor brought elements of identity and teaching practice together in unique and divergent ways. A subsequent cross-case analysis revealed common discourses of teaching: responsibility, nurturing, and caring, and teacher and student learning. Both the individual and cross-case analysis suggest the potential value of metaphor work for informing teacher education and professional development to advise teachers, teacher educators, school leaders, and policy makers.     

A scientific approach in the assessment of the school-based part of the teacher education programme in Sweden

This article aims to highlight how a scientific and critical approach is used in assessment dialogues during the last period of a practical, school-based teacher education programme. The result is based on 13 assessment dialogues conducted in a course at a Swedish university, where one of the course objectives is to, ‘in a scientific way, analyse teaching situations based on learning theories’. The assessment dialogues were analysed drawing from Bernstein’s concepts of ‘classification’, ‘framing’, ‘horizontal knowledge’ and ‘vertical knowledge’. The result shows that only in a minority of the assessment dialogues are students expected to use theory as an analytical tool and to critically examine their teaching practice. The theory is used in a more instrumental way to legitimize what is considered the ‘right way’ to teach. One conclusion is that the critical tradition of academia is seldom observed despite being clearly stated in the learning goals. The link between general academic knowledge and more school-based contextual knowledge is often missing or not made visible by the students or the teacher educators, and normative content is still clearly prominent.     

The resourceful facilitator: teacher leaders constructing identities as facilitators of teacher peer groups

The use of teacher peer groups is a prevalent strategy for school-based professional development and instructional improvement. Facilitation of such groups is an increasingly vital dimension of teacher leadership as a component of school improvement efforts. Drawing on a qualitative study of facilitation of teacher peer groups, the article investigates how teacher leaders integrate experiences from different domains of life in constructing a unique facilitator identity. Focusing on portraits of three teacher leaders, it demonstrates how teachers relate experiences outside of teaching, including academic experiences, other professional experiences, and social experiences, to the skills and orientation necessary for effective facilitation. The article argues for attention to reflexive practices of identity formation in the preparation of teacher leaders as facilitators and in the ongoing development of teacher leaders who already function as facilitators.     

An evaluation of an alternative placement experience for students undertaking primary initial teacher training

This study is an analysis of the impact on students of their experience of an alternative placement. The placement was run with Year 2 students on a three-year undergraduate initial teacher education degree programme (primary, 3–11) in England. The placement enabled students to have a practical teaching experience in any setting outside the age phase they were training to teach. The analysis is based on a cohort evaluation of the placement (170 students). Data were collected in two ways: through students’ written reflections and their identification of the standards required for Qualified Teacher Status that they experienced. This approach was selected owing to the strong expectations by the UK Government to meet set criteria to qualify as a teacher. There is one direct reference in the standards to learning outside the classroom, but it was found that the students considered they had benefited from the alternative placement by offering opportunities for their professional and personal development in many more areas. The research study found that these areas included learning from other experts, working with colleagues, gaining confidence to teach, experiencing other cultural settings, working with children in informal settings, the importance of personalising learning and, in some cases, experiencing second language teaching.     

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.     

中国教师教育的过去、现在和未来——顾明远教授访谈

我国教师教育正处于转型时期。传统的师范教育体制已经逐步瓦解,新的教师教育体制尚未最终形成。北京师范大学顾明远教授是中国教育学会名誉会长、我国教师教育专家委员会主任和中国比较教育的奠基人。他参与中国教师教育的实践和研究60多年,亲历了我国教师教育的改革与发展。在本访谈中,顾明远教授叙述了他对我国教师教育发展的历史、现状和未来趋势的认识。     

The professional developmental needs of higher education-based teacher educators: an international comparative needs analysis

A universal lack of attention to the professional learning needs of teacher educators is the driver for this study, which considers the most effective ways to support the professional learning of higher education-based teacher educators. At a time when many industrialised countries are engaged in systemic educational reform, this study provides an international and comparative needs analysis through a survey of 1158 higher education-based teacher educators in the countries participating in the International Forum for Teacher Educator Development: Belgium, Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK. Our results suggest that while teacher educators are only moderately satisfied with their professional development experiences, a strong desire exists for further professional learning. This desire, influenced by their professional context, relates to their current beliefs concerning ‘best practice’ in teacher education, the academic skills required to further their professional careers and knowledge of the curriculum associated with their fields of expertise.