Building Bridges: A Cross-Disciplinary Peer-Coaching Self-Study

ABSTRACT

Cross-disciplinary self-studies and peer coaching have separately been shown to offer teacher educators meaningful professional development opportunities. However, the teacher educator literature has said little about combining cross-disciplinary self-studies with peer coaching. In this article, the authors report a two-year cross-disciplinary peer-coaching self-study by experienced teacher educators, one from English Language Arts and one from Mathematics Education. The purpose of the self-study was to examine the connections that bridge the two disciplines and the differences between disciplines that offer new perspectives. Results revealed important process connections involving standards for practice and academic vocabulary. The self-study also illuminated meaningful new perspectives about what questions are asked during whole-class discussion and how data is generated during student collaboration. This study demonstrates the benefits of combining cross-disciplinary teacher educator collaboration with peer coaching and has implications for individual teacher educators and teacher education programs.     

Teacher educators’ professional journeys: pedagogical and systemic issues affecting role perceptions

ABSTRACT

Teacher educators in many countries share similar concerns as they aspire to improve education for learners and stimulate interest in further study and careers. The roles and professional development of school teachers have been researched, but little attention has been given to teacher educators. Using a small-scale, illuminative study in England and South Africa, this paper examines pedagogical implications of progression from classroom teacher to teacher educator-tutor. Systemic issues include attitudes to personal scholarship in moving to high stakes academic environments requiring research. In both countries, there were issues of student teachers’ subject knowledge and their capacity to translate knowledge for learners. South African teacher educators were concerned about student teachers’ lack of appreciation of the integrity of conceptual understanding and sequencing of topic content. Implications for the professional development of teacher educators and their role identities are considered.     

The Impact of a Pedagogy of Teacher Education Seminar on Educator and Future Teacher Educator Identities

Educators require support as they move from classroom to higher education settings. This collaborative self-study provides insight into one such support space, a doctoral seminar titled Pedagogy of Teacher Education, and how our identities as educators and future teacher educators developed through participation in the course. Several important themes emerged as we negotiated and adopted new identities as educators, and future teacher educators and researchers. These themes include our development of a collaborative mindset, a teacher educator-researcher perspective, and a critical self-awareness. The findings draw on our professional and personal histories to explore the prominent features that influenced and shaped our identities as educators and future teacher educator-researchers. In sharing our development as educators and future teacher educators, this article provides insights into the ways in which doctoral students in education begin to develop their identities and pedagogies through guided support from more experienced teacher educators.     

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.     

The challenges of universal primary education in Uganda through distance education programmes

Abstract

This article reports on teacher education in Uganda, with specific reference to the role that distance education has played in upgrading the quality of education in general and in supplying more qualified teachers to meet a growing demand, specifically for teachers involved in primary education. The investigation paves the way for the establishment of the Open University of Uganda and illustrates how the Primary Education Policy of Uganda has increased access to 7 million primary school learners to schools in 2002. The article also explains how the qualifications of 10 000 in-service teachers have been upgraded between 1995 and 2000. The successes of two major in-service teacher education programmes are discussed. The article also explains how the Mubende Integrated Teacher Education Project (MITEP) not only contributed to the training of teachers, but also focused the attention of educators on the possibiliities of distance education for Uganda. Furthermore, it also argues that the Northern Integrated Teacher Education Project (NITEP) has on the other hand achieved successes in the field of inservice teacher education. The programmes assisted in the training of academic support staff who work in distance education. The article concludes by addressing the further needs of distance education in Uganda and highlights the challenges facing distance education programmes in Uganda.     

ARTICLES

Since publication of the 1986 Carnegie Commission report, A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century, the professional teaching standards movement has gained noticeable momentum. The professional standards movement in teaching has been fueled by national organizations such as the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, the Interstate New Teachers Assessment and Support Consortium, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, and by close collaboration among these four entities. Further, nearly all of the fifty states are embracing the professional standards movement through formal participation in the work of one or more of these organizations. Although the professional standards movement in teaching is strong and growing stronger, its implications are not clear for instructional programs in social foundations of education, either at the teacher preparation or the advanced graduate levels. In response to the standards movement, social foundations educators have a number of options before them, three of which are to (1) largely ignore these developments, as "this too shall pass"; (2) critically interpret and resist these developments through scholarship and collective professional action, as social foundations scholars did with Competency Based Teacher Education in the 1970s; and (3) critically interpret these developments while working to strengthen the potential of the professional teaching standards movement to achieve its stated goal of providing caring and qualified teachers for every classroom in the nation. Of these three options, the last is most advisable, but it presents a considerable challenge to social foundations educators. Although the absence of social foundations skills, perspectives, and understanding should make it very difficult for teacher candidates and teachers to perform well on standards-based teaching assessments, there is no guarantee that these assessments will hold candidates accountable for social foundations learning. Implications for social foundations educators and activists are significant.     

关于高质量教师教育的阐释——评《有效教师教育》

高质量教师教育要有积极的教学观和教师观作指导,要构建教学的知识基础作为其理论依据,在实施过程中通过课程与实习交织进行并采用有效的实习策略来突出理论与实践的结合,要采用以新学问观为基础的教授评价和奖励制度来激励教师教育者,同时还需要专业政策与政府政策的支持。这就是《有效教师教育》一书带给我们的启发。     

Curriculum Mapping in Higher Education: A Vehicle for Collaboration

This qualitative study makes the case for the implementation of curriculum mapping, a procedure that creates a visual representation of curriculum based on real time information, as a way to increase collaboration and collegiality in higher education. Through the use of curriculum mapping, eleven faculty members in a western state university Teacher Licensure program aligned and revised the teacher education curriculum across a sequence of courses. An increase in collaboration and collegiality among faculty emerged as an unintended outcome as a result of participation in the project. Kay Pippin Uchiyama  is currently the Assessment Coordinator for the Poudre School District in Fort Collins, Colorado. During this study, she was an Assistant Professor of Teacher Education at Colorado State University and a co-primary investigator for the Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Data grant. She received her Ph.D. in Instruction and Curriculum in the Content Areas with an emphasis on Teacher Education and Learning to Teach from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her interests include data driven instruction, assessment for learning, teacher education, professional development schools, and mathematics education. Her email is kuchiyam@psdschools.org. Jean L. Radin  is an adjunct professor at Colorado State University and a co-primary investigator for the Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Data grant. She received her Ph.D. from Colorado State University. Her interests are brain-based teaching and learning, data driven instructional practices, teacher education and professional development schools. Her email is jradin@cahs.colorado.edu.     

Standards in examinations: a matter of trust?

This paper is addressed to the international community of educators and educational policy makers who, it is argued, need to commit to joint research and creative action in respect of the challenge of Education for All (EFA). The first section, A Global Challenge for Teacher Development, sets out: the implications for teacher education of the Education For All agenda; the potential of new information and communication technologies (ICT) in addressing this problem; an overview of an applied research project exploring new models of teacher education using ICT in rural and resource challenged environments. In the second section Towards New Models of Professional Development, four categories of teacher professional knowledge from this model are used to interpret and explore the findings of the project and its impact on teacher knowledge and development. The paper concludes that ICT can no longer be viewed as some sort of optional pedagogic strategy available in ever increasing sophistication, as well as quantity, to only a small proportion of the world's teachers. They need to be seen as an essential aspect of teaching's cultural toolkit in the 21st century, affording new and transformative models of development that extend the nature and reach of teacher learning wherever it takes place. Such models must be experienced, shared and evaluated by educators world wide if the global commitment to achievement of the EFA targets is to become a reality.     

教师教育者:内涵、身份认同及其角色研究

教师教育者是指教师的教师,既包括基础教育阶段中的教师教育者,也包括中等师范层面和高等教师教育机构中的教师教育者。教师教育者模糊的身份认同是教师教育者专业发展的重要阻力之一。教师教育者是教师教育知识的生产者、教师专业发展的引领者以及教师教育文化的推动者。教师教育者角色的探究是增强教师教育者身份认同的重要途径,也是教师教育者从事教师教育工作的逻辑前提。     

Teacher Education Policy in South Africa: The voice of teacher educators

Teacher educators in a post-apartheid South Africa are being asked to re-conceptualise and re-design their pre-service teacher education programmes to respond to new national policies on teacher education. A sample of teacher educators from various teacher education institutions was interviewed about their understanding, support for and implementation of the new policy and the problems they have faced in making it a reality. This article comments on the potential tension between reform through legislation and reform through personal and institutional vision-building.     

观察与反思:20世纪下半叶美国教师教育改革

20世纪下半叶的美国教师教育改革蕴涵着各界对教师与教育内部理论与实践问题的复杂争论与融合,这种争论与融合推动了美国乃至世界教师教育专业一体化的发展。中国当前的教师教育改革应当从教师培养和认证的多元化、一体化以及教师教育学科建设方面进行思考和寻求发展。     

本科院校教师教育课程改革实践的现实与展望

我国高校的教师教育课程归纳为通识教育课程、学科专业课程和教育科学课程.各层面的教师教育院校在课程教学设计的理念上是有差异的.教师教育课程改革所取得的经验体现在优化思想政治理论课程、改善课程结构、实施多样化的课程模式等方面.教师教育课程管理仍存在学科本位、教育类课程地位相对较低、课程设置针对性滞后等问题.教师教育课程改革和走向将更加关注社会发展对教师教育变革的影响、教师专业化的时代要求和课程实施方式创新.     

论研究本位的教师教育理念与实践

教师研究是教师专业发展的重要途径。研究本位的教师教育模式成为当前世界教育变革的主题。研究本位的教师教育旨在培养实践反思型教师,而不是专业的研究者。本文阐释了研究本位的教师教育的内涵、范式及其改革实践。研究本位的教师教育主要包括目标定位、课程开发、教学方法以及大学与中小学合作伙伴的教师教育研究等四个方面的策略。     

Social justice teacher educators: what kind of knowing is needed?

ABSTRACT

What do teacher educators need to know and do in order to move from espousing to enacting social justice in their own teacher educating practice? This article addresses this question by examining scholarship that focuses on the preparation of preservice teachers for social justice. Using five knowledge domains for teaching (personal, contextual, pedagogical, sociological, social) as an analytic lens, the authors examined teacher education literature published between 2010 and 2016 in three international journals from Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. The study reveals that teacher educators in different contexts seem to highlight personal and contextual knowledge in their preparation of equity-minded preservice teachers and provides insight into how they conceptualise educational equity and social justice. The study illuminates what is likely in place in initial teacher education programmes, and what may be needed or missing if teacher educators are to prepare teachers for today’s diverse classrooms.

Abbreviation ITE: Initial Teacher Education ITE     

Integrating privacy studies into teacher education curricula

Abstract

Privacy studies may be seen by some teacher educators as being ‘anti-technology’ in their character, with the potential to dim the enthusiasm of future teachers for new technological initiatives. However, privacy is taking on new significance in an age of the Internet and advanced information technologies, as the examples and sources outlined in this article demonstrate. Privacy issues have a strong influence on various pressing international political and economic concerns, and thus add important dimensions to curricula. Some technological developments (such as encryption) also provide hands-on dimensions to privacy topics that are likely to whet the interests of many students. Teacher educators can work to introduce privacy notions to future teachers in ways that will enhance both their information technology studies and their understanding of other curricular areas (including citizenship, business, and social studies). As described in this article, privacy exercises, scenarios, and hands-on laboratory sessions were provided in several teacher education courses in the United States. What teacher educators do in relation to privacy studies will help determine the future character of discourse and the direction of technological development pertaining to privacy.     

Student teachers,special educational needs and inclusion education: reviewing the potential for problem‐based,e‐learning pedagogy to support practice

Northern Ireland has invested heavily in the use of technology enhanced learning at all levels of education. Alongside this, radical changes to the school curriculum and the planned move away from academic selection towards a more inclusive system are challenging those involved in Initial Teacher Education to find ways to improve teaching and learning for more inclusive classrooms. This study reviews a pilot programme that integrated problem‐based and blended e‐learning pedagogy to support student teachers learning in the area of special needs and inclusion education. Findings indicate that using a carefully constructed blended programme can effectively support key teaching and learning aspects of pre‐service training and help develop skills in critical reflection. It also offers initial teacher educators in Northern Ireland insight into some of the most pressing problems experienced by student teachers during training, and provides a rationale for continued programme development.     

Spatialised metaphors of practice: how teacher educators engage with professional standards for teachers

Pre-service teacher educators, both nationally and internationally, must negotiate a plethora of expectations including using Professional Standards to enhance teacher quality. In Australia, the recent Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG) report highlighted weak application of Standards in Initial Teacher Education (ITE). However, recent reports suggest that many education stakeholders feel positive about the implementation of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APSTs). This study responds to these differing viewpoints by exploring how teacher educators in a large metropolitan university in Australia account for the use of Standards in their work. Discourse analysis techniques in conjunction with socio-spatial theory make visible particular metaphors of practice as teacher educators negotiate the real-and-imagined spaces of regulated teacher education programmes. The findings highlight the importance of investigating the utility of Standards in the lived experiences of teacher educators, as they are responsible for preparing quality, classroom ready graduates.     

Becoming a teacher educator: evidence from the field

This article makes a contribution to understanding the challenges new teacher educators face in establishing their professional identities in Higher Education. The data collected for the study allowed the researchers to analyse the tensions and conflicts arising for 28 teacher educators in their first 3 years of working on Initial Teacher Education (ITE) courses in England. The findings of the study show that, despite having previous successful careers in school teaching, the majority of the interviewees took between 2 and 3 years to establish their new professional identities. They faced challenges in two key areas—developing a pedagogy for HE-based ITE work and becoming research active. Meeting both of these challenges required significant adaptations to their previous identities as schoolteachers.