How learning conditions and Program structure predict burnout and satisfaction in teacher education

To support prospective teachers’ professional development, teacher education should be characterised by conditions that help to prevent burnout and facilitate satisfaction. This study investigates predictors of burnout and satisfaction in teacher education by drawing on universities with different teacher education programme structures and assumed different learning conditions. Programme structure and student characteristics were conceived as antecedents of perceived learning conditions; burnout dimensions and student satisfaction were hypothesised to be consequences of both the distal and more proximal variables. Data were collected at four time points from N = 3,892 students enrolled in teacher education at 13 universities. Structural equation modelling revealed favourable effects of autonomy support, competence support, and social relatedness on the core burnout dimensions and satisfaction. Effects of programme structure on these outcomes were small and mediated by autonomy support and difficulty of demands. Study self-efficacy emerged as a broad personal resource. Implications for teacher education are discussed.     

Reciprocal learning in teacher education between Canada and China

ABSTRACT

The Preservice Teacher Education Reciprocal Learning Programme has been developed on a vision of bridging the East and West dichotomy by harmonising Eastern learning with Western knowledge. This programme is one of the two foundations for Xu and Connelly’s 7-year Canada-China Reciprocal Learning Partnership in teacher education and school education in 2013-2020. The Programme, ‘provide[s] an exceptional cross-cultural experience with international engagement … to broaden teacher candidates’ horizons for a society of increasing diversity in today’s globalized world’. This article’s purposes are to discuss how reciprocal learning is both a concept and an approach for international and cross-cultural teacher education and school education and to present the learning outcomes and educational significance of the East-West reciprocal learning programme in teacher education. The Programme has created opportunities for both pre-service and in-service teachers to understand and appreciate a culture and educational system different from their own, thereby reciprocally contributing to educational opportunities for those they teach. The research theory and method utilised in this work are found in a companion paper in this special series and are briefly discussed below in the project overview and later in a discussion of student outcomes. This work has implications for other school settings where increasing immigrant student population and cultural diversity have become the norm.     

Evaluation of reflective practice in teacher education

Teacher education based on ‘reflective practice’ consists of observing, analysing and reflecting on teacher performance in order to improve professional practice. This article presents the results of an evaluation of a programme on mathematics teaching carried out using reflective practice. It was targeted at 284 teachers in various stages of the education system, using an approach that combines quantitative (surveys) and qualitative (interviews and reports) methods. While the study shows that the education programme generates high levels of satisfaction, pedagogical appropriateness and learning, its achievements in effectiveness are moderate. Although, in general, what is learned through teacher education is implemented in the classroom, it is done so in an isolated fashion, in other words, individually and without becoming a part of the culture of the school. The results show little evidence of its impact on student learning. The article offers proposals for improving the education programme, while, at the same time, analysing the usefulness of the approach and evaluation tools employed.     

Finding out more about teacher candidates' prior knowledge: implications for teacher educators

While it is recognised that prior knowledge is a key factor in determining future learning, its influence on learning to teach is less well known. This study investigates two cohorts of teacher candidates studying for a one-year, graduate qualification for primary teaching, who completed two tasks at entry to their initial teacher education programme: a task in writing and a task in mathematics. The tasks focused on teacher candidates' ability to recognise the key features of a piece of student work. The teacher candidates' responses to the tasks highlighted the diverse nature of the prior knowledge that underpinned their responses. The study raises questions about the pedagogy of initial teacher education, particularly in relation to the assumptions teachers educators make about the candidates they teach. The findings suggest that the prior knowledge that students bring to initial teacher education is both a resource and a challenge for teacher educators.     

Motivation and degree completion in a university-based teacher education programme

This study investigated which factors determine degree completion in a Dutch university-based teacher education programme. We assumed that both student characteristics and characteristics of the learning environment affected degree completion. We included the following factors in our study: motivation for becoming a teacher, teaching self-efficacy, professional commitment, perceptions of time management and perceptions of quality of instruction in the teacher education programme. Data were collected from 135 preservice teachers using a digital questionnaire. The student administration of the teacher education department provided data on degree completion. Analyses showed that teaching ability was the most important motive for becoming a teacher; it was also found to be a negative predictor of degree completion. We found that social utility values, professional commitment, perceptions of quality of instruction and time management contributed to the prediction of degree completion. The findings and implications for teacher education and policy are discussed.     

Deliberate practice in teacher education

Deliberate practice is increasingly recognised as necessary for professional development. This paper sets out to explore in what ways student teachers’ learning activities in a teacher education programme can be characterised as deliberate practice. Based on an in-depth exploration of 574 learning activities, our results highlight the different ways in which activities in teacher education programmes can be designed, the different motivations students have to engage in them repetitively, and different ways in which feedback can be organised, within contextual constraints posed by all professional environments. Results also indicate that self-improvement is not the only motivation for engaging in deliberate practice for student teachers, as pupil improvement is also considered important. These results support a context-specific operationalisation of deliberate practice and provide starting points for teacher education programmes to promote deliberate practice in their curriculum.     

Preservice teacher perceptions of preparedness for teaching: Insights from survey research exploring the links between teacher professional standards and agency

In this article we explore the use of teacher professional standards in an initial teacher education programme and preservice teacher perceptions of their preparedness for teaching using a survey of 54 first- and second-year preservice teachers in a graduate-entry programme. The survey asked the preservice teachers to respond to 16 questions based on professional standards as well as their knowledge of student learning, professional identity and teaching as a career path. The preservice teachers’ responses were analysed using a mixed methods approach that relied on quantitative methods, but was supplemented by qualitative analysis of short-answer responses. Our analyses hypothesised about possible links between the preservice teachers’ responses and the extent to which they perceived they were classroom and career ready. The themes of teachers, teaching and student learning are used to present and discuss the results, while the notion of agency as achievement is used to deepen possible understanding about their meaning and implications. We conclude that the preservice teachers appeared to benefit from learning about professional standards throughout their programme but appeared to lack confidence in: engaging professionally with others such as parents/carers; setting objectives for all students with different backgrounds; and implementing lesson sequences that engage students and promote learning. Most doubted teaching as their future career. Finally, we discuss implications for: adopting standards-integrated initial teacher education programme approaches; preservice and early-career teacher professional learning needs; and future research opportunities, which include using innovative methodologies and conceptual frameworks.     

Reforming teacher education in the context of lifelong learning: the case of the BEd degree programme in Ireland

Lifelong learning has become a prominent fixture in educational policy in recent years in many countries around the world. In terms of teacher education, it is now widely accepted that initial teacher education is insufficient for the lifelong professional needs of teachers. From September 2012, initial teacher education in Ireland will be offered as a radically different four-year BEd degree programme. This reform of initial teacher education offers immense potential for teacher educators to re-imagine their programmes in light of a range of guiding paradigms and theoretical frameworks, including lifelong learning. This paper provides a rationale for developing programmes in initial teacher education in the context of lifelong learning. A number of recommendations for lifelong primary teacher education are offered in light of current reforms that are taking place in Ireland.     

(Re)turning to practice in teacher education: embodied knowledge in learning to teach

Contemporary research conversations about the utility of practice theories to professional education support the reconceptualisation of pre-service teacher education in ways that provide strong preparation for continued professional learning. This paper reports on an empirical inquiry that introduced a theoretically informed practice-based intervention in a pre-service teacher education course in order to judge the utility of such an approach for student learning. Innovations within the Study of Teaching programme illustrate the bringing together of pedagogies of observation, pedagogies of enactment, and pedagogies of reflection toward an integrated theory of teacher education that focuses on the teaching body as a central site for research and for the building of preparatory knowledge and skill for ongoing learning. Data was collected from pre-service teachers involved in the programme through video and audio recordings along with individual and focus group interviews, questionnaires and student reflection on video recordings. These were analyzed within an emerging theoretical framework derived from both practice-theoretical literature and international empirical research into core practices. Initial findings suggest that a focus on practice within pre-service teacher education may enhance traditional understandings of ‘practice-based’ approaches that situate the study of practice outside of the university, in school settings. These findings have implications for the ongoing reform of teacher education in increasingly regulated contexts framed in terms of teacher quality.     

Helping students become better learners: a case study in teacher education

The aim of this project is to increase teacher education students' understanding of the learning process by focussing on their own learning experiences. 67 preservice teacher education students in 4 classes completed measures of academic locus of control and study processes before and after a semester course in a specially designed programme in Educational Psychology. The programme focuses on students taking greater responsibility for their own learning by exposing them to a variety of learning experiences. These experiences include negotiation of the curriculum, peer discussion and teaching, learning contracts, self, peer and collaborative assessment and critical reflection on these and other learning experiences by means of an ongoing learning log.Results indicate an increase in academic locus of control for one class, and an increase in deep motive, achieving strategy, deep approach and deep achieving approach to learning for the whole group. These outcomes are discussed in terms of the congruence between these changes and the particular learning experiences to which the students were exposed.     

Quality assessment and quality assurance in distance teacher education

Governments around the world have increasingly used distance education (DE), both preservice and inservice, to overcome conventional, campus‐based programme constraints in funding, access and student places. DE programmes have shown that they can expand assess to teacher education, but still need to demonstrate that they can produce teachers of the quality needed for today's schools. Quality assessment systems have been developed, using either examinations or impact studies, to demonstrate programme effect on graduate outcomes related to good teaching. Quality assurance systems have been designed, based on the concept of the ‘learning organisation’, to assure continuous improvement in programme conditions related to the desired outcomes. Quality assessment and assurance systems are reviewed and some examples of quality DE programmes presented.     

Re-mediating knowledge infrastructures: a site for innovation in teacher education

ABSTRACT

The article outlines a framework for studying and organizing infrastructure, social and material to advance consequential knowledge. To demonstrate the utility of the framework, three examples of innovation in teacher education are presented that involve re-mediating infrastructure to imagine equity-oriented teacher learning. The first case focuses on re-mediating social resources to create new pathways for knowledge and expertise to flow between a school and a university teacher education programme. The second case considers how re-mediating social and material resources, specifically who is involved in designing the goals of a teacher education programme, expanded conceptions of the valued outcomes of teacher preparation. The third case addresses the impact of an innovation that re-mediated technical and social resources to support teachers’ professional judgment in classroom interactions. As teacher educators, we need to be open to shifting our purposes and our designs in response to changing institutional, political, and practical circumstances. This framework for organizing and re-mediating infrastructure provides a means of doing this work in principled and responsible ways.     

Beginning teachers as enquirers: m-level work in initial teacher education

In order to deliver life-long learning for teachers, practitioner-based enquiry learning is being promoted by teacher education institutions on the basis that this form of learning gives teachers the ability to understand factors affecting learning within their own classrooms by systematic investigations of issues and the construction of an evidence-base on which decisions which improve learning can be taken. In turn this enhances teacher professionalism. This article presents a study of how practitioner-based enquiry was embedded in an initial teacher education programme; the reasons for this; and the purposes of the strategy, which raised the one-year postgraduate qualification to masters-level. It looks at the reasons for the change; the nature of the change, which included educating teachers intending to teach in primary schools together with those intending to teach in secondary; the introduction of practitioner-based enquiry; some early student reaction; and the structural, cultural and learning issues which have emerged.     

Social justice and school linkages in teacher education programmes

This paper investigates current research into the role of education in combating social injustice, assembles this research to indicate key features of a teacher education programme that would assist education for social justice, and links these features to one innovative university teacher education programme to ascertain some of the practical difficulties in establishing such a programme. The research indicated key approaches that would enhance the probability that graduates from teacher education programmes will be able to pursue social justice initiatives.     

Modelling by teacher educators

A desirable professional competency of teacher educators is the ability to explicitly model for their students, the thoughts and actions that underpin one's pedagogical approach. However desirable, the articulation of knowledge of practice is a difficult and complex task that demands considerable awareness of oneself, pedagogy and students. This article explores the nature and development of explicit modelling by two teacher educators in the context of a preservice education programme in an Australian University. The article illustrates how through their collaborative self-study, the teacher educator/authors have begun to conceptualise a pedagogy of teacher education that is based on learning from the experience of ‘being explicit’.     

An Electronic Lifeline: Information and communication technologies in a teacher education internship

Practicum experiences in preservice teacher education are often characterised by disconnection. Preservice teachers are typically disconnected from university faculty and from their peers. Traditionally, university-based supervisors work to bridge the school and university contexts of preservice teacher education and facilitate learning to teach by visiting preservice teachers in their schools. This situation places high importance on the value of face-to-face interaction. The research reported in this paper explores the possibilities of utilising information and communication technologies (ICT) in the practicum component of preservice teacher education. It investigated the use of electronic discussion groups by preservice teachers and university lecturers while the preservice teachers were completing an internship towards the end of their teacher preparation programme. The paper discusses the benefits and challenges as reported by the participants in interviews, draws on the actual text of the electronic communication, analyses the findings, and draws implications for all participants in the preservice teacher education practicum. The study highlights the potential of ICT in providing new learning spaces that enable personal and professional networking and support, and points to reconceptualised notions of university supervision focussing on facilitating learning to teach and promoting reflective practice within the context of a professional learning community rather than as 'check-up' trips to schools.     

Effects of school organizational conditions on teacher professional learning in China: The mediating role of teacher self-efficacy

Current education reforms have increasingly advocated schools to create facilitative organizational conditions to promote teacher learning. However, limited research has examined the effects of different aspects of school organizational conditions on teacher professional learning in China. Using a sample of 339 primary and secondary school teachers in Shanghai, this study examined the effects of three aspects of school organizational conditions (i.e., learning-centered leadership, learning opportunities, and cultural barriers) on teacher professional learning in China, with a particular focus on the mediating role of teacher self-efficacy as an important psychological condition. The results showed that two aspects of school organizational conditions (i.e., learning-centered leadership and learning opportunities) had significant and positive effects on teacher learning. Teacher self-efficacy significantly mediated the effects of both learning-centered leadership and cultural barriers on teacher professional learning. Practical implications are also discussed.     

Policies for teacher education in developing countries

This chapter discusses the context of the 1990 s in which teacher education policy has been formulated. The focus is on three of the areas that are pushing for change: a conceptual shift from teaching to learning, a focus on effective school results, and the implementation in many countries of systemic education reforms. Though reference is made to conditions and constraints affecting teacher education in developing countries, the discussion emphasizes policy in the Latin American region. Consideration is given to conditions for implementation and sustainability of what appears on paper as interesting policy orientations. The importance of networking and interchange is seen as an important factor for broadening policy formulation and learning from experiences in teacher education reform.