Reforming further education teacher training: a policy communities and policy networks analysis

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s teacher preparation for the schools sector in the United Kingdom was subject to a series of reforms and innovations including the establishment of new institutional arrangements to oversee the sector, namely the Teacher Training Agency (TTA – now the Training and Development Agency, TDA). Since 2002 the arrangements for training teachers in the broadly defined learning and skills sector have also been subject to scrutiny and a wide‐ranging reform agenda has been put forward by the Government. This paper examines the key reforms using a three stage model to analyse the policy development process and discusses the functions and status of the sector skills council, Learning UK (LLUK), in order to examine its relationships with external stakeholders. Contrasts are made with the approach adopted by the TTA during the reform of teacher training for school. The paper concludes with a tentative assessment of the progress of the reform agenda and the identification of a number of salient issues that warrant further research.     

主体性教师：教师教育的反思与变革

确立主体性的教师教育观念,建立一体化的教师教育体制,创建主体性的教师教育过程,实行主体性的教育管理方式,是主体性教师素质的培养要求。本通过主体性教师的概念界说、教师教育的现实反思和改革构想,旨在探寻我国教师教育改革与发展的途径与方法。     

Dispositions as goals for teacher education

It is proposed that professional dispositions be added to professional knowledge and skills as goals for teacher education programs. Dispositions, which are defined as summaries of act frequencies or trends in behavior, are contrasted with habits, skills, attitudes, and traits. Professional dispositions are treated as “habits of mind” that give rise to the employment of skills and are ideally manifested by skillful behavior. Justifications for including dispositions in the goals of teacher education are also proposed.     

Language teacher education for intercultural understanding

Over recent decades language teaching and learning has undergone a redefinition of the subject and a rapid change in its methodology. Language programmes can now be delivered in technology‐based environments and communication at an international level can be a daily occurrence. This paper on the one hand analyses how these developments have extended and challenged the traditional roles and responsibilities of language teachers. On the other, it examines to what extent established models of language teacher education acknowledge and address the needs of language teachers today, in particular in relation to the integration of the intercultural dimension into language teaching and learning.

Au cours des récentes décennies l'enseignement–apprentissage des langues s'est vu redéfini et a connu une rapide évolution en matière de méthodologie. On peut aujourd'hui délivrer les cursus de langue par le moyen d'environnements technologiques, et il est devenu banal de communiquer internationalement de cette façon. Dans la présente étude nous cherchons d'une part à cerner les défis que présente cette évolution pour les rôles et responsabilités traditionnels des enseignants de langue. D'autre part nous demandons dans quelle mesure les modèles en vigueur en matière de formation des enseignants reconnaissent les nouveaux besoins de ceux‐ci, notamment en ce qui concerne l'intégration de la dimension interculturelle dans leur pratique.

Im Bereich Sprachenlehren und lernen haben sich in den letzten Jahrzehnten grundlegende Veränderungen ergeben, vor allem im Hinblick auf Methodologie. Sprachkurse können jetzt per Computer zu den Adressaten gebracht werden und Kommunikation über Grenzen hinweg wird potentiell zum alltäglichen Ereignis. Hier soll untersucht werden inwieweit diese Entwicklungen die traditionelle Rolle und den Verantwortungsbereich von Sprachenlehrer/innen erweitert und verändert haben. Darüberhinaus wird überprüft inwieweit die herkömmliche Ausbildung der Sprachenlehrer/innen den heutigen Anforderungen gerecht wird, vor allem im Hinblick auf die interkulturelle Dimension des Lehren und Lernens von Fremd‐ und Zweitsprachen.

En las últimas décadas la enseñanza y el aprendizaje de las lenguas ha pasado por una redefinición de su contenido y un rápido cambio en su metodología. Los programas de estudios se pueden realizar en entornos basados en las nuevas tecnologías y la comunicación a nivel internacional puede darse a diario. Este artículo de una parte analiza de qué manera estos cambios han ampliado y desafiado los papeles y las responsabilidades que los profesores de lenguas han tenido tradicionalmente. De otra parte, examina hasta qué punto los modelos que se han venido utilizando para la formación de profesores de idiomas reconocen y suplen sus necesidades en la actualidad, en particular en lo que se refiere a la integración de la dimensión intercultural en la enseñanza y el aprendizaje de las lenguas.     

A design framework for online teacher professional development communities

This paper provides a design framework for building online teacher professional development communities for preservice and inservice teachers. The framework is based on a comprehensive literature review on the latest technology and epistemology of online community and teacher professional development, comprising four major design factors and three contextual factors. The design factors include learning goals, communication tools, participant structures, and member responsibilities; the contextual factors are culture, politics, and economics. Finally, the role of universities and implications of the design framework for teacher professional development in the new culture of learning are discussed.     

The implications of UPE for teacher education

The huge and sudden increase in the demand for qualified teachers which UPE has occasioned is obliging many countries to develop alternatives to conventional initial training, notably distance programmes and the use of headteachers as trainers of their staff. Universal primary, but not secondary, education also implies changing the content of the training curriculum. All these innovations should not be viewed as threatening constraints but as opportunities for progress towards a policy of lifelong professional development. Features of such a policy would include a review of the respective contributions of initial, induction and inservice training, school-based and school-focussed alternatives to the course, a concern with the cost-effectiveness of different strategies, and the active involvement of teachers in their own training.

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Zusammenfassung In vielen Ländern hat der weltweite Ausbau des Primarschulwesens einen gewaltigen und plötzlichen Anstieg im Bedarf an qualifizierten Lehrkörpern nach sich gezogen. Dadurch wurden viele Länder gleichermaßen gezwungen, Alternativen zur herkömmlichen Anfangsausbildung zu entwickeln, insbesondere Fernunterricht und Einsatz von Schulleitern bei der Ausbildung ihres Lehrpersonals. Der weltweite Ausbau der Primar-, aber nicht Sekundarerziehung impliziert eine inhaltliche Änderung des Ausbildungscurriculums. All diese Innovationen sollten nicht als bedrohliche Zwänge, sondern als richtungsweisende Möglichkeiten für ein Programm lebenslanger, beruflicher Entwicklung angesehen werden. Eine solche Bildungspolitik würde u.a. einen Rückblich auf anfängliche, einführende und weiterführende Formen der Ausbildung einschließen. Sie würde aber auch die auf Schulen basierten und konzentrierten Alternativen zu dem Kursus gewährleisten. Sie sind die Formen, die Kostenwirksamkeit verschiedener Strategien sichern und die Lehrer aktiv an ihrer eigenen Ausbildung beteiligen.

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Résumé La croissance soudaine et intense de la demande d'enseignants qualifiés que l'enseignement primaire universel a provoquée oblige de nombreux pays à recourir à d'autres moyens que la formation initiale conventionelle, notamment à des programmes à distance et à l'emploi des directeurs d'établissement comme formateurs de leur propre personnel enseignant. L'enseignement primaire universel — mais non le secondaire — implique aussi des changements dans le contenu du curriculum de formation. Toutes ces innovations ne devraient pas être regardées comme des contraintes menaçantes mais plutôt comme des occasions de progresser vers une politique de développement professionnel continu. Une telle politique incorporerait les aspects suivants: évaluation des contributions respectives apportées par la formation initiale, la formation à l'entrée en service et celle en cours d'emploi; choix entre le cours traditionnel et celui donné à l'école et centré sur les besoins de l'école; étude du rapport coût-efficacité des différentes stratégies de formation, et participation active des enseignants à leur propre formation.

     

Creating frames of practice for teacher education

Conceptualising teacher learning as being immersed in and arising from the totality of professional practice, this paper reports experiences and insights from practice-based teacher education. Initial data are drawn from two sites of seven involved in the federally funded School Centres for Teaching Excellence programme conducted in the state of Victoria, Australia. This programme is arranged as a partnership between the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development and various school clusters and universities. Each university is working with a cluster of primary and secondary schools and with large numbers (20–100) of pre-service teachers allocated to schools across each cluster. In general, PSTs in Victoria University’s two clusters are placed at each school for 2 days per week with some block time throughout the year. Some university units of study are taught on-site by visiting lecturers with a strong emphasis being placed on the mentoring of PSTs by classroom teachers. Interviews with mentors/mentees and teachers, PSTs and principals indicate a particular understanding or approach to an issue of learning or relationship that provides a frame/scaffold of practice. Further practice begins to detail the frame for continuing application. We are considering the notion of frame as a conceptual skeleton of understanding that arises from school and classroom practice and is formatted in practice. Cases of practice have been reported in the paper below that indicate preliminary understandings and engagement with this concept for the learning of teachers.     

Ten suggestions for including gifted education in preservice teacher education

Abstract

New teachers have usually had little or no preparation for teaching the gifted students they will all encounter. Undergraduate education programs are crowded, and courses in special education do not usually focus on students who are academically advanced. The authors present ten suggestions for weaving information on gifted students into a variety of experiences, including other education courses, separate workshops or short courses, and opportunities outside the classroom. These suggestions can help prepare teachers for a type of diversity that is often overlooked.     

Patterns for reform in American teacher education

Public accountability in America has led to the reform of teacher preparation. A competency-based fieldcentered approach is emerging. The two major processes for achieving reform are the development of alternative teacher education institutions and the conversion of existing ones. The political and educational aspects of each process are considered.

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Résumé La réforme de la formation des maîtres aux Etats-Unis a été amenée par le développement de l'idee de responsabilité publique. On remarque l'élaboration d'une approche fondée sur la compétence pratique. Les deux principaux facteurs de cette réforme sont le développement d'un nouveau genre d'établissements pour la formation des maîtres et la transformation de ceux qui existent actuellement. Cet article fait l'exposé des aspects politique et éducationnel de chacun de ces facteurs.

     

Mathematics teacher professional learning and teacher education practices

Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education -     

Teaching and teacher education

The Wenhsing Street Primary School starts to liven up at 7 a.m., though classes don't begin until 8. The pupils on duty for the day come to clean up the classrooms, groups of colorfully dressed girls assemble in the schoolyard to play their favorite game, skipping a rope of rubber bands. A group of boys, their foreheads beaded with sweat, pursue a small football across the playing field. The morning sun illuminates eight large characters painted in white on the red brick wall of the four-story school building - Chairman Mao's admonition to the children of new China: "Study well and make progress every day."