Creating expansive learning opportunities in schools: the role of school leaders in initial teacher education partnerships

This article analyses the learning opportunities afforded pre-service teachers when participating in a primary school placement in London, England as part of their university teacher education course. Cultural historical activity theory is used as a theoretical framework to address how pre-service teacher learning opportunities are constructed. Building on a previous year-long ethnographic study which explored how and why pre-service teacher learning opportunities differed in school settings, this paper introduces a small scale pilot study. The study integrates developmental work research into an initial teacher education school/university partnership, and considers the role of the school leader in this. Possibilities for pre-service teachers, teachers and teacher educators to work together in a research process that is integral to an initial teacher education partnership are forwarded, with the aim of ensuring that critical enquiry and learning are kept at the forefront of the activity.     

Re-conceptualizing partnerships across the teacher education continuum

This research, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council–Teaching and Learning Research Programme (ESRC–TLRP), explored student and beginning teachers' experiences of teacher education in Northern Ireland. Within a situation of teacher over-supply, many newly qualified teachers have little or no induction. This paper focuses on the views of key induction providers on the effectiveness of partnership arrangements. These stakeholders believed that an improved model of partnership was needed, particularly for induction, and a more collegial model could offer a positive reconceptualisation of early teaching experience enabling reciprocal professional learning.     

教师素质与教育研究

一、教师应具备的素质 教师在人类社会文化的继承和发展中起着承上启下的桥梁作用.只有从根本上提高教师的素质,建立一支现代化的教师队伍,才能完成培养21世纪合格人才的宏伟工程.有关学者对于现代教师的素质作了如下概述:     

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.     

Leadership issues and challenges in telelearning and teacher education

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine technology leadership issues and challenges with an emphasis on TeleLearning Professional Development Schools. A qualitative analysis of professional educators' practices as early adopters of information and communication technologies (ICTs) was conducted. Ethnographic data were gathered from a broad variety of activities organized or supported by the TeleLearning Network of Centres of Excellence (Canada, 1995–2002). Research results point to 1. themes indicating that substantive technology leadership is manifest (leadership for partnership, leadership for learning to teach with ICTs, and leadership in research for innovation), 2. leadership issues at different levels of integration of ICTs, and 3. creative tensions and related challenges     

Preparation for family-school partnerships within initial teacher education programmes in England

Abstract

The few studies conducted in Europe to date suggest that little attention is paid to pre-service teacher preparation for family-school partnerships (FSP) and that many teachers feel unprepared for such work. In England there has been little research in this area but a government review of best practice in parental involvement with schools concluded that ‘(t)eachers often lack the confidence and knowledge to work with parents …’. Given the apparent discrepancy between the need for teachers to be more knowledgeable about FSP and the lack of opportunity within initial teacher education (ITE) programmes to address the issues, we carried out a national survey of ITE providers in England in order to ascertain what provision is currently on offer. Our findings indicate that while there is overall recognition of the value of preparing trainee teachers to become confident and knowledgeable about home-school partnerships, ITE providers feel constrained by the lack of time available to them to explore this area in greater detail. The article concludes by discussing some of the challenges of both planning and delivering effective FSP provision within the ITE curriculum and how this might relate to future professional learning.     

Difficulties in promoting inquiry in teacher education partnerships: English and Canadian perspectives

This comparative study of two pre‐service teacher education programmes in England and in Canada focuses on the relationship between inquiry and the partnership structures within which the universities and schools work together. Despite the very different jurisdictions and cultures of the two systems, the two universities seem to experience similar difficulties in relation to their commitment to inquiry and to working in partnership with schools. At both the Canadian and the English sites, definitions of inquiry varied within institutions as well as between universities and schools, and inquiry was a university rather than a school priority. These differences between the schools' and the universities' views on inquiry are significant for the partnerships in which the programmes operate. It is these differences and difficulties—which often seem context‐related but which, through the authors' comparative work, have come to seem more systemic—that are explored in this article.     

Higher education challenges in Yemen: Discourses on English teacher education

We investigated Yemen's higher education challenges by focusing on the English teacher education program. Interpretative analysis of policy statements and interviews revealed several factors that are hindering the quality of the program. Deeply aware of the socio-political dimensions impeding progress, the university lecturers shared convoluted visions for improving higher education and, in reflecting on the mission and realities of their program, voiced their quest for social justice and recognition by university administrators. The administrators acknowledged key problems in teacher education, but proposed no specific corrective measures. The findings highlight the urgent need for systemic change in Yemeni higher education.     

Consequential research designs in research on teacher education

Collaboration between researchers and educators in conducting intervention research is increasingly common, as such collaboration is assumed to benefit educational practice. Alternatively, in this study, we explore the consequences of such collaboration on research quality. Based on our analysis of a year-long collaboration in formative intervention research, we find that educators experienced their own position as agent, the researcher's position as learner and the research itself as integrated, as being different from previous experiences in research. The educators indicate that these differences are consequential for their engagement in the research. We discuss how this, in turn, might benefit research quality.