Community-based field experiences in teacher education: possibilities for a pedagogical third space

The present article discusses the importance of community-based field experiences as a feature of teacher education programs. Through a qualitative case study, prospective teachers’ work with homeless youth in an after-school initiative is presented. Framing community-based field experiences in teacher education through “third space” theory, the article discusses the value that such experiences have for prospective teachers’ learning. The goals of the article align with the commitment to preparing a future teaching force for the diverse educational settings that they will encounter in the twenty-first century.     

Finding a third space in teacher education: creating an urban teacher residency

This paper describes an urban teacher residency program, the Newark Montclair Urban Teacher Residency, a collaborative endeavor between the Newark, New Jersey Public Schools and Montclair State University, built on a decades-long partnership. The authors see the conceptual work of developing this program as creating a “third space” in teacher education. We detail the ways in which we conceptualize epistemology and clinical practice in teacher education, and changes in the roles of the community, and P-12 teachers that occur in a third space. Providing an account of our messy and nonlinear process demonstrates the struggles of creating new spaces for teacher education. We believe the theory that informs our work, the challenges we face, and the strategies for meeting those challenges illustrate the tenuous and ever-evolving nature of doing work in the “third space.”     

The ethical claim of partiality: practical reasoning,the discipline,and teacher education

Practical reasoning refers to a teacher's capacity to discern particulars and make wise judgements about how to act in pedagogical situations. But how do teachers know what is right? How are teachers' preferences to be grounded and their choices justified? I explore the disciplines as one source of moral perception. Assuming that narrative unities underscore the coherence and continuity of an individual's experience, I generated data in the context of a 2‐year teacher education programme. The case study of an aspiring teacher of secondary school language arts illustrates how the intellectual virtues of a discipline can influence a student teacher's practical reasoning. I conclude that teacher educators must attend to the complex ways in which a prospective teacher's prior discipline may influence aspiring teachers' orientations to experience, their consideration of educational ends, and, finally, their characters.     

课程知识观论纲:批判与重建

知识是课程的基础性源流。课程知识观包含课程知识主体观、课程知识本质观、课程知识评价观,它们分属课程知识的意识形态、选择与组织以及评价问题。基于课程知识观三方面的相互关系,依据课程知识主体类型可将西方课程知识观划为社会意识形态课程知识观、个人意识形态课程知识观和个人—社会意识形态课程知识观三种类型。在逐一梳理与批判三类知识观的基础上,借助中国文化的历史性向度,重建一种新的课程知识观,即个人—社会辩证伦理主体的课程知识主体观、辩证唯物主义课程知识本质观与辩证唯物主义课程知识评价观。     

Asian perspectives on teacher education

This paper reports on a study that was conducted on the effects of training students in specific strategic and meta-cognitive questioning strategies on the development of reasoning, problem-solving, and learning during cooperative inquiry-based science activities. The study was conducted in 18 sixth grade classrooms and involved 35 groups of students in three conditions: the cognitive questioning condition; the Philosophy for Children condition; and the comparison condition. The students were videotaped as they worked on a specific inquiry-science task once each term for two consecutive school terms. The results show that the students in all conditions demonstrated more helping discourses or discourses known to mediate learning than any other of the discourse categories. This outcome is encouraging because it is the helping discourses where students provide explanations, elaborations, and reasons that promote follow-up learning.     

The social construction of pedagogic discourse in physical education teacher education in Australia

Abstract

Once the exclusive domain of teacher education, physical education in Australian tertiary institutions has during the last twenty years evolved into a series of discipline‐based fields concerned with human movement studies, leisure studies and sport science that have begun to feed new vocational opportunities in the sport, exercise and leisure industries. Concomitant with these changes in the social organization of knowledge in tertiary physical education has been a realignment of school physical education programmes, particularly in the senior school curriculum. Inevitably, the once sole focus of physical education in tertiary institutions on teacher education is now being forced to reinvent itself in light of these dynamic changes in the social organization of school and university knowledge. Following the work of Bernstein, Goodson and others, this article analyses current policy and practice in physical education teacher education and identifies several future scenarios. The first part of the article provides an historical overview of the emergence of new forms of tertiary knowledge in physical education from the mid‐1970s until the present. The second part provides a similar overview of developments in school physical education with a focus on senior school and matriculation physical education during the same period. The third part analyses the current state of affairs in the social organization of knowledge for physical education teacher education. In the fourth part, a series of questions is raised concerning relationships between knowledge in physical education teacher education, school physical education and university forms of the field through the presentation of several future scenarios. The article concludes with several proposals for policy development concerned with physical education teacher education programmes.     

Intersections of race and sexuality in a teacher education course

This paper examines the ways that one group of US pre‐service teachers, enrolled in an alternate route teacher education class, expressed and challenged each other’s contradictory discourses about teaching for social justice. Particularly significant are the many ways that this group of students enacted subject positions around race and sexuality as various combinations of African American, White, gay, straight, lesbian, Christian, and as members of this class. Epiphanic moments about race and sexual orientation are examined to illuminate the ways that subject positions were contested, reified, or renegotiated in order to preserve a sense of community within the class. This research demonstrates the ways that social justice teacher education differentially positions people who have been historically marginalized and how it can at times reify a hierarchy of marginality.     

Collaborative teacher education: forging tangible connections between field and classroom

This paper describes a collaboration between the authors, a university course instructor for an introductory Learning Sciences course in a university-based teacher education program, and a site coordinator for its paired practicum experience. Drawing on Cultural-Historical Activity Theory, the collaborators found that their weekly conversations focused on supporting novice teacher learning had the potential to (1) lead to more strategic support of pre-service teachers, and (2) lend greater insights into the nature of the larger teacher education activity system in which they both worked. They consider the ways the seemingly simple addition of weekly conversations across sites of teacher learning can create spaces that collapse traditional theory/practice divides in teacher education.     

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.     

Technological pedagogical content knowledge in teacher education: in search of a new curriculum

The aim of this study was to explore the ways in which teacher education institutions (TEI) prepare pre-service teachers for integrating information and communication technology (ICT) in their classroom practise. Specifically, a multiple case study was conducted to examine the ways in which the development of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) was promoted in the existing curriculum of three TEI in Flanders. In the three cases, data were drawn from semi-structured interviews with the heads of the department and the ICT coordinators. Focus group discussions collected the perspectives of pre-service teachers and teacher educators. The results indicate that (1) the three institutions are moving from ICT as a ‘stand-alone’ course towards embedding ICT across the curriculum and (2) three approaches were adopted for developing pre-service teachers’ TPACK, each representing different ways of understanding the place of ICT in the curriculum. The discussion will focus on the challenges and opportunities inherent in understanding how to develop pre-service teachers’ TPACK in the curriculum of TEI.     

Policy,practice, and reconversion in Spanish educational reform: teaching and teacher education in physical education

Abstract

Since the late 1980s, reform of the Spanish education system has been justified by reformists as a response to the social and economic changes that have occurred in Spanish society since the democratic transition in the 1970s. Consolidation of democracy, development of technology and economic convergence with the advanced nations of Europe have been seen as the major challenges for educational reform. Restructuring and legitimation processes derived from the requirements of the new reform have been conceptualized as a policy of reconversion, the main purpose of which is to maintain, or achieve, a strong competitive position in the international market. In this paper, conceptualizing educational reform as a reconversion process will allow us to link aspects of the new curriculum (content, pedagogy and assessment), school organization, teaching and teacher education in physical education with wider economic, social and cultural influences and explore the tensions and conflicts between policy and practice in PE in schools. The paper will argue that there is a widening gap between the interests of progressive educationalists and the direction of market‐driven education reform.     

Changing knowledge,changing technology: implications for teacher education futures

Recent research in teacher education futures has identified two themes that require further study: the changing nature of knowledge and the changing capabilities of technologies. This article examines the intersection of these two themes and their implications for teacher education. The research employed futures methodologies based on scenario creation. With a focus on the above themes or dimensions, a panel of experts was interviewed to draw on its collective wisdom to explore alternative teacher education futures. Data from these interviews were analysed to stimulate the construction of four future teacher education scenarios. Feedback on the scenarios was obtained from teacher educators in Europe and Australia. The scenarios were then revised based on this feedback. The final scenarios are presented here as a way of provoking discussion among teacher educators about teacher education futures.     

Theorising teacher professionalism as an enacted discourse of power

In this article I elaborate a theoretical framework for examining teacher professionalism as an enacted discourse of power. Central to this framework is an understanding of professionalism as a process that relates to the ways teachers attempt to influence the quality and character of their work. For subject teaching associations this process connects to issues of power such as teacher participation in educational policy‐making, and the advocacy of subject interests. In this article I theorise professionalism as enacted by subject teaching associations, arguing that the enacted form is shaped by changing structural, cultural and agential variables. Finally, I explore the interactive relationship between structure, culture and agency in the work of subject teaching associations, and present a working model through which enacted professionalism may be analysed and interpreted.     

Between Pragmatism and Legitimacy: Developments and dilemmas in teacher education in The Netherlands

In this paper, we describe how the shortage of teachers accelerates the development of Dutch teacher education in a more competence- and school-based direction. We address three themes. First, we note that Dutch teacher education institutes are taking initiatives to develop competence-based curricula and assessment. However, until now these developments have had a weak foundation. Secondly, it is clear that schools are developing and carrying out teacher improvement plans, but that student teachers are seldom part of these plans. Thirdly, the teacher educators in schools cannot meet the professional standards yet. Teacher educators in teacher education institutes also need time and support to adapt to new circumstances. However, there are promising developments in the right direction. Notre paper analyse les conséquences de la pénurie d'enseignants sur la formation des professeurs aux Pays-Bas. Cette formation est de plus en plus tournée vers l'école et s'oriente davantage dans une direction qui privilégie la compétence. Dans une première partie, nous constatons qu'aux Pays-Bas les instituts de formation des enseignants prennent des initiatives pour développer des programmes et des contrôles basés sur les compétences. Pour l'instant cependant, les fondements de cette évolution restent encore assez fragiles. Deuxièmement, on se rend compte que les écoles développent et mettent en place des projets d'amélioration de la profession d'enseignant, mais ceux qui forment les étudiants collaborent rarement à ces projets. Troisièmement, les formateurs d'enseignants dans les écoles ne peuvent pas encore satisfaire au niveau professionnel que l'on veut atteindre. Les formateurs des enseignants dans les instituts de formation pour enseignants ont aussi besoin de temps et de soutien pour s'adapter àla nouvelle situation. Pourtant, il y a des progrès et l'on va dans la bonne direction. En este artículo describimos cómo la escasez de profesores está acelerando en Holanda un proceso en el que la formación de profesores se basa cada vez más en las competencias y en el que hay una mayor participación de las escuelas. Abordamos tres temas. En primer lugar, constatamos que los centros de formación de profesores en Holanda están tomando iniciativas para elaborar evaluaciones y currículos basados en las competencias. Sin embargo, hasta ahora estas iniciativas no han tenido una base sólida. En segundo lugar, está claro que las escuelas, por su parte, están elaborando y ejecutando planes para mejorar el nivel de los profesores, pero que los profesores en formación rara vez forman parte de esos planes. En tercer lugar, los formadores de profesores en las escuelas no pueden cumplir aún las normas profesionales y los formadores de profesores en los centros de formación también necesitan tiempo y apoyo para adaptarse a las nuevas circunstancias. Sin embargo, existen signos prometedores de mejoramiento de estos aspectos. In diesem Artikel beschreiben wir, dass der Lehrermangel die Entwicklung einer Ausbildung von niederländischen Lehrern in eine mehr kompetenz- und schulbezogene Richtung beschleunigt. Wir beschäftigen uns mit drei Themen: Erstens sehen wir, dass die Lehrerausbildungsinstitute der Niederlande Initiativen zur Entwicklung von kompetenzbezogenen Curricula und zur Erfolgsbewertung ergreifen. Bis jetzt haben diese Entwicklungen allerdings ein schwaches Fundament. Zweitens ist klar, dass Schulen Professionalisierungspläne entwickeln und ausführen. Die Praktikanten sind jedoch selten in diese Pläne einbezogen. Drittens können die Lehrerausbilder in Schulen den akademischen Normen noch nicht Genüge leisten. Lehrerausbilder in Lehrerausbildungsinstitute brauchen auch Zeit und Unterstützung, um sich neuen Verhältnissen anzupassen. Es gibt jedoch vielversprechende Entwicklungen in die richtige Richtung.     

Content of curriculum in physical education teacher education: expectations of undergraduate physical education students

This study explored the perceptions of university physical education students of the importance of physical education curriculum content areas and how those perceptions related to the reasons for course choice and motivation. Physical education degree students (n = 188) completed measures of their perceptions of physical education content areas, attractors to physical education, and motivation. Strong reasons for course choice were sport and physical activity-related. Instruction of movement skills, health education, games, motor development, and physical education identity were perceived as more important, whereas sports and socio-critical perspectives were perceived as less important. Perceived importance of all content areas was positively related to the choice of course for confident interpersonal service, sport and physical activity, and role model reasons, as well as to intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Physical education programmes should consider what content is delivered and how to effectively integrate practical and theoretical content.     

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.     

An examination of knowledge prioritisation in secondary physical education teacher education courses

A number of terms have been used to describe knowledge needed for teaching, one of which is subject knowledge. How knowledge for teaching is conceptualised in teacher education prioritises some knowledge bases over other knowledge bases. Further, knowledge prioritised by student teachers is influenced by socialisation prior to and during an initial teacher education course and priorities for student teachers as they develop as teachers. Previous research in physical education teacher education points to the pre-eminence of content knowledge above other knowledge bases. The purpose of this study was to look at what knowledge is prioritised by student teachers, school-based mentors and university tutors working on three secondary physical education initial teacher education courses in England. Results showed that content knowledge was seen as having greater importance for student teachers and mentors, but university tutors generally conceptualised subject knowledge more broadly, suggesting that it should be seen as covering a number of knowledge bases needed for teaching. These results are discussed in relation to socialisation processes in education and phases of development. Although there is a clear physical education focus to this work, it is possible that student teachers learning to teach other subjects may also focus excessively on subject content knowledge above other knowledge bases.     

Teaching for equity: insights from international evidence with implications for a teacher education curriculum

Researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers in many countries are grappling with ways to address the persistent problem of inequitable educational outcomes between advantaged and disadvantaged students. This paper reports the results of a unique cross-country, cross-cultural analysis undertaken to provide insights into teaching practices that promote equity, drawing on programmes of empirical research or syntheses of major programmes of research that worked from a complex, non-linear view of teaching and its outcomes. We analysed international evidence about teaching practices that have a positive influence on diverse students’ learning outcomes and opportunities and then compared and contrasted the results of these analyses. From the commonalities we identified, we derived six interconnected facets of practice for equity, which are general principles of practice rather than specific teaching strategies or behaviours. Building on these facets, we developed a conceptual framework that can inform an equity-centred teacher education curriculum that specifically addresses the task of preparing teachers who can make a positive difference to the learning opportunities and outcomes of diverse students, particularly those historically disadvantaged by the education system.