Effective pedagogy: The influence of teacher educators’ practice on student teachers’ practice and philosophy

Abstract

There have been a number of lists of teacher actions that are linked to promoting student learning in schools. In initial teacher education (ITE) teacher educators have been urged to teach student teachers in ways that demonstrate effective practices. This paper reports on our attempts to develop an approach to teaching that is based upon socio-cultural theory and linked to the content on effective teaching in the revised New Zealand national curriculum of 2007. The approach involves supporting student teachers to use techniques modelled by teacher educators and in turn, to use the techniques with their own students during practicum. We explored the reactions of our student teachers to our attempts to model effective practices and found evidence that greater congruence was achieved between our approach to teaching and the intention of the national curriculum statement on pedagogy.