Abstract
<p style="text-align:justify">Initial teacher education (ITE) programmes have been critiqued widely for failing to connect educational theory with everyday practices in schools. More meaningful collaborations between schools and teacher education providers have featured prominently among key recommendations addressing the traditional theory-practice divide. This paper traces and critically analyses one ‘simplex’ story of initiating and leading a large-scale school-university partnership (SUP) network in the Republic of Ireland. Using a narrative approach, the protagonists and researchers of this SUP story bring their ‘simplex’ journey of doing and shaping SUP to life. Analysis of the Irish case study emphasizes the authentic transformation of teacher educators’ institutional identities as a powerful enabler of meaningful collaboration while also highlighting ethical dilemmas that arose for university tutors in the context of deeper relational engagement in the school-university cross-boundary space. Constrained in their ITE praxis by power relations and a disequilibrium of responsibilities, tutors’ doubts, discomfort and, at times, disillusionment led them to readjust their expectations with regard to SUP while also refocusing their energy and hopes in student teachers as collaborative future change agents.</p>
Highlights
Many scholars and policy makers have concluded that traditional approaches to teacher education have fallen short of meeting student teachers’ needs and failed to enhance learning in schools (Korthagen, Loughran & Russel, 2006)
In contrast to some system wide approaches implemented in a variety of international contexts where significant responsibility for initial teacher education has been transferred to schools, for example the United States' Professional Development Schools (Darling- Hammond, 2012), Scotland's Education and University Initial Teacher Education Partnerships (Donaldson, 2011), and the School Direct programme of England and Wales (Gu et al, 2016); in Ireland, the responsibility for Initial teacher education (ITE) programme design and implementation lies solely with ITE providers in the higher education institutions
When the new ‘School Placement Guidelines’ (Teaching Council, 2013) perpetuated the power relations that were constraining our professional agency we felt disillusioned, wondering what to do next? How could we possibly provide innovative school placements based on school-university collaboration for 350 student teachers working with up to 8 teachers each in a policy and institutional context that lacked regulation, even an expectation on schools to engage in ITE? How could ‘goodwill’ and a set of aspirational guidelines assure a quality educational experience for our student teachers?
Summary
Many scholars and policy makers have concluded that traditional approaches to teacher education have fallen short of meeting student teachers’ needs and failed to enhance learning in schools (Korthagen, Loughran & Russel, 2006). Research from various international contexts has consistently emphasized significant challenges associated with building authentic school-university partnerships (Mtika, Robson & Fitzpatrick, 2014). In contrast to some system wide approaches implemented in a variety of international contexts where significant responsibility for initial teacher education has been transferred to schools, for example the United States' Professional Development Schools (Darling- Hammond, 2012), Scotland's Education and University Initial Teacher Education Partnerships (Donaldson, 2011), and the School Direct programme of England and Wales (Gu et al, 2016); in Ireland, the responsibility for ITE programme design and implementation lies solely with ITE providers in the higher education institutions. Teacher educators and researchers have raised concerns about the lack of equity of experience for student teachers in post-primary schools in the Republic of Ireland due to the lack of a
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