Competency-based Teacher Education Research Articles

Scenarios for Dutch Teacher Education. A Trip to Rome: Coach bus company or travel agency?

SUMMARY In The Netherlands, developments in teacher education are dominated by three issues. Stimulated by a severe shortage of teachers, teacher education is changing towards competence-based teacher education, work-based teacher education and market-oriented teacher education. These developments lead to a dynamic situation in teacher education, where the traditional presuppositions of the curriculum and teacher education itself are questioned. To many teacher educators, the number of changes and new approaches is rather confusing. To make sense out of the turbulent developments, the Dutch association for teacher education VELON started a scenario project in which four scenarios for the future of teacher education in The Netherlands emerge. These scenarios are structured by two variables: the freedom of schools to define the type of teacher education they want and the freedom of students in taking responsibility for their own learning process. Compared to the ATEE-RDC19 scenarios (ATEE-RDC19, 2003) the axis pragmatism-idealism is missing, since each of the VELON scenarios can be motivated both from a pragmatic and an idealistic point of view.

Perspectives on Self-Determination Across the Curriculum

The collaborative campus-school district special education teacher preparation model at Arizona State University-West integrated the self-determination literature with the student-led Individualized Education Program (IEP) process and competency-based teacher education. Pre-post definitions of self-determination, evaluation of program impact in terms of self-reported ratings of confidence and competence related to Council for Exceptional Children core competencies for beginning special educators, and representative case studies of preservice teachers' data-based instruction programs linking self-determination, IEP goals, and state standards for students with disabilities are reported in this article.

Content-based teacher education approach versus competence-based teacher education approach

Content-based teacher education approach versus competence-based teacher education approach

Competence-based Early Professional Development: first impressions of the Northern Ireland programme

This article records beginning teacher (BT) experience of the Early Professional Development (EPD) programme introduced in Northern Ireland in 1998. It reviews the integrated, partnership and competencebased teacher education programme of which EPD is the latest episode. Samples of BTs currently in the programme were interviewed and surveyed by questionnaire. Key programme features were scrutinised: extent of BT involvement in EPD; the nature of development activity; the influence of support and accreditation facilities; use of a competence-based Career Entry Profile (CEP). Results indicate hesitant BT involvement and varied experiences. Quality and extent of involvement were influenced by quality of school support, availability of continuous employment, the introduction of compulsion, and the varying demands of planning, teaching and assessment following first appointment. School priorities and personal interests were major determinants of focus for EPD activity. Formally profiled assessments of personal competence (CEPs) were little used

ARTICLES

Since publication of the 1986 Carnegie Commission report, A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century, the professional teaching standards movement has gained noticeable momentum. The professional standards movement in teaching has been fueled by national organizations such as the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, the Interstate New Teachers Assessment and Support Consortium, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, and by close collaboration among these four entities. Further, nearly all of the fifty states are embracing the professional standards movement through formal participation in the work of one or more of these organizations. Although the professional standards movement in teaching is strong and growing stronger, its implications are not clear for instructional programs in social foundations of education, either at the teacher preparation or the advanced graduate levels. In response to the standards movement, social foundations educators have a number of options before them, three of which are to (1) largely ignore these developments, as "this too shall pass"; (2) critically interpret and resist these developments through scholarship and collective professional action, as social foundations scholars did with Competency Based Teacher Education in the 1970s; and (3) critically interpret these developments while working to strengthen the potential of the professional teaching standards movement to achieve its stated goal of providing caring and qualified teachers for every classroom in the nation. Of these three options, the last is most advisable, but it presents a considerable challenge to social foundations educators. Although the absence of social foundations skills, perspectives, and understanding should make it very difficult for teacher candidates and teachers to perform well on standards-based teaching assessments, there is no guarantee that these assessments will hold candidates accountable for social foundations learning. Implications for social foundations educators and activists are significant.

Development and Scaling of a Preservice Teacher Rating Instrument

Teacher preparation programs must have instruments yielding accurate and fair appraisal of preservice teachers' classroom teaching. Preservice teachers themselves need valid information about performance to correct difficulties that could impede successful practice and interfere with obtaining a position. College supervisors require a method to evaluate student teachers providing a reliable standard against which they can assess performance with confidence of a replicable finding. Preparation institutions profit from informed and objective decisions about retention of individual candidates and can use aggregated results of candidates to inform program redesign. The students whom candidates teach, their parents, and the public at large are best served when preservice teachers are evaluated with techniques yielding unbiased, rigorous outcomes. The following article serves two purposes: to demonstrate for teacher educators a process for creating a preservice teacher evaluation instrument utilizing the expertise of those making such evaluations; and to describe the development of such a preservice rating instrument currently in use at Saint Mary's College of California. Background Although assessment of teaching performance is a continuing concern of educational researchers and teacher educators, the literature contains few descriptions of efforts to create instruments specifically targeting preservice teachers. All preparing institutions must have means of appraising candidates; most may make use of informal measures and methods that never receive exposure beyond the program or unit from which they arise. Several reports in the ERIC system (Mamchur & Nelson, 1984; Stolworthy, 1990a, 1990b, 1991) rely on instruments of this sort. Preparation institutions may utilize instruments or adaptations of instruments originally developed for use with practicing teachers. Although this approach may have appeal because of the apparent similarity of preservice and inservice activities, the differences between the novice and practicing teacher in level of experience and judgment argue against wholesale use of this strategy. Evidence exists of a nascent movement by preparation institutions and state departments of education to devise local or statewide standardized performance appraisal procedures for evaluation of preservice candidates. Cloud-Silva and Denton (1989) describe the development of the Classroom Observation and Assessment Scale for Teaching Candidates (COAST), a prototype, low-inference observation instrument deductively derived from teacher effectiveness research for use in measuring minimal teaching competencies of preservice teachers in Texas. Powell (1986) reports relationships among ratings of field experience performance of student teachers, supervising teachers, and university coordinators using the Competency Based Teacher Education (CBTE) scale, a modified version of the Teacher Performance Assessment Instruments (TPAI). The CBTE and the TPAI are composed of instruments containing generic teaching competencies, each competency measured by several indicators. The indicators are scored on a Likert-type scale from 1 to 5, yielding an average score for each competency. These examples illustrate the two most common types of measures of assessment of teacher behavior: COAST is a behavior-based, low-inference observation system and the CTBE and TPAI are high-inference rating systems. Although these two terms typically have been used as though they represent qualitatively different technologies, they reflect two ends of the same continuum (Good, Biddle, & Brophy, 1975). Both are based on classroom observation and have inherent weaknesses. Although some (Medley, Soar, & Coker, 1984) laud low-inference systems for their objectivity, these systems nonetheless overlook teacher attributes that cannot be measured merely by counting the number of times certain discrete behaviors occur. …

Managing the implementation of a Collaborative Competence Based Teacher Education Course in Further Education

Abstract A competence based approach to the Advanced Diploma in Education (FE) teacher training course was introduced at beginning of the 1989/90 academic year in the University of Ulster. The following year an evaluation of the course began which was completed in 1994. This included a survey of the attitudes of the staff involved with managing the implementation of the course. Included in this were members of the University Course Team, the college staff who carry out work based assessments and the Education and Library Boards who monitor such assessments. The results showed that all parties positively regarded the competence based approach both in relation to it as an initial teacher training course and as a tool in the professional development of vocational teachers. The study, however, highlighted the difficulties inherent in the maintenance of standards in collaborative teacher education and there are recommendations for the further development of future programmes.

Can Competence Profiling Work for Effective Teacher Preparation? Part I: general issues

Abstract The British government's intention to require the use of teaching competence specifications in initial teacher education makes it important to examine both the pitfalls and potential of such a practice. The present paper examines general aspects of recent controversy regarding competence profiling, arguing that the behaviourism underlying traditional competence‐based teacher education (CBTE) should be rejected, along with its view of competence as prescribed behaviour practice. However, I also suggest that certain confusions amongst critics of CBTE can be traced to a similar set of dualist common‐sense assumptions. A preferable replacement for these is to be found in modem work on skilled expertise, which is compatible with the traditional meaning of competence as capacity to achieve purpose and with reflective teacher education. A later, linked paper develops and illustrates implications for teaching competence profiling.

High School Biology Teachers' Image of Subject Matter: An Exploratory Study

THE science curriculum reform in the 1950s and 1960s focused on updating the content of science courses at all levels. Since 1954, along with developing novel curriculum materials, the National Science Foundation has supported thousands of inservice and preservice teacher institutes aimed at upgrading the subject matter competence of teachers. Teachers' handbooks published during that period (e.g. Schwab 1963) are notable in their attempt to convey to teachers the essential structure of their discipline and to provide up-to-date information not only of the specific science discipline (e.g. biology), but also of related disciplines (e.g. physics, chemistry, statistics). In spite of all these efforts, improvement in science education has fallen short of the high expectations held by the initiators of the reform movement. A major reason for this relatively unsatisfactory impact has been the teachers' unpreparedness to assume the new roles implied by this new curricula. It soon became clear that knowledge of subject matter, though certainly necessary, is, nevertheless, insufficient. Teacher educators entered the scene and the emphasis shifted to competency-based teacher education featuring general pedagogical skills such as high level questions, classroom management, etc. As a result of this trend, the interrelationships between pedagogy and subject matter have been neglected to such an extent that a leading teacher educator, while discussing current research in teacher education, referred to this interrelationship as the missing paradigm:

Competency-Based Teacher Education Revisited

It has been 20 years since the concept of Competency-Based Teacher Education (CBTE) burst onto the teacher preparation scene (Balow, 1971). Disenchantment over failed attempts to isolate personal attributes of teachers that predicted student success prompted many teacher educators to seek new ways to prepare special education teachers. With the emergence of CBTE in the 1970s, attention focused on accountability, relevance, and training that emphasized skills that produced changes in pupil performance (e.g., Shores, Cegelka, & Nelson, 1973). Although not without its critics (cf. Heath & Neilson, 1974), the CBTE movement had a significant effect on training practices (e. g., Cullinar,, Epstein, & Schultz, 1986). Even so, it would appear that the fervor that once surrounded CBTE has somewhat diminished. In an effort to discover its current status, opinions were solicited from two teacher educators who were instrumental in advancing the CBTE movement. Drs. Richard E. Shores and C. Michael Nelson were singled out because of their longstanding commitment to training and their research contributions in the area of special education teacher preparation. What follows is a conversation with Dick Shores and Mike Nelson on the past, present, and future of Competency-Based Teacher Education.

Chaos Theory and Competency Based Teacher Education

Central paradigms of modern science are being questioned by an emerging group of scientists called chaos theorists. They argue that the reductionist approach to analysing real systems in order to predict future behaviour of the system cannot succeed. They go further arguing that unpredictable dynamic systems when observed holistically reveal patterns which have the capacity to bring order to chaos. This paper suggests that the reductionist approach to investigation and the ideology of determinism has been absorbed by many other disciplines including education and that investigators in these disciplines need to re-assess their activities in the light of the work being done by chaos theorists. It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss all the work being conducted by chaos theorists. The paper will therefore limit discussion to those aspects of chaos theory which strikes the author as having implications for one initiative in education - Competency Based Teacher Education.

An introduction of microteaching: a systems approach

An attempt has been made to describe the meaning and the process of the microteaching approach, which facilitates the inculcation of important teaching skills for both pre‐service and in‐service teachers. Based on a systems approach, a model of the training of both experienced and inexperienced teachers has been developed, using the essential components of microteaching. Finally, the essential factors of the competency based teacher education (CBTE) programme and the microteaching approach have been compared for the better understanding of the applications of the latter.

Competency-Based Teacher Education and the Arts

Competency-Based Teacher Education and the Arts

Evaluation of One Component of Competency-Based Teacher Education in Oklahoma

Evaluation of One Component of Competency-Based Teacher Education in Oklahoma

Competency Based Teacher Education: Reasons For Its Use

Competency based teacher education (CBTE) has provided institutions preparing students to become teachers of vocational agriculture with a basis for sequencing, unduplicated instruction, relevance, accountability, and some degree of measurability in the development of professional teacher education programs.

Is Special Education Certification a Guarantee of Teaching Excellence?

Based on experiences in Kansas, the problems discussed include: discrepancies between competency-based teacher education and current certification practices; categorical approaches to training and certification; reciprocal agreements for coursework and certification requirements; and the supply/demand of teachers. One strategy proposed for dealing with the situation is development of a code of professional ethics through the involvement of The Council for Exceptional Children and State Comprehensive Personnel Planning for the Handicapped Committees. Specific responses that could be implemented by the field include identifying competencies emphasized by teacher preparation programs, the use of professional growth plans, and a practical approach for recruiting potential teachers.

Teaching Behaviors

Reilability ratings were conducted on 18 operationally defined teacher behaviors within four competency-based teacher education categories: (a ) Planning Instruction, (b ) Methodology, (c ) Behavior Management, and (d ) Classroom Management. Percentages of agreement were calculated on product and performance sections of an observational checklist independently completed by the project director and a project consultant for each of 20 sessions. Agreements on the Product/Performance, Spring/Summer sessions and on the total checklist were all in the acceptable range of reliability, indicating a basically reliable assessment instrument. The question as to whether teaching behaviors can be objectively evaluated can be affirmed.

Competency-Based Teacher Education: What Has Survived in New York

Competency-Based Teacher Education: What Has Survived in New York

Student teachers on their own

With accountability and competency-based teacher education, many colleges and universities are emphasizing extensive field experience as part of their teacher education program. But in many instances, especially for music educators, this places a burden on the cooperating teacher. Elementary and secondary school music programs often have many performance commitments, and in preparing for these the cooperating teacher may not have the time to provide the music education student with all the experiences suggested by the teacher-education program. Even during student teaching, performance commitments may limit a student teacher's responsibilities to part of a class, sectional work, or the weaker performing group. Is extensive field experience of value for the future teacher if the majority of this experience consists of secondary duties? How influential is the cooperating teacher? Indications are that the cooperating teacher has a greater influence on the student teacher than either the college methods instructor or the university supervisor.' Therefore, when the cooperating teacher is able to turn control over to the student teacher, the latter often conducts the rehearsal or

Early childhood teacher education: a reflective‐analysis liberation‐oriented model

The purpose of this article is to describe the conceptualization, development, and implementation of a reflective‐analysis liberation‐oriented model of early childhood teacher education at the University of Illinois. This model offers a third alternative to field based and competency based teacher education programs. While insuring competence, it also offers the additional benefit of promoting long term educational improvements by focusing on the development of reflective‐analysis as a means of generating and validating knowledge.