Landscape Of Teacher Education Research Articles

Bringing languages to life: A longitudinal study of the development of creative practice in student teachers of modern languages

This article reports the findings of a longitudinal study exploring the process of learning to teach modern languages in the changing landscape of teacher education. It employs a postmodern critical ethnographic methodology to examine the experiences of a group of student teachers over the course of a one-year postgraduate teacher education programme in England. The focus is on how experiences in university and in school encourage or discourage the development of creativity. The schools inspectorate, Ofsted, is critical of lifeless teaching which fails to inspire young people to learn languages. However, the pressures of ‘performative’ requirements act as a discouragement to creativity. The data indicates that whilst student teachers express a desire to be more creative, they find it difficult to implement their ideas in school. A post-structuralist analysis of Marx’s theory of alienation is employed to argue that the early formation of professional identity is a process of acquiescence to oppressive external structures over which individuals have no control. The study concludes that it is possible to create spaces where the temporary suspension of alienation can allow individuals to put life back into language learning.

The subject and the setting: re-imagining opportunities for primary teachers’ subject knowledge development on school-based teacher education courses

The landscape of teacher education is undergoing significant change in many countries and this is often associated with a move towards greater school involvement in the preparation of teachers. One aspect of teaching expertise that is particularly challenging for primary student-teachers is the development of subject knowledge across a wide range of subject areas. Subject knowledge for teaching is multi-faceted and is itself linked to broader questions about curriculum and the content that should be taught. It is timely, therefore, to consider how subject knowledge development might be reconceived in a school setting and how university and school staff might work in new ways with student-teachers to this end. Communities of practice theory is employed as a framework for analysing the learning environment and evaluating these future possibilities. It is argued that collaboration with peers, with their mentoring teachers and with a wider professional community is an under-exploited way of integrating facets of subject knowledge: giving this time and status through structured activities might be a particularly fruitful form of hybrid working in situ. The paper concludes by proposing four principles to underpin this sort of practice.

Retaining public and political trust: teacher education in Scotland

This paper traces the key periods, players and events which have contributed to the shaping of the current landscape of teacher education in Scotland. Starting with the Wheatley Report and the formation of the General Teaching Council (Scotland) in the 1960s through to the most recent Donaldson Review of Teacher Education, we examine ebb and flow amongst GTCS, government, colleges of education and universities. Following its own trajectory, Scottish Education resisted and rejected policies emanating from an ‘English’ ideology, capitalised on respect for and influence of the GTCS, and successfully moved teacher education’s base from autonomous colleges to high-status universities. At the core of teacher education in Scotland is the continuing desire for partnership-working amongst key stakeholders: local and national government, GTCS, schools, teacher education institutions, teaching unions, parents and pupils. A teaching profession of trained graduates, underpinned by university-led subject study, is now moving steadily towards Masters-level professional learning for all. Although having faced some troubled episodes, this period has also been characterised by remarkable stability and consensus and, although still tackling the improvement agenda suggested by the recent Donaldson review, teacher education in Scotland has retained a high degree of public and political trust.

Classroom management strategies and techniques: A perspective of English teacher trainees

1 IntroductionThe ever changing landscape of education nowadays calls for a re-thinking of teaching profession itself, and therefore of teacher education and professional development. Teachers need to take on new roles and responsibilities in a mobile world, they need to teach multicultural classrooms, they need to integrate ICT 's in their instructional strategies, they have to integrate students with special needs, take active part in assessment and accountability processes, build a learning community together with students' families and social environments. All governments, especially in Europe, are making efforts, at least at policy-making level, to implement provisions of European Union with regard to modernising education. Expectations regarding teachers are changing too, so that teachers are nowadays required to teach besides content matter and traditional competences, transversal competences, i.e. ways of thinking (creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making and learning); ways of working (communication and collaboration); tools for working (including information and communications technologies); and skills around citizenship, life and career and personal and social responsibility for success in modern democracies (Schleicher 2012).As concerns teacher education landscape in Romania, status quo is old system of a separate module, independent of and concurrent with curriculum of undergraduate and postgraduate degree studies; i.e. Module I for undergraduate students (30 ECTS), and Module II for postgraduate degree students (30 ECTS). Upon successful completion of first module, teacher trainees are entitled to teach at primary and secondary level (compulsory education, up to 10th grade), and upon successful completion of 2nd module, teacher trainees are entitled to teach at all levels of primary and secondary education (including upper secondary). Despite fact that new Law of Education, 1/2011, which provided for dissolution of concurrent teacher education modules, which were to be supplanted by a Master of Education programme, organised by nationally accredited universities and study programmes, this provision never materialised. The M.Ed. programme was to provide initial, theoretical training for duration of 2 years (4 semesters, 120 ECTS), followed by an induction (probationary) teaching period for duration of one school year, carried at in educational institution under supervision of a qualified mentor. We have yet to see if such a system could be more efficient than current one. At present, however, we need to make efforts in order to increase students' readiness and willingness to enter teaching profession, and moreover, to increase their motivation to remain in system (c.f. Serbanescu, & Popescu 2014).2 Literature ReviewOne of main goals of European Commission is to ensure, among others, adequate policies for providing new teachers with high quality initial teacher education, and encouraging current teachers to continue developing and extending their skills and competences throughout their careers. The Communication 'Rethinking Education' of The European Commission (EC 2012) brought forth recommendation that Member States:... revise and strengthen professional profile of all teaching professions (teachers at all levels, school leaders, teacher educators). Key actions are reviewing effectiveness as well as academic and pedagogical quality of initial teacher education, introducing coherent and adequately resourced systems for recruitment, selection, induction and professional development of teaching staff based on clearly defined competences needed at each stage of a teaching career, and increasing teacher digital competence.Much long same lines, Report to UNESCO of International Commission on Education for Twenty-first Century Learning: The treasure within stresses fact that the importance of role of teacher as an agent of change, promoting understanding and tolerance, has never been more obvious than today (Delors 2000:119), as teachers find themselves looking for new perspectives. …

Bringing Teach for America into the Forefront of Teacher Education: Philanthropy Meets Spin

This study examines the practices utilized by TFA from its inception in 1990 to create its brand and how these practices have transformed TFA into a cultural icon within the national landscape of teacher education. Well-funded through both philanthropic foundations, corporate sponsorships, and federal monies, TFA’s use of its organizational and political networks, as well as the media, has enabled it to position itself discursively as a leader in the preparation of teachers in the U.S, resulting not only in transforming state and national discussions about teacher preparation, but in establishing a network of elites with a particular ideology of schooling for poor students.

School Partnerships and Clinical Preparation at the Middle Level

Strong school-university partnerships foster valuable clinical experiences for preservice teacher candidates at three universities.The blend of practice and research at the university reaffirms my deeply held belief that worthwhile knowledge draws on both worlds. Indeed, the separation of practice from theory, of practitioners from scholars, is more often than not a divorce that is more symbolic than real. (Cuban, 1993, p. xxi)Forty-six states and the District of Columbia require some form of specialized middle level teacher preparation leading to licensure or an endorsement (Association for Middle Level Education [AMLE], 2007), and accreditation agencies inform the practices and policies for the majority of institutions preparing middle level teacher candidates across the country. Current debates about the most efficient and effective ways to improve P-12 education include teacher preparation as the focal point (Darling-Hammond, 2010), and the Blue Ribbon Panel on Clinical Preparation and Partnerships for Improved Student Learning has highlighted the importance of school- university partnerships in preparing teachers capable of increasing student achievement (National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education [NCATE], 2001; 2010). Preparing middle level teachers to improve student achievement is becoming a major priority in the larger landscape of teacher education, and concerns about the nature and quality of specialized middle level preparation permeates larger conversations about licensures and endorsements within the field of middle level education. It is critical for middle level educators to participate in these conversations to ensure that middle school philosophy remains at the core of teacher preparation practices.In this article, we describe how three universities approach middle level teacher preparation through partnerships and clinical experiences. We share the structures of our programs and the role of our partnerships in the clinical preparation of our candidates. We also discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by school-university partnerships and discuss both the advantages and disadvantages of engaging in such work. Finally, we will situate the implications of NCATE's Blue Ribbon Panel Report in the historical and social context of middle level education and offer recommendations for others seeking to develop clinical experiences through school-university partnerships.Clinical practice through partnershipsTeacher candidates often cite clinical field placements as the most powerful learning experiences of their preservice education. They tend to value field experiences over the content of teacher education courses, as the school context is very powerful and lends itself to the social nature of learning to teach. The physical divide between courses taken on college campuses and field work completed at local schools only exacerbates the disconnect teacher candidates perceive between theory and practice in teacher education. Candidates come to our programs valuing practice over theory and the very design of our programs presents the idea and reinforces it throughout their education.In an effort to help candidates value both coursework and field work, institutions of teacher education need to shiftfrom the traditional, universitybased approach of teacher preparation to a clinical approach with practice-based curriculum (Ball & Forzani, 2009). The NCATE Blue Ribbon Panel report calls for teacher preparation that is clinically based and integrates the practice and pedagogy of learning to teach (NCATE, 2010). School-embedded teacher preparation provides the opportunity to guide candidates to the explicit connections between what they are learning in their coursework and what they are observing and experiencing in their field work.Clinically-based teacher preparation is particularly important for middle level education candidates, as they need to interact with and learn from young adolescent students to value their unique developmental needs. …

Enhancing teachers' ICT capacity for the 21st century learning environment: Three cases of teacher education in Korea

<blockquote>Korean teachers are generally considered well trained to integrate ICT into their teaching since the inception of the first IT Master Plan of Korea in 1996. However, the emergence and adoption of cutting-edge technologies create demands for evolving roles and competencies of teachers in the new knowledge society. Given this changing landscape of teacher education, the purpose of this paper is to explore new educational approaches to enhance teachers' ICT capabilities in the 21st century learning environment in Korea. The literature indicates that the new roles of teachers include new media literacy skills and adaptive expertise with efficiency and innovation. From this perspective, we examined three cases: (1) learning Scratch for computational and creative thinking, (2) learning robotics as emerging technology for convergent and divergent thinking, and (3) learning by design with ICT for systems thinking. The new approaches, such as focusing on thinking skills rather than technical skills, and providing various contexts different from ordinary classroom lessons, help teachers to develop adaptive expertise. On the other hand, participants in all three cases indicated difficulties in integrating new ideas, dealing with various course activities, and understanding unfamiliar design contexts in their comprehensive projects. For further studies, it is necessary to investigate learning processes and outcomes of teachers' learning with more depth and a larger number of cases and multiple sources of data to verify the potentials and challenges of these approaches more rigorously.</blockquote><p> </p>

Searching for Vitality in Teacher Education

The hopes and dreams for our shared JTE editorship began 6 years ago over three bowls of tortilla soup. During that lunchtime meeting, through deliberation and debate, we formed our editorial vision statement. Scanning the professional horizon in fall 2003, we characterized the teacher education landscape for our American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE) editorship proposal in the following terms: Those committed to education share a historically unprecedented goal: To ensure all children will develop the knowledge, understandings, and competencies needed to reach their full potential and to contribute to our democratic society. Furthermore, most accept that quality teachers play a crucial role in realizing this aim. Yet, in the face of this common goal, different visions for how best to realize this aim compete in the marketplace of ideas. On the one hand, some reforms promote standards-based accountability systems, market-based approaches to public education, advocacy of direct instruction and prescribed curricula, and deregulation of teacher preparation and licensure. On the other hand, other reformers encourage a broader conception of the aims and purposes of education, a view of public schools as institutions uniquely charged with shaping and creating a fairer, equitable, and just society, a preference for pedagogies and assessments that focus on conceptual understanding, and the promotion of teaching as a profession. One thing is certain in all of this mix, a consensus about teaching, public schooling, and the role of teacher education does not exist. Add to these debates an increasing number of alternative and state-sanctioned routes to teacher certification, the changing cultural and class demographics of our public schools, the relatively stable white, middle-class pool of prospective and practicing teachers, and the decreasing state appropriations for higher education, and we end up with a terrain ripe for structural transformation. While we don't believe these changes will be designed or guided solely by rational deliberations, we do maintain that the Journal of Teacher Education has and should provide a scholarly forum for the dissemination and examination of teacher education research, policy, and practice. If we were chosen to guide the Journal in upcoming years we would provide a ... setting where distinct and varied scholarly approaches could explore, interrogate, and illuminate the contours of teacher education. (1) The guiding metaphor for our editorial vision was then and has continued to be a conversation of many voices. We believe that rich conversational lines with many distinct participants allow us to crisscross the ill-structured landscape of teaching and learning to teach, to explore and thereby affirm its complexity (Lampert, 2001; Spiro, Coulson, Feltovich, & Anderson, 1988/2004). Although understanding complexity is a scholar's primary aim (and delight), such multi-vocal conversations offer those involved in the endeavor opportunities to see the terrain from different vantage points and to cross well trodden paths in new places. Out of these encounters, it was our hope that fresh ideas and practices would emerge. As we approached this, the final issue published under our editorship, we revisited our proposal statement. To some extent, we were discouraged. The statement written in 2003 could easily be written in 2009. The field continues to be in flux, and university-based teacher preparation is arguably more besieged today than when we began. We wondered about the vitality of our field: Is there any evidence or reason to believe that creative, vital, and powerful ideas and practices are being taken up in the field of teacher education? We asked individuals who hold diverse views to respond to the following question: Is there vitality in the field of teacher education? …

Surveying the Landscape of Teacher Education in New York City: Constrained Variation and the Challenge of Innovation

In this article, the authors describe the state of teacher education in and around the large and diverse school district of New York City. Using multiple data sources, including program documents, interviews, and surveys of teachers, this study attempts to explore the characteristics of programs that prepare elementary teachers of New York City public schools, including the kinds of programs that exist, who enters these different programs, who teaches in the programs, and what characterizes the core curriculum. A central question concerns the amount of variation that exists in the preparation of elementary teachers for a single, large school district. Despite the number and variety of programs that exist to prepare elementary teachers, the authors found the overall curriculum and structure of teacher education to be more similar than different. To understand this lack of variation, the authors draw on organizational theory, particularly, the concept of institutional isomorphism, to examine the case of teacher education. The authors conclude with recommendations for what it might take to change the landscape of teacher education in the context of a large urban district.

Landscaping on shifting ground: teacher education in a digitally transforming world

For almost three decades, the landscape of teacher education has been modestly shaped by the exploration of practices that made use of what were, at the time, current instances of computing and communication technologies (CCTs). More broadly and importantly however, the deployment of CCTs globally has, over the same time period (1980–2008), supported a reshaping of the planet's social, economic and political circumstances in which all forms of education operate. Despite the enormity of these shifts the focus in teacher education has remained largely at site, reflecting a similar focus in schools. In fact, the patterns of adaption and response in teacher education to each new instance of high‐tech product are now quite predictable. Thus, while teacher education's engagement with CCTs can be mapped as a kind of minor landscaping, a process which attends more to appearance than substance, it is landscaping effectively premised upon a stable geography, one that resembles that of thirty years ago. This paper explores the changed and changing geography of a world heavily shaped by the ongoing deployment and use of more and more powerful CCTs. The analysis suggests that if we continue to attend only to landscaping, teacher education will be at risk of being terraformed.

The recent landscape of teacher education: critical points and possible conjectures

Some educators claim that teacher education borrows so heavily from other disciplines that it does not constitute a field of study in its own right. I argue to the contrary, suggesting that the chronic discrepancy between institutional regard for the role of educator ‘teacher’ and ‘scholar’—a constant impediment to the development of teacher education as a field of study—has diminished in recent years to such an extent that the two are coming together in unprecedented and productive ways. To support this argument, I chart key landmarks in the recent history of teacher education that, taken together, highlight the significance of this change.

The changing landscape of teacher education in Australia

In this paper we argue that the nature of reform in teacher education in Australia is occurring in a context of significant economic change and restructuring across the whole public sector. However, while there is ongoing radical change in the field of higher education and school education we would contend that there has been relatively little state mandated revision of the form and content of teacher education programs. We describe reforms that occurred over the past decade that have had an impact on teacher education. To date policies regarding teacher education in Australia have not been specifically concerned with reforming of the teaching profession as an individual entity but rather a reconceptualising the contexts in which teachers work, particularly with respect to regulatory frameworks. What has changed is the relationship between the academic providers, the system providers of teacher education and the profession itself; and the ways in which there is an increasing acknowledgment of the role of teacher workplace learning as a vehicle for continuing professional development. This is a point we take up later in the paper when we outline two recent initiatives that have been part of the broader education and industrial reform agenda.