Transformative Teacher Education Research Articles

Trans-formative Teacher Education in Viksit Bharat (Developed India) @2047: Perspectives and Innovative Approaches

In the envisioned landscape of Viksit Bharat (Developed India) in 2047, trans-formative teacher education emerges as a cornerstone for sustained progress and societal development. This abstract provides a snapshot of the evolving perspectives and innovative approaches characterizing the paradigm shift in teacher education. Rooted in the integration of advanced technologies, progressive pedagogies, and a holistic educator development model, the research explores the multifaceted nature of teacher preparation. Emphasis is placed on redefining teacher roles, integrating artificial intelligence into pedagogy, and fostering socio-emotional skills. The abstract also underscores the importance of collaboration, inclusivity, and personalized learning pathways. As Viksit Bharat paves the way for a dynamic education landscape, this abstract contributes insights into the trans-formative journey educators undertake, shaping the narrative of teacher education in a developed India.

Status Quo or Innovation? Transforming Teacher Education in Hostile Times

Teacher education is at a critical crossroads as colleges and schools of education contend with decreased student enrollment, legislative strategizing to limit what is taught, and general pushback regarding what teachers should learn about teaching and their students. As such, the field of teacher education must examine how to collectively rebuff the current movement by policy makers and elected officials who have formalized their desire to maintain the status quo in education. They continue to lobby against social justice in education, critical race theory, multicultural perspectives in teaching, and culturally responsive and relevant pedagogical approaches to classroom instruction, among others. This paper examines the current moment in educational history and highlights opportunities that may transform teacher education policy to become more justice centered.

Social Ecology and Environmental Diversity in Teacher Education

Abstract This paper offers reflections on the development and potential of a transformative teacher education project as one component of the Professional Development Programs (PDPs) at the Faculty of Education of a comprehensive Canadian university. The work of our teacher education program is set in Vancouver and utilizes the lenses of social ecology and environmental diversity (or SEEDs) to examine the roles of teachers in bringing an awareness of local/global sustainability issues to student learning experiences. Using auto-ethnographical methods our project reflects on a critical and place-based teacher education agenda highlighting democratic and participatory methods in its approach. We use our experiences combined with relevant literature to explore what inspirations might be drawn from our evolving approach. Drawing from Bookchin’s social ecology, our teacher education practices are based on the conviction that most of our present ecological problems originate with/in deep-seated social problems. It follows, from this view, that ecological problems cannot be understood, let alone solved, without a more careful understanding of our existing society and the irrationalities that often dominate it. In our most recent work, our teacher education candidates identified strongly with the related theoretical notions of Social Ecology and Diversity; hence, our identity (as seeds or seedlings) is in a state of flux as we continue to move and adapt to our current socio-political conditions.

Teacher Education Students’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge: Retooling the Mentorship Process Within Schools of Education in Kenya

The impact of globalization has brought changes to education which requires teachers to demonstrate practical pedagogical wisdom in critical features of teaching, namely: the subject matter being taught, the classroom context, and the physical and psychological characteristics of the students, that is, Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK). High level of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) leads to delivery of high-quality instruction in today’s highly contextualized classroom settings and has the potential of producing learners who are prepared for a competitive society. However, teachers’ lack of PCK has been identified as a pervasive problem all over the world. In Kenya, it has been highly linked to the recurrence of poor performance in local and internal competitive examinations, poor attitudes in some subjects, and lack of motivation for continuous learning among school-age children along the education continuum. Even so, the voice of student teachers and that of the school practice advisors, at the center and apex of this mentorship process in the Universities, has been largely ignored in transformative teacher education discourse. Guided by literature on transformative teacher education, student teacher mentorship, and reflective pedagogy, this paper presents the perspectives of 50 Student Teachers (STs) and 10 School Practice Advisors. STs confidence in special teaching methods courses, pedagogical content competence in teaching both independently and collaboratively, key areas of concern for PCK improvement, and practical strategies for PCK mentorship were the focus. Based on a qualitative and an interpretive research paradigm, the sentiments of 50 STs who participated in the May-August, 2017 School Practice as well as the views of 10 School Practice Advisors (SPAs) from the School Education (SEDU) of Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology were sought. Based on four domains of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) which include Subject Matter Knowledge (SMK), Knowledge of Curriculum (KoC) and Knowledge of Learners (KoL), and Knowledge of Pedagogies (KoP), the paper provides insights for teacher educators and University Management on areas that need further improvement and strategies for developing beginning teachers’ PCK practices.

Preparing antiracist educators through transformative teacher education

PurposeThis paper reports the findings of a study examining the impact of one teacher preparation program on the current practices of its graduates and documents the ways the program focused on equity and social justice in preparing educators who see themselves as agents for transforming schools. This paper aims to identify program elements that can be transformative in the preparation of antiracist teachers.Design/methodology/approachThis study examined the stories of nine program alumni who shared preservice education experiences and reflections on current practices. Interview data, videotaped and transcribed verbatim, included the teachers’ reflections and perceptions of their preparation program and descriptions of current practices and areas to which they each attribute success as educators. Data were analyzed through inductive analysis.FindingsTwo thematic categories were identified: pedagogical experiences and foundational experiences. Pedagogical experiences were field experiences across multiple districts and schools, preparation for culturally relevant pedagogy and focus on building relationships with students and families. Foundational experiences included mindsets of examining self, conversations over time and truths about racism and inequity.Practical implicationsThis study has clear implications for how programs prepare teachers for antiracism, social justice and educational equity. This paper should inform policy and practice in teacher education.Originality/valueThis study offers hope and guidance for teacher preparation programs and demonstrates that teacher education can and must be a leading contributor to an antiracist society.

Relevant Transformative Teacher Education for Future Generations

In this article, we investigate the need for a relevant transformative teacher education when current and future societal challenges have been decisive in defining a Norwegian education reform where interdisciplinarity in specific topics is judged crucial to current and future generations in the new National Curriculum. At the same time, Norwegian teacher education is criticized for not teaching relevant content and, hence, contributing to schools’ challenges to teach for future needs. This study is part of a larger research project engaging with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and OECD’s call for 21st Century Skills. The data material analyzed for this article is two-fold: (1) Regulatory documents for schools and teacher education account for the mandate given both educational levels, particularly examining similarities and differences in addressing interdisciplinary themes, methods, and assessments; (2) Questionnaire responses from 906 teachers, 155 student teachers, and 121 teacher educators respond to how they work with interdisciplinary education. The mandate assigned to the different levels of the education sector initially displays high ambitions for relevant education for a rapidly changing future. However, entering into the details, curricula seem contradictory at different educational levels, conservative, and with limited intentions of moving toward new and needed skills. Teachers are in general positive to interdisciplinary work, understand the significance to both society and individual, yet traditional activities of teaching prevail. Student teachers also judge interdisciplinary work as important but report little exposure during their teacher education. Teacher educators conduct interdisciplinary work mainly on their own but report a willingness to learn from colleagues. This study illustrates interest in, yet challenges with, interdisciplinary work across educational levels, and indicates a need for relevant transformative teacher education to be at the forefront, making educational content and methods responsive to the challenges future generations of teachers need.

The influence of a teachers’ professional development programme on primary school pupils’ understanding of and attitudes towards sustainability

Transformative teacher education can support educational experiences which provide the opportunity for pupils to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes to contribute towards tackling the significant sustainability issues with which we are faced. It is argued that for professional development programmes to be effective they need to improve pupil learning as well as transform teachers’ classroom practice. This paper utilises a mixed-methods design to investigate the influence of an innovative sustainability and science education focused programme of professional development, on primary pupils’ (ages 8 − 11 years) understanding of and attitudes towards sustainability. The findings reveal that primary teachers’ participation in the programme and implementation of the associated pedagogies afforded pupils the opportunity to: deepen their understanding of key sustainability issues and the potential actions that may be undertaken; further develop positive attitudes towards sustainability albeit alongside understanding the magnitude of the challenge that presents; begin the early development of particular sustainability competencies.

Critical Race Structuralism: The Role of Science Education in Teaching Social Justice Issues in Urban Education and Pre-Service Teacher Education Programs

Using critical race structuralism (CRS), a new contribution, as well as primary and secondary data, this article explores the role of science in teaching social justice issues in urban education. In the United States, a teaching workforce, which is predominately White, middle class, and female, intersects with an increasingly diverse student population, creating a need for culturally responsive teaching practices, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), and science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM) classes. An investigation of existing literature reveals the need for greater emphasis on environmental racism and social justice as they pertain to students living in low-income and urban communities. Our findings reveal that CRS can be utilized in a collective effort to transform teacher education programs and teacher pedagogy, to effectively address environmental racism and other social justice issues in urban schools and communities.

Disability and the Meaning of Social Justice in Teacher Education Research: A Precarious Guest at the Table?

Although disability is assumed to be part of the teacher education social justice landscape, its position in the context of social justice is contested and has not been informed by an analysis of the empirical record. To address this gap, we examined 25 years of research on social justice in teacher education, focusing on how disability is presented in relationship to other social markers of identity. Disability is only modestly visible within this literature; when included, it is typically treated as an isolated marker of identity, absent considerations of intersectionality. Overcoming this marginalization of disability requires new, robust cross-faculty alliances in conceptualizing research on social justice in teacher education; adopting discursive practices that complicate disability in terms of its intersectional, reciprocal relationship with the full range of social markers of identity; and intersectionality-driven instruction connecting multiple identities and the multiple instructional strategies required to transform teacher education for social justice.

The Changes Needed in Teaching Training Regarding Participatory Era [Digital Age

Teaching training has taken different forms since the onset of formal learning at different levels. Teachers play a very significant role in the transfer of information to learners. This paper analyzes the fundamentals of learning at the digital age and all that comes with it. The primary purpose of this research is to attempt to answer the questions: 1. The transformation of digital and participatory culture. 2. Evaluation of convergence in terms of the education needs of students. 3. How to transform teacher education. 4. Why are these changes necessary? 5. Consequences of the changes. These parts will assist in coming up with the basic design of this paper. Through analysis, major findings are displayed as part of the transformational designs of the work. Education takes a broad perspective of life as it acts as a tool for transferring learned information from one generation to the next in order to keep the training process active. The ICCSE-International Conference on Computer Science and Education is one of the bodies that seek to help in the transformation of the digital age. Learning as a process should equip students with resources, information, and development of skills at different levels. Teaching training during the participatory era is a phase of learning where most of the classwork is student based-the teacher is not seen as the main source of information but an individual who makes understanding of the learning process. Learning at this age again has become digital such that students are able to get informational materials digitally. This paper is therefore prepared for the digital age to help understand the findings of the participatory era of learning.

“Still going… sometimes in the dark”: Reflections of a woman of color educator

Transformative teacher education: is there such a thing? Yes. For a week long, intensive summer experience and monthly follow-up sessions for a year, I had the opportunity to engage with like-minde...

Toward Critically Transformative Possibilities: Considering Tensions and Undoing Inequities in the Spatialization of Teacher Education

BackgroundRacism remains a deep-rooted and pervasive feature of U.S. society. Racist ideas, defined by Ibram X. Kendi as “any concept that regards one racial group as inferior or superior to another racial group in any way,” are major features of the current landscape of teacher education.FocusRejecting the re-production of racial inequities as an unavoidable outcome of teacher education, in this article, a university-based teacher educator of color and an early childhood teacher/school-based teacher educator of color unveil the complex sociospatial dialectic of teacher education across settings. Positioning mapping as a possible pathway for coauthoring a counternarrative that rejects teacher education's first spaces characterized by the overvaluation of White ontologies, Eurocentric epistemologies, and ideologies that deem university-based knowledge to be superior to school- and community-based ways of knowing, they identified and mapped inequities across the physical, relational, and pedagogical spatialization of teacher education. They considered the following questions: (a) How do teacher education programs position intersectionally mi-noritized students of color, their families, and communities? (b) What are the spaces in which power has been—and continues to be—inscribed and reinforced by Whiteness as the norm in teacher education programs and practices? (c) How can teacher educators of color across settings interrupt teacher education's re-production of inequities in critically and spatially conscious ways?Research DesignThrough a three-year collaborative participatory research project, the authors engaged with critical race spatial analysis to read the landscape of teacher education, naming its sociospatial injustices—writ large and as situated within their immediate contexts and lives—in addressing the first two research questions. Then, they sought to interrupt these mapped realities by re-mediating teacher education, understanding that perhaps it is the tools and artifacts, and/or the learning environments, that must be reorganized in ways to foster deep, meaningful, and transformative learning, thereby addressing the third question.PracticeWorking to transform the inequitable status quo of teacher education, they worked to build a horizontal collaboration marked by intellectual interdependence and shared expertise across physical, relational, and pedagogical geographies, thereby moving to transform teacher education through the re-mediation of its traditional first space and the design of a third space. The kind of horizontal partnership they negotiated was in stark contrast to dominant and prevalent vertically organized teacher education partnerships, which position universities as having more importance, expertise, and legitimacy than schools—in disconnected ways.ConclusionsThis article unveils the ways in which current models of teacher education continue to pathologize intersectionally minoritized populations and re-produce inequities as design features. The collaboration the authors codesigned enabled pedagogical third spaces for transformation to occur and offers an example of what is possible in and through teacher education. In a situated way, it offers insights into how university-based teacher educators and schoolteachers/school-based teacher educators can collaboratively work toward equity and justice in and through teaching and teacher education.

From the ground up: cultivating teacher educator knowledge from the situated knowledges of emerging, asset-oriented teacher educators

ABSTRACTThis article offers findings from a qualitative study of the development of novice, asset-oriented teacher educators in the U.S. who, over three years, engaged monthly in an informal learning space inspired by Freirean Culture Circles and Boalian Theatre of the Oppressed. The article outlines the dynamic knowledges, perspectives, and tools that emerged as central to participants’ understandings about facilitating asset-oriented learning among prospective and practicing teachers in school and university settings. The article then argues that learning arrangements designed to support the coconstruction of contextualized, embodied understandings of asset-oriented teacher education hold special promise for equipping teacher educators to transform teacher education from an enterprise that centers whiteness to one that advances equity and justice.

Educational leaders’ perceptions of multicultural education in teachers’ professional development: a case study from a Canadian school district

ABSTRACTThis Paper presents and discusses the findings of an empirical qualitative study that was conducted in one school district in British Columbia, Canada. The paper explores the perspectives of the educational leaders and their understanding of multicultural education and how they implement it in the school district's teachers' professional development (ProD) and in-service education. It discusses the theoretical frameworks that shape the participants’ choices and actions concerning how they educate and support teachers to handle the complexities of diversity and the changing demographics in the school district. The findings highlight the dominant liberal framework of multicultural education, the systemic barriers to move beyond the tokenistic approach of cultures and the organizational constraints to move towards transformative, critical multiculturalism and anti-racism education in teachers’ training and professional development. The paper proposes critical transformative multiculturalism as an alternative to transform teacher education and engage with educational reform from a social justice framework.

Critical Reflection and Generativity: Toward a Framework of Transformative Teacher Education for Diverse Learners

This chapter provides a critical and synthesizing review of the literature on issues related to preparing teachers for diverse learners from historical and theoretical standpoints, reviewing more than 50 years of calls for teacher education reform and efforts to prepare White teachers and teachers of color for racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity in schools and communities. It finds that the limited success of such efforts is the result of policy changes that overemphasize recruitment and underemphasize retention, and calls for restructuring teacher education programs and research that focuses on critical reflection and generativity that can lead to transformative practices in the classroom. The authors argue for a (re)new(ed) emphasis on community-based teacher preparation grounded in critical reflection and generativity, which facilitates and promotes transformative teacher education that prepares teachers to teach diverse student populations.

Critical Reflective Practice as an Approach to Developing Transformative Living-theory

This reflective paper aims to provide an opportunity to the readership in the field of transformative education in order to engage them with reflective practices as professional development approach. In academia, writing reflective papers, using multi-paradigmatic research design, for readers believing in post/positivist views is a challenging task. However, innovative editors of journals encourage to create new knowledge through un/conventional approaches. I used Jack Whitehead’s paper (i.e., the review of my doctoral study- Creating living-educational-theory: A journey towards transformative teacher education in Pakistan) and my own reflections as lived experiences to carry out this study. Moreover, I employed reflexivity as an approach to meaning making to serve the purpose of data analysis in this paper. The key findings of this study show that Jack Whitehead skillfully captures key learning outcomes of the doctoral study and synthesized some deep insights very precisely. He created a space for future researchers especially action researches and self-study practitioners to think about how to engage with multi-epistemic approaches in order to experience transformative learning. It is recommended to encourage reflective writings on un/conventional studies to develop a clear understanding of the existing state of teacher education and nature of the journey of transformative teacher education in the academia.

Millennial generation preservice teachers inspiring the design of teacher education

The article presents an interpretive phenomenological approach (IPA) to preservice teachers’ experiences of their current secondary teacher education programme (STEP) in Finland. The focus of the study is the millennial generation cohort in which new teachers comprise a key group to be studied because they will contribute to the future of education. Thirteen preservice teachers participated in the study. Their experiences are interpreted through the lenses of generation theory and contemporary teacher education research. The findings include three phenomenological themes that are core elements of STEP: time balance, reciprocal participation and meaningfulness. These themes are discussed and suggestions made for ways to transform teacher education to make it more relevant.

Transformative Teacher Education in the Community of Knowledge

T eacher education aims to foster a change in perspective in teaching and learning within various educational contexts from prospective teachers to real teachers. This change is often seen to involve three forms of knowing: knowing that, knowing how, and knowing why. Transformative learning has much to do with such a change. When prospective teachers critically reflect on teaching as a process, and are engaged in a rational dialogue within a safe, supportive, collaborative classroom environment, they will be able to accomplish the outcomes coming and then consider them in future practices: elaborating or redefining the existing frames of reference, learning new frames of reference, transforming points of views, and transforming habits of mind. By so doing, they can become transformative teachers who can affect their learners – implicitly or explicitly – to be transformative as well.Therefore, this paper addresses how transformative learning can be activated in teacher education programs in general for constructing a community of knowledge. The paper has four main sections. Section one deals with the relationship between transformative learning, critical reflection and teacher education. Section two tackles the form, the features and the requirements of the pedagogic context for developing transformative learning. The paper concludes with section three which proposes a conceptual model for using transformative learning in teacher education contexts. It ends with section four giving some implications that can be implemented so as to set the proposed transformative learning-based model into practice.

TEACHER EDUCATION IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY: TRANSFORMING TEACHER EDUCATION THROUGH TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION IN LEARNING

This paper reviews literature on the role of technology integration in education and illustrates how integration of technology in learning could transform teacher education by equipping teacher trainees with the skills that enable them to transform learners into empowered and ethical citizens who effectively contribute to sustainable development. Technology integration in education is crucial because the youth today are growing in an environment where they are interacting with various forms of technology and their operations. Integrating technology in their learning is therefore likely to offer them motivation and curiosity to learn as the learning is in the context of their daily experience, thus meaningful. The review is done with a view to making recommendations on how teacher training institutions could support curriculum delivery with mobile technologies in order to set the pace for other learning institutions on the need to provide learners with holistic quality education that meets the needs of today’s dynamic global society. Integration is critical because technology is the major key driver of the 21 st century skills (including communication, critical thinking, collaboration, problem solving and innovation), which has revolutionized education, making it accessible anytime and at any place. This paper will focus on the benefits accrued by employing technology to shift teaching from the formal education knowledge production model to a more engaging and collaborative model that is competence based. It is hoped that this review will shed light on the need to reform teacher training curricula content and scope, objectives, teaching methods and resources to ensure that the programme produces teachers who are well equipped with skill that enable them to effectively develop learners with skills that enhance their contribution to the development agenda of the society. Article visualizations:

Integration of Technology Through Digital Portfolios in Transformative Foreign Language Teacher Education for Professional Development

Foreign language teacher education has been having a shift from a transmissive into a transformative and progressive perspective with which pre-service teachers (student teachers) have become more aware of their own learning, growth and progress since the beginnings of the 2000s, in particular. What transformative teacher education is designed for today is that a prospective teacher is to be aware of how they are learning to teach by themselves. Transformative teacher education focusses mainly on pre-service teachers’ awareness of how they are becoming a teacher and what is happening throughout their becoming since they can transfer all of that experience into their own future careers and their prospective students’ lives. With the integration of technology, we, teacher educators, have more opportunities today, to witness our student teachers’ (pre-service education teachers’) awareness situation and their stories of becoming teachers. Digital portfolios which provide them to save all of their written work as a digital copy throughout months, even years, help us be constant witnesses of their professional growth and development throughout the years they attend the faculty of education. This also gives way to make our evaluation from many different perspectives: we can see how they prepare their paper work as lesson plans, worksheets, reports, checklist and so on and besides, we can read their digital journals where they write their thoughts, opinions, ideas and feelings about their own practices, experience and learning, which would make their becoming stories a very humanistic cooperation and collaboration work. This paper intends to present a longitudinal research on the digital portfolio of pre-service (student) teachers of FLTE in a state university, İstanbul, Turkey for two years from 2015 to 2017. During their final years (year 4), approximately 120 student teachers kept a digital portfolio in which they saved their lesson plans, observation checklists, and teaching reports about and in a practicum course at the faculty and the practicum in primary and secondary schools in İstanbul. This paper evaluated the process and outcomes of these portfolios in terms of their contributions to the student teachers’ professional developments regarding pre-service teachers’ reported reflections. The results showed that the digital portfolios, especially their digital journals provided quite positive outcomes relevant to their awareness on their professional development.