Transforming Teacher Education Research Articles

The transformative potential of Open Educational Resources for teacher education and practice

ABSTRACT Open educational resources (OER) have significant potential for transforming teacher education in developing countries, yet this remains underexplored. This systematic literature review analyzes 98 articles to understand the impact and innovative prospects of OER’s ‘openness’ attributes on teacher education over the past two decades. While free access to OER is a crucial benefit and contributes to teacher education programmes, effective OER use relies on the proper application of other attributes. Thus, adaptation allows tailoring of materials to specific needs, promoting flexibility and contextualised learning, which are vital for effective teacher education. Free access addresses barriers like the digital divide and ensures content quality and sustainability, enabling equitable access to educational resources. Collaborative practices through OER foster knowledge co-construction and the development of essential 21st-century skills for teachers. The combination of formal and informal learning and remixing enriches teacher education by integrating structured curricula with personalised learning paths. This broader view of ‘openness’ beyond mere access provides insights for reshaping teacher education programmes to be more innovative and responsive to the evolving needs of educators in developing countries. The findings offer guidance for policies and practices to cultivate a new generation of empowered, adaptive teachers through OER integration.

Nep 2020, Higher Education Reforms, Multidisciplinary Education, Implementation Challenges, Global Competitiveness

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 marks a pivotal transformation in India's education system, emphasizing substantial reforms in teacher education and training. The policy envisions a multidisciplinary, inclusive, and technology-integrated approach to teacher preparation, aiming to elevate the quality of education. Key reforms include the introduction of a four-year integrated B.Ed. degree, the establishment of multidisciplinary institutions, continuous professional development, and a focus on inclusive education. This paper explores these reforms, their potential impact, and the challenges in their implementation. By examining the current literature, this study provides insights into the opportunities and obstacles presented by NEP 2020 in transforming teacher education and enhancing the overall educational landscape in India.

Editorial: Transforming teacher education in Sub-Saharan African countries towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 4 by 2030: new opportunities, challenges, problems and prospects

Editorial: Transforming teacher education in Sub-Saharan African countries towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 4 by 2030: new opportunities, challenges, problems and prospects

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.

Theory, policy, and practice: bridging the gap between teacher training and classroom practice in language of instruction in Zambia

This participatory action research project conducted through the USAID-funded Transforming Teacher Education activity examined how two pre-service teacher education programs in Zambia prepared teachers for primary reading instruction. College and university lecturers and in-service primary grade teachers participated in focus groups and interviews. We identified gaps between training and practice within the framework of Zambia’s language of instruction policy. We find that pre-service teacher preparation was generally theoretical and not practical. Opportunities for practice were limited, leading to teachers lacking required competencies and using outdated approaches in schools. We suggest strategies to improve the alignment of pre-service teacher education and classroom instruction.

75 Years of Transforming Teacher Education

75 Years of Transforming Teacher Education

Forcing quality without substance: a critical analysis of evaluating teacher education programmes in South Korea

ABSTRACT In this study, the South Korean policy of evaluating the nation’s entire teacher education programmes regularly, which was introduced amid the globalization and rising popularity of neoliberal education reforms, was examined. Over the years, this policy has been criticized widely for its minimal impact on transforming teacher education. Employing the theoretical frameworks of teacher quality and teacher education accountability, a variety of relevant policy documents and teacher educators’ accounts were analysed to examine this problem. The results reveal that policymakers’ intention of quality assurance through this evaluation affirms an instrumental and neoliberal value, reflecting the global education reform discourse that associates teacher quality with the nation’s economic competitiveness. Aligned with this value, policymakers legitimize government control of teacher education and implement policies based on a narrow conception of teacher quality and the use of high-stake accountability mandates, thereby causing fear-based compliance with the programmes rather than genuine improvement in quality. The results suggest that any teacher education reforms that aim for meaningful teacher learning should reframe their conception of teacher quality based on a thoughtful and collective deliberation on what good teacher education is by actively engaging diverse stakeholders.

Can differentiated and personalized mixed-reality simulations transform teacher learning?

Mixed-reality simulations (MRSs) create new opportunities for responsive teacher learning. This experimental study examined, starting from baseline Simulation 0 (Sim0) across three MRSs, the effect of differentiated coaching treatment in Simulation 1 (Sim1), and personalized practice in Simulation 2 (Sim2) on teachers’ provision of high-information feedback to avatar students as measured by the mean of feedback frequency weighted by quality. Motivational-supportive factors of MRS, including teacher perceptions of cognitive load, realism, and task-value were also examined. Participants were teachers at different career points (i.e., preservice: n = 69; early career: n = 66; and in-service: n = 68). Block randomization by grade level taught (elementary and secondary) and assessment of current feedback practices achieved pretreatment equivalence. Quantitative analyses revealed coaching significantly increased teachers’ use of high-information feedback. Teacher-selected personalized practice also impacted feedback. For example, the Sim2 decision to continue where the Sim1 action stopped was significantly related to decreases in clarify and value feedback and increases in pushing student thinking. Overall, differentiated and personalized professional development (PD) through MRS was valued by educators across the career trajectory and led to a complex evolution in teacher practices. However, the effects of the MRS were moderated by teaching experience. Teachers reported the MRS felt realistic and valuable; however, early career teachers’ perceptions were significantly lower than their preservice and in-service peers, especially under the coaching condition. In-service teachers reported greater cognitive load than less experienced teachers. Our discussion explores transforming teacher education across a career trajectory through assessing teaching expertise, differentiating PD, and personalizing practice.

NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY-2020 TRANSFORMING TEACHER EDUCATION

NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY-2020 TRANSFORMING TEACHER EDUCATION

Transforming teacher education: Using community mapping to read the word and world

The development of critical pedagogical approaches in teacher education (TE) in the South African context is imperative given the deepening crisis in the public schooling system in the country. Public discourse and debates amongst scholars suggest that education for critical citizenship and the development of substantive democracy are under threat. In order to advance education in support of substantive democracy, TE requires critical reflection and engagement with teaching practices that promote the development of citizenship for critical engagement and participation in the socioeconomic transformation of South Africa. This paper argues for the development and application of innovative approaches to teacher preparation that challenge the neoliberal attack on public education and the suppression of emancipatory practices amongst teachers. These approaches include a conscientious examination and application of community mapping as a pedagogical instrument that acquaints student teachers with, and deepens their understanding of, the contextual realities of educational experiences in poor and working-class South Africa. Drawing on case studies of community mapping, our paper argues for critical engagement in the teaching academy with the theory and practice of teacher preparation towards transformative work and an exposure to educational praxes that better prepare student teachers for a vocation that embraces the philosophies, methodologies, and ethics of critical pedagogy. The main thesis of this paper is that community mapping is a critical and transformative pedagogical tool that should be integral to teacher preparation in South Africa.

Self-Regulated Learning in Online-Based Teacher Education And Training Programs

<p>The era of the coronavirus disease pandemic is increasingly driving the process of transforming teacher education and training from face-to-face to online-based. Besides having flexibility and accessibility, in practice, the transformation process has several weaknesses and challenges. One of them is a culture of self-regulated learning from the participating teachers. For this reason, the purpose of this article is to review self-regulated learning in online-based teacher education and training programs with key questions- how important is self-regulated learning in online-based teacher education and training programs? and how to facilitate the development of self-regulated learning in online-based teacher education and training programs? To answer this, we conducted a literature study of various books and previous research articles, so that the results were complete, both conceptually and empirically. As a result, self-regulated learning has become an important and strategic aspect for the success of any learner or online learning program, including online-based teacher education and training programs. For this reason, every designer, organizer and instructor need to facilitate the development of participants selfregulated learning aspects through their online learning platforms. Although it cannot be assumed that they will automatically and effectively develop their self-regulated learning skills, through deliberate design and facilitation efforts, they need to create and sustain the development of self-regulated learning skills of e-learners through rich learning experiences. Positive self-regulated learning tends to encourage the success of the online-based teacher education and training programs because teachers will give their best efforts to complete their online learning and have the potential to achieve the best results.</p>

Transforming Teacher Education Institutions as Learning Organisations: A Strategic Approach to Innovative Teaching-Learning Practices

Transforming Teacher Education Institutions as Learning Organisations: A Strategic Approach to Innovative Teaching-Learning Practices

Autoethnography: Writing Lives and Telling Stories

Autoethnography covers a wide range of narrative representations, thereby bridging the gap of the boundaries by expressing autoethnographers’ painful and gainful lived experiences. These representations arise from local stories, vignettes, dialogues, and role plays by unfolding action, reaction, and interaction in the form of self-narration. Likewise, the autoethnographic texts must exhibit the autoethnographers’ critical reflections on the overall process of the inquiry. These exhibitions shall alert the autoethnographers’ research ethics, reflexivity, alternative modes of representation, inquiry, and storytelling. The original articles in this issue that rises from the domain of critical social theories within the various ranges of theoretical perspectives include journeying through informing, reforming, and transforming teacher education; critical ethnographic research tradition; a critical and political reading of the excerpts of myths; climate change education and its interface with indigenous knowledge and general traits of the participants as transformed teachers.

Journeying Through Informing, Reforming and Transforming Teacher Education: Reflections on Curriculum Images

This paper aims to address ‘how an auto/ethnographic muse explores informing, reforming and transforming states of teacher education and research practices.’ I critique informing and reforming states of teacher education in Pakistan for the limitations associated with these approaches rooted within the colonial system of education. Within these two approaches to education, I share the experiences of teaching, learning, research practices, and beliefs, which could not address a broader view of teacher education. To address the research problem, I applied an unconventional approach to research by using auto/ethnography as a methodological referent within a multi-paradigmatic research design space. In so doing, I used the paradigms of interpretivism, criticalism, postmodernism, and integralism as data referents, which enabled me to capture the lived experiences of my professional lifeworld at different stages. Moreover, I used critical reflections on the experiences as a teacher, teacher educator, and researcher as epistemic techniques to explore, explain and construct meaning out of the perceptions, beliefs, and practices. Perhaps, engaging autobiographically as an approach to knowing deep-seated views and practices and critically reflecting on the embodied values of practices open new ways of being and becoming a transformative learner(s). This paper invites readers to reflect critically on their own deep-seated practices by using such unconventional approaches to research that would enable them to experience a paradigm shift in their thinking, believing, viewing, and doing. I believe that in doing so, practitioners as researchers, with their own embodied values of practice in their professional lives, can transform self/others by creating their own living-educational-theories.

On the Harm Inflicted by Urban Teacher Education Programs: Learning From the Historical Trauma Experienced by Teachers of Color

Throughout the country, urban teacher education programs ubiquitously employ the terms “diversity” and “social justice” on their websites. But—what do these terms mean and how do they influence (if at all) the programs represented by these terms according to the lived experiences of students of color in these programs? Through historical trauma theory, this study seeks to understand the experiences of teachers of color who graduated from urban teacher education programs that employed “diversity” and “social justice” on their websites. Through the analysis of interviews conducted with eight teachers of color, it unveils how teacher education programs dehumanize and exclude pre-service teachers of color, fostering psychological violence, promoting segregation and displacement, and cultivating economic deprivation. Findings show that the rhetorical and visual portraits of “diversity” and “social justice” on these programs’ websites are experienced by teachers of color as incongruent to their lived experiences within them. In particular, the outward facing diverse racial images do not reflect the populations these teacher education programs serve (mostly white) and the classroom and field experiences are dissonant from the commitments the programs espouse. Implications call for transforming teacher education from spaces where historical trauma is reproduced to spaces where racial healing and reconciliation can occur.

Transforming Teacher Education in India: Ten New Roles for Departments of Education in Universities

The Departments of Education in Universities mainly focus on running pre-service and in-service teacher education programs and facilitating educationally relevant researches. Upcoming the National Education Policy of India expects from the Departments of Education in Universities to play a significant role in transforming teacher education. To fulfill, l this mandate, Departments of Education are expected to look beyond their routine activities and envision new roles for moving their boundaries. Extending this argument, the present paper suggests ten new roles for consideration of the Departments of Education. The suggested roles are: (i) offer professional development support to teacher educators, (ii) run academic clubs for teacher educators to share and connect, (iii) help teacher educators to become a good researcher, (iv) promote ICT usage among teacher educators, (v) compile and use best practices in teacher preparation, (vi) cultivate University-School partnerships, (vii) initiate teacher-trainee exchange programs, (viii) start Diploma programs to train School Principals/Leaders, (ix) conduct more researches on teacher education issues, and (xi) hold hands of beginning teachers.

A story of transforming teacher education.

This article is actually a story, a story of our experiences of transforming teacher education. In this story I (Aileen) narrate a journey that led to the development of a completely new two-year initial teacher education programme: the MSc Transformative Learning and Teaching. The story traces my first intellectual connection with the concept of transformative professional learning, and charts how that understanding has grown and subsequently come to shape my work in teacher education in an explicit way. The story goes on to discuss key concepts from research on teacher education, and on assessment, that shaped the MSc programme; a programme influenced heavily by a social justice perspective. My narration, as the then programme director for the MSc programme, forms only part of the story: in an effort to gain multiperspectivity, my story is interspersed by conversations in which Lizzie (a recent graduate of the programme) and Becca (a current year 2 student) discuss their experiences with each other.

Contextual Factors Affecting Professional Development Implementation: A Study from College Physics Tutors in Ghana

Professional development takes place within a context (school, district, regional and national) which has strong influence on the content, process and outcome. The colleges of education in Ghana have been involved in a continuous professional development for the past four years with support of Transforming Teacher Education and Learning (T-TEL). The purpose of this study was to determine the factors affecting the implementation of the professional development ideas by the physics tutors in the colleges. The study employed qualitative case study using four physics tutors who were purposively selected from four different colleges of education. Using typological analysis for interview data collected, it was identified that the factors that affect the implementation of the professional ideas can be put into two themes; positive and negative factors. It came out that the commitment of school leadership and support of the professional development team help in the implementation of the professional development ideas. Unwillingness of tutors to change, tutors’ perception, lack of resources, lack of time and the long period of the professional development are factors thwarting the implementation process. It was recommended among others that assessment practices especially end of semester examination must be aligned with ideas tutors learn in the professional development programme. Also, there should be an explanation by the T-TEL team to tutors as to why the programme has extended so long and if possible a time that the professional development session will end.

Transforming teacher education by integrating the funds of knowledge of teachers of Color

For too long, the justification for recruiting teachers of Color (TOCs) has been framed as a demographic and democratic imperative (Achinstein & Ogawa, 2012). As teacher educators of Color and form...

Transforming Teacher Education: Research Into Initial Teacher Preparation in Literacy

Transforming Teacher Education: Research Into Initial Teacher Preparation in Literacy