University-based Initial Teacher Education Research Articles

Learning and Teaching of Climate Change, Sustainability and Disaster Risk Reduction in Teacher Education in England and Japan

Abstract This paper reports the study which explored the learning and teaching of the topics of climate change, sustainability and disaster risk reduction in secondary-level teacher education programs in England and Japan. Through interviewing teacher educators, the study particularly probed how teacher education programs used local knowledge and collaboration in discussing the above topics. Geography tends to be the main subject area for these global agendas, but its crammed curriculum is “an ongoing challenge” for teacher education. Some researchers demonstrate that university-based initial teacher education has “ignored” training teachers on how to implement environmental and sustainability education at schools. Besides, the inquiries into how initial teacher education equips geography teachers for the learning and teaching of disaster risk reduction are still scarce. This paper aims to fill this gap by bringing together the fields of geography education, climate change and sustainability education, disaster risk reduction education and initial teacher education.

Developing project skills in future prımary school teachers within the university-based initial teacher education

Introduction. The authors investigate the problem of developing programme-specific competencies in future primary school teachers using project methodology in the process of initial teacher education. The purpose of the study is to assess the level of project skills in future primary school teachers and analyze the obtained empirical data. Materials and Methods. The research was conducted using the method of psychological and educational experiment. The empirical data included students’ essays and questionnaires. The sample consisted of students of Karaganda university named after academician E. A. Buketov and Pavlodar pedagogical university. The obtained data were interpreted and subjected to statistical analysis using the Student's t-test. Results. The authors have developed criteria and indicators for evaluating future teachers’ project skills in order to experimentally interpret their project activities. The identification of students' priorities for the choice of certain types of project activities determined the validity of the questionnaire. Frequency and percentage analyses revealed the insufficient level of project skills in future primary school teachers related to the following components: (1) the motivational component of programme-specific competencies; (2) the cognitive component; (2) the reflexive component. Conclusions. The results of the research showed that students demonstrated a low level of project skills, which can significantly complicate the process of improving the quality of initial teacher training for a new type of primary schools. Keywords Project activity of students; Formation of design skills; Special competence; Future primary school teachers; Initial teacher education; Modernization of education.

Prompting Pedagogical Change through Promoting Active Lifestyles Paradoxes.

This study explored approaches to promoting active lifestyles (PAL) in schools which aimed to inform and develop physical education (PE) trainees and teachers’ health-related philosophies and pedagogies. Thirty-two secondary school PE trainees and teachers involved in a University-based Initial Teacher Education partnership in England participated in this study during the period 2015–2019. The participants were involved in professional development which included an introduction to research-informed PAL ‘paradoxes’ associated with promoting active lifestyles. Participants were asked to review their own health-related philosophies and practices in light of these paradoxes and were encouraged to use them to influence their own pedagogies as well as those of colleagues/peers. Participants found the PAL paradoxes interesting, surprising and perplexing; expressed a keen desire to address and solve them; and experienced the joys and challenges of influencing colleagues’/peers’ health-related philosophies and pedagogies. The findings suggest that this innovative low-cost, flexible and accessible approach to pedagogical change has the potential to engage PE teachers, increase their effectiveness as promoters of physical activity, and to greatly enhance the subject’s contribution to public health. This is significant, given calls for new pedagogical approaches and teachers’ previously reported lack of engagement in professional development in this area.

Training Teachers for and through Citizenship: Learning from Citizenship Experiences

This article illustrates how one university-based initial teacher education (ITE) course sought to develop links with civil society organisations to develop meaningful active citizenship education. The purpose of the project was to enhance citizenship education for ITE students preparing to become secondary school teachers. The article discusses recent developments in theorising teacher education 3.0 to ensure teachers are empowered to engage with a wide range of social and political challenges affecting young people and their communities. It then describes a small project that involved university staff and students in a local community organising project, bringing together a range of local community groups to work together for social justice. The article explores how student teachers working within that community organising group developed an increasingly politicised view of their role—as public sector workers in a politicised policy landscape; as potential agents for the promotion of democracy; and as political actors in their own right. The article concludes that these insights into practice illustrate the potential for a broader conception of teacher education, involving civil society partners beyond schools and universities.

The Philosophy for Children Pedagogy in a University-Based Initial Teacher Education Course: a case study of a 'disruptive' pedagogy

The fundamental aims and outcomes of higher education are increasingly at odds with the accountability and performative agenda in higher education. Pedagogical decisions are often taken with one eye on what students 'want' rather than what they 'need'. In this article, the author shows how she framed her pedagogical approach in terms of what students 'need' rather than just what they 'want'. The author outlines how she adapted Philosophy for Children, an inquiry-based dialogic pedagogy, to the higher education context, and why, despite the challenges of 'data-driven' practices, she continues to see it as a necessary pedagogy for higher education.

Facilitating continuity in university-based initial teacher education

Facilitating continuity in university-based initial teacher education

The Australian national exceptional teaching for disadvantaged schools programme: a reflection on its first 8 years

ABSTRACTThis paper describes the aims, origins and principles of the Australian National Exceptional Teaching for Disadvantaged Schools programme and reflects on findings from its first eight years. As a well-established, mainstream university-based initial teacher-education programme designed to prepare social justice teachers for low socio-economic or high-poverty schools, NETDS has had significant impact on recruiting and retaining high-performing teachers in the schools that need them most. In this paper we discuss how it works, but also outline some of the complexities that arose in trying to design a teacher-education programme with equity at the centre and some of the changes we made along the way.

University–School Partnerships in English Pre-service Teacher Education: A Dialogic Inquiry into a Co-teaching Initiative

Evidence has been accumulating for some time about the impact of standards-based education reforms on schools and schooling, but there has been little research investigating the influence of these reforms on university-based initial teacher education (ITE). This article critically inquiries into the effects of these reforms on an ITE co-teaching project where a secondary English teacher in a school was seconded to work for a year as a teacher educator in an Australian university in a praxis-based partnership. Using Cavarero’s framing of ‘who’ and ‘what’ narratives, and Bakhtinian discourse theory, the authors present three autobiographical narratives exploring different perspectives on their experiences in the co-teaching partnership. The article affirms the value of school–university praxis partnerships for speaking back to standards-based reforms, but acknowledges that this speaking back involves complex relational and dialogic work in grappling with institutional and system-wide policies and practices.

The changing work of teacher educators in Aotearoa New Zealand: a view through activity theory

ABSTRACTThe study of recruitment practices for teacher educators (TEs) in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) universities reveals the academic category of TE constituted along three related trajectories: a professional expert (not required to research), a traditional academic (not required to hold a teaching qualification or teacher’s practicing certificate), and one who is dually qualified, to teach (as a registered NZ teacher) and to research. It is the dually qualified type of TE who can service the full scope of university-based initial teacher education (UBITE). Recent recruitment practices have, however, focused on employment of professional experts and traditional academics. Drawing from document analyses and interviews, we present a picture of changing work for TEs. Our study argues that policy environments and universities’ responses are changing the objects, rules, and divisions of labour in UBITE. We comment on the evolution of initial teacher education in NZ, its likely trajectory, and its potential for development.

A Synopsis on Teachers’ Learning during Early Stages of Professional Practice

The paper reports on findings of a comparative study exploring how beginning teachers form their understanding of the practical context of the school once they have graduated university-based initial teacher education and enter the field of professional practice. The research data was collected in Romania, Norway and England, over the period of one academic year in 2010-2011 employing a survey inventory, interviews and document analysis. Findings of this study indicate that forming a relevant understanding of the learning taking place during early stages of professional practice requires approaches that dwell deep into the discoursive practices contextualized in inter-individual actions as well as those of the institutional, societal, cultural and historical grounds for learning actions.

How do Beginning Teachers Employ Discursive Resources in Learning and Affirming their Professional Identity?

The purpose of this analysis is to form an understanding of the learning situated in teachers’ professional induction, in particular understand how beginning teachers come to take ownership of discursive tools for professional learning and for affirming their professional identity. The micro-analysis presented here is part of a larger comparative study, conducted between 2010-2012, with the support of Romanian agency CNCS –UEFISCDI (project number RU_PD 21/2010), and exploring how beginning teachers form their understanding of the practical context of the school once they have graduated university-based initial teacher education and enter the field of professional practice.

Organisational self-evaluation and teacher education for community relations in a transforming society?

During 2004, the School of Education at the University of Ulster embarked on an innovative three-year project designed to embed community relations objectives within initial teacher education. With the advent of more peaceful times in Northern Ireland, this was a precipitous time for initial teacher educators to review the preparation given to beginner teachers for teaching in an increasingly pluralist society emerging from conflict. The present paper reports on one very specific and time-limited element of the broader project. That is, development work designed to investigate the possibilities of using processes of self-review and evaluation as a lever for improvements in initial teacher education for community relations. Following a brief contextualisation, the background to, and the development of, a set of materials designed to support rigorous and systematic self-review of all aspects of provision in a university-based initial teacher education department is described. The Community Relations Index for Initial Teacher Education (Cr-ITE) was envisaged as being of use to initial teacher education establishments in order to help teacher educators take responsibility for rigorous learning from their practice, whilst placing inclusive values at the centre of organisational development. The final section includes further critical reflection on the role of organisational self-review in transforming teacher education for inclusion in a society emerging from longstanding communal conflict.

The difficulties of inclusive pedagogy for initial teacher education and some thoughts on the way forward

In most western countries, the problems of effective university-controlled and largely university-based initial teacher education (ITE) have been apparent for many decades: whatever is achieved in the university, the teaching practices and attitudes that student–teachers usually learn to adopt are those currently dominant in the schools. So it is difficult to introduce innovations such as inclusive pedagogy through conventional ITE programmes. The solution to this problem is widely recognised to be the much stronger involvement of schools in ITE partnerships (e.g. the Holmes Group's Professional Development Schools in the USA, the Oxford internship scheme in England, the long-forgotten Learning to Teach (1978) Sneddon Report in Scotland); but research and experience have suggested that real barriers stand in the way of the kind of partnership that is needed. Nonetheless, given the opportunity, the resources and most of all the necessary respect, the teaching profession has much more to offer than twentieth century teacher educators were generally willing to accept; and if an open and exploratory approach is adopted, there is every reason for optimism.

University-based initial teacher education: Institutional re-positioning and professional renewal

The emphasis on 'partnership' in initial teacher education is a matter not just of organisational structure but of professional practices and purposes. If universities are to remain key players in initial teacher education, they must support the occupational group that represents the sector's interests and values: university-based initial teacher educators. Currently, however, this occupational group is awkwardly positioned between competing sets of accountability demands and institutional requirements. This article argues that only by encouraging and sustaining the professional renewal of university-based initial teacher educators will the university earn itself a continuing place in the evolving story of initial teacher education. That renewal is dependent, in other words, not only on the institutional re-positioning of the university but also on its re-commitment to initial teacher education as a core activity; a re-commitment which, it is argued, must recognise professional learning as a major 'field' of study across professional domains.