University-based Teacher Education Research Articles

“Close to my Heart”: Teacher Educators Building Racial Literacies

Although building preservice teachers’ racial literacy is a key goal to reducing racial inequity in K-12 settings, little attention has been paid to how literacy teacher educators are prepared to conduct this work. This is unsurprising given the neoliberal logic underpinning universities today. In this multiduo autoethnographic study, six literacy teacher educators utilized reflection on critical incidents to examine their own racial literacy development. By forming cross-racial pairs and utilizing a combination of writing and dialogue, these six participant/researchers interrogated their own views and experiences of race and racism. Findings suggest that the examination of critical incidents can support teacher educators’ racial literacy growth. Specifically, participants reflected on the vulnerability necessary to support preservice teachers’ racial literacy development and utilized ethnographic methods to build the practice of sharing about their own racial literacy learning. They also used critical incidents to come to a deeper understanding of the construct of racial literacy itself. These results imply that for professional organizations such as the Literacy Research Association to deliver on their espoused commitments to addressing ongoing institutional racism, they must intentionally create professional spaces for coreflection and dialog about racial literacy. Further, we consider the implications of this work for literacy doctoral programs and teacher educator preparation within contexts of college and university-based teacher education programs.

Imagining anew: a narrative analysis of STEM teachers’ fictional educational futures

ABSTRACT High teacher attrition rates suggest the need for new methods of STEM teacher education to prepare teachers for fulfilling professional and personal lives. This design research study explores an approach to teacher learning within a US university-based teacher education course which centres projective agency as a key aspect of teacher learning, specifically to imagine transformative educational futures. Using thematic narrative analysis, this study presents evidence suggesting teachers can articulate their educational values by creating aligned possible futures. Drawing upon their experiences, these teachers envision futures that sometimes reimagine the constraints of the current educational system. By fostering projective agency, these envisioned pathways facilitate expansive action beyond teachers’ past experiences and present circumstances, fostering sustainable flourishing for both teachers and students.

Building agency in school–university partnerships: lessons from collaborative research during the pandemic

PurposeThe literature highlights the disconnection between university-based teacher education and field experiences as a significant barrier to student teacher preparation. To address this gap, the Research Teams (RTs) programme promotes a Networked Learning System (NLS), focusing on boundary-crossing work, inquiry and critical reflection to generate knowledge. This paper examines the emergence of relational and collective agency within this collaboration, linking school and university knowledge to enhance professional learning and drive teaching innovation.Design/methodology/approachEmploying an exploratory qualitative design, data collection includes advising team notes, reflective session materials, interviews and focus groups. Qualitative content and discourse analysis were utilised.FindingsFindings reveal how RTs promote relational agency among university tutors, school staff and preservice teachers and collective agency in the context of collaborative research. The pandemic presents both social interaction opportunities and challenges.Originality/valueThe relevance of this study lies in the necessity to advance knowledge regarding the development of collaborative learning systems that encourage cross-institutional relationships, allowing for the creation and flow of knowledge. It highlights the role and development of collective and relational agency in fostering the development of a NLS. It also raises questions about the challenges and investments needed to sustain and scale collaborative research models that cross professional and institutional values and beliefs within schools and universities.

Book Review: Transforming University-Based Teacher Education through Innovation: A Norwegian Response to Research Literacy, Integration and Technolog by Ida K. Riksaasen Hatlevik, Rachel Jakhelln and Doris Jorde

Book Review: <i>Transforming University-Based Teacher Education through Innovation: A Norwegian Response to Research Literacy, Integration and Technolog</i> by Ida K. Riksaasen Hatlevik, Rachel Jakhelln and Doris Jorde

Triadic mentoring through the lens of positioning theory and frame analysis

ABSTRACT This paper explores the relational dynamics in 10 triads from one university-based teacher education programme in England. Positioning theory and frame analysis are integrated to understand how teacher educators, mentors, and student teachers make sense of the placement experience and distribute mutual rights and duties. Data were derived from observations of debriefs and in-depth interviews with all actors involved. Results reveal four different frames: the quality assurance frame, the school-university partnership frame, the socialisation frame, and the expert teacher frame, each opening up particular positions but also closing off others. This study challenges the uncritical acceptance of the benefits of triadic mentoring, while also offering a novel theoretical perspective for the study of its complexities.

The emergence of a digital third space: Opportunities and constraints of digital practice assessment in teacher education

Practitioners and policymakers worldwide emphasise the need for research-based and professionally relevant teacher education, highlighting the importance of integrating epistemologies across schools and teacher education institutions. Drawing on the affordance concept, this study qualitatively investigates the perceived opportunities and constraints of Digital Practice Assessment (DPA) as a collaborative platform for triads of pre-service teachers, school-based and university-based teacher educators. It explores the perspectives of these stakeholders on the use of technology in teaching practice assessment and examines how their collaboration within these triads can facilitate the emergence of a third space. The third space is a metaphor that denotes the meeting place of epistemologies from research and practice in teacher education, where all stakeholders’ voices are heard. This examination sheds light on the potential benefits and challenges that DPA brings to the assessment process and highlights the importance of understanding the interplay between technology, collaboration, and professional development in teacher education. Through video-stimulated recall interviews of the assessment sessions, we show how recordings of teaching practice offer opportunities such as detailed feedback, enhanced reflections, and knowledge sharing, which are essential to research-based and practice-oriented teacher education. However, certain constraints were identified, such as the lack of contextual information and rigid roles within the assessment process. Still, despite the summative nature of DPA, our findings suggest that it has the potential to integrate formative assessment to foster the emergence of a third space and to support the development and learning of pre-service teachers.

Unhinged: Reading Comprehension Tests as Gatekeepers to Teaching

A teacher’s ability to read effectively is critical to that individual’s ability to teach reading skills. Correspondingly, most state departments of education require that prospective teachers earn a passing score on a standardized reading comprehension test before they can enter university-based teacher education programs or otherwise get a professional teaching license. Having witnessed quality candidates get pushed away from teaching due to poor performance on the our state’s reading comprehension measure and given that previous studies have shed doubt on the construct validity of major standardized assessments (e.g., the SAT and ACT), we examined the validity of our state’s standardized reading assessment for teachers. Using data generated by 115 college-aged participants in a prerequisite course for our teacher education programs, we found that our state’s assessment did little to measure reading comprehension. Instead, it measured students’ test-taking skills. This is exceptionally problematic because tests like this one keep significant numbers of qualified and motivated individuals from entering the teaching profession. Worse, due to the oft-researched relationship between test-taking skills to the socioeconomic background of the test-taker, these impacts may be exponentially worse for individuals from minority and lower socioeconomic backgrounds, thereby further reducing their opportunities to teach.

Teacher educators’ understanding of and activities for preparing preservice teachers to Teach for social transformation in K-12 educational settings

This study explores teacher educators' (TEs) understanding of and pedagogical activities for preparing preservice teachers to teach for social transformation in K-12 educational settings. The participants were 17 TEs at a university-based teacher education program in the United States. Data were interviews, teaching artifacts, and observations. Using ideology-in-pieces framework (Philip, 2011), TEs' complex sensemaking and their enactments are analyzed focusing on cognitive, social and structural dimensions. The analyses reveal TE's uneven attention to structural dimension as well as the roles of their professional interactions and membership. Implications for providing programmatic, intentional, and coordinated experiences for preservice teachers are discussed.

Teacher Educators’ Foreign Language Anxiety in Face-To-Face and Online Modes

The internationalisation of universities and the ensuing policies mandating English as a medium of instruction made European universities impose corresponding requirements demanding a certain level of English language proficiency from their academic staff. Similarly, university-based teacher educators became subject to specific foreign language demands. This research focuses on university-based teacher educators who have been actively taking part in enhancing their academic English. The COVID-19 pandemic made for a prompt shift from face-to-face to online learning, providing for a comparison between the two learning environments. Since affective factors, including learning anxiety, may impact the success of language acquisition, the study addresses foreign language anxiety experienced by teacher educators when acquiring English for Academic Purposes in different learning modes. The research was conducted as a survey with the data obtained through administering the adapted Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale to 80 respondents from the 7 universities working in teacher education, furthered by 4 online semi-structured interviews. The findings reveal overall low levels of anxiety, with a small increase in communication apprehension. Although there is no conclusive evidence about the decrease in anxiety in remote studies, the interview results are clearly demonstrative of the possibility of combining face-to-face and online learning modes.

Examining teachers' relational noticing: promoting equity through positive interactions in mathematics education

AbstractHow teachers attend to and interpret positive relational interactions shapes how they enact instructional practices for equity. We draw on frameworks from equitable mathematics instruction, relational interactions, and teacher noticing to conceptualize mathematics teachers’ relational noticing. Using noticing interview and classroom observation data from a research collaborative between secondary mathematics teachers and university-based teacher educators, we document the range and diversity of ten teachers’ relational noticing. We use this analysis to examine how teachers’ relational noticing supports enacting equitable instructional practices. Our findings indicate five themes of teachers’ relational noticing that are informed by their personal histories, understanding of dominant narratives of mathematics education, and their local sociopolitical school context. Additionally, teachers enacted a range of practices for creating positive relational interactions, with attending to student thinking being the most enacted practice. Our findings suggest that mathematics teachers’ relational noticing can support the three axes of equitable instruction.

The Long and Winding Road: Mapping the College and Employment Pathways to Teacher Education Program Completion in Washington State

Nationally, more than 75% of individuals who are credentialed to teach are prepared in traditional college- or university-based teacher education programs (TEPs). But the college and employment pathways that prospective teachers take to TEP enrollment and completion have not been comprehensively examined. A better understanding of how credentialed individuals find their way into TEPs helps us understand the sources of new teacher supply early in the prospective teacher pipeline. With that in mind, we analyze pathways into and through TEPs using historical postsecondary and unemployment insurance data from Washington State. We find that the pathways are quite varied, with around 40% of bachelor’s-level TEP completers spending at least some time in community colleges and fewer than 40% enrolling and finishing at the same university directly after high school. Pathways to master’s TEP completion are even more varied, with almost half of the completers having prior employment experience. For researchers, this varied landscape raises important questions about the relationship between pathways, candidate persistence, and eventual job performance. For policymakers, the results suggest that efforts to recruit the next generation of teachers need to look beyond the pool of students already enrolled at a 4-year university to include students at 2-year colleges or in the labor force who might be interested in entering a TEP.

Creating communicative learning spaces in initial teacher education (ITE) with observation-grounded co-mentoring practices

ABSTRACT ITE has been criticised for being disconnected, with different languages being spoken in the two learning arenas of campus and schools. Bringing people together, such as through formal university-school partnerships, is not enough to open up communicative learning spaces – sites of collaborative learning that are democratic, safe and supportive. Practicum is recognised as a capstone experience in teacher education in which the mentor’s role is crucial. However, there are significant variations in the types and quality of mentoring and only some supportive frameworks. This paper investigates what arrangements are needed to enable mentoring practices as communicative learning spaces. An intervention was designed that structured conversations between student teachers, school-based mentor teachers and university-based teacher educators around an observation-grounded mentoring framework (OMF). Data was gathered from completed worksheets, reflection logs, and interviews and analysed through the lens of practice architectures. We explore issues of knowledge and power in the facilitation of learning when university-based teacher educators visit the school, and classroom observations frame the mentoring conversations. Findings show that the OMF offered a shared language for tripartite mentoring conversations as communicative learning spaces. The paper contributes to knowledge about supportive mentoring practices in ITE.

Development and Application of a Domain-Specific TPACK Questionnaire—Findings from a Longitudinal Study on Teaching Human Biology Using Digital Tools

There are several specific digital tools now that have transformed the way science is taught. Correspondingly, teacher education programs have changed, and now they increasingly address the development of technology-related professional content knowledge (TPACK). Owing to the use of technology in specific domains of science teaching, there is an emergent need for domain-specific TPACK questionnaires. The present study investigates the development and application of a domain-specific TPACK questionnaire for teaching human biology using digital tools in a university-based teacher education program. A quasi-experimental between-subject design was applied for 13 weeks in the four study groups (n = 155). The intervention groups worked with digital tools in human biology, while the control groups participated without specific consideration of digital tools throughout the program. We succeeded in developing a questionnaire comprising seven reliable scales. The questionnaire development procedure described herein may be applicable to other science education disciplines. By the means of linear mixed modeling, we found that all students gained professional knowledge; however, treatment × time interactions revealed that belonging to the intervention group was the main driver of TPACK progression. Comparing the treatments, we found that at post-test, the intervention group reported higher levels of TPCK, TPK, and TCK, but not CK, PK, TK, and PCK. Sequential analyses of the longitudinal data highlighted that working with digital tools on a regular basis constitutes a TPACK boost effect. This study contributes to the literature on technology integration from the perspective of biology education, where specific tools that can be assessed using a domain-specific questionnaire are used.

A model to support the development of professional capital in trainee teachers: a constructivist grounded theory

PurposeThis paper shares findings from a constructivist grounded theory study, exploring Trainee Teachers’ perceptions of their teaching and learning experienced during university-based teacher education programmes, specifically the theoretical components. Findings led to the development of a model of program design, pedagogy and teaching strategies that were successful in creating opportunities to build Professional Capital. This paper aims to share this model, highlighting the significance of Professional Capital amidst challenges in English Teacher Education, and to suggest implications for application of the model within broader workforce development.Design/methodology/approachSemi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 trainee teachers from four English universities. To support the development of the theoretical framework, researchers employed inductive and iterative constant comparative methods aligned with constructivist grounded theory to sensitise concepts and codes, which were verified using theoretical sampling.FindingsInformed by the findings of this study, a model is presented which highlights that participants developed human, social and decisional capital during their academic programs helping them to widen their perceptions of what counts as educationally important, beyond narrow performativity measures that are pervasive in a school system. By actively adopting a transformative pedagogy and employing constructivist approaches to curriculum design and delivery, optimal learning environments for learners to build their professional capital can be provided.Practical implicationsThese findings may prove valuable to Higher Education academics as a model when designing and delivering professional, student-centred programmes. There are also implications for policymakers seeking to redesign initial teacher education towards schools-led and practice-oriented approaches, who wish to consider the perceptions, values and motivations of trainee teachers.Originality/valueThe findings highlight the significance of teacher trainees’ active engagement with academic literature and theory, in terms of contributing to the development of their professional capital, resilience and professional commitment.

Torn between Prescription and Innovation

This paper reports on the affordances of corpora in the context of a teaching model that aims to highlight and strengthen the relevance and applicability of (socio-)linguistic content knowledge of World Englishes for university-based teacher education and the ELT classroom. We use large electronic corpora as one resource for the student teachers to explore the spread and extent of use of innovative and variable linguistic structures in Englishes around the world, and to critically examine the fuzzy boundary between errors and variety-specific, innovative linguistic structures. To examine the potential impact that a specific teaching intervention on World Englishes and corpora may have on student teachers’ judgments of the intelligibility and formal correctness of several features of World Englishes, a rating task was administered to an experimental and a control group. Additionally, students of the experimental group were interviewed about their experiences with the corpus intervention and their opinions and attitudes toward the use of corpora for teaching English and, specifically, linguistic variation and innovations in English. The findings suggest that the teaching intervention seems to initiate an increased awareness of the variability of linguistic structures in World Englishes, and supports future teachers in questioning traditional prescriptive norms.

Bracing Ourselves: Embracing Policy Changes through a Long-Standing University–Schools Teacher Education Partnership in England

We articulate the principles behind our practices as teacher educators for an Initial Teacher Education (ITE) provider in South-West England working in partnership with local schools. We position them as ‘braces’ that enable us not only to withstand but ‘embrace’ the challenges of the current policy environment, which imposes braces of its own. All ITE providers in England must present their curriculum and teaching plans for approval by the Department for Education, one of many significant changes to ITE required in England over the last decade. Furthermore, for such plans to be approved they must assume a model of schooling based on knowledge acquisition in tension with not only our own motivations but also a broader (global) conversation among teacher educators critical of policy priorities for schooling and professional teacher formation that prioritise success in high-stakes tests and international league tables. The braces/principles emerge through articulating our collective understandings of and concerns with the policy braces. Our principles connect to the processes we feel confident are necessary aspects of ‘becoming’ teachers and can hold our Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) together, going forwards. The braces—becoming an informed educator; becoming an ethical actor; becoming a reflective practitioner—have a distinctive form of reflexivity at their heart and should apply to everyone across our partnership: us, as university-based teacher educators; school-based colleagues; and pre-service teachers. We offer our approach and the braces/principles we have developed to others also struggling to reconcile their own notions of good teacher education with national policy imperatives.

Understanding the professional identity of university-based teacher educators: A systematic review of the literature

Despite increasing interest in university-based teacher educators (UBTEs)’ professional expertise and development, their professional identity remains under-researched. This systematic review of the literature on the nature of UBTEs’ professional identity and how it is formed analyses 88 studies published from 2005 to 2023. We found that UBTEs’ professional identity has gained considerable attention in North American and European contexts, and most empirical studies were primarily based on self-reported, small-scale, and qualitative data. UBTEs’ identities emerging from this work include research-, teacher-, expert- and learner-oriented identities. Individual, interpersonal, institutional and national factors shape UBTEs’ identities, suggesting that UBTEs’ identity formation is complex and contested. Future directions for research are discussed.

Experimental Evidence on the Robustness of Coaching Supports in Teacher Education

Many novice teachers learn to teach “on the job,” leading to burnout and attrition among teachers and negative outcomes for students in the long term. Preservice teacher education is tasked with optimizing teacher readiness, but there is a lack of causal evidence regarding effective ways to prepare new teachers. In this paper, we use a mixed-reality simulation platform to evaluate the causal effects and robustness of an individualized, brief, and highly directive coaching model for candidates enrolled in a university-based teacher education program as well as for undergraduates considering teaching as a profession. Across five conceptual replication studies, we find that short, targeted, and directive coaching significantly improves candidates’ instructional performance during simulated classroom sessions and that coaching effects are robust across different teaching tasks, study timing, and modes of delivery. However, coaching effects are smaller for a subpopulation of participants not formally enrolled in a teacher preparation program. These participants differed in terms of prior experiences learning about instructional methods, suggesting that coaching in isolation is not as effective without corresponding coursework on targeted practices. Taken together, our five studies provide encouraging evidence that teacher preparation can be an important time for rapid skill development when candidates are given targeted practice opportunities and corresponding support. Although we often think that practice has to happen in real classrooms with real students, we provide robust evidence that “the work of teaching” can be incorporated into teacher education coursework. We highlight implications for research and practice.

Supporting students’ basic psychological needs and satisfaction in a blended learning environment through learning analytics

In designing a blended learning environment (BLE), a key challenge is to ensure students have a motivating and satisfactory learning experience in both online and face-to-face components. This study addresses this challenge by investigating the impact of using learning analytics (LA) to support students' autonomy and competence needs within a BLE context. Specifically, it examines the effect of teachers sharing LA reports with students on their basic psychological needs and satisfaction in a blended university-based teacher education course. The quasi-experimental study employed a mixed-method approach and spanned two months (N = 348). In the experimental condition, teachers provide specific LA information to students and adjust face-to-face instruction accordingly, while the control group does not receive these adaptations. The findings show that students are generally satisfied with the adapted learning environment, recognizing the value of teachers' LA-based adaptations. Results regarding students' basic psychological needs vary depending on the face-to-face workshop subject. This study contributes to the existing literature by highlighting how teachers' LA-based adaptations positively influence students' satisfaction with the learning environment, fulfilling their psychological needs. It underscores the significance of thoughtful BLE course design and provides recommendations for effective LA utilization in university settings. Based on the findings, several recommendations emerge. Data collection should prioritize group-level anonymity to ensure privacy. Digital learning platforms should provide clear and concise data visualizations to facilitate effective communication between teachers and students. Teachers should leverage LA insights to adapt face-to-face activities in the BLE. Clear guidance should be available to support teachers in utilizing LA effectively.

Who do they think they are? Professional identity of Chinese university-based teacher educators

ABSTRACT University-based teacher educators (UBTEs) are critical to teacher education quality. Studies have mainly explored the professional identity of UBTEs who were previously schoolteachers, whereas less is known about those who followed academic pathways. This study examines how UBTEs perceive their identities in the Chinese context, where academic pathways are common. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 34 purposively sampled participants from two university types: first-class normal universities, and provincial normal universities. Five identities aligned with previous research: teacher in a higher education institution; researcher; teacher of teachers; collaborator; and coach. Three new identities emerged from the data: teacher of tradition; questioner; and doctoral student. Similarities and differences in identity perception were also discovered between university types. This study suggests the complexity of being a UBTE is shaped by institutional context, national and cultural milieu, and the nature of teacher education work, and concludes with recommendations for teacher education programmes.