The preparation of pre-service student teachers’ competence to work in schools

Competence to work in schools is an important dimension of professional competence, although it is often a neglected dimension of teacher development. This article reports a qualitative study that examined student teachers’ learning experiences in initial teacher education (ITE) in relation to competence to work in schools. In-depth interviews were conducted with 12 student teachers on an undergraduate ITE programme in Hong Kong. The findings of the study show that competence to work in schools is characterised by student teachers’ deep contextualised learning. In addition, it offers a deeper understanding of this competence in the ITE context by identifying its three facets, namely understanding of the micro-political realities of schools, social capital building and social strategies. The study provides insights for ITE and schools to support student teachers’ development of their competence to work in schools, including the design of ITE curricula, ITE processes and co-curricular activities in undergraduate studies. Moreover, it suggests the importance of developing schools as growth-fostering and positive micro-political sites for ITE fieldwork and teacher induction.     

Development of a cadre of teacher educators: some lessons from Pakistan

This article is based on an educational innovation, the creation of a cadre of teacher educators, in the developing world. Professional development teachers (PDT) were trained in an in-service two-year teacher education programme leading to a Masters of Education (M.Ed.) degree. The PDTs were expected to play three roles in their home schools upon completion of the degree programme: (a) exemplary teachers; (b) teacher educators; and (c) change agents within their home schools to effect improvement.This article reviews education in Pakistan and the innovations that have come to inform the need to focus on teacher education as a primary area of investment and presents findings of a three-year longitudinal study of a selection of PDTs trained at the Aga Khan University’s Institute for Educational Development (AKU-IED). The main findings of the study indicate that teachers benefited significantly as individuals with enhanced career prospects, identified themselves more and preferred the role of teacher educators as opposed to classroom-based teachers, and sought opportunities outside their own schools but their role as change agents was more limited. Those teachers who maintained links with their schools beyond the three-year bonding period (a condition of being admitted to study for the M.Ed.) varied in the extent to which they managed to initiate and sustain school improvement efforts as indicated by changes in the structures and relationships within schools affecting the teaching–learning offered to pupils.     

Pupil guidance: An integral part of teacher education and development in Scotland?

Many schools throughout the UK are experiencing challenging behaviour from pupils and high levels of absence and exclusion as they seek to implement initiatives aimed at raising pupil attainment [National Audit Office (2005). Improving school attendance, London: The Stationery Office]. These initiatives often presuppose that pupils will receive adequate levels of guidance and support to help them make curricular, personal, social, and health decisions. However, little is heard from teachers and students undertaking initial teacher education courses on how they have been prepared for this extended role of supporting increasing diverse student populations; nor do we know how they define guidance/pupil support and integrate this with their concept of the professional role of a teacher. This article presents evidence from a one-year study of pupil support in Scotland commissioned by the Scottish Executive Education Department. The study provided evidence for The National Review of Guidance Provision in Scotland [Scottish Executive (2003). The national review of guidance. Edinburgh: Scottish Executive; Scottish Executive (2005). Happy, safe and achieving their potential. Edinburgh: Scottish Executive]. The study explored the views of all 32 local authorities in Scotland, a sample of students in training in two universities and teachers, headteachers and pupils in eight case study schools, and also a sample of their parents. This article focuses specifically on the findings relating to teachers and students in training. It identifies the ways in which they support pupils and how well they think they have been prepared for that task. Two dominant models of pupil support emerge from these data: an embedded and a specialist approach, and these vary according to school and education sector. Primary school teachers were more likely to embed pupil support into their concept of being teachers, whereas secondary teachers perceived it to be a separate, specialist function, which many were reluctant to undertake. Some implications for teacher education are highlighted.     

Mapping the subject: student teachers,location and the understanding of religion

Religious education students on initial teacher education programmes work in both school and university contexts that might be expected to produce different accounts of the nature of religion. This article explores the contested nature of religion and the ways in which student teachers negotiate their own understanding of subject knowledge. A small case study within a Scottish context is considered in which schools are seen to occupy spaces which privilege a modernist approach to subject knowledge in contrast with the post-structuralist accounts of religion that students may encounter at university. Consideration is given as to how six third-year student teachers negotiate the differences between these two contexts. This study has implications for the kind of support offered to students by initial teacher education institutions, where such differences obtain, and potentially raises questions concerning the future construction of religion in schools.     

Values in teaching

As in many other Western countries, in The Netherlands in recent years a discussion has started about the possibilities and necessity of teachers paying more attention to values in schools. In this article we will give a review of research regarding values and education, and make a conceptual clarification. We will analyse how values and communicative skills to reflect on values can be part of education, and will discuss school culture as part of a moral education. We argue for a more integrative approach. This implies at the same time the stimulation of certain values by the teacher, teaching and learning of skills to better communicate on values, and increasing the active participation of students. Throughout the article we focus on the pedagogical and didactic approach of the teacher, the way teachers are confronted with values, and how teachers' own values are part of their teaching practice.     

我国某地区中小学教师构建师生关系状况调查

文章从师生关系模式角度调查了我国某地区中小学师生关系规范性的状况,分析了导致我国中小学师生关系不规范的主要原因是教育理论在这个领域研究的不深入、不具体及中小学教师这方面教育理论修养低的问题     

Art,Design and Environment: A Programme for Teacher Education

This account of a programme for PGCE Art/Design students at University College Bretton Hall, Wakefield (UK) describes an attempt in initial teacher training to develop a course of study which links art, design, environment and education. It seeks to develop a range of perceptions of the built environment, including those of the artist, the critic and the designer. The ideas and methods of working developed on this programme support students’ work in schools. The paper explains the rationale and describes the intensive workshop programme, which includes streetwork, studio sessions and critique. It reports on students’ research and their work in schools. Issues include the place of built environment studies in the Art/Design curriculum, the use of the environment as an educational resource and learning methods and teaching strategies. It comments on the satisfactions and frustrations of developing such a programme in initial teacher education. It presents the work at Bretton Hall as a case study in a wider range of work currently being developed by students, tutors and teachers involved in other courses. They have come together through the ‘Site Specific Project’ to create a research network to support curriculum innovation and teachers’ professional development.     

Changing practices for a global society: voices of students,teachers, principals and university teacher educators on active learning

In responding to globalisation, Irish curricula advocate active learning and cooperative groupwork methods in second-level schools but there are many difficulties in implementing them. This paper explores the experiences and perspectives of teachers, students, principals and university teacher educators and is based on a recent qualitative study. All respondents reported that there are major constraints to the use of these methods. Implementation of active learning methods requires an exploration, within a context of continuous professional development, of teacher values and motivation, of goals and contrasting paradigms in education, and of ways of building democratic structures and relationships within schools.     

Is teacher knowledge associated with performance? On the relationship between teachers’ general pedagogical knowledge and instructional quality

Researchers have identified general pedagogical knowledge (GPK) as a relevant category of teacher knowledge. However, hardly any study has examined the relationship between GPK of teachers and the instructional quality delivered to their students. This article therefore investigates the relationship between teachers’ GPK assessed via a standardised paper–pencil test and the quality of their instruction rated by their students. A sample of 246 in-service teachers at vocational schools in Austria is used. Teachers’ GPK positively correlates with students’ perceptions of effective classroom management, generic teaching methods/teacher clarity and teacher–student relationships. Regression analysis shows that GPK is a significant predictor for instructional quality even when controlled for teacher education grades, teacher personality (Big-Five) and teaching experience. Implications of teachers’ GPK as a resource for their teaching, limitations of the study and perspectives for future research are discussed.     

Research-based and hands-on practical teacher education: an attempt to combine the two

This article, based on the analysis of responses given by 27 students in initial teacher education, gives an account of how education theory can be conceived by students as relevant to their teaching practice. Research on teacher education in many countries has revealed that students regard theory and practice to be inconsistent or to belong to different worlds in initial teacher education. This may have a potentially negative effect on the teachers’ opportunities for future professional development, as such development should be based on the ability to view one’s own teaching practice from a critical, theory- and research-based perspective. In the research and development project reported in this article, the PIL-project, the students’ teaching practice was chosen as the pivotal point for all the other activities involved in the teacher education programme. Results indicate that when questions emerge from the students’ own experience, theory is often found useful in discussing and understanding their practical experiences. The results further show that the students’ choice of theory when discussing their teaching practice is eclectic. Students tend to choose theory with direct relevance to their daily tasks in the classrooms. The implication for initial teacher education is that the educational theory taught should more often address the immediate challenges faced by the students doing their teaching practice.     

‘I was kind of teaching myself’: teachers’ conversations about social justice and teaching for change

This article shares teachers’ conversations within teacher inquiry groups and considers how this reflective approach has potential for transforming teachers’ practices. Conversations took place at the early stages of a longer teacher inquiry project and centred on the critical interrogation of social justice-oriented children’s literature. These conversations served as a forum to help teacher professional learning communities and to reconcile understandings about social justice, action and agency within larger political and cultural forums of teaching. The teacher inquiry sessions shared in this paper explore teachers’ beginning struggles with conceptualizations of social justice, and the teacher’s role in imparting values to students. Teacher participants imparted their experience and practice as they negotiated their own understanding and implementation of social justice education in their schools. The teacher inquiry groups provided a needed supportive space where classroom teachers’ struggles were shared alongside their beliefs and pedagogical approaches so that a social justice agenda could be achieved.     

Investigating the differential effectiveness of a teacher professional development programme for rural and urban classrooms in Indonesia

This article reports on the differential effectiveness of a teacher professional development programme for teachers in urban and rural schools in Indonesia. The study employed an embedded mixed methods design that involved the concurrent collection of both quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative component involved a pre–post design in which two surveys were administered to a sample of 2417 students drawn from 66 classes in 32 lower secondary schools (960 from urban schools and 1457 from rural schools). The qualitative component involved six case study teachers and two students from each of their classes. Qualitative information was gathered using teacher and student interviews, classroom observations and teacher reflective journals. The quantitative results suggested that there were disparities between the usefulness of the knowledge and skills imparted during the programme for teachers in urban and rural schools. The themes that emerged from the data gathered using qualitative methods helped to make sense of the differences in student scores in urban and rural schools before and after the teacher professional development programme.     

Silence speaks: Whiteness revealed in the absence of voice

In this hybrid article, the author attempts to weave together the theoretical implications of whiteness theory and a theorizing of silence on teacher education practices, research with her own students that explored these implications, and reflections on her own pedagogical practices and location as a white teacher educator teaching about race and diversity. In teacher education courses intended to explore issues regarding the implications of diversity in schools, silence is often encountered in work with white students who have not examined their identity in the context of a racial discourse. This article explores the nature and intent of these racially inhabited silences that emerged in two teacher education courses comprised predominately of white preservice teachers.     

“U—G—S”教师教育模式建构研究——基于教师教育创新东北实验区建设的实践与思考

师范大学、地方政府、中小学校在优秀教师与未来教育家培养方面肩负共同的责任与使命。东北师范大学在总结以往“校-府”合作经验基础上,以“教师教育创新东北实验区”建设为载体,提出并实施了“校-府-校”合作（即“U-G-S”）教师教育新模式。三方遵循“目标一致、责任分担、利益共享、合作发展”的原则,在师范生培养、中小学教师培训和基础教育研究等方面协同创新,逐步形成了教师教育发展合作共同体。破解了长期困扰我国教师教育改革中的师范生教育实习、农村中小学教师培训和教师教育者专业发展难题,为我国新时期的教师教育改革探索出一条特色之路。     

Futures of Teaching in American Education

This article argues that factory model schools, created for a time when most individuals were being prepared for relatively low-skilled jobs, are not adequate to the task of educating most citizens for the knowledge work that will increasingly characterize economies of the 21st century. Although many important reforms have been launched over the last decade, countries that have not invested in the development of sophisticated teaching that can adapt to the needs of students and the demands of more challenging content have reached an impasse. Every aspect of school reform – the creation of more challenging curriculum, the use of more performance-based assessments, the implementation of decentralized management, the invention of new model schools and programs – depends on highly-skilled teachers. Policies aimed at developing a quality teaching system include (1) enacting meaningful standards for teachers as well as students, (2) overhauling teacher education and professional development, (3) addressing teacher recruitment problems and placing qualified teachers in all schools, (4) rewarding teacher knowledge and skills, and (5) redesigning schools so that they support teaching and learning. This article describes successful strategies in each of these areas and paints a picture of the alternative futures for education that rest on policies yet to be decided.     

英国教师教育对我国综合性大学教师教育的启示

在全新的环境下,怎样更好地为社会培养出更多更优秀的教育人才是众多师范高等院校面临的难题。通过合并、结构调整、升格等方式生存下来的综合性大学往往不够重视教师教育,理论和实践严重脱节,职前培训不是特别到位,导致师范毕业生从教时很难迅速地进入教师角色,对教育是一种损失。借鉴英国教师教育的先进经验尤其是其教师教育的亮点——伙伴合作模式,充分发挥大学和中小学的优势来共同培养教师。我国综合性大学教师教育应该在以本校雄厚的学术实力为依托的基础上定位工作目标和重心,理顺理论与实践、教育机构与实习学校等的关系,共同实现教师教育的连贯性和一体化,使实习成为真正提升师范生作为未来教师的基本技能和素质的强有力的手段,来达到改进教师教育现状的目的。     

The name of the rose: Inclusive values into action in teacher education

This article considers the inclusive development of teacher education, drawing on changes made for the new edition of the Index for Inclusion. It defines inclusion as putting inclusive values into action and sets out a values framework for education. It critiques approaches to inclusion that are confined to the mainstream participation of children categorized as “having special educational needs”. It suggests inclusive development as a heading for all compatible principled interventions in schools but argues that having a singular approach to development is more important than the name it is given. It attempts to fill a gap in thinking about inclusion by suggesting the structure for a values- and rights-based curriculum for schools. It suggests that besides preparing teachers to promote inclusion in schools, teacher educators who wish to promote inclusion from within universities and colleges must attempt to put inclusive values into action in the cultures, policies, and practices of their own institutions.     

Planning for Reform-Based Science: Case Studies of Two Urban Elementary Teachers

The intent of national efforts to frame science education standards is to promote students’ development of scientific practices and conceptual understanding for their future role as scientifically literate citizens (NRC 2012). A guiding principle of science education reform is that all students receive equitable opportunities to engage in rigorous science learning. Yet, implementation of science education reform depends on teachers’ instructional decisions. In urban schools serving students primarily from poor, diverse communities, teachers typically face obstacles in providing reform-based science due to limited resources and accountability pressures, as well as a culture of teacher-directed pedagogy, and deficit views of students. The purpose of this qualitative research was to study two white, fourth grade teachers from high-poverty urban schools, who were identified as transforming their science teaching and to investigate how their beliefs, knowledge bases, and resources shaped their planning for reform-based science. Using the Shavelson and Stern’s decision model for teacher planning to analyze evidence gathered from interviews, documents, planning meetings, and lesson observations, the findings indicated their planning for scientific practices was influenced by the type and extent of professional development each received, each teacher’s beliefs about their students and their background, and the mission and learning environment each teacher envisioned for the reform to serve their students. The results provided specific insights into factors that impacted their planning in high-poverty urban schools and indicated considerations for those in similar contexts to promote teachers’ planning for equitable science learning opportunities by all students.     

Teacher Authority in Schools: A case study from Finland

This paper discusses the nature of teacher authority in Finnish schools. Current trends in Finnish teacher education are presented with an emphasis on the high academic status of teachers. The empirical findings examine moral dilemmas in schools as identified by teachers and students. The methods of the study include interviews and essays. The analysis of the data reveals that the most problematic conflicts in schools are related to teacher-given punishment. The teachers have failed in practising their deontic authority. Teachers' behaviour has included manipulative means to control life in the classroom. The results of the study indicate that moral dilemmas in schools and the nature of teacher authority in solving these conflicts should be addressed more in pre-service teacher education.