dr elizabeth white school of education, university of hertfordshire sue field
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TEAN Conference, Aston University, Birmingham, May 2012 How do we create effective teachers? Exploring our pedagogy for initial teacher education in schools and HEIs. Dr Elizabeth White School of Education, University of Hertfordshire Sue Field - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
TEAN Conference, Aston University, Birmingham, May 2012
How do we create effective teachers?
Exploring our pedagogy for initial
teacher education in schools and HEIs
Dr Elizabeth White School of Education, University of Hertfordshire
Sue Field The Graduate School, Canterbury Christ Church University
Liz’s Research Context
Pedagogical Knowledge of Teacher Educators
Making tacit professional knowledge explicit to trainees
Lunenberg et al. (2007) Teacher and Teacher Education 23, 586-601
Loughran (2006) Developing a pedagogy of teacher education: understanding teaching and
learning about teaching. Routledge.
Learning to think like a teacher
It was valuable for [the trainees] to go through the process and then think through how the pupils might respond to it
I think what they found particularly useful about the observation was looking at how you went about teaching …
Findings – personal beliefs about teacher educationBeatrice
Amanda
What I found was most useful was being put into groups, allocated a topic and
then as a group to come up with how you would go about teaching it ... I think it is … generating ideas and ways in which to
go about teaching that I found most useful
Loughran, J. (2009) Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice 15 (2) 189-203
“Teaching teaching is about knowing the what,
why and how of practice in sophisticated ways
and being able to create pedagogical situations
that encourage students of teaching to learn
about the problematic nature of teaching and to
be comfortable in a world of such uncertainty.”
Sue’s study: The trials of transition, and the impact on the pedagogy of new teacher educators
(Field, forthcoming)
• Interviews conducted with six new teacher educators in an HEI, about their experiences of transition
• All were former teachers, with between 2 and 3 years’ experience in HE
• None volunteered information about a pedagogy of initial teacher education, or appeared to recognise its relevance
• All needed prompting to think beyond (curriculum) ‘subject knowledge’, and to consider how they had, or had built up, their knowledge of meta-teaching
Responses to prompts Reflecting upon
teaching/deconstructing previous practice (‘why
it worked)
Instinctive knowledge of theoretical underpinning
(of teaching and learning)
Implicit understanding of how teachers learn,
from previous experience as a mentor - more about common
sense than theories
Reading (generic texts on teaching and
learning)
Sitting by Nellie
“I think I overestimated how much I needed to upgrade that pedagogy (school teaching), because when it came down to it, it was mainly experience and common sense transferred into a different situation.”
First order to second order practitioners
• Success as school practitioners• Expertise in teaching and learning• Wealth of tacit understandings• Personal theories, based on reflection in and on
action• Enthusiasm for curriculum subjects• Knowledge of how schools work• Often experience of leadership/management• (Currency)
Stages of knowledge acquisition
Knowledge of how to teach others how to teach (your subject)
Knowledge of how to teach others your subject(s) (PGCE, etc.)
Subject knowledge (degree, etc.)
Knowledge of how to teach others how to teach (your subject)
(Experience? +?)
Teaching about teaching
In the same way as the novice teacher needs to be sensitive to releasing control in order to manage the complexity of teaching, so too teacher educators need to depart from their well-marked path and approach the edge of chaos in order to re-embrace the creativity, experimentation and risk-taking that so shapes a developing understanding of pedagogy.
Loughran 2006
Provocations
• What do you think helps a student to learn to teach?
• How would you describe what learning to teach means to you?
Plenary
• What will this mean to us?
• How will it influence our practice?
ReferencesBERRY, A. & LOUGHRAN, J. (2002) Developing an understanding of learning to teach in teacher education. IN LOUGHRAN, J. & RUSSELL, T. (Eds.) Improving Teacher Education Practices through Self-study. London, RoutledgeFalmer.
Boyd, P. & Harris, K. (2010) Becoming a university lecturer in teacher education: expert school teachers reconstructing their pedagogy and identity, Professional Development in Education, 36(1-2), 9-24.
LOUGHRAN, J. (2006) Developing a pedagogy of teacher education: understanding teaching and learning about teaching. Routledge
LOUGHRAN, J. (2009) Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice 15 (2) 189-203
LUNENBERG, M., KORTHAGEN, F. & SWENNEN, A. (2007) Teacher and Teacher Education 23, 586-601
McKeon, F. & Harrison, J. (2010) Developing pedagogical practice and professional identities of beginning teacher educators, Professional Development in Education, 36(1-2), 25-44.
MURRAY, J. & MALE, T. (2005) Becoming a teacher educator: evidence from the field. Teaching and Teacher Education 21, 125-142.Murray, J. (2006) The findings of the ESCalate study on teacher educators’ induction into Higher Education. [online] ESCalate. Available from http://escalate.ac.uk/2322 TAYLOR, A. (2008) Developing understanding about learning to teach in a university-schools partnership in England. British Educational Research Journal, 34, 63-90.