Dr Elizabeth White School of Education, University of Hertfordshire Sue Field

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.