Understanding Teacher Education

Case Studies in the Professional Development of Beginning Teachers

James Calderhead, Susan B. Shorrock

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• eBook ISBN: 9781135718985
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This text reports a study of 20 student primary teachers, 10 on a conventional PGCE course and 10 on a school-based articled teacher training course. documenting their learning experiences over a two year period, the authors explore the factors that facilitate or impede the students' learning as teachers. In drawing upon these case studies together with existing theoretical models of professional development, the authors distinguish several key characteristics of learning to teach and discuss the implications of these for the design of effective school- based teacher education courses.

Chapter 1
Teaching and Teacher Education

Defining Teaching and Teacher Education

‘What makes a good teacher?’ is a question that has intrigued and challenged philosophers, researchers, policy-makers and teachers for many centuries. It is also a question that has generated diverse answers, varying in their nature and degree of specificity in different countries and across different periods in history. Educational thinkers and writers have variously emphasized different aspects of the teaching role—the teacher as expert in their subject; the teacher as facilitator of learning; the teacher as a motivator and source of inspiration; the teacher as upholder of moral standards. Recent educational policy documents in the UK, and in many other countries, have tended to become more prescriptive in the views of teaching which they support—often construing teachers as the deliverers of a prescribed curriculum, necessitating the acquisition of particular skills and competences. At the same time, media reports would suggest that public expectations of schools and teachers have become more extensive: schools are not only institutions in which children acquire knowledge and skills, they are also places where children learn to socialize and cooperate with others, learn about the world of work and prepare for responsible citizenship.

Views about the role of the teacher are culturally embedded. Substantial variations in how school teachers think about their roles and responsibilities have been found across France, Spain and the UK, for example. Spanish teachers, working within a democratic management system, in which headteachers are elected from amongst teachers within the school, have been found to be more likely to think of teaching as a collaborative activity and to have a stronger sense of responsibility to the local community (Laffitte, 1993). French school teachers, on the other hand, tend to think of their role as relating much more to expertise in their subject specialisms and do not regard their responsibilities as encompassing the pastoral care that their English counterparts value more highly (Broadfoot, Osborn, Gilly and Brûcher, 1994; Planel, 1995).

How we conceptualize the work of teachers inevitably influences how we think about their professional preparation, and ultimately shapes suggestions for the further improvement of teacher education. Zeichner (1983) and Feiman-Nemser (1990) provide interesting classifications of ideologies, or conceptual orientations, in teacher education which they suggest have characterized reform movements within the United States over the past century. These orientations refer to a body of values and beliefs about teaching and teacher education that at different points in history have been particularly influential in shaping the nature of initial teacher education courses. The academic orientation, for example, emphasizes teachers’ subject expertise and sees the quality of the teacher’s own education as his/her professional strength; in this view, a sound liberal arts education is seen as the crucial ingredient of teacher preparation. The practical orientation, on the other hand, emphasizes the artistry and classroom technique of the teacher, viewing the teacher as a craftsperson; it therefore attaches importance to classroom experience and apprenticeship models of learning to teach. The technical orientation derives from a behaviourist model of teaching and learning, emphasizes the knowledge and behavioural skills that teachers require and has been associated with microteaching and competency-based approaches to teacher education. The personal orientation emphasizes the importance of interpersonal relationships in the classroom, often derives support from humanistic psychology, and views learning to teach as a process of ‘becoming’ or personal development; in this view, teacher education takes the form of offering a safe environment which encourages experimentation and discovery of personal strengths. The critical inquiry orientation views schooling as a process of social reform and emphasizes the role of schools in promoting democratic values and reducing social inequities; an important aspect of teacher education is therefore seen as enabling prospective teachers to become aware of the social context of schools and of the social consequences of their own actions as teachers; within this orientation, teacher education functions to help teachers become critical, reflective change-agents.

These ideologies or value positions are clearly identifiable across national boundaries. In many countries one can distinguish similar, competing ideologies or orientations in how teaching and teacher education are viewed. Arguably all of these orientations offer a perspective on teachers’ professional preparation and all simultaneously have implications for the design of teacher education courses, although frequently they appear to vie with each other for precedence in the prevailing language with which teacher education is publicly discussed, rather than being thought of as complementary or mutually relevant and informative. Inevitably, learning to teach involves the acquisition of certain knowledge and skills, but teaching is also a matter of individuality and personal expression; it is also often subject focused, but teachers’ actions are embedded within a particular institutional context to which they need to adapt and which may well require them to analyse critically its nature and structure and its contribution to the overall goals of education. Teacher education, in effect, is too complex to be characterized by any one of these orientations alone, and inevitably encapsulates aspects of them all.

Reform in Teacher Education

Over the past decade or two, an increasing level of attention has been paid to teacher education, accompanied by more profound questioning of its nature and purpose. In the UK, this has partly been stimulated by professional concerns—an awareness amongst some teacher educators that the quality and relevance of initial training could be improved, and a willingness to experiment with new approaches (e.g., Benton, 1990; Ashton, 1983). A second factor has been the increasingly high public profile of education itself: the demands upon schools and teachers have grown and this has raised questions about how teachers are best trained for their work. Finally, teacher education has also become embroiled in economic and political arguments. Education throughout the Western world is one of the major consumers of public funds, often only ranking behind defence, health and social services. In times of recession and cuts in public expenditure, teacher education, amongst other areas of educational expenditure, has not escaped scrutiny and the drive for value for money. Concerns with quality and efficiency have become commonplace, and combined with a policy of introducing competitiveness and markets into all areas of public service, have in the UK led to some radical reforms in teacher education, imposed from central government.

In 1990, the Department for Education introduced alternative means of training school teachers. Two new schemes were proposed. One was termed the licensedteacher scheme, which enables trainees over the age of 26 and with at least two years of higher education experience to be trained on the job. The licensed teacher would work in a school and be paid a salary for a two-year period. The training was to be tailored to their specific needs and would be provided by their employer. At the end of the two-year period, the employer would make a decision as to whether to recommend the trainee for qualified teacher status. The second scheme was the articled teacher scheme which was to be delivered in partnership between schools, local education authorities and higher education institutions. The local education authorities, however, were to take the leading role in terms of organization, financial control and monitoring of the scheme. Trainees were to spend two years in training—80 per cent of this time being on attachment to schools where their training would be overseen by a mentor.

HMI evaluations of school-based training pointed to the highly variable nature of the provision and to the need for teachers to be much better trained to take on their new mentoring roles (HMI, 1991). Despite these reservations, however, the Department for Education pressed ahead with its reforms, introducing legislation in 1992 governing the nature of initial teacher training courses. This specified that one-year postgraduate secondary teacher training courses must involve two-thirds of the time spent in school, and the course must be delivered in partnership between schools and higher education institutions, with teachers playing a major administrative and teaching role (see DfE, 1992). Similar reforms were also introduced to primary teacher training (see DfE, 1993), although less time was required in school in recognition of the breadth of the primary curriculum for which student teachers have to be prepared. In addition, schools are now also being encouraged to provide their own initial training courses either by themselves or in partnership with higher education institutions. The establishment of a separate funding council for teacher education with a specific mission to encourage school involvement reflects the determined attempt of central government to wrest control of teacher education from higher education institutions and introduce what is perceived to be a more practical, apprentice-like form of training, which can be supplied by a wide range of providers in competition. More recently, central government has proposed reforms aimed at influencing the content of teacher training by enforcing a standardized national preservice teacher training curriculum (DfEE, 1996).

The UK is not alone in the rapid move towards school-based teacher education. The US, Australia and the Netherlands have experienced similar trends, though not always for the same reasons. In several areas of the US, Professional Development Schools have emerged which have a strong focus on professional development activities, including the initial training of teachers, and specialist staff in schools are taking on roles previously undertaken by teacher educators in higher education (see Stallings and Kowalski, 1990). In the Netherlands, concerns with quality, effectiveness and value for money in public services are similarly fuelling interest in a form of school-based training that resembles an apprenticeship as opposed to traditional university-based courses which are perceived to be overly academic (Wubbels, 1992).

In other countries, however, there is a trend in the opposite direction. In France, for example, primary teacher education was until recently undertaken by the equivalent of colleges of education, and secondary teacher education was virtually non-existent, relying heavily upon the subject studies within university degrees as the major qualification for teaching. In an attempt to improve both the status of primary teaching and the quality of training, new university level institutes were created to offer four-year degree courses covering the subject matter of the primary curriculum, the pedagogy associated with the various subject areas and matters concerning child development and children’s learning. Similarly in Italy, where secondary teacher training has not traditionally been compulsory, there is an awareness of the need for teachers to be better prepared in the teaching and learning of their subject, and postgraduate courses in teacher training are becoming much more widespread (see Buchberger, 1992; Eurydice, 1995). Teacher training in Scandinavia, on the other hand, has in recent times involved education to Masters level, with the integrated study of subject matter, pedagogy and educational studies; this form of training still retains strong levels of public and professional confidence.

The rapid move towards school-based teacher education in several countries has probably as much to do with political, economic and ideological factors as it has with any genuine concern for, and understanding of, quality in teacher education. The argument that teaching is best learned in the classroom has little theoretical or empirical justification, although in the UK it has had some strong advocates in the right-wing Centre for Policy Studies. The main justifications they have offered for this move seem to lie in two arguments. First, the claim is made that teacher education courses have evolved with a bias towards unproductive theorizing and a leaning towards left-wing ideology, at the expense of an essential focus on subject matter, and the techniques of imparting knowledge and managing children in classrooms. Lawlor (1990), for instance, criticizes ITT courses for their obsessive concern with multiculturalism and special needs which she views as products of 1960s left-wing thinking rather than as matters relating to practical teaching. Second, O’Hear (1988), a philosopher at Bradford University, argues that teaching is a practical activity and can only be learned in practice. Drawing on Gilbert Ryle’s (1949) distinction of ‘knowing how’ and ‘knowing that’, he argues that learning to teach, like learning to ride a bicycle, is largely a matter of ‘knowing how’ and can only be learned from one’s own trial and error practice and under the supervision of an experienced practitioner.

Such a view, however, presents an oversimplification of the processes of learning to teach. Even if learning to teach could be regarded as purely a matter of acquiring a practical skill, even moderately complex human skills are not learned simply through trial and error experience and coaching. Learning to ski, for example, by strapping on boots and skis and taking to the snow can be a potentially dangerous exercise. Furthermore, where practical skills are learned through trial and error, rarely are high levels of accomplishment achieved by practice alone. For example, in learning to ski, the skier can develop useful theoretical knowledge—about how the ski works, about how the skier’s distribution of weight on the ski affects its actions, about how movements of the body are used to control the direction of the skis, and about the appropriateness of particular techniques in different terrain. Good ski instructors similarly require much more knowledge than simply the ‘know-how’ of how to ski themselves. They need to develop a language for communicating with the novice about the physical sensations and movements that skiing involves; they also need an understanding of the processes of learning to ski—what kinds of difficulties novices encounter, what are useful learning activities, how might they be sequenced, what advice, analogies, concepts, explanations are useful to learners to help them judge their own performance and improve upon it. Learning to ski well is certainly much more than trial and error learning under the watchful eye of an expert. Similar arguments could be made for almost any area of moderate or complex human skill. When considering much more complex skills, such as teaching, which require reasoning (about how to deal with new specific situations), the development of complex relationships (that enable teachers to maintain children’s interest and communicate with them) and moral judgments (about what is appropriate action for teachers and schools to take), ‘knowing that’ and ‘knowing how’ are clearly simplistic divisions, leaving out of the account, for instance, the ‘knowing why’ and ‘knowing when’.

Understanding Teacher Education

Given the diverse and contradictory ways in which teacher education is being shaped, a fuller understanding of what teachers do and the processes by which teachers learn to teach is evidently needed. Although teacher education may at present be being driven by an alternative agenda, any genuine improvements in the quality of teacher education require a clearer understanding of the processes involved and how they are most appropriately facilitated. Claims currently abound concerning potential ways of improving teacher education, involving, for instance, an increase in the level of subject study for intending teachers, or an increase in the practical component. Such claims, however, are premised on very simple models of the nature of teaching and how teachers learn to teach. They leave out of the account the complexity of the tasks that teachers undertake, and the different kinds of learning that these most likely involve. Learning how to plan a lesson, how to relate to 7-year-olds in a classroom, how to present oneself as a teacher in the classroom, how to work collaboratively with other teachers, how to analyse and improve one’s own practice and to consider the long-term goals of education require quite different approaches to learning.

The purpose of this book is to report an ESRC-funded project that studied twenty student teachers over a two-year period, with the intention of exploring the processes of learning to teach. Ten of the students were on a two-year articled teacher training course, the other ten were on a conventional one-year postgraduate certificate in education course which was largely institution-based with intermittent periods spent in schools. All of the students were training to become primary teachers.

The project aimed to improve our understanding of the processes of learning to teach, principally by attempting to answer such questions as:

• What kind of background and experience do the student teachers come to teacher training with, and how does this influence their experience of training and induction?
• What kind of knowledge and understanding do they acquire in the process of learning to teach? How do they acquire it? And how does it inform their classroom practice?
• What are the major factors that interact and facilitate the processes of learning to teach? How, for instance, do institutional, supervisory, personal and activity factors interrelate with one another?
• How can we understand the processes of professional development in initial teacher education, and what might its implications be for the design, organization and assessment of preservice training?

Chapter 2 reviews some of the key literature that has reported previous research in this area and which provides some of the theoretical frameworks for the analysis of the data collected in this study. Chapter 3 describes the methodology of the research project, pointing out how the data was collected and analysed and how the case studies described in Chapters 4 to Chapters 7 were constructed. The main findings of the study are reported in Chapters 8 and Chapters 9. Chapters 4 to Chapters 7describe four case studies, two from each of the training programmes, overviewing the development of the student teachers over the two-year period. Chapter 8 looks across all of the cases and comments on some general themes concerning the students’ learning and experiences. The final chapter discusses some of the practical questions facing teacher education today and considers how research might help to understand teacher education processes and how it might help to direct teacher education in the future.

In the literature on teachers’ professional development, there are sometimes clear distinctions drawn between ‘teacher education’ and ‘teacher training’. More recently, the distinctions have become blurred and the two terms seem to be used almost interchangeably, both referring to the overall professional preparation of teachers. That is the understanding on which the terms have been used throughout the book, though further consideration of possible distinctions between them is made in Chapter 9.

Chapter 2
Learning to Teach

During initial training and their first few years in the classroom, many teachers, perhaps even the majority, experience difficulties in learning to teach. Managing children, developing appropriate relationships in the classroom, getting to grips with the subject matter, planning activities which involve children and help them learn, monitoring children’s understanding, becoming part of the social and institutional structure of the school, are all common sources of difficulty and anxiety (Veenman, 1984; Knowles and Cole, 1994). It is therefore somewhat surprising that within the profession itself, initial training and support for induction into the profession often appear to have been awarded scant attention or prestige.

Yet the task of preparing teachers for the profession is a complex and challenging one. In designing ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1: Teaching and Teacher Education
• Chapter 2: Learning to Teach
• Chapter 3: Researching Learning to Teach
• Chapter 4: Case Study One—Adam
• Chapter 5: Case Study Two—Nina
• Chapter 6: Case Study Three—Beth
• Chapter 7: Case Study Four—Maggie
• Chapter 8: Student Teacher Development
• Chapter 9: Facilitating Learning to Teach
• References