New Approaches to Policies and Practices for Teacher Educators in the Americas

1. New Approaches to Policies and Practices for Teacher Educators in the Americas OAS Professional Development Programme, Trinidad, September 2006 Keynote address: Dr. Jean Murray, Brunel University, England

2. Teacher education and educational reform • The place of teacher education in educational policy, change and reform – why and how this happens (Cochrane-Smith 2005) • Examples of policy changes in educational aspirations of the state and their impact on teacher education and schooling (Fischman 2006; Torres 2000) • Changing curricula, assessment modes, locations of pre-service courses (schools, colleges, universities), patterns of fieldwork in schools and of teaching in tertiary education (Furlong et al 2000; Levine 2006) • Changes at the macro and meso (institutional) levels of teacher education

3. The overlooked dynamics of teacher education at the micro level? • Teacher education is a social process, about the induction and development of teachers as public servants – process of reproduction with clear value orientation and with pastoral as well as cognitive, professional and academic elements • Re-focusing on the inter-personal and inter-professional dynamics of teacher education • Considering the complexities of pedagogy in teacher education as a layered process • Children as learners are at its heart but it also involves focusing on teacher as learner • Teacher education as a second order process (Murray 2002)

4. Teacher educators as the overlooked people in teacher education? Teacher educators are the main – but often overlooked - agents of teacher education as teachers of teachers. ‘what student teachers learn during their initial training is as much influenced by who is responsible for teaching them as it is by the content of the curriculum’ (Furlong et al 2000:36) Limited research on this overlooked and often marginalised group (Ducharme and Ducharme 1996; Korthagen, Loughran and Lunenberg 2005)

5. Teacher educators as central agents in teacher education Teacher educators implement policy at its most immediate (and arguably most important) level – • devise and mediate the curriculum of teacher education– organising the ways in which knowledge areas are set out and implemented across schools and universities • through their pedagogy develop knowledge and understanding with and for their students, acting as professional role models. • in pre-service courses, act as gate keepers for the teaching profession (through assessment of students’ competence to teach) • in teacher development courses, challenge experienced teachers to develop and improve practices. Central to all teacher education, to its aspirations, achievements and values

6. The importance of teacher educators: the quality factor ‘The quality of teaching depends in large measure on the quality of the teachers; the quality of the teachers depends in large part upon the quality of their professional education; the quality of teacher education depends in large measure on the quality of those who provide it, namely the teacher educators.’ (Turney and Wright 1990)

7. Issues of identity, expertise and practice Issues of identity, expertise and practice – some questions • What makes a teacher educator different from other seemingly similar professional / academic groups? • What is distinctive about our identities, our areas of expertise and our practices? • Returning to analyse our professional responsibilities, our values and areas of expertise, and the ways in which these are played out in our pedagogies and practices • The central importance of acknowledging the professional responsibilities of teacher educators (and the purposes of teacher education) and how these are understood individually, communally and nationally as the missions or visions of teacher education? • How are these responsibilities played out in the practices of teacher educators?

8. Existing work on ‘standards’ and professionalism for teacher educators Professional frameworks for teacher educators – • practice in the USA – standards for teacher educators – Association of Teacher Educators. • the Dutch example – standards for professional development – VELON initiatives. Existing research on teacher educators’ work and professionalism Self-study traditions – SSTEP and the work of Loughran and Russell

9. Roles of teacher educators Cochrane-Smith (2005) - roles of teacher educators – working simultaneously on various projects including – • helping prospective teachers begin the lifelong process of learning to teach • helping serving teachers to develop and improve their practice and to continue as lifelong learners • learning through analyzing our own professional work as educators • engaging in scholarship and research • analyzing policies that impact on teacher education and considering their effects on our own work Strong commitments to educational values and mission of contributing to schooling

10. Knowledge and expertise First orderknowledge and understanding of schooling (and ways of analyzing it). Experiential, overview and ‘theoretical’ knowledge - tensions. Pedagogic knowledge of teaching children. Areas of expertise & specialism – fitness for role and purpose? Second orderknowledge and understanding of teacher education as adult learning. Professional development processes and what frames them. Teachers as learners. Pedagogy for adult, professional learners Change and development in knowledge bases over time in teacher education.

11. Teacher educator pedagogy 1 • Teachers of teachers involved in a layered or mirror-like process whereby they are teaching about teaching, their learners are also teachers (or intending teachers) • at the heart of all these teaching and learning processes is the child learning in the school classroom • but teacher education also focuses on the teacher as a lifelong professional learner • Practising as a teacher educator demands an engagement in teaching about teaching through the medium of personal pedagogy (Murray 2005) • Is holistic and involves professional artistry (Schon 1987)

12. Teacher educator pedagogy 2 It involves • ‘Bridging’ between ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ • Identifying the inter-relationships between what is taught (the ‘content’) and how (the pedagogical modes used) – synergies and considering • ‘the complexity of teaching groups of diverse students in constantly evolving situations’ (Zeichner 2005) • ‘scaffolding the learning of novice teachers towards more expert teaching’ (Zeichner 2005) • for more experienced teachers, developing various areas of teacher learning over time (Darling-Hammond & Bransford 2005) • creating links between the practice of teaching and relevant scholarship and research (Cochrane-Smith 2005). Recognise different models of engagement in the spectrum and the institutional pressures which maybe involved here.

13. Developing teacher educators Areas to consider: • their functions and tasks • the knowledge, skills and understanding they need • the ways in which these things are exemplified in expert practice • the acquisition and further development of this expertise (adapted from Koster and Dengerink 2001)

14. Recruitment & Induction – what do we know about these processes? • Recruitment – criteria vary over time and national contexts, often implicit. • Induction – more than a casual occupational shift. Assumptions of transferability • Deep learning process – acquiring new knowledge and developing a new persona (a professional way of being) • Professional responsibility and influence over teachers as lifelong learners • Shifting the lens of teaching • Developing research and scholarship to inform practice

15. Professional development, retention and continuing dynamism - • Being a lifelong learner as a teacher educator (Darling-Hammond and Sykes 2006; Cochran-Smith 2003) • Developing expertise in teaching adults and management of learning • Keeping the lens focused on quality of practice – avoiding stasis • Developing practice-related research and scholarship, producing research (Cochrane-Smith 2005) • Maintaining senses of mission and value congruence with and for schooling • Developing a career path – balancing individual choice with institutional imperatives and shifts in national policies

16. Acknowledging diversity in teacher education • Acknowledging the diversity of contexts within which teacher education operates across the region and sub-regions • Acknowledging the national and the regional • Acknowledging the importance of micro communities of practice in teacher education (communal understandings) as well as individual differences. • Seminar and survey results as means for powerful identification of variations in teacher educators’ expertise and practices across the regions.

17. Analysing differences and commonalities across contexts • Superficial factors – e.g. contexts for work, curriculum, students’ entry criteria, the educational and political context within which teacher education has to take place, the roles allocated to teacher educators. • Deep seated – e.g. aspirations for the model of the ideal school teacher. Political, economic, social and moral frames for those aspirations. Processes of induction and development for school teachers. Teacher educators’ roles in these processes. Acknowledging the various ways in which the purposes of teacher education are understood and played out in teacher educators’ work

18. The opportunities provided by the seminar • Possible outcomes - powerful identification of variations in teacher educators’ expertise and practices across the regions, alongside some important commonalities. • Commonalities exist between and across differing national contexts and institutional settings – how our common work can be understood in terms of what it means to be both a good teacher and a good teacher educator. • A means of analyzing value congruence between teacher education and school teaching within and across regions