Session Information
ERG SES D 11, Identity and Education
Paper Session
Contribution
This paper reports initial findings from an on-going, small scale longitudinal study of how undergraduate student teachers develop a teacher identity during their initial teacher education programme. The programme in which the research is situated, is within a relatively new English university which has a commitment to the 'widening participation' agenda. The focus is on year two of students' initial teacher education programme and develops a research paper presented at BERA 2012. The focus is on the experience of year two student teachers and the continuing development of their professional identity alongside analysis of experiences which support this development. Research (Beauchamp and Thomas, 2009) has identified the importance of boundary, or transition together with agency and self-identity in developing professional identity. Furthermore, different categories of student teacher identities have been articulated in the work of Twiselton (2000, 2007); that of 'task managers’, ‘curriculum deliverers’ or ‘concept builders’, where the latter describes a more complex and deep understanding of the teacher’s role in supporting learning.
Using, and developing, this latter framework, the project reported in this paper was an investigation into the development of teacher identity during the second year of a three year undergraduate initial teacher education programme. Different categories of student identity were used to provide structure to both the intervention and the investigation. The teacher educators involved were keen to develop students with a teacher identity as ‘Concept Builders’ (Twiselton, 2007). It was recognised that in order to achieve this aim, teacher educators need to develop their own understanding of the stages of identity that student teachers progress through, and this may include an acceptance of periods where students act as ‘task managers’ or ‘curriculum deliverers’, en route to the more complex and deep understanding of ‘concept builders’.
The aim of this study was to capture this journey and identify stages which would develop student and tutor ability to understand the process involved in order to explicitly support it. The programme introduced strategies and tasks to develop students’ identity as teachers in training and the research sought to capture ideas and ideals related to these including the impact of an embedded placement and teaching practice.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Akkerman (2011) Learning at Boundaries. International Journal of Educational Research 50.pp21-25 Beauchamp, C & Thomas, L (2009) Understanding Teacher Identity: an overview of issues in the literature and implications for teacher education in Cambridge Journal of Education, 39:2, 175-189 Cohen, L. Manion, L. & Morrison, K. (2007) Research Methods in Education. Oxon: Routledge Flores, M.A & Day, C (2006) Contexts which Shape and Reshape New Teachers’ Identities: A Multi-perspective study, Teaching and Teacher Education 22 (2006) 219-232 Hammerness, K., Darling-Hammond, L & Bransford, J (2005) How teachers learn and develop. In Darling-Hammond, L & Bransford, J (eds) Preparing teachers for a changing world: what teachers should learn and be able to do (pp358-389). San-Francisco: Jossey-Bass Sachs, J (2005) Teacher Education and the Development of Professional Identity: Learning to be a Teacher, in Denicolo, P & Kompf, M (eds) Connecting Policy and Practice: Challenges for Teaching and Learning in Schools and Universities (pp5-21). Oxford. Routledge Strauss, A. & Corbin, J. (1998) Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. London: Sage Twiselton, S (2007) Seeing the Wood for the Tress: Learning to Teach Beyond the Curriculum. How Can Student Teachers be Helped to see Beyond The National Literacy Strategy? Cambridge Journal of Education, vol 37, no.4, pp489-502 Ward, C. J., Nolen, S. B & Horn, I.S (2011) Productive Friction: How Conflict in student teaching creates opportunities for learning at the boundary. International Journal of Educational Research. 50. Pp 14-20 Wenger, E (1998) Communities of Practice: learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
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