Session Information
10 SES 01 D, Opportunities To Learn in the Professional Lifecycle
Symposium
Contribution
The school placement component of the initial stage of teacher education has often been found to be significant in the efficacy of beginning teachers (O’Donoghue and Harford 2010; Hobson et al. 2006). To better support pre-service teachers (PSTs) and schools, the University of Limerick aims to develop meaningful partnerships with schools concerning issues of school placement to the mutual benefit of both. To progress these partnerships, the Limerick Principals and Deputy Principals Association and the Principals Association of Kerry ETB (Education and Training Board) (who the University works closely with) were approached to explore the interest from these organisations to engage in partnerships. All schools who expressed an interest were met personally by the School Placement Development Team. Based on the Teaching Council School Placement Guidelines, a set of principles to guide school placement was mutually agreed between schools and the University. This “Memorandum of Understanding” between both parties guided the development of school placement policies for schools. In addition to the construction of school placement policies, the conversations with principals and co-operating teachers helped to provide feedback to the University about issues of concern and praise about school placement. Also, to help support the schools’ facilitation of support for PSTs, a number of workshops were conducted with teaching staff (particularly prospective co-operating teachers) concerning observation and feedback of PSTs. These workshops were explicitly requested by a number of schools to help facilitate a broader culture of peer observation within their school as a mechanism for further professionalization of the teaching staff. Current research into these partnerships will build on establishing a core group of approximately 12 schools to focus on high level practices in initial teacher education. These practices are framed as the development of the triad (between PST, University tutor and co-operating teacher), connections with the new Droichead (teascher induction) programme, and ‘learning rounds’ (practices established within the University of Glasgow to provide feedback to student teachers similar to the practices of medical education).
References
Hobson, A.J., Malderez, A., Tracey, L., Giannakaki, M.S., Kerr, K., Pell, R.G., Chambers, G.N., Tomlinson, P.D. and Roper, T. (2006) Becoming a Teacher: Student teachers’ experiences of initial teacher training in England. Nottingham: Department for Education and Skills (DfES). O’Donoghue, T. and Harford, J. (2010) Troubling some generalisations on teacher education in the English-speaking world: the case of the Republic of Ireland. South African Journal of Education, 30(1), 91-104.
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