Aim and purposes

It is important to try to clarify critical aspects of competence in teaching to develop the understanding of and to improve teaching and education. The education of teachers is strategic in reaching such clarification and improvement.

This study investigates critical aspects of competence in teaching and learning to teach as experienced by teacher students in practice parts of teacher education. The focus is on what teacher students experience as critical in critical events occurring during their teaching practice, and if and how they focus on the relation between teaching and pupil learning, critical from a theoretical educational perspective. The question focused is what those experiences of the events tell about the students’ teaching competence and their learning to teach, and about teaching competence in principle and more generally.

Theoretical framework

A research orientation inspiring the present project and focusing on critical aspects of teaching and learning is phenomenography (Svensson 2016). This research tradition has been focusing on pupils understanding of subject matter, what are critical aspects of subject matter, and teachers’ way of dealing with critical aspects of subject matter. Teaching has been especially in focus in what has been called ‘learning studies’ focusing on necessary conditions for pupils’ learning of well defined subject matter content (Marton & Tsui, 2004; Marton, 2014). This research is focusing on critical differences in the presentation of and the understanding of subject matter.

It is important to, in combination with a focus on subject matter presentation and understanding, also consider other qualities of the support of learning and of learning. Teachers’ and pupils’ approach to and understanding of subject matter forms part of a context involving more aspects than only subject matter and knowledge aspects. Such aspects are ethical, moral, affective, emotional, interest, engagement and more aspects. Even if different investigations are restricted to focusing some aspects one has to consider how those form part of a bigger context ((Dash, 2009; Doumas, 2011).

In recent research on teaching it is common to talk about events and critical events (Akinbode, 2013; Bruster & Peterson, 2013; Longfield, 2009; Woods, 1993). The investigation suggested here builds on the idea that investigating critical events is a specially relevant and fruitful way to clarify teacher competence and learning to teach.

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