Session Information
10 SES 02 E, Teacher Educators for Just and Equitable Education: Learning from research across three continents
Symposium
Contribution
OECD (2010) has identified the importance of educating teacher educators as part of the larger ‘project’ of best preparing teachers who are capable of teaching an increasingly diverse student population. The report acknowledged, however, that “there is a surprisingly sparse knowledge base on how teacher educators are themselves prepared” (p. 288). This paper shines a light on what Snoek, Swennen and van der Klink (2011) have coined the “hidden profession,” by examining the question of who is a teacher educator and what are their professional learning needs to serve diverse communities and ensure the learning of all students. In the Australian context the communities most underserved are those in rural and remote contexts as well as low socio-economic and culturally diverse populations, in particular Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Policy document analysis (Bowen, 2009) was employed to the most recent review into teacher education (Craven et al., 2014), using framing questions of who is seen as a teacher educator; what are the policy implications for teacher educators’ work with diverse communities; what are their professional learning needs to do this work. A review of three, nationally funded studies into the work of teacher educators was also conducted. The first examined a new school-university partnership to serve a low socio-economic community; the second studied community-based teachers as part of a broader Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander initiative to improve teacher education; the third a project to build the professional learning needs of teacher educators to serve rural communities. The analysis reveals a growing diversity within the Australian teacher educator profession to encompass not only university-based teacher educators, but also school-based teacher educators who take on roles supervising pre-service teachers. There are also “hybrid” teacher educators (Klein et al., 2013), who work across both university and school sites, plus community-based teacher educators (parents, community members) who mentor pre-service teachers (Zeichner et al., 2016). These four distinctive groups understand the needs of diverse communities differently, with those from communities and working across schools and universities better equipped to conceptually position diverse families as holders of wisdom and knowledge, but who lack the authority to influence necessary curriculum changes within the teacher education program. The diversity of the occupational group labeled ‘teacher educators’ highlights their particular professional learning needs so they can in turn better prepare teachers for diverse communities.
References
Craven, G., Beswick, K., Fleming, J., Fletcher, T., Green, M., & Rickards, F. (2014). Action now: Classroom ready teachers. Australia: Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group. Bowen, G. A. (2009). Document analysis as a qualitative research method. Qualitative research journal, 9(2), 27-40. Klein, E. J., Taylor, M., Onore, C., Strom, K., & Abrams, L. W. (2013). Finding a third space in teacher education: Creating the MSU/NPS urban teacher residency. Teaching Education, 24, 27–57 OECD. (2010). Educating Teachers for Diversity: Meeting the Challenge. Paris: OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264079731-en Snoek, M., Swennen, A., & van der Klink, M. (2011). The quality of teacher educators in the European policy debate. Professional Development in Education, 37(5). Zeichner, K., Bowman, M., Guillen, L., & Napolitan, K. (2016). Engaging and working in solidarity with local communities in preparing the teachers of their children. Journal of Teacher Education, 67(4), 277-290.
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