Amid diverse megatrends such as increasing challenges to wellbeing, intensifying struggle for democracy and digitalization, teacher education should be able to prepare student teachers to be e adaptive professionals and able to innovate and develop teaching practices both individually and collaboratively and engage in lifelong learning to develop their professional development throughout their career (e.g., Avalos, 2011: Yeigh & Lynch, 2017). Professional development (PD) can be considered as processes of learning, growth and development of teachers' expertise (social and personal skills and content knowledge including subject knowledge and pedagogical, instructional, and classroom management skills) leading to changes in their practice to support their pupils' learning (Avalos, 2011). However, teacher education studies have shown that pre-service and in-service teacher education should be modified to promote teachers' career-long professional development more systematically and proactively (Korthagen, 2016). In this study, we explore the professional development of teacher students when studying in a research-based learning unit called MyPeda (abbreviation: Multiprofessional collaboration and pedagogical expertise). For this experimental research-based learning unit, a pedagogical design was developed to support teacher students' professional development holistically and an innovative way.

Theoretically, the pedagogical design of MyPeda is based on a multidimensional construct classroom climate which draws from several prominent theoretical models and empirical findings and leans on three basic classroom components associated with teacher-student interactions: instructional support, socioemotional support, and classroom organization and management (Wang et al., 2020). Instructional support focuses on features of instruction that provide quality feedback, use techniques to enhance critical thinking and communicate high academic expectations for students (Hamre et al., 2007). Socioemotional support refers to classroom characteristics that support the emotional wellbeing of students and where the teacher's warmth and interaction with students creates safety, and the teacher gets to know students' interests and emotions (Pianta & Hamre, 2009; Quin, 2017). Classroom organization and management denotes the practices teachers use to establish daily classroom routines, including consistently reinforcing classroom rules, supporting students' autonomy and providing positive behavior supports (Klieme et al., 2009). These three concepts form a triangle in the pedagogical design, the sides of which are connected through three concepts: school culture, teacher collaboration and home-school cooperation. Teachers' development is a process that requires individual and collective emotional and cognitive involvement to change teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning and raise awareness of policies and practices affecting a school's culture (e.g., Guskey 2002; Avalos, 2011). As a whole, in schools that have a strong culture, teachers are motivated and engaged when working with students. It has been emphasized that the development of teachers' collaboration should focus on teachers' joint work and how it develops teachers' teaching (e.g., Hargreaves & O'Connor, 2017). Thus, we examine teacher collaboration in promoting collaboration between student teachers and in-service teachers to improve their teaching and teamwork (e.g., Vangrieken et al. 2015).Previous research has shown that teacher education programmes need to prepare students more adequately to interact and engage with parents (e.g., Epstein 2018). In general, teacher students do not see themselves as well-prepared for family-school partnerships even though collaboration between teachers and families can influence pupils' social development, academic achievements, and sense of wellbeing (e.g., Willemse et al. 2018). All these components above are associated with student-centered and effective pedagogy.

In this study, we approach teacher students’ professional development in the context of learning unit MyPeda with the following two research questions:   

RQ1: What do teacher students consider meaningful when reflecting on their professional development during the learning unit?      

RQ2: What kinds of tensions and opportunities characterize the learning unit in terms of professional development?    

The data was collected in the context of an experimental research-based holistic learning unit MyPeda as part of the master's studies in special education teacher training and in primary teacher training. The learning unit lasted eight weeks. It consisted of an intensive learning period at university, independent and group learning tasks, and a training period in school where teacher students (N=18) were working together in multi-professional teams. Teams can be called multi-professional because, in Finland, primary teacher students and special education teacher students study in separate master's programmes and have different eligibility criteria in Finnish educational legislation. Research data consists of teacher students' self-reflections and self-assessments during the learning process in the study unit and group interview data, and group reflections collected at the end of the learning unit. This presentation focuses on teacher students' reflections on their professional development across data. The data was analyzed using qualitative data-driven and theory-informed content analysis (Vaismoradi et al., 2016).

When reflecting on their professional development during the MyPeda learning unit, teacher students considered that it is important to learn to view teaching and pedagogy from various perspectives or holistically, which they believe was supported by the learning unit. Teacher students also considered working in multi-professional teams and co-teaching meaningful in terms of their professional development. The preliminary findings also indicate the importance of getting to know the partner school, its teachers and student groups as teacher students discussed their engagement in the school community and collaboration with in-service teachers from the perspective of professional development. The adequacy of the time devoted to activities, such as observation in the student group, and practices of guidance and, even closer theory and practice bridging did not support learning in an ideal way according to participants. The intensive learning period was described to be meaningful, as the teaching focused comprehensively on the themes of the learning unit. However, continuous examination and linking of these themes to teacher students’ experiences at the school would have required more guided activities. On the other hand, teacher students experienced more time to deepen and reflect on pedagogical solutions than in other courses, and the ways of learning were also considered motivating. In reflections, the realization of growing responsibility was raised as an indicator of professionalism. The data will be analysed in more detail during spring 2023. In this presentation, we will discuss further how the experimental research-based learning unit MyPeda responded to the critical need for teacher training to holistically bridge theory and practice and how it can provide practices for teacher training to meet future challenges.

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