How do you learn to be a Pre-Service Teacher Educator – an analysis of the biographical narratives of three teacher educators.

Author(s):

Rose Dolan

Conference:

ECER 2010

Network:

10. Teacher Education Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

10 SES 02 A, Research on Teacher Educators

Paper Session

Time:

2010-08-25

11:15-12:45

Room:

AUDITORIUM IX, Päärakennus / Main Building

Chair:

Jean Murray

Contribution

Researchers have noted the paucity of research on teacher educators in the twentieth century (Cochran-Smith 2003; Ducharme 1993; John 1996), although this has improved in the past decade (Korthagen et al, 2005). As a group, they are under-researched and poorly understood at national and international levels. While vast attention has been devoted to what teachers need to know and to be able to do, scant attention has been paid to what teachers of teachers need to know (Cochran-Smith, 2003). The research that has been carried out on teacher educators has tended to focus on demographics rather than on how they learned to be teacher educators. Although a number of papers emerging from teacher educators’ self-study have been published (e.g. Doecke 2004; Zeichner 2005; Ritter 2007; Berry 2007), there is still a lack of knowledge about the modes of professional learning for pre-service teacher educators and the range of factors that may impinge on them, “including the individual’s personal agency, his/her involvement in communal initiatives and the institutional structures in which he/she works” (Murray and Harrison, 2008). Using the framework of professional development stages for teachers developed by Day and Gu (2007) and the idea of communities of practice (Wenger 1998), this paper will describe some of the strategies employed by three teacher educators, each of whom is at a different career stage, in order to learn their craft. It contributes to the international conversation on teacher educators by answering the question : How are these teacher educators learning and developing their expertise in the area of initial teacher education (ITE) at various stages of their careers?

Method

Through the case study of three pre-service teacher educators in the education department in an Irish University, the following questions will be addressed 1. how did they become teacher educators on the pre-service teacher education programme? 2. how has their expertise as pre-service teachers been developed, both formally and informally? Each one will be interviewed about the process of becoming a teacher educator, including the expertise that they had as they began in the role, what expertise has been acquired since and the manner in which this expertise was acquired and developed. Particular emphasis will be given to their work with pre-service teachers and any expertise that they consider to be specific to this group.

Expected Outcomes

In Ireland as in most European countries, there is an absence of any initial specialist education, induction or formal continuing professional development for the teacher educator (Buchberger et al 2000), leaving them to construct their own self-study programme in order to learn their craft. They will probably engage in o professional conversations in their department o professional activities, such as reading in the area, attending conferences, engaging in research, writing papers o critical reflection on their own practice, both prior to and since becoming a teacher educator o some kind of involvement with the wider institution i.e. the university I expect to find that these activities play a significant role in the development of the teacher educator and that they are highly dependent on: 1. the nature of the community of practice in which they work 2. the personal characteristics of the individual teacher educator

References

Berry, A., (2007) 'Reconceptualizing Teacher Educator Knowledge as Tensions: Exploring the tension between valuing and reconstructing experience', Studying Teacher Education 3:2,117 — 134 Buchberger, F., Campos, B., Kallos, D. and Stevenson, J., eds (2000) Green paper on teacher education in europe: high quality teacher education for high quality education and training. Thematic Network for Teacher Education in Europe (TNTEE): Umea University, Sweden. Cochran-Smith, M. (2003) Learning and unlearning: the education of teacher educators Teaching and Teacher Education 19: 5 – 28 Day, C. and Gu, Q., (2007) Variations in the conditions for teachers' professional learning and development: sustaining commitment and effectiveness over a career Oxford Review of Education, 33:4,423 — 443 Doecke, B., (2004) Professional identity and educational reform: confronting my habitual practices as a teacher educator Teaching and Teacher Education 20: 203–215 Ducharme, E. (1993) The lives of teacher educators New York: Teachers College Press. John, P. (1996) The subject-method seminar and the role of the teacher educator. In The role of Higher education in initial teacher training, ed .J. Furlong and R.Smith, 119–38. London: Kogan Page. Korthagen, F., J.Loughran, and M. Lunenberg (2005) Teaching teachers–studies into the expertise of teacher educators. Teaching and Teacher Education 21: 2. Kosnik, C. and Beck, C., (2008) In the shadows: non-tenure-line instructors in pre-service teacher education. European Journal of Teacher Education 31:2, 185 – 202 Murray, J. and Harrison, J., (2008) 'Editorial', European Journal of Teacher Education, 31:2, 109 — 115 Ritter, J.K.,(2007) 'Forging a Pedagogy of Teacher Education: The challenges of moving from classroom teacher to teacher educator', Studying Teacher Education 3:1,5 — 22 Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of practice: learning, meaning and identity Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zeichner, K. (2005) Becoming a teacher educator: a personal perspective. Teacher and Teacher Education 21: 117–24.

Author Information

Rose Dolan

National University of Ireland Maynooth

Education Department

Co. Kildare

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