Session Information
10 SES 12 B, Research on Programmes and Pedagogical Approaches in Teacher Education
Paper Session
Contribution
This paper will present findings from original research for a PhD which seeks to identify approaches to measuring and monitoring the quality of training provided to trainee teachers in school-based settings. The context of the research is the English ‘Teach First’ initial teacher training (ITT) programme, a one year training programme where trainees are employed full-time in schools and trained by teacher mentors. Mentors and schools are supported by tutors from partner higher education institutions and the Teach First charity.
‘Teach First’ is an English-based teacher training programme which is part of the international ‘Teach for All’ initiative. Teach for All operates, under various designations, in 18 countries, including Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany, Latvia and Spain; all share a mission to ‘address educational need... [and] expand educational opportunity internationally’ by training high-calibre teachers (Teach for All, 2011). Teach First places trainee teachers in selected ‘urban complex’ schools (Hall et al., 2006) which meet various criteria for social deprivation and educational underachievement.
Teacher quality has been identified as a key factor in educational achievement (McKinsey & Co., 2007); the responsibility to ensure the provision of a high-quality teaching workforce, as well as the influence of international tables of educational achievement (e.g. PISA, TIMMS), exerts significant influence on policy-makers and system leaders in the field of teacher training. This influence was shown in a recent communication from the European Commission, on improving the quality of teacher education (EC, 2007).
Globally, many systems of teacher training require prospective teachers to undertake periods of placement, classroom experience or practicum in schools. In the majority of systems, higher education institutions such as training colleges, normal universities or institutes of education retain responsibility for the quality of training provision. Recent government proposals in Britain suggest an increasing role – and thus responsibility – in ITT for schools themselves, with the expansion of training programmes where the provision of training is all, or nearly all, school-based (DfE, 2010). Even in those systems where the school’s role is subsidiary to a higher education institution, the school and those of its staff involved in training – whether as co-ordinating, supervising, or mentor teachers – has been identified as a significant factor in the outcome of the training provision (Hobson et al., 2009). However studies in England have often indicated that school-based teacher training, or ‘mentoring’, can be the most variable element in the quality of ITT programmes (Hutchings et al., 2006a). Mentoring is here defined as a practice operating within both cognitivist and situated learning theory (Ertmer & Newby, 1993; Lave & Wenger, 1991).
This research arises from an initiative by Teach First, supported by universities in England, to develop the quality and consistency of the school-based training provided to Teach First trainees; the research questions are the first stage of this process, exploring possible approaches to defining and monitoring ‘quality’ in school-based training provision.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Beijaard, D., Meijer, P. & Verloop, N., 2004. Reconsidering research on teachers' professional identity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20(2), pp.107-28. Cunningham, B., 2007. All the right features: towards an 'architecture' for mentoring trainee teachers in UK further education colleges. Journal of Education for Teaching, 33(1), pp.83-97. DfE, 2010. The Importance of Teaching: a white paper. London: Department for Education. EC, 2007. Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament. COM(2007)0392. Brussels: Commission of the European Communities. Eraut, M., 1994. Developing professional knowledge and competence. Washington DC: Falmer. Ertmer, P.A. & Newby, T.J., 1993. Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism: Comparing Critical Features from an Instructional Design Perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 6(4), pp.50-72. Hall, D. et al., 2006. Urban Initial Teacher Education - Working with Urban Schools in Challenging Contexts. London: TTA. Hobson, A. et al., 2009. Becoming a Teacher: Teachers' Experiences of Initial Teacher Training, Induction and Early Professional Development. London: DCSF. Hutchings, M. et al., 2006a. An evaluation of innovative approaches to teacher training on the Teach First programme: Final report to the TDA. London: IPSE. Knowles, M., Holton III, E. & Swanson, R., 1998. The Adult Learner: the definitive classic in adult education and human resource development. Fifth edition. Houston: Gulf. Lave, J. & Wenger, E., 1991. Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge UP. McKinsey & Co., 2007. How the world's best performing school systems come out on top. McKinsey. Teach for All, 2011. Network: Unifying Mission. [Online] Available at: http://teachforallnetwork.org/network_mission.html [Accessed January 2011].
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