School Leaders’ Attitudes Towards Teacher Qualifications and the Impact on Cooperation in Teacher Education

Author(s):

Hanne Christensen(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2012

Network:

15. Research Partnerships in Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

15 SES 09, The Notion of Partnership: Case Study II

Parallel Paper Session

Time:

2012-09-20

11:00-12:30

Room:

FCT - Aula 14

Chair:

Philippe Masson

Contribution

There is a need for better relations between initial teacher education programs and school practice. There has been a shift in the students’ practice periods in Norway, from a system with individual mentors, an individual contract, to focus on the school as the arena, an institutional contract (Haug,P. 2010, Heggen,K. 2010). The structures and mentoring systems are not the same across Europe and it is important to know more about how the leaders in practice schools evaluate the qualifications a teacher needs, and how we can facilitate the cooperation between the educational institutes and the schools (ETUCE 2008, Hudson,B., Zgaga,P. and Åstrand,B. 2010, Nordenbo 2008).

The research questions are: Which areas of teacher qualification do the school leaders emphasize as important for the students to learn more about and also experience in the school context? How can the students obtain these qualifications? In which fields could the school and the educational institutes cooperate?

The main focus is on how school leaders in the practice schools that collaborate with Oslo University College conceptualize and discuss teacher qualifications in an international and national context (Edwards, A. 2010, Shulman, L. 2004). The paper will discuss the national reform (G10) and how the requirements presented there correspond with the school leaders’ opinions. A level-based teacher education was implemented in Norway in August 2010, with one course for teaching first to seventh grade and one for teaching fifth to tenth grade. G10 emphasizes a holistic and coherent development according to theory and practice in education. By empirically investigating which qualifications the school leaders at primary and secondary schools consider important, we will gain more knowledge about the school as an arena for students’ learning. The paper will discuss how we can understand the shift from an individual contract to an institutional contract and focus on this observation as the basis for cooperation between the students’ two learning arenas.

Method

The paper is based on the study of sixty school leaders in the practice schools associated with the new teacher education program at the Oslo University College. In the autumn of 2011, we hosted a workshop for all the sixty school leaders. In some of the schools, the principal is in charge of the school practice and in other schools the person responsible is the assistant principal. The term school leader is used for both. The workshop was compulsory for the school leaders and we used a development strategy called “world café” (Brown, J. and Isaacs, D. 2005). The research material consists of individual and group logs as well as analytic memos. After the workshop, six school leaders were interviewed, three from lower secondary schools and three from secondary schools. The interviews were coded and compared with the national and international categories of teacher qualifications (Saldaña, J. 2009, Yin, R.K. 2003).

Expected Outcomes

Most of the school leaders enjoyed being asked to voice their opinion, but they found it hard to express their attitudes towards teacher qualifications in concrete terms. The “world café” addressed different tasks and the one related to the bachelor thesis was the one they answered most supplementary. The workshop situation appeared to be a stressful situation for some of the school leaders and they found the teacher education reform, with new demands for practice, decisive. In the interviews, the school leaders had more time to consider and the situation was one-to-one interaction. There were few differences between how the school leaders regard the teacher qualifications needed, but they expressed different opinions concerning the reform itself. The research qualification, which is a vital part of the reform, seemed not to be a teacher qualification in high demand. The study is a step towards learning more about how the schools, as an arena, emphasize teacher qualifications (Havnes 2011). The study suggests that we need to do more research on the role of and the opinions view of the school leaders.

References

Brown, J. and Isaacs, D.(2005). The World Café. Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers Edwards, A.(2010). Being an Expert Professional Practitioner: the relational turn in expertise. Dordrecht: Springer. ETUCE (2008). Teacher Education in Europe. An ETUCE Policy Paper http://etuce.homestead.com/Publications2008/ETUCE_PolicyPaper_en_web.pdf Grimen, H. (2008). Profesjon og kunnskap i: Molander A og Terum L I (red) Profesjonsstudier. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget Haug P (red) (2010). Kvalifisering til læreryrket. Oslo: Abstrakt forlag AS Havnes, A. (2011) Fra høgskole til universitetet. Utfordringer knyttet til profesjonsrettet profil. Høgskolen i Oslo: HiO-rapport 2011 nr 8. Heggen, K. (2010). Kvalifisering for profesjonsutøving, Sjukepleiar- lærar – sosialarbeidar. Oslo: Abstrakt forlag AS Hudson, B., Zgaga, P. and Björn Åstrand (ed) (2010) Advancing quality cultures for teacher education in Europe:Tensions and Opportunities. Umeå School of Education, Umeå University, Sweden Kunnskapsdepartementet(2009). St. meld. nr. 11(2008-2009) Læreren – Rollen og utdanningen Kunnskapsdepartementet(2010). Nasjonale retningslinjer for grunnskolelærerutdanningen Nordenbo, S.E (et al.) (2008) Lærerkompetanser og elevers læring I barnehage og skole: et systematisk review utført for Kunnskapsdepartementet, Oslo. København: Danmarks Pædagogiske Universitetsforlag og Dansk Clearinghouse for Uddannelsesforskning. Saldaña, J. (2009). The coding Manual for Qualitative researchers. London, Sage. Shulman, L. S.(2004). Teaching as Community Property – Essays on Higher Education.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Yin, R.K. (2003), Case Study Research. Design and Methods, Thousand Oaks, CA.Sage,

Author Information

Hanne Christensen (presenting / submitting)

Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences

Faculty of Education and International Studies

Oslo

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