‘The Ideal Teacher’ Modeled By European Teacher Students

Author(s):

Ulla Kiviniemi(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2013

Network:

10. Teacher Education Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

10 SES 14 B, Expectation, Effectiveness and the Ideal Teacher

Paper Session

Time:

2013-09-13

15:30-17:00

Room:

A-202

Chair:

Dubravka Knezic

Contribution

General description

Internationalization in teacher education materialise through research and networking, as well as student and teacher exchanges. This paper examines which characteristics are essential for the future teachers illustrated by present-day teacher students during a Comenius Intensive Programme in 2008-2011. The main idea of the course was to depict desirable features and competences of European teachers and also to recognize the roles of key actors in the society in these processes. The three-year project involved 120 students from five teacher training units from different countries.

The Common European principles for Teacher Competences and Qualifications (European Commission 2005) features the teacher profession as a well-qualified profession which is placed within the context of lifelong learning. The key competence areas of a European teacher are: Work with information, technology and knowledge; Work with their fellow human beings and Work with and in society.

According to Schön (1987) a qualified employee (eg a teacher) sees how to make the activity conscious, how to sort out the activities through reflection and re-formulate the goals for the work. Finnish teachers have been described in the educational studies through sociological typologies as through educational role (Launonen 2000) or authority (Laine 1997), or via institutional dimensions (Gordon, Lahelma & Talonen 1995). According to Sahlberg (1997), the current teacher's immutable work is presented in the conflict of the opportunities and the requirements of the cooperation when working. Heikkinen (2001) brought out that the role of the teacher is not to transfer culture, values and information, but to renew the society.

Findings

In this study the attributes of ideal teachers were regrouped and divided into following subcategories: personal characteristics; pedagogical expertise; professional ethics; lifelong learning engagement and professional attitude.

The Finnish students brought out the personal characteristics in a substantial way (positive attitude; emotional sensibility) whereas the multicultural groups used descriptive metaphors like “team playing”.

In pedagogical expertise both groups had the same qualifiers in mind: occupancy of learning environments, command of class-room management and pedagogical knowing were important. Mastery of subject knowledge was significant for both groups but only the multi-cultural groups highlighted "good general knowledge" as a part of the teacher's knowledge base.

Ethically a teacher is an dedicated educator and deeply involved in the professional mission according to the multi-cultural groups whereas the Finnish groups emphasized vaguely “awareness of moral values” and “seeking the pupil’s best”. Multicultural groups stressed strongly participation in the communal work and perceived themselves as essential parts of the education system.

Lifelong learning engagement seemed to mean the samefor the both groups: the teacher should develop him/herself throughout the career.

Professional attitude meant to Finnish students capability to separate the free time from work, and to prevent work-related stress. The multicultural groups however, saw critical participation in creative school reform as essential. According to the multicultural student groups teachers should be "passionate teachers" in their work. The Finns didn’t attach the word “calling” or “caretaker” to teacher profession but these terms were used by the multicultural groups.

Method

Methodology The students oriented themselves on the teacher quality issues nationally in the project preparation phase. They mixed and matched their experiences and memoirs of remarkable teacher personalities with the learned theories and descriptions formed in teacher education thus synthesising out attributes of their common ideal teacher. The same assignment was renewed in multicultural groups later during the contact course. In this miniature research the ideal teacher attributes and qualities were identified and categorised. The ideal teacher qualities of the Finnish groups are also compared with the ideal qualities comprised in multicultural groups. The data analysis covered four Finnish depictions (N = 4 groups; 16 persons) and ten depictions formed in multicultural groups (N = 10 groups; 80 persons). To verify the classifications another researcher was invited to participate in determining grouping principles and a few parallel classifications were performed to test the reliability.

Expected Outcomes

Conclusions It is impossible to determine "the perfect teacher” unambiguously. National views and ideals are shaped nationally in the sphere of past history and social development. Certain teacher qualities may form a normative vision for teacher education nationally, but on the other hand also that role model of a teacher is fluctuating and ever developing by nature. The changes in the society and the ideas of the era force to change also education to the revised direction (Kincheloe 2004). Developing international co-operation programs is worth of the effort. Dealing with the same topics nationally and multinationally elaborates and deepens the ideas. General knowledge of educational conditions in other countries is important not only for comparison but also for developing the common educational area of Europe.

References

References Gordon, T., Lahelma, E. & Tolonen, T. (1995). ”Koulu on kuin...”. Metaforat fyysisen koulun analysoinnin välineenä. Nuorisotutkimus 3/95. Helsinki: Nuorisotutkimusseura ry. & Allianssi ry. Heikkinen, H. L. T. (2001). Tarinat ja opettajaksi tulemisen taito. Narratiivisen identiteettityön kehittäminen opettajankoulutuksessa toimintatutkimuksen avulla. Jyväskylä: Jyväskylän yliopiston tutkimuksia 175. Kincheloe, J.L. 2004. The Knowledges of Teacher Education. Developing a Critical Complex Epistemology. Teacher Education Quarterly, Winter, 49–65. Laine, K. (1997). Ameba pulpetissa. Koulun arkikulttuurin jännitteitä. Jyväskylä: Jyväskylän yliopisto. Launonen, L. (2000). Eettinen kasvatusajattelu suomalaisen koulun pedagogisissa teks teissä 1860-luvulta 1990-luvulle. Jyväskylä studies in education, psychology and social research 168. Jyväskylän yliopisto. Schön, D. 1987. Educating the Reflective Practitioner. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco

Author Information

Ulla Kiviniemi (presenting / submitting)

University of Jyvaskyla

Teacher Education Department