10. Teacher Education Research
Paper
Bridging the Gap Between Knowledge and Practices in Teacher Education: Building a Professional Learning Community Through Action Research
Ziyin Xiong1, Sebastien Chalies2, Xin Jie Yan1, Romuald Normand3
1Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, People's Republic of; 2University of Toulouse; 3University of Strasbourg
Presenting Author: Xiong, Ziyin;
Yan, Xin Jie
Introduction
Teachers’ knowledge and their teaching practices are often viewed as two sides of the same coin, intertwined and together constituting teachers’ professionalism. In teacher education, universities often play a dominant role to provide “formal knowledge” to pre-service teachers, whereas schools tend to be regarded as a substituted place for pre-service teachers to practice what they learnt from the universities (Allen & Wright, 2014; Zeichner, 2015). Evidence shows that such traditional epistemology in teacher education has limitations in supporting pre-service teachers’ learning (e.g. Tylor et al., 2014). More research attention is needed on exploring how to build a meaningful integration of the knowledge and practices which pre-service teachers gain from the different sites in teacher education.
A large body of literature has discussed how to reform the traditional paradigm of teacher education, including enhancing university-school partnership (e.g. Lillejord & Børte, 2016), creating a third space (Martin et al., 2011) or a professional community (e.g. Herold & Waring, 2016), etc. However, there are still relatively few studies that are set out from the practitioners’ perspective and explore what teacher educators can do in their own capacity to innovate on the traditional practices in teacher education.
This study presents how teacher educators as practitioners can make their own efforts to innovate on traditional university-based teaching in teacher education and to improve the quality of learning for pre-service teachers. To do this, this study built on the concept of “communities of practice” and uses action research as an empowerment approach, to encourage teacher educators to reflect on their knowledge and to mobilise their resources to build a professional learning community. This study provides a real-world example of how teacher educators can change the traditional university-based pedagogy in their own capacity while avoiding the potential institutional constraints. It is hoped that this case study can provoke some theoretical discussions on how to harness the concept of a professional learning community as a meaningful practice in teacher education.
Theoretical Framework
The concept of “communities of practice” (Lave & Wenger, 1991) is served as the broad theoretical umbrella to guide the researchers, who are also the teacher educators, to build a professional learning community in the teaching and research process. This concept holds that teachers’ professional knowledge is built through a collective participatory process, through which teachers learn “when they generate local knowledge of practice by working within the contexts of inquiry communities to theorize and construct their work” (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999, p.250). To facilitate teachers’ learning process, building a professional learning community shall therefore be considered as valuable practices in teacher education. According to Wenger (1998), to build and sustain an effective community of practice, there are at least three perquisitions to achieve: (a) mutual engagements of all members (b) shared repertoire of negotiable resources (c) and joint enterprise.
Action research is considered as a complementary theoretical guide in this research. It empowers teacher educators to reflect on their practices and explore strategies to enact the concept of “communities of practice” in the teacher education context. The two theories share similar principles; both value social participation, empowerment, and professional development. Meanwhile, action research advocates the voices of practitioners and encourages them to link research and practices to build their professionalism in a confident and participatory way. By considering teacher educators as researchers, action research allows teacher educators to investigate their own living environment and to explore the potential ways of building an effective professional learning community that addresses the dynamic contextual needs.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe research design stems from a teacher education programme that aims to develop pre-service teachers’ pedagogical competence on classroom management. Two teacher educators from the University of Toulouse in France and the local secondary school of Bellefontaine participated in the design of this course programme. The teacher educators also worked as researchers and participated in the data collection and data analysis in this study. The participating pre-service teachers in this study are master students in a national degree named “MEEF” (Master de l’enseignement, de l’éducation et de la formation), which is the mainstream track to prepare students to enter the teaching profession in France. In total, 30 pre-service teachers participated in this programme.
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with all teacher educators and volunteering pre-service teachers after each session of this programme. There were ten sequences of interviews from ten teaching sessions throughout the entire semester. In addition, self-confrontation interviews were conducted with five student teachers to collect information on their learning experiences longitudinally. Self-confrontation interviews (SCI) invited participating pre-service teachers to watch their own practices through video and to explain their cognitive thinking linked to their actions. The specific steps are as follows: (1) researchers use cameras to record targeted participants’ actions in a field situation, (2) the researchers replay the recorded video and present it in front of the participants, (3) researchers invite participants to explain the cognitive thinking related to their practices in the specific situation.
To complement the interview data, this study also collected the artefacts that the teacher educators and pre-service teachers have produced throughout this course programme. Artefacts can convey many messages in which the cultural and contextual dynamics are manifested (Schein, 1992). These artefacts include the training materials that teacher educators designed on their own; the group learning projects led by pre-service teachers; the peer observation reports produced by pre-service teachers; the textual feedback and exchanges among the participating teachers.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe results of this paper are summarized into three strands.
Firstly, the paper shows that building a professional learning community is an effective approach to support pre-service teachers to bridge the gap between knowledge and practices. It reveals that the professional learning community supports the pre-service teachers' learning by providing resources and supports that allow pre-service teachers to constantly revise and reorganise their theoretical understanding through the entire learning process.
Secondly, this paper revealed that the effectiveness of the professional learning community is largely dependent on teacher educators’ engagement through the action research project. To build an effective professional learning community, this study argues that it is necessary to align it with a specific and explicit learning goal, so that every participant can develop a clear understanding of their practices and responsibilities in this community. In this study, a concrete learning module with a clear learning goal provided scaffolding for teacher educators to harness their knowledge and expertise when considering building a professional learning community.
Thirdly, this paper observed that, by combining action research with the concept of professional learning community, both teacher educators and pre-service teachers took initiative to explore innovative pedagogical resources, and tended to develop a more welcoming and open attitude towards pedagogical innovation in their own practices.
ReferencesAllen, J. M., & Wright, S. E. (2014). Integrating theory and practice in the pre-service teacher education practicum. Teachers and teaching, 20(2), 136-151.
Cochran-Smith, M., Feiman-Nemser, S., & John McIntyre, D. (2008). Handbook of Research on Teacher Education: Enduring Questions in Changing Contexts. New York: Routledge.
Herold, F., & Waring, M. (2016). An investigation of pre-service teachers’ learning in physical education teacher education: schools and university in partnership. Sport, Education and Society, 23(1), 95-107.
Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Martin, S. D., Snow, J. L., & Franklin Torrez, C. A. (2011). Navigating the terrain of third space: Tensions with/in relationships in school-university partnerships. Journal of teacher education, 62(3), 299-311.
Schein, E. (1992). Organizational culture and leadership. San francisco: CA: Jossey-Bass.
Taylor, M., Klein, E., & Abrams, L. (2014). Tensions of Reimagining Our Roles as Teacher Educators in a Third Space: Revisiting a Co/autoethnography Through a Faculty Lens. Studying Teacher Education, 10(1), 3-19.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zeichner, K., Payne, K. A., & Brayko, K. (2015). Democratizing teacher education. Journal of teacher education, 66(2), 122-135.
10. Teacher Education Research
Paper
Coherence Between University Courses and Field Work in Teacher Education in Iceland: Perspectives from Teacher Students and Mentors
Birna María Svanbjörnsdóttir, Guðmundur Engilbertsson, María Steingrímsdóttir
University of Akureyri, Iceland
Presenting Author: Svanbjörnsdóttir, Birna María;
Engilbertsson, Guðmundur
Objectives and theoretical framework
The structure of teacher education must be clear and comprehensible to student teachers no less than to teacher educators and the mentors in the field because it helps to understand what teaching entails (Canrinus et al., 2019; Hammerness et al., 2014). A lack of coherence in teacher education between theory and practice in classroom teaching has been criticized (Darling-Hammond et al., 2005). It has also been argued that in the teacher education program, more emphasis is on introducing student teachers to different implementations of teaching methods than on giving them relevant support to practice and reflect on them for deeper learning and professional development (Grossman, Hammerness, & McDonald, 2009; Darling-Hammond, & Oaks, 2019). There is also an indication that mentors focus more on practical issues than on theories when mentoring students in the field practice (Steingrímsdóttir & Engilbertsson, 2018).
The teacher education in Iceland has gone through extensive changes the last years. In 2008 it became a five-year program for all school levels (Government of Iceland, 2019), grounded in a three year undergraduate program (B.Ed., BA or BS) added with two years M.Ed./MT graduate program. (University of Akureyri, 2023). Since 2019 a new law (no. 95/2019) allows for one teaching licence for all school levels. As the teaching profession is cross- disciplinary and consists of both theoretical and practical skills the teacher education is a combination of a theoretical courses and field work. The main part of the field practice is on the 5th and last year of the studies with a contract with mentors/field schools.
Mentors serves an important role in building up a systematic approach and collaboration between teacher education programs (universities) and the schools (Bjarnadóttir, 2015; Steingrímsdóttir & Engilbertsson, 2018). Icelandic research has confirmed that mentoring can be a key factor in professional development. A significant increase has been in a number of teachers, completing courses in a mentoring program in Iceland. Hence, schools at all school levels are in the process of developing a sustainable culture of mentoring for teachers’ students and NQTs (Svanbjörnsdóttir et al., 2020).
A questionnaire for teacher students, The Coherence and Assignment Study in Teacher Education (CATE) has been developed to better understand pedagogical aspect of teacher education and students’ perspective on the connection between courses/subject and preparation for the teaching profession. The questionnaire has been used in several teacher education institutions all over the world (Hammerness, et al., 2014). In 2021 the questionnaire was conducted in the two main teacher education programs in Iceland. The main results indicate that students find in general there is a rather good flow and coherence in their study programs and time to learn about teaching methods and enact teaching plans but few opportunities to practice and reflect on real classroom practice in their courses, as such a lack of coherence between theory and practice. To some extent they experience a lack of connection in the field practice to what they learned in their university courses (Gísladóttir et al., 2023). With the aim of understanding the lack of coherence in more detail, the University of Akureyri followed up on the results from the survey.
The objective of this paper is to present the preliminary findings from the study at the University of Akureyri lead by the RQ: How can the coherence between theory and practice in the teacher education be strengthened by further collaboration between different stakeholders?
The research is part of the QUINT research project https://www.uv.uio.no/quint/english/
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe study is qualitative (Creswell, 2009) and was conducted through:
• focus group interviews with students at the 5th year in the teacher education program,
• individual interviews with mentors
• individual interview with the project manager for field practice at the university and
• overview of syllabus for handbooks and assignments for the field formulated by the teacher education faculty.
36 teacher students attended the program for future primary school teachers 2022–2023 and did their field practice in 31 schools all around the country in the autumn 2022. All of them got a mentor in their schools.
The criteria for the sample were all those who had the B.Ed. background (total 13) and their mentors. They all participated.
All the interviews took place on-line early year 2023, four focus groups interviews (with 3-4 students in each group) and 13 individual interviews with mentors.
The focus group interviews lasted around one and a half hour and the individual interviews from 30 to 40 minutes. They were audio-recorded and transcribed with the consent of the interviewees, thematically analyzed based on Braun et al.’s six-step thematic analysis (2018), examined in context of the results of the CATE questionnaire (Gísladóttir et al., 2023) and the review of the syllabus/documents. The handbooks and assignments were reviewed regarding the learning goals and vision of the education.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsPreliminary findings indicate that:
• The project manager has the main responsibility towards the field practice in the teacher education program and has regular online meetings with students and mentors but does not visit the field.
• That the collaboration between the teacher education and mentors/schools and the field practice can be improved and clarified.
• Mentors are not aware of how the teacher education fulfil its role in linking theory and practice in university courses and vice versa, the teacher education (project manager) seems to need more insight in mentors and teacher students’ communication and enactment between theory and practice during the field practice.
• The assignments and handbook from the teacher education have relevant information and focus on practical issues, as lesson video recordings, but some instructions and concepts in the handbook could be formulated more in detail for mutual understanding.
• In some of the courses, according to students, the academics seems not regularly highlight the connection to the field towards the course subject and students doesn´t have assignments to practice on connected to courses in the long period of field practice at the last year.
We expect to gain deeper understanding of students and mentors view on the connection between field practice and learning on campus to be able to strengthen the collaboration between institutions and set common goals for more coherence between theory and practice in the teacher education program. That is an important part for professional learning and development in teacher education.
ReferencesCanrinus, E., Klette, K., & Hammerness, K. (2019). Diversity in coherence: Stengths and opportunities of three programs. Journal of Teacher Education, 70(3), 192–205. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022487117737305
Creswell, J.W. (2009). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches (third ed). SAGE
Bjarnadóttir. R. (2015). Leiðsögn. Lykill að starfsmenntun og skólaþróun. Háskólaútgáfan
Braun, V., Clarke, V., Hayfield, N. & Terry, G. (2018). Thematic analysis. In P. Liamputtong (Editor), Handbook of research methods in health social sciences (pp. 1–18). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2779-6_103-1
Darling-Hammond, L., & Bransford, J. (Eds.). (2005). Preparing teachers for a changing world. What teachers should learn and be able to do. Jossey-Bass.
Darling-Hammond, L., & Oakes, J. (2019). Preparing teachers for deeper learning. Harvard Education Press.
Gísladóttir, B., Björnsdóttir, A., Svanbjörnsdóttir, B., & Engilbertsson, G. (2023). Tengsl fræða og starfs í kennaramenntun: Sjónarhorn nema. Netla – Online Journal of Pedagogy and Education. (in publication process).
Government of Iceland. (2019). https://www.stjornarradid.is/verkefni/menntamal/
Law nr. 95/2019. https://www.althingi.is/altext/pdf/149/s/1942.pdf
Hammerness, K., Klette, K., & Berger, O.K. (2014). Coherence and assignment in teacher education: Teacher education survey. University of Oslo Department of Teacher Education and School Research.
Steingrímsdóttir, M. & Engilbertsson, G. (2018). Mat nýliða á gagnsemi leiðsagnar í starfi kennara. Netla – Online Journal of Pedagogy and Education. http://netla.hi.is/2018/ryn03
Svanbjörnsdóttir, B., Hauksdóttir, H., & Steingrímsdóttir, M. (2020). Mentoring in Iceland: An integral part of professional development? In K.R. Olsen, H. Heikkinen & Bjerkholt, E.M. (Eds.). New teachers in Nordic countries - Ecologies of induction and mentoring (Ch. 6, pp. 129–149). Cappelen Damm Akademisk. https://doi.org/10.23865/noasp.105 License: CC BY 4.0.
University of Akureyri. (2023). Course catalogue, undergraduate and graduate programmes 2022–2023. https://ugla.unak.is/kennsluskra/index.php?tab=nam&chapter=namsleid&id=640014_20226&kennsluar=2022&lina=490 & https://ugla.unak.is/kennsluskra/index.php?tab=nam&chapter=namsleid&id=640078_20226&kennsluar=2022&lina=495
10. Teacher Education Research
Paper
Student Teacher Learning in School-University Partnerships: A Systematic Review (2011-2020)
Jingtian Zhou, Xiaohua Wan
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong S.A.R. (China)
Presenting Author: Zhou, Jingtian
University-based initial teacher education (ITE) has been accused of as inefficient in preparing capable teachers for decades. The long-standing theory-practice dichotomy, or “the two-worlds pitfall” (Feiman-Nemser & Buchmann, 1985), has led to the historical dispute on “where to prepare teachers”. In face of the mounting criticism, and to overcome the disparity or discontinuity between ITE and the teacher career (Korthagen et al., 2006; Wetzel et al., 2018), policymakers and practitioners across the world have turned to school-university partnerships (hereafter partnerships) as part of the solution. There are advocates who firmly believe that the “workplace learning”, or “on-the-job” training offered by partnerships could help integrate university courses and school realities so as to get teacher candidates better prepared.
The call for partnerships has gained momentum since the 1980s and 1990s among western countries. Under the influence of globalization, knowledge marketization and the increasingly predominant accountability culture, it became part of the “teacher quality” agenda. (Edwards et al., 2009) Although they take different shapes and are under various names in different countries – for example, Professional Development Schools (PDSs) in the U.S. (Holmes Group, 1986, 1990), mandatory school placement in the U.K. (DfE, 1992), or teaching practice school in Australia (see Department of Education, Victoria, 1999 as an example), they share one thing in common: that the responsibility of teacher preparation has been redistributed, and the K-12 schools are bearing more and more significant roles.
However, partnerships could be rather problematic in practice. In fact, they are highly contextualized, and there is no standardized answer for how partnerships should be enacted in terms of its length and depth, forms and contents. Several types of partnership practices – mediated instruction, extended placements, hybrid teacher educators, bringing school staff into the university setting, and community knowledge – are said to facilitate student teachers’ (STs) learning in different ways (Zeichner, 2010). When unfolding the partnerships, a major issue noticed by teacher education researchers is the asymmetrical power relationship between the university and the school, which might impede the diversity or multiplicity of voices and inhibit dialogue among the three parties (UT, MT and ST) on an equal footing. (Edwards & Tsui, 2009)
Researchers have also pointed out gaps in the study of partnerships, such as weakness in research methodology (mainly using self-report data), and insufficient evidence of the learning process of both student teachers and teacher educators. More importantly, there is a lack of systematic examination of how the specific implementation or enactment of partnerships have shaped student teachers’ learning, such as their knowledge, skills or performances. Although a number of literature reviews (Daza et al., 2021; Green et al., 2020; Hunt, 2014; Smedley, 2001; Yendol-Hoppey & Franco, 2014) comprehensively answered the question of “what works and what does not in partnerships”, they seldom take up the “outcome” question, in other words, what and how well student teachers learn to teach in these partnerships, and whether their learning could be facilitated or impeded by the aforementioned components of partnerships.
Therefore, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) procedures (Moher et al.2009), this study aims to systematically review the empirical evidence reported worldwide in the last decade (2011-2020) on this relationship. The key research questions are:
RQ1: What types of school-university partnership have been developed worldwide in 2010-2020?
RQ2: What do student teachers learn (as indicated by change in dispositions, knowledge, performances) in those school-university partnerships?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedTo form the literature pool, several databases – ERIC, Google Scholar, Web of Science, Scopus formed the sources of literature. They were chosen for they are commonly used for educational studies, and that their collections are relatively comprehensive and of high quality.
As this study focuses on what student teachers learn in partnership settings, in each database, we used Boolean search and input queries as AB = school university partnership AND AB = (“teacher education” OR “teacher preparation” OR “teacher learning” OR “preservice teachers” OR “pre-service teachers” OR “student teachers”). When searching, the time span was set between Jan.1st,2011and Dec.31st,2020. Abstracts of the articles were searched because they usually contain the main ideas of the study. After the initial search,445entries were found in total. We then downloaded basic information such as title, author and abstract into a Microsoft Excel file for further screening.
Three rounds of screening were applied to narrow down the scope of review to our research questions. In the first round, the duplicates were removed so that 211 entries remained. At the same time, we went through all abstracts of the 211 pieces to determine whether the focus of the studies was on student teachers’ learning in partnerships. Those concerned only with the overall designs of partnerships, teacher educators’ roles and responsibilities in partnerships, or the related policy issues were screened out. As a result,135entries were included. In the second round, we reread all abstracts to locate empirical studies that report the learning gains of student teachers in their findings. Therefore, qualitative, quantitative as well as mixed-methods works were remained (n=98). In the third round, we engaged in the careful examination of full texts, and further deleted 31 studies deemed irrelevant or not rigorous enough. Eventually, 67 pieces of work remained as the object of this review, containing 58 journal articles, 7 book chapters, 1 doctoral dissertation and 1 entire book. Throughout the process, the two authors co-decided whether to keep an entry or not to guarantee inter-rater reliability.
The coding process of this study mainly followed an inductive manner. Besides descriptive data, to answer RQ1, we went through all the reported program interventions situated in the partnerships. Themes such as “power relationship” and “reflection” emerged from bottom up, leading to constant comparisons until similarities and differences were drawn. For RQ2, we applied the classic categorization of teachers’ learning outcomes – dispositions, knowledge, and performance to inform our coding.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThis review first identified different types of partnerships implemented worldwide. Both differences and similarities were observed among reviewed studies. On the one hand, all partnerships differ in their names, durations, locations, as well as their detailed arrangements and nuanced power relationships. On the other hand, there are also a few common characteristics shared by all ITE programs.
The first similarity lies in that all partnerships are embodied in the learning activities of STs (be it school-based or university-based). The second similarity of reviewed partnerships is the wide range of tools employed by teacher educators to facilitate STs’ learning to teach in these activities (e.g., learning journals). Among all activities and tools, two common core elements could be distinguished: reflection and dialogue.
For RQ2, we also synthesized changes in student teachers’ dispositions, knowledge and performances from 67 studies. While plenty of positive changes took place as expected by practitioners, there were also occasions when unexpected, negative changes occur.
To start with, for changes in dispositions, one common conclusion is that the conflicting discourses between the university and the school could bring troublesome outcomes for STs’ development of beliefs, values or identities. However, not all stories are pessimistic – there are also studies documenting growth of STs’ agency, identity and resilience. Secondly, partnerships are viewed as “knowledge processes” or “knowledge relationships” – studies focus on various aspects of knowledge, such as subject matter knowledge or knowledge of learners. In terms of performance, it seems that the more opportunities STs get to conduct classroom teaching and reflect on it afterwards, the quicker they develop relevant skills. Although STs get more exposure to practice in their field experiences, they are still peripherally participating in school communities, which is why evidence of their teaching performance is not as rich as the previous two aspects.
ReferencesBernay, R., Stringer, P., Milne, J., & Jhagroo, J. (2020). Three models of effective school-university partnerships. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 55, 133-148.
Burn, K., & Mutton, T. (2015). A review of ‘research-informed clinical practice’ in Initial Teacher Education. Oxford Review of Education, 41(2), 217-233.
Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. L. (1999). Chapter 8: Relationships of knowledge and practice: Teacher learning in communities. Review of research in education, 24(1), 249-305.
Daza, V., Gudmundsdottir, G., & Lund, A. (2021). Partnerships as third spaces for professional practice in initial teacher education: A scoping review. Teaching and Teacher Education, 102, 103338.
Feiman-Nemser, S., & Buchmann, M. (1985). Pitfalls of experience in teacher preparation. Teachers College Record, 87, 53–65.
Furlong, J. (1996). Re-defining Partnership: Revolution or reform in initial teacher education?, Journal of Education for Teaching, 22(1), 39-56.
Green, C. A., Tindall-Ford, S. K., & Eady, M. J. (2020). School-university partnerships in Australia: A systematic literature review. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 48(4), 403-435.
Hunt, C. S. (2014). A Review of School-University Partnerships for Successful New Teacher Induction. School-University Partnerships, 7(1), 35-48.
Moher, D., Liberati, A., Tetzlaff, J., Altman, D. G., & Prisma Group. (2009). Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: The PRISMA statement. PLoS Medicine, 6(7), Article e1000097.
Smedley, L. (2001). Impediments to partnership: A literature review of school university links. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 7(2), 189–209.
Tsui, A., Edwards, G., Lopez-Real, F., Kwan, T., Law, D., Stimpson, P., & Wong, A. (2009). Learning in School-university partnership: Sociocultural Perspectives. NY: Routledge.
Wetzel, M., Hoffman, J., Maloch, B., Vlach, S., Taylor, L., Svrcek, N., Dejulio, S., Martinez, A., & Lavender, H. (2018). Coaching elementary preservice teachers: Hybrid spaces for cooperating teachers and university field supervisors to collaborate. International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education, 7(4), 357-372.
Zeichner, K. (2010). Rethinking the connections between campus courses and field experiences in college- and university-based teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 61, 1-20, 89-99.
|
