Learning From One Another Internationally: Case Studies From the International Study Association on Teachers and Teaching, 2

• In Event: 25.043 - Learning From One Another Internationally: Case Studies From the International Study Association on Teachers and Teaching

Abstract

This contribution presents highlights resulting from an opportunity for transnational collaboration among ISATT members across four continents (North America, South America, India, and Europe). All participants expressed interests in exploring, sharing, and discussing ways in which enduring questions for teacher education (and teacher educators) were being addressed in changing contexts. Papers examining experiences with these enduring questions in changing contexts (Houston, 2009), and how professional knowledge and practices of teacher educators were shaped in responses over time (while also providing insight into related developments in pedagogy and practice), were presented as a symposium at an international conference on teachers and teacher education in 2017.
My experience in this case involved coordinating my research curiosities with this small group of international colleagues as well as collating the papers for submission and review. This came about as a direct result of my leadership role with ISATT and coming to know them all through related activities – including the biennial conferences hosted worldwide by the many universities where members of the ISATT community can be found.

Our research illuminated the nature of enduring questions, showing how social, cultural and geo-political factors impact teacher education and how linking ideas and action can develop increased understandings of both principles and practices.

The work undertaken for this symposium contributed towards shared purpose in the debate about teacher education pedagogy from a range of international perspectives. Loughran (2010) and Zeichner (2007) argue that we need to go beyond stories of individual teacher educators’ practice to understand more deeply how we respond to and learn from challenge and change. Acknowledging this, narratives of experience provide foundations for further knowledge and understanding about teacher education, and to share answers to the enduring questions we still encounter in our work (Bruner, 1991; Goodson, 2010; Davey, 2013). Houston (2009) cites change as an inherent part of our culture, our environment, our heritage, and our future contending that, despite programmatic changes and extensive research, a number of issues in teacher education persist. We argued that further exploration of these complexities is needed if we are to better understand solutions to some of the enduring questions about teacher education pedagogy and practice (Russell & Loughran, 2007).
The symposium was significant to theory, practice, policy and research: papers illustrated experiences in practice while informing theoretical understandings of how research informs professional practice. This learning from each other offered potential benefits in further advancing deep understandings gained from different approaches to research and practice, towards moving reciprocal thinking and action forward in the field of teacher education.
Key learnings included the need for building community among geographically diverse ISATT members between biennial conferences, in order to promote and facilitate, the development of rich relationships with others engaged in similar work around the globe and for disseminating transnational perspectives that strengthen and enhance collective efforts in developing and enacting relevant pedagogy for teacher education. (Loughran & Russell, 2007; Loughran, 2010).

Author

• Susan E. Elliott-Johns, Nipissing University