Constructing the Curriculum of Initial Teacher Education: Introducing the Process of Practical Theorizing

• In Event: 47.096 - MTCC Roundtable Session 20
  In Roundtable Session: 47.096-1 - The Challenges and Possibilities of Market-Based Reforms on Teacher Education in England and the United States

Abstract

1. Objectives

This paper examines how the curriculum of initial teacher education can balance the demands of acquiring ‘efficiency’ and ‘adaptive expertise’ (Berliner 2001; Hammerness et al. 2005). Building from the argument that learning to teach involves not only the development of craft knowledge and technical expertise, but also a growing capacity to engage in ‘clinical reasoning’ (Kriewaldt & Turnidge, 2013), the paper draws on research into the curricular assumptions underpinning different routes into teaching to explore the question of when and how beginning teachers should be encouraged to ask critical questions of the suggestions for practice offered to them.

2. Perspectives/framework

The paper takes as its starting point the ‘dimensions of teacher effectiveness and teachers’ professional identity’ elaborated by the Inquiry into the Role of Research in Teacher Education Project (BERA-RSA, 2014). ‘Research literacy’ is identified – alongside ‘subject and pedagogical knowledge’ and ‘practical experience’ – as a core component within the conception of ‘teacher as professional’. While some university-school teacher education partnerships have sought to develop these components through a commitment to ‘research-informed clinical practice’, alternative routes have questioned the need for beginning teachers to engage in the kinds of ‘practical theorizing’ (McIntyre 1995) that such integration of different sources of knowledge implies.

3. Methods

The paper draws on three research studies conducted during a period of rapid diversification in teacher education policy and practice. While two are concerned with initial teacher education, the third – a study of research-use in schools – illuminates some current practices into which beginners are being socialized, provoking a re-examination of long-held assumptions about the most effective ways of introducing beginners to the complex demands of teaching increasingly diverse school populations in times of change.

4. Data sources

The first study – a comparative exploration of learning to teach in England and the U.S. (2013-15) – included video-recordings, lesson-plans, interviews and questionnaires from seventeen prospective secondary teachers on different routes, along with program documentation and interviews with faculty and school personnel. The second used interviews with 12 teacher educators and program documentation (2016-17) to examine approaches adopted in a single school operating within two different programs: a traditional university-school partnership and a new school-based route. The third (conducted in 2017) was based on 32 interviews with teachers at different career stages in four case-study schools.

5. Results

While there are compelling reasons for seeking to reduce the complexity faced by beginning teachers (particularly given the challenges of attracting new entrants to work with the most under-served young people), approaches that prioritize ‘efficiency’ over the capacity to problematize and innovate appear to be counter-productive in the longer term.

6. Scholarly significance

Given the speed with which alternative routes into teaching have proliferated within England and the U.S., it is important both to acknowledge and build on the positive features and valuable insights that new models can offer as well as identifying and seeking to address the negative consequences that they may have for both aspiring professionals and the young people whom they seek to serve.

Authors

• Katharine Burn, University of Oxford

• Trevor Mutton, The University of Oxford