Abstract

Worldwide, teacher educators are caught between competing demands of job preparation, social reproduction, social engineering and social justice. While politicians and policy makers point to the significance of the academy in top performing PISA education systems, teacher education, in many countries, is increasingly moving into schools as are many of the professionals and para-professionals associated with this contested field. This symposium, shaped by teacher educators from Ireland, Scotland, Netherlands, Finland, Belgium, Norway, Israel, Canada, and United States focuses on assessing the current challenges to teacher education across multiple contexts through systematic enquiry that draws upon four domains: identity, criticality, communication and boundary crossings. Symposium papers explore how this ‘boundary-crossing’ profession might re-establish its professional competence in this shifting policy terrain.

 

Session summary

This symposium is organized by InFo-TED, the International Forum for Teacher Educator Development. This newly established group brings together people from across the world to exchange research, policy and practice related to teacher educators' professional development – an issue that is often positioned worldwide as a policy ‘problem.’ While politicians and policy makers point to the significance of the academy in top performing PISA education systems, teacher education, in many countries, is increasingly moving into schools as are many of the professionals and para-professionals associated with this contested field. In this shifting policy terrain, conflicts between policy and practice arise for teacher educators as they are caught between the competing demands of job preparation, social reproduction, social engineering and social justice. Thus, there is a need for a coherent set of strategies to develop the professional identities and knowledge bases of those who prepare and support teachers.

This two-hour symposium seeks to address this imbalance by re-positioning teacher education practices placing them at the heart of the professional practice of teachers, learning, and education itself. It focuses on assessing current challenges to teacher education across multiple contexts through systematic enquiry that draws upon four domains: identity, criticality, communication and boundary crossings. Five papers—one each from Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, and Norway—combined with remarks from a chair and discussants from the US and Canada consider the policy, practice and values that underpin this hybrid and ill-defined professional group called teacher educators (Murray, 2012; Berry, 2013) and explore how this ‘boundary-crossing’ profession might re-establish its professional competence in a shifting policy terrain.

The important role of highly-qualified teacher educators to prepare the next generation of teachers has become a focus of increased interest particularly in the EU as shown in two separate reports: Supporting the Teaching Professions for Better Learning Outcomes (2012) and Supporting Teacher Educators for Better Learning Outcomes (2013). Within the EU, there have been some national level initiatives, e.g., in Flanders (VELOV, 2012) and in the Netherlands (Lunenberg, et al, 2014). However, the education of teacher educators is not a European problem alone: Except for Israel’s MOFET Institute, worldwide, those responsible for the education of future teachers have rarely been formally prepared for their vital role (Zeichner, 2005) and there has not been any systematic effort to develop a formal induction and professional education framework for teacher educators.

In light of recent European documentation, this symposium will offer new perspectives on the professional competence and knowledge base of teacher educators and demonstrate how these are compounded by different local and national contexts. Symposium participants explore the ways in which professional practice and pedagogy is shaped by a commitment to the lifelong learning of teacher educators, teachers, teachers in training and the learners of teachers—a commitment framed by the group as a question of developing skillful and professional learners ‘learning how to practice’ in ways that are critical, contextual, adaptive, self-regulating, caring, and shaped by critical inquiry.

 

Contributors

 

Presenters

Ruben Vanderlinde, Ghent University

Donald Gray, University of Aberdeen

Paul Conway, University of Limerick

Kari Smith, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Jurriën Dengerink, VU University, Amsterdam

Frances Rust, University of Pennsylvania

Amanda Berry, RMIT University, Australia

Geert Kelchtermans, KU Leuven

Eline Vanassche, KU Leuven

Mieke Lunenberg, VU University, Amsterdam

Michal Golan, MOFET

Hanne Tack, Ghent University

Anna Lena Østern, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Quinta Kools, Fontys University of Applied Sciences

 

Discussants

Clare Kosnik

Pam Grossman

 

Chair

Frances Rust, University of Pennsylvania

 

References

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Abstract

In 2013, we co-founded the International Forum for Teacher Educator Development (InFo-TED). Coming from four different countries, we look into our personal and collective motivation and learning during Info-TED’s first two years, and discuss what these can mean for others.

To do so, a collaborative self-study approach was applied. We found four shared personal features, of which the first was genuinely wanting to strengthen teacher educators’ professionalism and identities and to empower teacher educators. The analysis also disclosed three central themes across the four countries that require InFo-TED’s attention in the professional development of teacher educators. Our main recommendation for other communities of teacher educators is to acknowledge and productively use the tension between being different and developing common goals.

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Contributors

Mieke Lunenberg, VU University, Amsterdam

Jean Murray, University of East London

Kari Smith, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Ruben Vanderlinde, University of Ghent