Research

We welcome new blogs on teacher educators and teacher educator development (500-750 words). For more information see our Blog submission policy or contact your national moderator.


March 11, 2024

Towards diversity-responsive teacher educators: reflections of a professional development initiative

In the past year, a fruitful collaboration took place between a teacher educator, Ann, and a doctoral researcher, Benjamin, regarding a professional development initiative (PDI) on […]
February 19, 2024

Creative research as a starter for professional dialogue

Creative research methods invite people in and promote professional development while participating in the research.
January 15, 2024

‘So how do you feel that lesson went?’ Patterns of discursive interaction in post-lesson debriefs

Thinking before we talk, or realising that talk is structuring thinking and thus learning, would allow for more intentional conversational choices in post-lesson debriefs.
December 13, 2023

Teacher’s Profession is (Still) Attractive in Finland

In 2023 at the University of Helsinki, only 10% of the applicants were accepted to primary school teacher education programme and only 4% of the applicants were accepted to special education teacher education programme.
December 13, 2023

Identifying School-Based Teacher Educators’ Professional Learning Needs: An International Survey

The presumption that, if you can teach young people in schools you can therefore also teach adults how to teach and how to teach more effectively, is one that has permeated many teacher education systems and policies (Parker, Zenkov, and Glaser, 2021).
August 28, 2023

Sleeping Beauty and the future of (teacher) education

What if you fell asleep and wake up one hundred years from now? How do you think education smells in 2123? Which metaphor would best represent the teacher-student relationship we see? Which animal do you hope runs the school premises? Sixty educational professionals working in all areas of the educational field
February 1, 2022

Long-COVID-19 – The need to (re-)research about teacher educators’ professional learning needs

The COVID-19 pandemic has encouraged us to rethink about the long-lasting implications for teacher education and how the traditional approaches to educate teacher candidates have evolved. This unexpected scenario has become a living laboratory for teacher educators who have had to transfer to solely relying...

March 5, 2021

Fit to teach?

As a teacher educator of 13 years of experience, I have learned a great deal since Covid-19 took its grip on the UK in March 2020, with the pandemic providing me with time to reflect on and review my previous and current practice (Bain et al 2002).The personal and professional became inextricably intertwined, prompting me to engage with my practice in more depth. I am a teacher educator, a parent, an assessor, and a former school teacher. These roles once separate, have become interwoven, leading me to look at my engagement in the teacher educator landscape through a different lens.

October 30, 2020

Changing the ‘message’ of school physical education in response to COVID-19: avoiding the ‘new normal’

The current Covid-19 pandemic has, and will continue to, significantly influence the way in which teaching and learning are experienced in schools (Kaur, 2020). As some governments begin to consider plans and protocols for a safe return to schools, as a physical education teacher and physical education teacher educator respectively, we raise the concern that physical education...

October 13, 2020

Teachers as teacher educators in the post-COVID world

It has been a decade since the highly influential report Teaching Scotland’s Future, also known as the Donaldson Report, was published. This document set out a blueprint for developing teacher education in Scotland. I know this report well, because I read it cover to cover, in preparation for my current job in Teacher Education. The interview presentation asked me to consider the recommendation: “All teachers should see themselves as teacher educators...”

October 13, 2020

Teacher educator conversations prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic: opportunities and responsibilities (post 3)

On March 12th, 2020, the HEIs closed. As work moved from our educational institutions, complete with offices, corridors, lecture theatres, tutorial rooms and staff rooms, to our homes, we also moved from the physical world to the virtual world of work. In designing these new...

October 13, 2020

Teacher educator conversations prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic: opportunities and responsibilities (post 2)

Our identities have changed somewhat as a result of the many changes to our professional routines, norms and practices coupled with changes and adjustments in our personal routines. Our omni-presence at home means we ‘wear many...

October 13, 2020

Teacher educator conversations prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic: opportunities and responsibilities (post 1)

As a teacher educator and Assistant Dean Research I believe it is incumbent on me to examine, suggest and explore initiatives amongst teacher educator colleagues in helping in identifying and initiating how best to consider ‘spaces’ where teacher education colleagues can harness...

June 23, 2020

Mentoring as support for professional development

Mentoring is acknowledged as a means to support professional development for teachers. However, mentoring has multiple meanings and may be practiced as supervision, support or collaborative self-development for new as well as experienced teachers. As researchers we were curious to find out what expectations newly qualified teachers, their mentors and their school-leaders have to mentoring and professional development and thereby to identify what kind of mentoring is needed...

May 12, 2020

Being and Becoming A Research-Active Teacher Educator

It’s April 2020 and I’m writing this at home in lockdown during the Covid 19 pandemic. In these terrible times, one of my ways of maintaining a semblance of ‘normal life’ is to take refuge in my research, an enjoyable and – usually - productive process for me. But this was not always so. In my early years as a teacher educator, I struggled to research and write. A brief autobiography will explain why.I entered teacher education, straight from school teaching...

March 11, 2024

Towards diversity-responsive teacher educators: reflections of a professional development initiative

In the past year, a fruitful collaboration took place between a teacher educator, Ann, and a doctoral researcher, Benjamin, regarding a professional development initiative (PDI) on […]
February 19, 2024

Creative research as a starter for professional dialogue

Creative research methods invite people in and promote professional development while participating in the research.
January 15, 2024

‘So how do you feel that lesson went?’ Patterns of discursive interaction in post-lesson debriefs

Thinking before we talk, or realising that talk is structuring thinking and thus learning, would allow for more intentional conversational choices in post-lesson debriefs.
May 12, 2020

Being and Becoming A Research-Active Teacher Educator

It’s April 2020 and I’m writing this at home in lockdown during the Covid 19 pandemic. In these terrible times, one of my ways of maintaining a semblance of ‘normal life’ is to take refuge in my research, an enjoyable and – usually - productive process for me. But this was not always so. In my early years as a teacher educator, I struggled to research and write. A brief autobiography will explain why.I entered teacher education, straight from school teaching...

June 10, 2019

Self-Study Research in Europe

This blog shares some findings from a collaborative study1 on the positioning and development of self-study research in Europe, and complements the ‘research’ building block that is one of 13 building blocks central to the work of InFo-TED Specifically, this blog aligns with the research building block by considering what teacher educators’ engagement in research involves, and how teacher educators’ engagement in research can be meaningfully supported.
April 13, 2019

Using Research to Problematise ‘The Good Practicum’

Most student teachers have positive experiences of working in a school when on placement. A minority, however, return to university from their placement feeling stressed and anxious. In Scotland, The Donaldson Review (2011) claims that 23% of their respondents admitted to having ‘variable or very poor’ placement experiences. Problematic experiences have been reported in a range of empirical studies throughout the wider world (see for example Boz and Boz, 2006)...
March 23, 2019

How research on reflection has changed my view on reflective practice

Reflective practice is a common dimension of initial teacher education programmes throughout the world and the benefits of developing reflective teachers have been well documented (please see McGarr & McCormack, 2014 for more detail). While differing approaches to reflection exist, Brookfield (1995) argues that unless reflective practice is critical in nature, challenges hegemonic assumptions and power relations, it is largely ineffective.
February 24, 2019

Nurturing teacher educators’ communities of enquiry

Unless research is valued for its capacity as a tool of professional learning by all stakeholders in teacher education, we risk the marginalisation and eventual disappearance of a theory-informed future teaching profession. Peiser (2015) reminds us that education policy can, in some cases, prioritise instrumental knowledge over a wider professional understanding of teacher education and...
January 4, 2019

The Evidence-Based Teaching Survey

Teacher educators play a pivotal role in the classroom ecology of teacher education because they support pre-service teachers’ learning and because they model teaching through their own practices (Lunenberg, Korthagen, & Swennen, 2007). Therefore, there is no exaggeration to say that if we strive for quality teacher preparation we should first invest time and effort on the professional development of teacher educators’ (Goodwin & Kosnik, 2013).