The authors wanted to find out more about student teachers’ understandings of Master’s-level work in relation to teacher education. In addition, they wanted to discover if working at Master’s level during the course of their PGCE changed their perceptions of its value at all. The authors therefore decided to survey the students about their experiences during the PGCE year. The authors conclude that they focused on the processes of understanding teaching and learning, which are most effective when the collaborative and social dimensions of professional learning are developed with the skills of critical reflection and research literacy. This combination enables teachers to problematise their learning contexts and develop complex understandings of teaching and learning.

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the growth and development of a novice teacher participating in a Continuing professional development (CPD) project. Based on the findings of the current paper, the CPD project supports the professional development of a novice teacher in three areas. First, it helps develop teaching competencies. Second, it promotes positive socialization in organization and in the profession. Finally, it facilitates the development of one’s professional identity. This study illustrates the important challenges teacher educators face in finding new ways to create learning opportunities in teaching students and novice teachers. Such opportunities would be meaningful for teacher educators in their own professional development and growth.

This study examines pre-service teacher research in a nine-month teacher education programme, implemented as a means of making explicit links between research and practice. The results reveal that although student teachers expressed significant concerns about having to develop a research question, they conferred with and developed questions in conjunction with their associate teachers. However, they also indicated that support from the associate teacher presented a significant challenge. Furthermore, the results reveal that understanding a research disposition to be integral to teaching proved to be a significant conceptual challenge amongst some of the pre-service teachers and associate teachers.

This study follows 12 preservice teachers who tutored adult students learning English in a free evening class while simultaneously taking a course titled Community Literacy. In particular, the authors examine how this context supported them in developing tools for teaching; and how those tools were shaped by and constructed these teachers’ identities. The authors used discourse analysis to examine three preservice teachers’ cases and their ideas about language acquisition, literacy teaching and learning, and teacher/student roles in a cross-cultural teaching setting. The authors conclude that the preservice teachers drew on the tools that come from mentor texts and their experiences, and also the tools that students brought, in unique ways.

This article reviewed 10 papers. These papers demonstrated that those associated with teacher education, from the policy, research and practice arenas, are currently searching to ensure that the teachers who graduate from an increasing array of programmes, have the skills, attitudes and dispositions to support high levels of student achievement in schools. Several key issues that have emerged from the reviewed articles. The first issue is whether teaching is a craft or a profession. The issue whether the role of teacher is a profession or a craft has implications on how teacher educators view themselves, as practitioners or researchers. Finally, this review describes the lack of trust being shown by politicians and communities in number of countries to both teachers and teacher educators.