Section archive - Theories & Approaches

Throughout their initial teacher education training in Australia, students are informed about the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) and the necessity of gathering evidence to achieve these for teacher registration. Whilst the use of digital technologies as tools for reflection has become increasingly popular, there remains a paucity of research around the types of digital technologies that students use to document their ability to achieve accreditation requirements. This study presents details of how PebblePad, a specialised ePortfolio platform, can assist teacher education students to gain increased awareness about the 37 APST descriptors through the use of tagging. Results demonstrate that students found tagging an invaluable practice and that they recognised the importance of using this ePortfolio platform after graduation to build on their growth as educators in alignment with the APST. In this way, the study addresses a significant gap in teacher education literature in this era of accountability.

As policy makers’ neoliberal reforms continue to impact teaching and teacher education, stakeholders across both fields of teaching continue to seek out alternative practices that assist educators in fostering democratic learning experiences for children in schools. However, many continue to struggle with the impact of these reforms on their teaching. Thus, there is a need to better understand how to support preservice teachers in authoring themselves so that they enter the profession in a manner that allows them to speak back to policy makers’ demands and engage in democratic teaching and learning processes with their students. The instrumental case study examined in this article investigated this issue by examining how a sample of preservice teachers in a large urban teacher education program authored themselves as teachers who spoke with and against policy makers’ neoliberal reforms. These findings demonstrate that while preservice teachers appear willing to pursue alternative visions of schooling they still seem to focus on individualized choices in avoiding policy makers’ reforms. Thus, there appears to be opportunities for teacher educators to support preservice teachers in developing the skills required to speak back to policy makers’ neoliberal reforms so that they can author themselves as the teachers they want to be.

Meaningful teacher–student relationships are linked to a range of positive student outcomes. However, there is limited research on how teacher education programs attempt to prepare teachers to form relationships with students. This article employs comparative case methodology to explore how two different teacher residency programs—No Excuses Teacher Residency and Progressive Teacher Residency—attempt to prepare their teacher residents to form meaningful relationships with students. Drawing on theoretical work by Martin Buber and Paulo Freire, this article finds two very different approaches to teacher–student relationships: Instrumental and Reciprocal. It concludes by discussing the implications of each.

This qualitative metasynthesis investigated students’ meaningful learning experiences amid andragogical teacher education programmes. The programmes catered to the specific learning needs of adult students in the context of university-based teacher education. This study aimed to provide a wider picture of the frames of students’ meaningful learning in andragogical teacher education programmes. The findings revealed three major learning worlds of adult students’ meaningful learning, which formed a common system widening from the professional awakening to the transformative community and agency in society. Based on the findings, this study argues that in andragogical teacher education, which emphasises collaboration and networking in accordance with the current trend in higher education, teacher students may become empowered participants and active agents in society. The findings can be used in planning curricula, and developing programmes of higher education in general and teacher education in particular.