Section archive - Theories & Approaches

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.

Glassner and Back, authors of the new book Exploring Heutagogy in Higher Education: Academia Meets the Zeitgeist, present the principles of Heutagogy approach in which let the students decide what and how to learn, with whom and from what resources. Since the success of this learning method is mostly teacher depended, they present the main two roles of the teachers in Heutagogy as motivators and facilitators. The authors suggest the COVID19 pandemic emphasizes the need to develop self-determined learners who take responsibility for their learning to enriches their knowledge, capabilities and personalities.