International Portal of Teacher Education
The online resource of academic content on teacher training and teacher education
Search results for: Education policies
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196 items
1
Policies on inclusion are being increasingly embedded within education systems and teacher education across the world, with schools and teachers called upon to add ‘inclusion’ to their already large set of skills and tasks.
There is, however, no consistent definition of what inclusion means or how it can be best promoted.
The purpose of this paper is to explore the dilemmas that student teachers face when they encounter policy requirements to practice inclusion, and how they mediate the tensions.
Drawing on two exploratory studies with science student teachers in two Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programmes in England, the authors focus on the conceptions of inclusion held by the student teachers and the links between inclusion and teacher education.
Their findings suggest that conventional understandings in relation to ability still dominate, with ability-based differentiation viewed as the key teaching strategy to promote inclusion.
In addition, student teachers find themselves having to negotiate contradictory and often conflicting approaches to inclusion, diversity, and academic attainment.
The discrepancies highlighted by this study have implications for how teacher education courses need to be organised to promote the practice of inclusion.
Published: 2021
Updated: Jun. 02, 2022
2
Since 2009, the Educative Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) has been rapidly implemented as a policy tool for strengthening teacher professionalization across the United States.
However, its national assimilation has become a target for both praise and critique among teacher educators.
In this article, the authors examine such diverse perspectives.
Highlighting the sensemaking of administrators, faculty, staff, and teacher candidates (n = 75) across eight teacher preparation programs (TPPs) in two states, they examine how they have responded to varied edTPA policy designs and program contexts.
Results show that both policy design and programmatic differences influence how these stakeholders have perceived and implemented edTPA—either as a framework for inquiry or compliance.
In the process, they contend that edTPA has many promises and pitfalls as a scalable policy tool for preparing and assessing future teachers.
Published: 2020
Updated: Jun. 24, 2021
3
In the context of the major influence that ‘effectiveness’ is having internationally, this paper studies the contemporary methodological perspectives in educational research when considering teachers’ practice.
It shows that current trends can be boiled down to:
(1) naturalistic methodology,
(2) descriptive methodology, and
(3) the nonmethodological solution.
It states two main conclusions: first, there is a neat continuity with traditional methodologies, which were in decline long ago; second, contemporary perspectives in educational research fail to provide a consistent methodological model for ‘effective practices’.
The author finally draws some conclusions and makes some suggestions for the further development of methodology in educational research and teachers’ practice.
This study is noteworthy for teachers’ practice, collaborations and partnerships, and also for the relationship amongst research/practice/policy, which is at the core of the implementation of educational systems.
Published: 2019
Updated: Dec. 05, 2019
4
The authors describe challenges that were confronted around the deployment of Louisiana’s value-added assessment of teacher preparation programs.
Their discussion is organized around the challenges emerging from calculation, communication, and change.
The discussion provides information that policy makers and teacher education leaders, rather than analysts, might find useful, and focuses on the types of challenges that a state or university system can expect to encounter in developing a value-added assessment.
They describe decisions made in response to specific challenges that appear to have been successful and some that in retrospect appear to have been mistakes.
Published: 2019
Updated: May. 29, 2019
5
This study aimed to examine the relationship between policies related to the recruitment, selection, preparation, and certification of new teachers and (a) the quality of future teachers as measured by their mathematics content and pedagogy content knowledge and (b) student achievement in mathematics at the national level. The findings revealed statistically significant associations between the overall strength of these quality assurance arrangements and the quality of graduates. The authors found that countries with strong quality assurance arrangements, such as Chinese Taipei and Singapore, scored highest, whereas countries with weaker arrangements, such as Georgia and Chile, tended to score lower on these measures. The results also showed a statistically significant relationship between quality assurance arrangements and the mathematics achievement of students.
Published: 2017
Updated: Jul. 01, 2018
6
This article describes OECD ideological and policy changes that form the background for PISA. Furthermore, the author focuses on the OECD’s governance mechanisms and the obstacles it presents to public scrutiny. The author argues that the pursuit of market mechanisms posed both educational and political problems on the OECD's accountability regime. He argues that in order to redress the asymmetries between strong influence and weak democratic control will require profound advances in the organization of the global public sphere. He proposes to broaden the global educational discourse, in which the accountability narrative is complemented by narratives of local institutional learning, educational tradition, democratic participation, and cultural diversity.
Published: 2014
Updated: Oct. 18, 2017
7
The present paper explores the growing role of venture philanthropy. It also investigates the ideas of educational entrepreneurship and disruptive innovation in influencing the federal and state policies and practices in teacher education in the United States. The authors reject the position that the USA government should invest in the current system of teacher education in order to increase the capacity of the existing institutions that currently prepare teachers. They also disagree with the position that the current teacher education system should be replaced by an alternative based on deregulation and privatization. They suggest the need for transformation in the present system of teacher education, which will improve the quality of teacher education programs. They suggest focusing on helping student teachers learn to enact teaching practices that will promote student learning.
Published: 2015
Updated: Oct. 15, 2017
8
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of policy-oriented teacher inquiry that is collaborative, theoretically driven, and methodologically well-grounded. The author proposes a methodological framework for policy-oriented teacher inquiry that highlights multilayered research approaches and collaborative inquiry. She situates her arguments and the proposed framework in the context of qualitative research and Marx’s dialectic method. The author introduces four study phases that can enable deeper and more detailed understandings of relations between individual experiences, political structures, and material environments.
Published: 2014
Updated: Jul. 05, 2017
9
This research explores relationship building and improvements in knowledge, skills, and dispositions of pre-service teachers enrolled in an Indigenous education content and pedagogy methods course. The study shows significant gains made by pre-service teachers in each of the target areas, and affirms that methods coursework in American Indian education can lead to more interculturally competent teacher candidates.
Published: 2017
Updated: May. 14, 2017
10
The authors examined initial licensure polices in special education to determine how these policies support or hinder reform efforts to develop teacher education programs that prepare graduates for the increasingly complex needs of diverse students. Initial special education licensure policies are described with an emphasis on the differences across states on two key options: whether licensure for special education teachers is a stand-alone initial license or whether the state requires a general education license prior to obtaining a second license in special education.
Published: 2017
Updated: May. 11, 2017