Section archive - Theories & Approaches

This study examines the relationship between different types of teaching motivation and (1) various facets of professional competence and (2) planned engagement in future teaching. The findings show the positive association between ‘intrinsic–altruistic motivation constellation’ and selected facets of professional competence. Two major professional orientations of the ‘intrinsic–altruistic motivation constellation’ were identified: (1) student-centred orientation and (2) subject-centred orientation.

This article explores in what ways student teachers’ learning activities in a teacher education programme can be characterised as deliberate practice. Based on an in-depth exploration of 574 learning activities, the results highlight the different ways in which activities in teacher education programmes can be designed, the different motivations students have to engage in them repetitively, and different ways in which feedback can be organised, within contextual constraints posed by all professional environments.

In this article, the authors suggest that current, ongoing changes in the nature and expectations of the university are causing the individuals who work in a UK School of Education to reconsider their identity. The paper proposes the formation of this identity to be a dynamic, career-long process. Diverse scaffolds for the development process are proposed, including opportunities for new teacher educators to be apprenticed into an academic role, the centrality of communities of practice and the importance of the supported development of academic skills.

This article examines the effect of a National Writing Project professional development model on a group of middle school writing teachers. Specifically, the authors examine how contact with other professionals in intensive week-long sessions as well as mentoring from the professional development coach affected the teachers’ concept of themselves as professionals, as writers, and as colleagues, as well as how this attitudinal change affected their classrooms and students. The findings reveal that through participating in the literacy academies, these teachers appear to have revived their interest in teaching and gained confidence in their expertise. The authors find that activities with more positive structural features tend to provide professional development with more positive core features, which in turn tend of produce more positive teacher outcomes.