Section archive - Trends in Teacher Education

For nearly 40 years the quality and value of the contribution of universities to initial teacher education has been brought into question. This is particularly so in England where the ongoing ‘discourse of derision’ has resulted in universities no longer being seen as necessary partners in the process. More recently, similar challenges have taken place in other countries such as USA and Australia. However in 2013, when the Welsh Government turned its attention to the apparent low quality of its current provision, rather than challenging the role of universities, it chose to strengthen their contribution. There were however to be important changes that insisted that universities put the student teacher learning at the heart of course planning, that universities clarify their own distinctive contribution and that they work in close collaboration with schools. While this approach to initial teacher education is not new, this is the first time that such a model has been implemented on a national scale. This paper outlines the nature, rationale and underlying research for the reforms in Wales. It concludes by speculating on their likely impact in raising the quality of provision and securing the future contribution of universities to teachers’ learning.

During MOFET's study day “A Corner Stone: Building Education and Teacher Education Systems in Times of Crises and Change” that took place online on June 30, 2020, we addressed the following questions: (1) What common difficulties did we face? (2) What solutions were found? (3) What sustainable changes can we make, in order to work better even in routine days? (e.g. hybrid instruction, multicultural Collaboration, reflection and professional judgment) Lecturers from England, Ireland, USA, Hong Kong, Portugal, Finland, and of course, from Israel, participated in this day of collaborative learning. They spoke about their lessons, learned as teachers, teacher educators, administrators, education ministry officials and third sector members.

Lesson Study and Learning Study are popular teacher professional development models across the world. Drawing on an extensive review of research and literature, this paper aims to identify the features of the two models to contrast and establish their similarities and differences particularly with regard to their application in practice. The paper focuses on their impact on teaching and learning as well as the rationale behind the process of Lesson Study and Learning Study. Four major distinctions between the two models are revealed: ways of identifying a topic for teaching, views and methods for understanding student learning, the focus of teacher collaboration on lesson design and implementation, and the overall instructional design. The paper concludes that the two models appeal to different practitioners depending on their aims and objectives in teaching and learning as well as their broader perspectives on education. In addition, this paper suggests that the two models could complement each other to improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning in different contexts.

The capstone project discussed in this article is a multimedia digital storytelling project using iMovie, produced by first-year teachers simultaneously earning their master’s degree. Teachers created their own capstones representing their personal experience, professional development, and overall process toward becoming an empowered educator, while teaching students in urban schools. Utilizing a constant comparative content analysis, the authors determined whether and how teachers defined and represented empowerment in their capstones. Implications for the affordances of a multimedia capstone experience are discussed.