Critical Guides for Teacher Educators – serie

This is an essential text for anyone interested in teaching primary school children, including teacher educators, classteachers and headteachers. What constitutes outstanding or good teaching of children in the primary years is rarely discussed other than in terms of measurable outcomes in literacy and numeracy. This book presents a different view of the distinctive learning needs of 5-11 year-olds and examines the knowledge, skills and attributes required to meet these, especially as a classteacher. Informed by research, but linking this with practical examples, it examines how teachers with a high level of expertise with young children actually think, act and interact. While highlighting the features of such expertise, the challenges of developing it are not overlooked, and the text provides practical pointers on how to do this in both initial teacher education and continuing professional development.This title is part of the successful Critical Guides for Teacher Educators series edited by Ian Menter.

This book encourages teacher educators to promote flexible and sustainable practice in their students, enabling them to flourish within an ever-changing educational environment. Research from the UK and US strongly indicates that a coherent theory-practice approach to teacher preparation is key. The book outlines what such a framework can look like, a rationale for it, and how it can work in practice for groups and individuals. It explores the notions of the reflexive teacher, creativity as a basis for practice, and criticality as a necessary underpinning for educators. The discussion draws on the research and experiences of teacher educators, student teachers and in-service teachers, from NQTs to Lead Practitioners and senior management. It proposes the foundational understanding for beginning teachers to join a community of practice based on scholarship, professionalism and ethical practice.This book is part of the successful Critical Guides for Teacher Educators series edited by Ian Menter.

This book is designed to help the growing group of school-based teacher educators and those based in higher education develop excellent professional practice across their institutions. The first part of the book provides personal challenges to teacher educators, helping them to develop their own identity beyond that of being a classroom teacher and to recognise the values, knowledge and practices that are unique to them as part of the international community of teacher educators. This includes how to develop their pedagogy to embrace the needs of their trainees, and a realistic approach to developing an academic and scholarly aspect to their identity. The second part of the book describes some of the themes that underpin outstanding provision in teacher education including a broad curriculum, an enquiry-based approach, building a learning community, developing reflective practitioners, having an ethos of high aspiration, evaluation of impact and strong partnerships. Theory and practice are closely linked throughout with illustrations drawn from a variety of different settings.This book is part of the successful Critical Guides for Teacher Educators series edited by Ian Menter.

The concepts of status and professionalism are key issues in teaching and teacher education across the United Kingdom and internationally. While there is increasing recognition that high quality teachers are crucial, this coexists with a persistent culture of blaming and shaming them. Student teachers will live out their careers within this maelstrom so need to be encouraged to consider the place of their profession both locally and globally, and teacher educators can support them to make a realistic yet ambitious analysis. This book answers a fundamental need for teachers to position themselves in their professional world. It uses an innovative Place Model to explore the professional learning of teachers, examining place in terms of both hierarchical status and as a cumulative journey of professional learning within ever expanding horizons. It looks at the nature of professionalism, why teacher status is important, where trainees might fit within the model and what infrastructure needs to be in place to support teachers’ career long professional learning.

This book provides a concise and comprehensive overview of the practice of coteaching, including its benefits and educational and social implications. Coteaching plays an important role in enhancing the experience and effectiveness of pre-service and in-service teachers during school experience at a time when teacher retention rates are a concern both nationally and internationally. Traditional practice in school experience, generally comprising observation followed by complete take-over of classes, has not altered in more than a century, despite significant changes in the role of the teacher, the needs of students, the learning environment and the functioning of schools. Coteaching provides a pedagogy which supports pre-service teachers more actively and promotes teacher professional development, as they work together in co-planning, co-practice and co-evaluating lessons during school-based experience. Co-teaching in Teacher Education is part of the successful Critical Guides for Teacher Educators series edited by Ian Menter.

This book provides a call to action for post-compulsory teacher education professionals, both in the UK and internationally, to unite around key principles and practices. The professional, educational and funding turbulence experienced by post-compulsory teacher education since 2008 has been significant. Austerity financing and increasing government intervention have provided many new and difficult challenges. At the same time evidence is building that the quality of teaching is the most important contributor to the quality of learning and achievement, and teacher education is demonstrably one of the most important influences on that teaching quality.The mainly workplace-based partnership model of teacher education used in the post-compulsory education (PCE) sector resonates well with a number of key current developments in the UK and broader field of teacher education. PCE teacher educators are particularly well placed to tell their story and share their vision of a better future for teachers through their own experiences, values and principles. Written by a range of post-compulsory teacher educators, the text therefore is an informed and passionate argument for:improving the professional recognition of teacher education and teacher educators;demonstrating how teacher education already connects teaching professionals into an engaged and collaborative professional community;providing strategies to enact this vision through connected, democratic professionalism.This title is part of the successful Critical Guides for Teacher Educators series edited by Ian Menter.

Trainees and school-based practitioners are being encouraged to engage more with evidence-based teaching methods. Teachers are now more responsible for the outcomes of their own practice and are charged with sourcing ‘best practice’ solutions in their pedagogical approaches. And schools are moving more towards in-house professional development approaches that have a clear focus on raising standards in the classroom.This book focuses on how universities and primary schools can work together to lead, manage and sustain a culture of teacher inquiry. It examines the role of the university in providing a critical perspective on teaching and learning and how academics can support schools by working as ‘knowledgeable others' and advocates of classroom-based research. As a case study, it explores the journey taken by one particular primary school, in partnership with a university, over a two-year period, detailing how this work has impacted on the professional lives of staff, the children they teach, the overall culture of the school and the impact on school improvement. Chapters are contributed by professional school leaders, university academics and primary teachers and there is a focus on the rigorous examination of models of evidenced-based teaching, practical examples demonstrating some of the best and most sustainable approaches, and positive outcomes.

This book links theory, policy and practice in a critical examination of the relationship between the professional identity, knowledge, learning needs and research experience of teacher educators. The book concludes by drawing these themes together as a means to support the induction and further professional development of teacher educators. Teacher educators have, until relatively recently, been invisible in the eyes of policy makers with little attention given to their induction and professional learning needs. This book draws on a growing body of research on this diverse profession within a context where, in many countries, the school practicum plays an increasing role in the training and education of teachers. The recent policy gaze of the European Commission has added further momentum to the attention being given to teacher education, its educators and the role they play in pupil achievement. However for many beginning teacher educators little support is offered at the start of their new career trajectories in schools, colleges or universities. This book examines some of the issues surrounding these career transitions and the implications they have for professional learning. It serves as an invaluable yet accessible source of knowledge for all those interested in the professional learning needs and recognition of this heterogeneous occupation.

This book supports all those involved in initial teacher education (ITE) and with an interest in partnership working. Such partnerships are at the heart of ITE practices, both in the UK and internationally, but more recently models of partnership have become ever more complex as a result of government reforms, the rapid diversification of routes into teaching and significant increase in the number of SCITTs. The nature of partnerships in ITE remains contested with partnership working often reduced to a series of prescriptions for effective practice, ignoring both its pedagogic potential and inherent tensions. This book surveys and critiques partnership developments in recent years and then analyses a single case study of a school that exemplifies the current complexity of ITE partnerships using both policy and practice perspectives. It concludes with a series of principles that might underpin effective partnership working.

This book addresses key issues related to teaching pupils from disadvantaged and impoverished backgrounds and provides a valuable reference and pedagogical tool for teachers and teacher educators. Research has consistently shown that the most economically disadvantaged pupils have the poorest educational outcomes. Austerity government policies and pressures of performativity on schools may have exacerbated this inequality. Yet many teachers remain ill-informed about the effects of social disadvantage on students’ learning and consequently are ill-prepared in appropriate teaching methods. The text critically examines the lessons from previous policy and practice, discusses cognitive and affective aspects of school learning for disadvantaged children and explores the pedagogic implications of research evidence. Using insights from existing research, the book examines the reasons why some trainees and teachers lack a critical perspective on the contexts of poverty and may hold deficit views of students in poverty that suggests they are unable to learn and need to be controlled. It explains some of the links between poverty, special needs, literacy and educational achievement and focuses on strategies for improvement.

You can successfully develop your higher education research profile while balancing the demands of training teachers and administration.While teacher education is key to preparing qualified teachers who can educate pupils for the demands of the twenty-first century, many university-based teacher educators experience conflicting demands in their professional practice. Their lives are often so dominated by teaching and associated work that their aspirations to develop a research profile are hampered.This text explores the critical issues faced by those working in teacher education and how they have negotiated the expectations and requirements of the Academy to establish themselves as leading international teacher education researchers.Through a series of autobiographical cases, this book demonstrates a range of trajectories in different contexts which have facilitated the development of teacher educators' successful research profiles.Understandings and realities of the policy context, the professional context, the research context (including funding, metrics, type of research valued), the institutional context and various personal positionings are examined in order to illuminate stories of research success and demonstrate their relevance to all teacher educators.