University of Cumbria Open Access Journals
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Being a school-based teacher educator: developing pedagogy and identity in facilitating work-based higher education in a professional field
Get PDFFacilitating work-based learning in higher education involves the educator in developing both their pedagogy and their professional identity. A current policy drive in England is towards school-embedded teacher education programmes facilitated by school-based teacher educators. The promoted schemes involve postgraduate student teachers being formally based in schools for the duration of their programme. This work-based approach involves school-based teacher educators who teach school students regularly as well as having a considerable responsibility for teaching and coaching their student teachers. This is a significant change from previous partnership-based teacher education where university-based teacher educators collaborated with school-based ‘mentors’, experienced teachers, to provide taught sessions in the university plus work-based learning in school. Many of these postgraduate teacher education programmes include credit-bearing modules at Masters level and an award at postgraduate certificate level. After qualification some teachers use these credits to study part-time towards a full Masters award. This paper focuses on the workplace learning and developing identity of a school-based teacher educator who teaches music classes for school students, contributes to extra-curricular music activities in the school, and educates ten secondary music specialist postgraduate student teachers completing a one-year postgraduate programme. The study uses a reflective diary kept by the school-based teacher educator for a full academic year combined with semi-structured interviews at intervals. The interview transcripts and selected segments of the reflective diary were subjected to qualitative thematic analysis. The findings of this small-scale study suggest that there is great potential in the school-embedded approach to facilitate powerful classroom experiences for student teachers supported by coaching and opportunities for collaborative and reflective learning. However, for this integrated teacher education to be ‘higher education’ – rather than technical training – has important implications for the school as a workplace environment and for the professional knowing and identity of the school-based teacher educator. Learning to teach is complex, relational, and challenging and student teachers need space to be learners as well as teachers. Becoming an effective school-based teacher educator, facilitating work-based higher education, will be no less challenging
‘Jack of all trades’: The ambiguous role of the ESOL teacher in secondary schools.
Get PDFTeaching students learning English as an additional language (EAL) in New Zealand secondary schools requires specialist skills. These EAL students compete with English-speaking peers in a uniquely demanding learning environment which requires that they learn English language at the same time as negotiating all curriculum learning in an additional language. Programmes for these learners range from withdrawing students for classes where English language skills are developed, to mainstreaming students into curriculum English. Currently, all teachers are expected to teach the academic language specific to their subject, and the place of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) teachers is uncertain. Schools are expected to balance the skills of curriculum and ESOL teachers to give EAL students the best possible learning opportunities. This study investigates the changing and ambiguous role of ESOL teachers, and the challenge it poses to their professional relationships. Keywords: English for speakers of other languages; English as an additional language; mainstream teaching; content-based language teaching;
Student Teachers Supporting Pupil Learning: Developing understanding, developing confidence
Get PDFThis paper reports on research aiming to develop understanding of a project involving pupils working individually with student teachers on a regular basis. Data was collected from focus group discussions with student teachers and pupils. The context is that of a cohort of student mathematics teachers undertaking a subject knowledge course prior to initial teacher education. However, the findings are relevant across teacher education because they have implications for supporting pupil mentoring in schools as well as for the development of student teachers’ professional learning. The research findings indicate that the subject mentoring project developed confidence in subject for both student teachers and pupils. In developing pupils’ subject knowledge student teachers developed an understanding of the need to explore the subject from multiple perspectives. Pupils developed confidence in attempting subject matter outside the mentoring sessions. Participants also suggested that the evaluation of the impact of the project should not be considered in isolation as the project was run in the context of a range of related school interventions and the focus on subject improvement from a range of perspectives was a key feature. Key Words: Teacher education; multiple perspectives; mathematics; confidence, mentoring, student, pupil, trainee, interventions, school improvement
An essay in the political economy of assessment design
Get PDFThis paper is an essay in the political economy of assessment design. My point of departure is that student approaches to assessment appear to have become more instrumental, and that there has been a correlative propensity in my teaching practice to ‘teach to the test\u27. Hence, both learners and teachers seem to have become more strategic in relation to assessment. This situation, I argue, is a product of power relations within contemporary Higher Education Institutions and the function Higher Education performs in the new capitalism. Assessment instrumentalism is part of a new learning culture; it is, I contend, a rational and pragmatic response to current social and economic imperatives. Thus, when designing assessments it is necessary to recognize and work with this strategic situation if we desire its reconfiguration. Reconfiguration and the design of assessments worth learning and teaching for is made possible, I contend, by the development of a pedagogy for itself
Teaching, learning and researching: A reflective journey into increasing the efficacy of our own mentoring practices
Get PDFStudents undertaking Initial Teacher Education in Scotland through the postgraduate route are required by the General Teaching Council of Scotland to undertake approximately 18 weeks on school placements. During placements students are mentored by a school-based partner and a member of University staff assigned as their School Experience Tutor (SET). This paper seeks to disseminate progress on an ongoing project focused on supporting students during school placements through the development of formative support materials to be used by SETs, students and school-based mentors to facilitate mutual professional development. The project identified three action points which sought to support the creation of professional knowledge spaces through focused professional dialogue in order to meet the needs of the PGDE programme and the diverse needs of individual students in a variety of professional contexts so enhancing the quality of student learning. To achieve its goals the project has piloted the use of structured learning conversations, a set of professional activities, and Personal and Professional Development Planning. We believe that this will be of interest to those engaged in supporting students engaged in ITE programmes and more generally those who have an interest in the process of mentoring others. Keywords: school placements; (asynchronous) learning conversations; mentoring; partnership
Building Partnerships for success: a model for working with teacher trainers, mentors and trainees
Get PDFThe paper describes the quality of learning that occurred between school based mentors, primary teacher trainees and their tutors in a Higher Education institution (HEI) in England. The programme upon which this research is based is an innovative way of working and is presented here as a unique delivery approach to Professional Development. The programme consisted of a series of taught sessions specifically designed to enhance trainees’ confidence in teaching primary languages. Running concurrently with the taught sessions were workshops where mentors were engaged in developing the skills required to observe and give constructive feedback on primary language lessons. Although this programme was the vehicle to deliver continuing professional development (CPD), the impact upon ways of developing working with trainees and mentors and the implications on learning for the wider initial teacher education (ITE) community are far reaching. The development of the key principles of this model of learning is a highly efficient and effective way of developing partnership. The generic nature of these principles makes them transferable and applicable to other areas of working with mentors and teacher trainees in all sectors. Partnership is defined here as the relationship that exists between the provider and mentors in schools. Keywords: Partnership; learning; mentors; teacher trainees; professional development; initial teacher education; primary languages
Designing assessment for autonomous learning
Get PDFThis article aims to disseminate and evaluate an autonomous learning framework developed through collaborative research with level 4 and 5 undergraduate students at De Montfort University. Central to the framework is the involvement of students in the assessment of their peers and themselves using dialogue about the assessment and feedback of embodied and ephemeral outputs. The research is practice-based and includes the evaluation of published literature concerned with self and peer assessment; action learning and research; and interpretation as it is considered in phenomenological hermeneutics. The autonomous learning framework addresses the issue of student dependence on the tutor for feedback on embodied and ephemeral assessment outputs and develops students’ understanding of assessment criteria and mark descriptors. Integral to the autonomous learning framework is the development of reflexive and meta-cognitive learning and emotional intelligence. This is achieved through the incorporation and combination of self-assessment; learning sets; tutor assessment and feedback; video; and dialogue. The paper concludes with an evaluation of assessment design in relation to the promotion of autonomous learning
The learner’s role in assessing higher level abilities
Get PDFThis paper responds to the vision of a new assessment culture, which will be a meaningful integration of teaching, learning and assessment. It reviews the advice in the literature about assessment, and from there identifies principles for the assessment of the development of higher level abilities in various domains. It envisages the student as an active participant in the development of criteria and standards, and their consequent use in the making of judgements. The suggested principles are tested out on a recent conventional experience that brought the writers together as tutor and student, and on their subsequently proposed generic model. Keywords: Learner’s role; assessment; higher level; integration; generic model