This volume presents distinctive, innovative models of teacher education from Australia, discusses their successful elements and considers possibilities for successful teacher education in the twenty-first century. Each model is couched within the international teacher education concerns of the theory practice nexus, school-university partnerships, reflective practice, and the role of technology. The contributing authors, drawn from different contexts and locations around Australia, each offers research-based perspectives on successful teacher education. Responses to teacher education challenges in rural and regional contexts, metropolitan areas, among low socio-economic populations and Indigenous communities are considered. Ways in which technology, and in particular mobile technology, can be used to support learning across these diverse contexts are illustrated, as is the role of reflective practice to encourage critical reflection for improving teacher learning. Collectively, the authors present a range of directions that can guide the future of teacher education both nationally and internationally, demonstrating that context, partnerships, reflection and technology are critical elements in the provision of successful teacher education.
This book offers a detailed examination of reflective practice in teacher education. In the current educational context, where reflective practice has been mandated in professional standards for teachers in many countries, it analyses research-based evidence for the power of reflective practice to shape better educational outcomes. The book presents multiple theoretical and practical views of this often taken-for-granted practice, so that readers are challenged to consider how factors such as gender and race shape understandings of reflective practice. Documenting approaches that enhance learning, the contributions discuss reflective practice across the globe, with a focus on pre-service, in-service and university teachers. At a time when there is pressure to measure teachers’ work through standardised tests, the book highlights the professional thinking that is integral to teaching and demonstrates ways it can be encouraged in beginning teachers. Aimed at the international community of teacher educators in schools and universities, it also includes a critical examination of methodological issues in analysing and evaluating reflective practice and showcases the kind of reflective practice that empowers teachers and pre-service teachers to make a difference to students.
This volume sheds light on debates about personalised learning in teacher education by exploring the popular emergence of personalising learning in education and hence its significance in teacher education in the 21st century. It examines personalising learning theory and explores the tenets of this theory and its recent trends in international settings. The theory is explored in relation to both general and higher education pedagogy, and in a range of examples within a teacher education context. The examples from practice provide insights into maximising the potential for personalising learning theory to enhance teaching, learning and assessment in teacher education. The book includes case studies involving pre-service teachers working in communities of practice with one another, with schools and with the wider community. Examples of technology for personalising learning are also described. All the case studies demonstrate how the learner is made central to the teaching and assessment approaches adopted and contributes to a lifelong learning continuum. Providing insights into a new pedagogy for teacher education that leads to an enriched student experience, the book presents a model for personalising learning in teacher education that offers support for 21st century teacher educators.
This book demonstrates school-based approaches to primary science teacher education. The models used involve partnerships between universities and primary schools to engage pre-service primary teachers in classroom teaching and learning that effectively connects theory with practice separate to the formal practicum arrangements. The book is a culmination of the research and collaboration of researchers from five Australian universities involved in the Science Teacher Education Partnerships with Schools (STEPS) project, funded by the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching. While the STEPS project focused on partnerships in primary science teacher education, a key strength of the partnership model (the STEPS Interpretive Framework) developed and explored in this book is its applicability for cross-case, national, international, and inter-state analyses of partnership practices. This is shown through a number of case studies where the STEPS Interpretive Framework is applied and evaluated in the context of other school- or learning-related partnerships. These broad-ranging analyses illustrate the relevance of the model to a range of settings, both within and outside of education.
This book explores the current landscape of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in primary schools in South Africa. Considering recent policy directives and initiatives, it highlights the dilemmas of ITE for the primary school and gives a thorough account of innovations and initiatives to improve ITE. The book presents what works best for quality preparation of teachers in the Global South, where many children rely on their teachers and school life to break the cycle of poverty. Chapters draw on evidence from workplace learning, pre-service study, and primary school teacher education policy to highlight examples of promising change in teacher education in South Africa, addressing the clichés of "theory versus practice" head-on. This book successfully brings out the challenging aspects of teacher education for childhood learning which has otherwise been regarded as the softer option for a career in education. This book will be of great interest for academics, researchers, and post-graduate students in the fields of teacher education, African education, educational policy, international education, and comparative education.
This book explores how educators are proactively working to reclaim teacher professionalism by engaging in exemplary practice and promoting quality education for all. It examines voices in contemporary Australian teacher education and how professionalism can contribute to achieving the multiplicity of purposes in education. The work of contemporary teachers and teacher educators, and perceptions about this work, have changed significantly. In recent times, governments have identified key issues linked to the quality of teachers, as presented in multiple inquiries, creating shifts in public policy and increasing regulation. Educators must work towards improving public and policy maker perceptions of teaching as a profession. Teacher educators make an important contribution in engaging in ongoing scholarship and debate that examine research and practice and speak back to managerial discourses on professionalism. It is through this work that educators shape and re-shape understanding of what it means to be a professional.
There is a large body of research that supports the reality that school leaders make a significant contribution to the success of schools and the students in them. Additionally, there is strong agreement among and between researchers and state and national educational leadership associations that educational leadership preparation and development should be created and implemented within university/school partnerships. Although institutions engage in forming university/school partnerships for varied reasons, research on the extent to which these partnerships exist; their organizational structures and processes; their implementation and effectiveness; and elements that foster and hinder their success is limited. Perhaps more importantly, there is not a widely accepted, research-based model of such partnerships that practitioners and researchers can use to guide the development and assessment of these partnership endeavors and upon which they can conduct effective research. This book seeks to fill these gaps. It presents the purposes, processes, practices and outcomes of eleven university/school partnerships focused on school leadership preparation and/or development. Each chapter presents an overview of the partnership, elements that fostered and hindered partnership success, and lessons learned. The book concludes with a chapter that summarizes findings across all chapters and presents a school/university partnership model that can be used by those interested in forming, improving or researching similar partnership endeavors. There are no similar resources available in the field. Thus, this book makes an important contribution to the literature and to the world of practice and research. Praise for Partnerships for Leadership Preparation and Development: Facilitators, Barriers and Models for Change: "Kochan, Reames and Griggs bring together the latest research and eleven case examples of university-practice partnerships for school leadership preparation and development. The volume provides keen insights into practices that can make or break an effective partnership, making it a valuable resource for those seeking to develop new partnerships, to enhance existing ones, and to engage in research on this topic. For those in the throes of redesign or leadership program improvement, it is an essential read." Michelle D. Young, Professor and Dean, Loyola Marymount University UCEA Executive Director Emeritus "Partnerships for Leadership Preparation and Development is destined to become an indispensable “go-to” resource for educators who are contemplating or already engaged in school-university partnerships. Rich details are provided about a variety of partnerships operating for aspiring and practicing schools administrators, with special attention to preparing and developing underserved populations for educational leadership roles. The book not only captures the realities of these collaborative efforts, but also provides a roadmap for anticipating the important relational, organizational, and operational processes required for partnership success." Bruce Barnett, Professor Educational Leadership and Policy Studies University of Texas at San Antonio
This book examines teacher education at a critical turning point in the neoliberal dispensation that has steered education policy and practice since the 1980s. It examines Australia’s teacher education reforms, the ‘TEMAG reforms’ launched in 2014, and traces their effects on teacher education practice in 2019 and into the challenges, uncertainties and doubts of 2020’s entangled health, economic and environmental crises. Combining data-rich insights into policy and professional workspaces and places, with a temporal sensibility, this book probes the limits of neoliberal logics and shows how school- and university-based educators’ professionalism sustains the preparation of beginning teachers through school-university partnerships. Teacher Education Through Uncertainty and Crisis explores the relationalities, spatialities and temporalities of teacher education, sketching hopeful innovations, pathways and sustainable futures for teacher professionalism. This book will be of interest to policymakers, teacher educators and other professionals who understand the power of education in an uncertain world.
This handbook presents a global overview of current research in education and education policy reforms during the last decade. It provides an accessible, practical and comparative source of current research that examines the intersecting and diverse discourses of this important issue. It first examines globalisation, education and policy research and reforms in higher education, including coverage of main trends in education and policy reforms globally, as well as specific policy issues such as gender, equity, minorities and human rights. Next, the handbook offers a comparative perspective that evaluates the ambivalent and problematic relationship between globalisation, the state and education reforms globally. It features coverage on curricula issues and education reforms in schools around the world, the curriculum in the global culture, as well as globalisation and education futures, with respect to social justice and human rights. The handbook contributes to a better and a more holistic understanding of the education reforms and research nexus—offering possible strategies for the effective and pragmatic policy planning and implementation at the local, regional and national levels. It will serve as a vital sourcebook of ideas for researchers, practitioners and policy makers in education.
This book explores mobile learning as a form of learning particularly suited to our ever more mobile world, presenting a new conceptualisation of the value of mobile devices in education through the metaphor of lenses on learning. With a principal focus on mobile-assisted language learning (MALL), it draws on insights derived from MALL language, literacy and cultural projects to illustrate the possibilities inherent in all mobile learning. In its broad sweep the book takes in new and emerging technologies and tools from robots to holograms, virtual reality to augmented reality, and smart glasses to embeddable chips, considering their potential impact on education and, indeed, on human society and the planet as a whole. While not shying away from discussing the risks, it demonstrates that, handled appropriately, mobile, context-aware technologies allow educators to build on the personalised and collaborative learning facilitated by web 2.0 and social media, but simultaneously to go much further in promoting authentic learning experiences grounded in real-world encounters. In this way, teachers can better prepare students to face a global, mobile future, with all of its evolving possibilities and challenges.
