Recent studies have identified that the teacher is the most important factor influencing the quality of education. Following this line of reasoning, it is likely to assume that the teacher educator is the most important factor influencing the quality of teacher education. Although many research studies and policy documents attempt to identify the qualities of teachers, only a few publications address the quality of teacher educators. This paper examines the contemporaryEuropean policy debate on the quality and status of teacher educators. Two issues will be addressed. Firstly, to what extent is teacher educator regarded as a profession? Secondly, what actions and measures are proposed to maintain or increase the quality and status of the teacher educator profession? Based on literature on professions and professionalism, a framework has been developed to guide our examination of European policy documents on teacher education to identify to what extent these documents express notions of teacher educators as professionals.
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For me the concept of the teacher educator as a agent of social change, implies that teacher educators should be focused on stimulating change and improvement in teacher education, schools and society. That focus should not only shape our teaching of student teachers, but also our research activities. This has implications for the research projects that we undertake. When research by teacher educators intends to contribute to change and improvement of practices in teacher education, schools and society, our research projects need to be understood as interventions. In the design of PhD or other research projects, not only academic requirements regarding validity should be taken into also account but also criteria that contribute to interventions and change in universities, schools and society.Effective change is a collective challenge, which requires likeminded colleagues.
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The professional development of teacher educators is increasingly acknowledged as a topic of paramount importance. This is partly due to the stronger emphasis on improving the quality of teacher education programs and as a consequence of the increasing focus on lifelong learning of those responsible for teaching student teachers. Teacher educators themselves are also showing a greater interest in their own professional development, which is reflected in the rise of publications on this topic. A number of recent studies have been devoted to teacher educators' professional development, with the emphasis on induction of novice teacher educators. The attention for professional development beyond the induction stage is also increasing however studies that allow an international comparison of further professional development practices are rather scarce. Over the past two years the RDC Professional Development of Teacher Educators conducted an explorative international comparison to deepen our understanding in this area. The main research theme of this study concerned experienced teacher educators' ongoing professional development activities and how these may contribute to the further development of their qualities and the kinds of factors (person-related and institute-related) that impact, positively or negatively, their professional development. The study focused on teacher educators with at least 5 years and no more than 20 years experience as a teacher educator. In total 23 teacher educators from a range of different countries participated in the study. A highly structured interview guideline was adopted to ensure sufficient opportunities for comparison between the interviewees' answers. Existing research instruments were inspected and all RDC members were involved in the process of composing the interview guideline. Topics for its content were discussed during the RDC meetings at the 2009 ATEE Conference at Majorca, and later on members were invited to provide feedback by e-mail on the draft version. All interviews have been transcribed, and were sent to the interviewees for their approval of the interview report. This presentation will provide a comparison analysis of the interview data followed by an interpretation of its outcomes and its implications for improving practice and further research.
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Introduction and theoretical background In the past few years, there has been a growing interest in the specific position of beginning teacher educators. In the book 'Becoming a teacher Educator' (Swennen & Van der Klink, 2009) several chapters deal with this subject. In conclusion, teacher educators have to deal with stress and uncertainty during their first years in the profession. They have to find a place within the university (organisational induction) as well as to grow into the role of teacher educator (professional induction). Swennen, Shagrir & Cooper (2009) give some examples of organizational induction which beginning teacher educators encounter, such as workload (a combination of new tasks and the wish to perform these tasks well) or a sense of isolation (being the only one with this problem, being thrown into the deep, no 'peers' in the same situation). Murray (2008) also describes professional induction. Beginning teacher educators have to get used to several things: being confronted with teaching students (young adults), uncertainty about the sufficiency of their subject knowledge, and uncertainty about their role as teacher educator being a 'second order teacher' (Murray and Male, 2005). Design of an induction program At Fontys Teacher College Tilburg, the Netherlands each year, new teacher educators get started. According to a quick scan amongst beginning teacher educators in their first year, many of them would like some kind of support. Supportive aspects which are mentioned are partially organisational related (getting to know the institute and its rules), partially related to the organisation of the work (planning, workload) and partially related to the content of the work (how to deal with young adult learners, theory about teaching methods). At Fontys University of Applied Science, we would like to support beginning teacher educators in order to retain them for the organisation and for the profession. To support the new colleagues, a special induction period was designed to support their grow within the organisation and the profession. The induction period consisted of two components: (1) personal support from a 'buddy' e.g a colleague, 2) weekly meetings in which an experienced colleague supports a small group of beginning teacher educators. Evaluation of the induction program This induction program was offered to all new colleagues during academic year 2010-2011. What is gained out of the program by new colleagues was investigated through an evaluative inquiry. In this inquiry, a questionnaire was used and some interviews were held. At the conference in April 2012, the results of the evaluation will be presented. Aditionally, we will also discuss some recommendations for the induction of beginning teacher educators. References Murray, J. and T. Male (2005). Becoming a teacher educator: evidence from the field. Teaching and teacher Education 21 (2005), 125-142. Elsevier Ltd. Murray, J. (2008) Teacher educators' induction into Higher Education: work-based learning in the micro communities of teacher Education. European Journal of teacher Education, Vol 31, no 2, 117-133 Swennen, Anja & Marcel van der Klink (eds) (2009). Becoming a teacher educator. Theory and practice for Teacher Educators. Springer Science+business Media B.V. Swennen, Shagrir & Cooper (2009) Becoming a teacher educator: Voices of beginning teacher educators, 91-102 in: Swennen, Anja & Marcel van der Klink (eds) (2009). Becoming a teacher educator. Theory and practice for Teacher Educators. Springer Science+business Media B.V.
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Literature reveals that beginning teacher educators are dealing with organisational and professional difficulties in their induction period. At the Teacher Education Institute of Fontys University of Applied Sciences in Tilburg, The Netherlands, a special induction programme was developed for the induction period. The programme was designed using recommendations from literature and focused on both organisational induction as well as professional induction. This programme was evaluated through an inquiry. Experiences of participants and as non-participants in the programme were taken into account. The evaluation reveals that all beginning teacher educators (participants as well as non-participants) have learned a lot from their colleagues, for example through conversations or while preparing lessons together. The majority of the participants hold the opinion that the goals of the programme have been reached and they appreciate the programme for the possibility to exchange experiences with other beginning teacher educators.
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This study reports on what 13 teacher educators going through a procedure to become registered as a teacher educator in 2011–2012 learned, what goals they formulated for their further professional development and what activities they planned to achieve these goals. The methods used in this study are mainly the same as were used at the time the first cohort went through the registration procedure in 2002. The 2012 cohort participated in a supportive programme, whereas the 2002 cohort did not. This enables a comparison of the results of both studies and thus some insight into the possible benefits of integrating a registration procedure with a supportive programme for the professional development of teacher educators.
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Professional development of teacher educators is an important topic, because teacher educators need to maintain and enhance their expertise in order to educate our future teachers (Kools & Koster, n.d. ; Dengerink, Lunenberg & Kools, 2015). How do teacher educators fulfil this task, especially within the hectic timeframe of everyday work? I asked four colleges to participate in a group to share their experiences, actions or behaviour in the organisation about their development in their profession of being a teacher educator. My purpose is to bring awareness and movement into that group. My research focusses on teacher educators in a large teacher education department in the Netherlands and the opportunities for action available to them. During this study we are currently creating a learning environment in which mutual cooperation increases the learning potential of all participants. In this group participants take or make time to learn, giving words to their scopes . Researcher and participants discuss and explore on the basis of equality, reciprocity and mutual understanding. By deploying methods borrowed from ‘Appreciative Inquiry’(Massenlink et al., 2008) the enthusiasm of a study group is raised and the intrinsic motivation of the participants stimulated. Our study group will convene three times. Its goal is to stimulate cooperation among teacher educators through optimisation of existing qualities, a method that could be described as empowerment, or a process of collective reinforcement ‘To learn’ involves experiencing that what one does really matters, as well as developing one’s own persona in the local community. Intervention, action, reflection and study group meetings alternate in the course of our research. In addition to audio and video recordings, data consists of reports drawn up on the basis of member checks. Data is analysed qualitatively by coding the interview texts and reports. After applying the codes, the researcher discusses the coding in a research group and with the participants of the study group (membercheck). Working collaboratively can offer learning challenges that catalyse growth as a professional, teacher educators become acquainted and approach each other from the perspective of their respective professional and functional responsibilities. This study offers perspectives for other teacher educators to recognize these possibilities in their own situation. Moreover the study offers a description of a way to organise collegial exchange. The research is related to the RDC professional development of teacher educators.
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As all professionals, teacher educators are expected to develop themselves continuously during their working life in order to keep their knowledge and skills up to date. Smith (2003, p203) distinguishes three reasons for teacher educators to develop themselves: 1) to improve the profession (teacher education); 2) to maintain interest in the profession, to grow personally and professionally and 3) to advance within the profession, promotion. At the teacher education institute of the Fontys University of Applied Science, teacher educators are stimulated by the management to spend 10-15% of their working hours on professional development. Do teacher educators spend these hours and if they dos so, what purpose do they have in mind? What activities do they undertake to develop themselves? What topics do they choose for professional development? Are there differences between more experienced teacher educators and beginning teacher educators? To study these questions, a questionnaire was held by all 228 teacher educators working at the Fontys teacher education institute. At this institute, about 4000 student-teachers are educated to become a teacher in secondary or vocational education. First impressions of the results show that 33% of the teacher educators spend 10-15% of their time on professional development. A large group of teacher educators (42%) spends less then 10% and a small group (23%) spends more then 15% of their time on professional development. The main reason for teacher educators to professionalize themselves is to improve the quality of their teaching to students. This refers to the second reason Smith (2003) mentions. Improving the profession or advance within the profession (reason 1 and 3 in Smith's list) were much less often mentioned. The four activities most mentioned by teacher educators to develop themselves were reading of (scientific) literature (1), followed by collegial consultation (2), attending conferences or meetings (3) and trying out new approaches and systematically evaluating them (4). The topics teacher educators develop themselves in vary from didactical subjects to coaching skills, subject-specific topics and ICT-skills. Further analysis to reveal whether there are differences between experienced and beginning teachers is still in progress, but will be available at the conference in August 2011. References: Smith, K (2003). So, what about the professional development of teacher educators? European Journal of Teacher Education, Vol 26, No2, pp201-215
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Mathematics teacher educators in primary teacher education need expert knowledge and skills in teaching in primary school, in subject matter and research. Most starting mathematics teacher educators possess only part of this knowledge and skills. A professional development trajectory for this group is developed and tested, where a design based research is used to evaluate the design. This paper describes the professional development trajectory and design. We conclude that the professional development design should focus on mathematical knowledge for teaching, should refer to both teacher education and primary education, should offer opportunities for cooperative learning, and need to use practice based research as a developmental tool.
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This study examines how the contemporary European policy debate addresses the further development of the quality of teacher educators. A classification framework based on the literature on professionalism was used to compare European and Member State policy actions and measures on the quality of teacher educators through an analysis of seven European policy documents and a questionnaire completed by key policy-makers in 16 European countries. The findings show that European Union policy documents pay limited attention to the quality of teacher educators. However, the professionalism of teacher educators receives more policy attention at the level of individual Member States. Most of these policies are part of general policies for higher education teachers, while the initiative lies with governments and teacher education institutes. The role of the professionals themselves in developing policies to strengthen their professionalism seems very limited.
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