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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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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Societal trends such as increased accountability, teacher shortages, and flexibility in learning paths affect the work of teacher educators. This study explores the collective agency of Dutch geography teacher educators as they enact the subject pedagogy curriculum within this rapidly changing context. Whilst teacher agency has been widely studied, research on teacher educators—particularly from a collective perspective—remains scarce. Drawing on Priestley et al.'s ecological approach, this study aims to disentangle teacher educators' collective spaces of agency by means of cultural, structural, and material resources. Using focus group interviews with three teams of geography teacher educators, we identified three key challenges that define their collective spaces of agency: (1) accommodating students' developmental phases, (2) gaining insight into students' internship learning, and (3) the growing divide between subject-specific and general teacher education. Thematic analysis revealed that teams of educators experience a different sense of agency in each of these spaces, depending on their ability to draw on the available resources. Our findings show that teams of educators draw on strong subject teacher identities (cultural resources) and experience collective agency when enacting subject pedagogy at the course level (structural resources). Their sense of agency is weak at the institutional level, particularly in relation to curricular change. This study contributes to a more profound understanding of teacher educators' collective spaces of agency. Disentangling these spaces can help teams of teacher educators to identify the necessary resources to restore their sense of agency in difficult times.
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In which areas and domains do individual teacher educators prefer to work on their professional development? What kind of learning activities do they want to take on and with whom? Are there significant differences in these preferences between teacher educators? This article reports on a recent survey (N = 268) about the professional development of teacher educators and differences in learning preferences between less and more experienced teacher educators and between university-based and school-based teacher educators. Findings show, for example, that while most university-based teacher educators were mainly interested in improving their teaching, less experienced school-based teacher educators were more focussed on aspects such as coaching skills. In this study, ‘learning profiles’ have been developed for four categories of teacher educators. These profiles may help to create more meaningful arrangements for teacher educators’ initial education and further professional development in a context where teacher education is required to have a more school-based as well as a more research-based orientation. Keywords: professional development; teacher educators; learning preferences; teacher education
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The professional development of teacher educators is increasingly being recognised as a topic of paramount importance. This is partly caused by the stronger emphasis on improving the quality of teacher education programs and as a consequence on attention for the lifelong learning of those responsible for teaching the student teachers. But also teacher educators themselves show a greater interest in their own professional development, which is reflected in the rise of publications on this topic. A number of studies have been devoted to teacher educators' professional development, with the emphasis on induction of teacher educators. The attention for professional development beyond the induction stage is recently increasing but studies that allow international comparison of further professional development practices are rather scarce. The RDC Professional Development of Teacher Educators conducted an explorative study to deepen our understanding in this area. The main research theme of this study concerns teacher educators' professional development activities and how these contribute to the further development of their qualities and the kinds of factors (person-related and institute-related) that contribute, positively or negatively, to their professional development. Special attention is paid to exploring possible country-specific differences concerning professional development. The study focused on experienced teacher educators with at least 5 years and no more than 20 years experience as a teacher educator. In total 11 teacher educators stemming from different countries were included in the study. Participants were recruited from RDC members' personal networks. The interviewees work in six different countries, five are from Israel, one is from The Netherlands, one from Czech Republic, one from Australia, two from Slovenia and one from England. It was decided to opt for a highly structured interview guideline that ensures 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. The first set of 11 interview reports will be discussed during the RDC meetings of the 2010 ATEE conference in Budapest. At this moment the analysis of the interview data takes place which is conducted by two researchers, and this will be followed by an interpretation of its outcomes by all authors involved in this paper. The analysis focuses on describing similarities and differences and on exploring the factors contributing to teacher educators' professional development. The presentation provide the main outcomes of the study and discussion on its implications for improving practice and further research.
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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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The attention for teacher educators as professionals and their professional development is indeed increasing. While much of the attention has been directed to novice teacher educators little has been paid to experienced teacher educators and their particular developmental activities. This paper presents findings on teacher educators’ professional development. 25 interviews were conducted, mainly with experienced teacher educators in Israel, The Netherlands and Japan. Teacher educators’ concerns vary across their careers. During their induction they are rather focused on surviving, whereas later on in their careers their concerns are linked to their own professional identity and their students as individuals. A large number of participants were involved in research and they all experience research as an important mean for their professional development. All participants were involved in formal and informal learning activities and they have plans for their further professional development but sometimes foresee hinders, like resources and time, to realize their plans. The interview data did not provide any strong evidence to suggest country-specific patterns.
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Professional development of teacher educators is an important issue. In order to be able to teach the teachers of the future, teacher educators have to keep their own knowledge and skills 'future proof'. When it comes to professional development, very often people think of 'attending courses'. But attending courses to keep up knowledge and/or skills, is only a small aspect of the broad range of possible activities to fill in ones professional development. A lot of professional development takes place at work, the so-called workplace-learning or informal learning. In this study we look at the professional development of teacher educators through informal learning. Often forms of informal learning are not recognized by the learner, because they are so integrated with work. In this study the goal is to stimulate awareness of informal learning processes by teacher educators. Teacher educators use a logbook and report daily, weekly or once in three weeks what they have learned. After a three-week period they analyse their logbooks by looking at 'what is learned, 'how is learned', with or from who is learned'. This study has two types of outcomes: (1) awareness of the informal learning processes of the participating teacher educators themselves and (2) insights into the processes of stimulating awareness of informal learning processes. The study is in progress (march 2012) and we will present our findings at the conference in Antwerp.
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a presentation about an international study amongst teacher educators about thier professional development
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Although teacher educators' role as researcher is generally accepted (Cochran-Smith, 2003; Clarke, 2001), not every teacher educator is capable to conduct research. Teacher educators in, 'new universities', like the Dutch Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS) work in a context where a research culture lacks. The relatively new focus on research in UAS is similar to (former) developments elsewhere in the world (e.g. Cochran-Smith 2003; Borg & Aslhumaimeri, 2012, Lepori, 2008). The objective of this study was to gain insight in the contribution of professional development activities to teacher educators' role as researchers in UAS and/or their role in supervising student teachers' research. Theoretical and methodology framework Regarding the professional development of the research role, several activities are described in literature (e.g. Cochran-Smith, 2003; Barak et al 2010). Examples are: working in professional development communities (Brody & Hadar, 2011), communities of inquiry (Cochran-Smith, 2003), conducting self-study research (e.g. Gallangher et al, 2011; Lunenberg, Zwart & Korthagen, 2010), or course in research methods (Livingston, McCall & Morgado, 2009). Three Dutch UAS' participated in this project. The outcomes of three different types of professional development were studied: (1) forming a professional development community, (2) research discussion meetings supervised by an experienced researcher and (3) courses given on research methods. For each type of professional development, three participants were interviewed, using semi-structured interviews (based on the model of Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2003). The interviews were transcribed and analysed by two independent researchers of each UAS and discussed by the five researchers participating. Results and conclusions Findings appear twofold. Firstly, teacher educators develop more knowledge on research and methodological skills and secondly they report a spin off towards other professional (teaching) activities. Furthermore, with regard to all three activities, teacher educators mention that exchanging experiences with colleagues helped them to develop a better understanding of research and a shared language on research. Relevance to European educational research Our findings will contribute to the body of knowledge around professional development activities for teacher educators, especially with regards to the role of researcher or supervisor of student teachers' research.
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