Considerations for initial teacher education programme design

The way we think about teaching and learning, the way one approaches the professional knowledge of teachers have significant implications into programme design in teacher education. According to Darling-Hammond (2006), a lot has been learnt about how to design effective teacher education programmes, and she argued that such programmes should include the following three critical components:

- „tight coherence and integration among courses and between coursework and clinical work in schools,

- extensive and intensely supervised clinical work integrated with coursework using pedagogies linking theory and practice, and

- closer, proactive relationships with schools that serve diverse learners effectively and develop and model good teaching“ (p. 1).

Besides these, those involved in the process of programme design should take into three significant problems that can be identified in the process of learning to teach. Firstly, pre-service teachers should “come to think about (and understand) teaching in ways quite different from what they have learned from their own experiences” (Hammerness, Darling-Hammond,

& Bransford, 2005, p. 359). This issue is called the apprenticeship of observation (Lortie, 1975) – reflecting on the long period of pre-service teachers being only observant, students throughout their education. The second issue is referred to as the problem of enactment (Kennedy, 1999) – student teachers are not only expected to think like a teacher, but they also need to operationalise their knowledge. The third issue (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2007), the problem of complexity, reflects the everyday practice of teachers, where they have to “work with many students at once and have to juggle multiple academic and social goals requiring trade-offs from moment to moment and day to day” (p. 359). Initial teacher education should help student teachers in developing systematic thinking about this complexity.

Having reviewed the relevant literature, four major considerations related to initial teacher education programmes have emerged (Pesti, Rapos, Nagy, & Bohán., 2017):

1. the structure of ITE (parallel or consecutive),

2. paradigms or models of teaching (e.g., enquiring teachers, effective teachers, reflective teachers, or transformative teachers) (Menter et al., 2010),

3. the content of training programmes (disciplines, pedagogy, methodology, psychology, and the distribution of these), and

4. the relationship between theory and practice.

1.2.3.1 The structure of initial teacher education

„National educational policy’s commitment towards the parallel or the consecutive model is one of the oldest dilemmas of teacher education. According to OECD studies, in most of the countries the parallel model is characteristic for the lower levels of schooling. In the consecutive model, the student enters teacher training after obtaining a disciplinary qualification. Although this model is more flexible concerning entrance and decision making,

it makes the integration of knowledge and experiences less possible (McKenzie, Santiago, Sliwka, & Hiroyuki, 2005)“ (Pesti et al., 2017, p. 61).

The tension between parallel and consecutive structures of teacher education is the topic of the European discourse, and it also contributes to the fact that no decision has been made on their harmonisation (Zgaga, 2017). An interesting contradiction is that although the Maastrciht Treaty defined that the Community action should exclude “any harmonisation of the laws and regulations of the Member States”, an increase of comparability and compatibility of the European higher education systems could be observed. Despite teacher education being included in the higher education systems, it did not face the same harmonisation as other professions and disciplines. For example, for some countries the most painful issue of the Bologna process was to divide the study cycles to two phases (bachelor and master) – in many cases, the solution was the introduction of so-called “integrated master courses” which duration was five years. From a continental (traditional) philosophical point of view, the need for such long courses was justified by the judgement that the two-cycles systems lower the professional standards.

1.2.3.2 Paradigms of teaching

„A question arises: do the national policymakers and the training institutions take into consideration any training models, and in case yes, which ones (effective teacher, reflective teacher, enquiring teacher, transformative teacher) are used during the development of training programmes (Menter et al., 2010)? Is it advised or is it acceptable at all that institutions may represent different standpoints, and in case yes, how should it appear in their training programmes?“ (Pesti et al., 2017, p. 62).

Menter et al. (2010) differentiate four influential paradigms of teacher professionalism:

the effective teacher, the reflective teacher, the enquiring teacher, and the transformative teacher. The major characteristics of these paradigms are summarised in Table 3.

3. Table. Paradigms of teacher professionalism

Characteristics Reference

Effective teacher - Strongly emphasised standards and competence

- Fully developed accountability mechanisms - Politically driven model (this is the dominant

paradigm in the government discourse)

„It is the model for an age of accountability and performativity” (Mahony & Hextall, 2000) Criticism: the model restricts teacher professionalism, not enhances it (Stronach, Corbin, McNamara, Stark, & Warne, 2002;

Hartley, 2002), teaching is defined regarding technical skills, restricted version of teacher professionalism (Hoyle, 1974)

Reflective teacher

- Foundations in the works of John Dewey (teachers as active decision-makers) and Donald Schön (values and theory informing decision-making)

- Emphasis on and commitment to personal and professional development

- The model has emerged “from within the teaching profession and from within sites of teacher education” (Menter et al., 2010, p.

22)

Pollard’s (2008) cyclical approach to planning, making provision, acting, collecting data, analysing the data, evaluating and reflecting, planning the next step.

„About 70 per cent of teacher education programmes led from universities and colleges were informed by some version of reflective teaching” (Furlong, Barton, Miles, Whiting, &

Whitty, 2000)

Criticism: „Does not itself imply a research orientation on the part of the teacher, although the model may be strongly influenced by a set of ideas that do promote just that conception”

(Forde, McPhee, McMahon, & Patrick, 2006).

Enquiring teacher

- Teacher as researcher and curriculum developer

- “In this model teachers are encouraged to undertake systematic enquiry in their classrooms, develop their practice and share their insights with other professionals”

(Menter et al., 2010, p. 23)

- The model has emerged “from within the teaching profession and from within sites of teacher education” (Menter et al., 2010, p.

22)

According to Stenhouse (1975), teachers should take a research approach (e.g., in the form of curriculum development)

Research findings by Ponte, Beijard, and Ax (2004) showed that there is a need to incorporate inquiry-oriented approaches into initial teacher education programmes to ensure a foundation for similar professional learning in the future.

Transformative teacher

- Intending to challenge the status quo - Committed to progressive social change and

greater social justice through education - The model has emerged “from within the

teaching profession and from within sites of teacher education” (Menter et al., 2010, p.

22)

Sachs (2003) describes teaching as an activist profession.

1.2.3.3 Content of initial teacher education programmes

„In general, teacher education programmes’ content contains elements related to the discipline, methodology, children’s and adolescents’ development and learning, and other education-related topics (e.g., psychology, history of education, teaching practice). In addition to this, the content and the internal distribution are primarily defined by the intention to provide a general pedagogical preparation (that also ensures the crossing between levels, subjects and school types) or to prioritise a specific field (McKenzie et al., 2005). However, the choice of disciplines and their proportion during the preparation for the teaching profession remains a constant question. Does the included psychological content provide enough support to handle the strengthening social issues that emerge as requirements of today’s teachers (e.g., migration – interculturalism, drop-outs – poverty) (OECD, 2003; McKenzie et al., 2005; ATEE, 2006)?

Another content-related matter that regards the changed composition of student cohorts is if the preparation for academic studies should form the content of higher education studies or if it is an expectation at the entrance. Moreover, should the necessary skills, such as the native language, ICT competences, mathematical knowledge be considered as parts of the training content or should these be aspects for selection at the entrance to the studies?“ (Pesti et al., 2017, p. 62).

1.2.3.4 Practicum in initial teacher education programmes

As it is described in a document of Eötvös Loránd University’s research programme, titled The Learning Teacher¹², teacher education, and the relationship of teacher education and teaching practice are significantly affected by the recent social, cultural, economic and technical changes in Europe. Since practicum can be considered as an integral part of teacher education, due to the above-mentioned changes, practicum is expected to face several challenges, such as: restructuring educational programmes related to new theoretical models of learning, new stakeholders in teacher education with diverse professional background, new partnership models, initial teacher education and teachers’ continuous professional development on the basis of standards. Furthermore, the increasing role of practicum has an impact on teacher education programmes, resulting changes in them on a theoretical, structural and content level. Despite the global educational discourse, these changes are contextualised,

12 http://www.eng.ppk.elte.hu/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/EDiTE-EJD-H2020-ELTE-Research-Program-20151105.pdf

that is, strongly influenced by national and local contexts (Rapos, Kopp, Lénárd, and Szivák, 2014) by national school traditions and local school cultures.