Bob Koster

Teacher educators working on their own professional development: goals, activities and outcomes of a project for the professional development of teacher educators

This article reports on the professional development of teacher educators within the context of a national project, ‘Professional Quality of Teacher Educators,’ where a professional standard and a standards‐based procedure of (self‐)assessment and professional development have been created and effectively implemented. This project offered a unique opportunity to analyze the goals, activities and outcomes of the process of professional development of teacher educators in a situation in which this development is promoted by the professional group as a whole. In our research, we used 25 completed portfolios made by teacher educators participating in the standards‐based procedure of (self‐)assessment and professional development. We found that teacher educators, participating in this procedure, prefer the development of their knowledge and skills over the development of their attitudes and beliefs. For their professional development, the teacher educators experiment with new activities within the work‐situation and interact with colleagues within their professional community, more than that they study theory or reflect on their work. The participating teacher educators experience a positive impact at the personal level (change in cognition and behavior). More than one‐third of them share outcomes with others. Above, they report a more positive self‐esteem and more enthusiasm for teacher education. This article may motivate other countries or institutions to invest in the professional development of teacher educators. Further research is necessary on the essence of the professional qualities of teacher educators and the relation of their professional development with student learning.

Is There Anything Left for Us? Functions of cooperating teachers and teacher educators

SUMMARY The cooperating teacher has a significant impact on the student teachers professional career, i.e. on the attitudes and teaching behaviour of the student teacher. Since there is a shift in many countries towards school-based teacher education, initial teacher education is moving toward the greater involvement of school teachers in the training process. The result of this shift is that the function of the cooperating teacher becomes more and more important. The shift towards school-based teacher education raises the question what the specific functions are cooperating teachers should deal with as school-based teacher educators, keeping in mind the general functions teacher educators should have? What is still in it for teacher educators based at colleges or universities?

Deliberate practice in teacher education

Deliberate practice is increasingly recognised as necessary for professional development. This paper sets out to explore in what ways student teachers’ learning activities in a teacher education programme can be characterised as deliberate practice. Based on an in-depth exploration of 574 learning activities, our results highlight the different ways in which activities in teacher education programmes can be designed, the different motivations students have to engage in them repetitively, and different ways in which feedback can be organised, within contextual constraints posed by all professional environments. Results also indicate that self-improvement is not the only motivation for engaging in deliberate practice for student teachers, as pupil improvement is also considered important. These results support a context-specific operationalisation of deliberate practice and provide starting points for teacher education programmes to promote deliberate practice in their curriculum.

Measuring student teachers' basic psychological needs

In Self-Determination Theory, basic psychological needs for relatedness, autonomy and competence are distinguished. Basic psychological need-fulfilment is considered to be critical for human development and intrinsic motivation. In the Netherlands, the concept of basic psychological need-fulfilment is introduced in the curricula of many teacher education institutes. This study reports on five teacher education institutes for primary school teachers where study coaches made use of a Dutch version of the Basic Psychological Needs Scale (BPNS) to collect data to be used in a discussion with student teachers about their intrinsic motivation for a specific part of the teacher education course. On the basis of the outcomes of this discussion, study coaches and student teachers derived consequences for day-to-day practice in their classrooms. The data which resulted were also used to establish whether the theoretical distinction between three basic psychological needs was found in this sample of student teachers in the Netherlands. The results show that the constructs of relatedness, autonomy and competence were found and could be measured using a 14-item five-point scale, based partly on the original BPNS and partly on new items that focus on different sources of perceived need-fulfilment, namely teacher education in general, the study coach and fellow students.

The Dutch Case

As stated in the previous chapters of this book, teacher educators play a crucial role in maintaining and developing the quality of teachers, both at the primary and the secondary level (Liston, Borko, & Whitcomb, 2008). As we have seen in recent years, a variety of scholars have emphasised this implies that teacher educators have a profession of their own, which should be distinguished from the profession of teachers, and that there is a need for the further professional development of teacher educators (Murray & Male, 2005; Swennen, Jones, & Volman, 2010).

Preparing pre-service teachers to integrate technology into K-12 instruction : Evaluation of a technology-infused approach

The quality of how technology is addressed in teacher education programmes is conditional for how student teachers apply technology in secondary schools after their graduation. Two technology-infused courses of one teacher education programme were evaluated. In line with studies on the development of pre-service teachers’ technological, pedagogical and content knowledge, two important enablers were distinguished: (1) teaching practice to enact what was learned in teacher education institution as well as to receive feedback from students on this enactment, and (2) modelling of teacher educators and teachers in school. Both enablers might require further development of knowledge and skills of both teacher educators and cooperating school teachers.

Supporting the professional development of teacher educators in a productive way

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.

University teachers' collateral transitions: Continuity and discontinuity between research and teaching

Abstract University teachers in teacher education programmes are increasingly expected to combine teaching and research, in spite of widespread recognition of the differences between these epistemic practices. This study questions how the (dis)continuities university teachers encounter, when engaging in a collateral transition between research and teaching, are experienced. To answer that question, this study engages in an in-depth longitudinal analysis of 84 weekly journals reported during such a transition. In contrast to widely held assumptions, we find that continuity can also be experienced negatively, whereas discontinuity is sometimes experienced quite positively. Based on our results, we offer suggestions for how transition processes can be supported.

Increasing Professional Self-Understanding: Self-Study Research by Teachers with the Help of Biography, Core Reflection and Dialogue

There is growing interest in self-study methods being used by teachers and teacher educators to improve their own practice. The focus of these self-studies seems to be more on acting than on understanding, and here we focus on a group of teachers who explore their professional identities. Teachers participating in a Master’s degree study were asked to formulate critical moments in their development in which they felt their values were challenged and they were faced with a dilemma connected to these challenges. They then used different self-study research methods to dig deeper into their reports. This article focuses on exploring the normative dilemmas that teachers face in their daily practice and how their self-understanding is influenced by studying these dilemmas. We found that participating teachers faced two main dilemmas between external guidance and self-regulation, and between self-consciousness and relatedness. We also found that the effects of self-study research are connected to a deeper understanding of how things work and that finding core values such as trust, connectedness, and creating space can generate a breakthrough in the two main dilemmas.

A national curriculum for teacher education: a Dutch case study

Abstract A new national curriculum for teacher education has brought a major change in teacher education in the Netherlands. This paper analyses why teacher educators play an important role in this change. It looks at the effects of these changes on the professional development of teacher education as a group and on the collaboration between teacher education institutes and schools