Finn Daniel Raaen

Novice teachers and how they cope

Teachers often describe their first teaching job following graduation as a shocking experience. This description raises several questions: Do novice teachers actually have a lower level of coping than experienced teachers? Are there factors in the work environment that make coping difficult for all teachers at a school? This paper compares the ability of novice and experienced teachers to cope with their work, and how this ability is affected by the level of collegial and superior support and collaboration offered. Although we find few differences between novice and experienced teachers’ coping level, these two groups of teachers do differ in terms of the levels of collegial and superior support and collaboration. In addition to receiving a lower level of professional support from their superiors, novice teachers generally lack ways to articulate their own needs to colleagues. The ability of novice teachers to cope with their work should be considered a collective responsibility in schools rather than the fate of the individual teacher. This paper is based on observations, interviews and survey data from Norwegian schools.

Placement schools as professional learning communities in teacher education

Abstract This article investigates how schoolteachers’, school leaders’ and college teachers’ involvement affects placement schools as professional learning communities. Norwegian teacher education is used as a case. The first part builds on a survey among schoolteachers and mentors at 111 placement schools in Norway. It documents great variety in the level of engagement. Interviews with mentors, school leaders and college teachers reveal how cooperation between colleges and placement schools, as well as the school leaders’ commitment, influences the quality of placement. The school leaders’ role proves to be important in developing the schools as professional learning communities, and they seem to have a significant impact on the work of the mentors. The data also show that there is a need for a more substantial cooperation between college teachers and mentors about the student teachers’ professional development as well as a need for a more systematic integration of learning in the two learning contexts.

To jump the wave or not: teachers’ perceptions of research evidence in education

Abstract This article presents a microanalysis of how a group of primary school teachers deals with research evidence in their work. Based on analysis of a group of Norwegian teachers’ interactions over issues of educational research and research-based knowledge, we find that teachers’ representations of educational research particularly center on the following issues: educational research being perceived as circular, ‘polyphonic’, and a matter of accommodation to their experience-based knowledge. These metaphors also shed light upon the dilemmas that arise when research evidence meets teachers’ more contextual knowledge. We conclude that teachers’ practice-based evidence may take new forms with an increased policy focus on research-based evidence, as well as bringing forth challenges for teacher work and professionalism.

Placement mentors making sense of research-based knowledge

Abstract Placement mentors’ role increasingly implies demonstrating to student teachers how research-based knowledge in combination with experience-based knowledge may be relevant in teachers’ professional work. This is a challenge. Placement mentors are often unsure how to make sense of research-based knowledge. Frequently there is a mismatch between what they say they can do and what they actually show they are able to do. This paper explores how placement mentors’ reasoning is formed by their lack of power to define what research-based knowledge consists of. The analysis in this paper is based on an investigation of the epistemological premises that placement mentors rely on when they validate research-based knowledge. The theoretical–analytical point of departure is Michel Foucault’s conception of power-knowledge.

The impact of school leadership on placement schools as learning arenas for teacher education

Abstract Extensive research studies have been conducted on school leadership internationally, but few studies have focused on placement schools. In placement schools, student-teachers are to experience teaching and learning in a variety of contexts, and to participate in school life in a way that is structured and supported. In Norway, school principals have an overall formal responsibility for their schools’ educational and administrative decision-making and traditionally combine administrative and educational leadership roles, more often than in other European countries. The purpose of this study is to examine why, in spite of this, principals of placement schools in Norway handle their placement assignment primarily as an administrative task, thus ignoring mandated elements of their responsibilities. The ambiguity between instrumental demands and educative requests forms a backdrop for understanding the principals’ patterns of behaviour and their resistance to change. Surveys are in this study combined with interviews and related to the international discussion on the same issues, exploring the dilemmas that principals face when they are trying to facilitate the development of a culture of learning in their placement schools.