Hans Smits

Deepening Understanding of Inquiry Teaching and Learning with E-Portfolios in a Teacher Preparation Program

This paper describes the first stages of a project focusing on the use of preservice-teacher-generated e-Portfolios as a means of documenting and assessing inquiry-based teaching and learning. The project is designed to explore ways in which preservice teacher-created e-Portfolios can be used to (1) document how inquiry lives in practice, and (2) help university instructors and practitioners in the field assess the knowledge, skills, and attributes of preservice teachers who are participating in an inquiry based teacher preparation program.

After the Future in Teacher Education

Thinking about and living through attempts to reform teacher education is the preoccupation of both papers. The fact that teacher education consumes the attention of education faculties is well known. This is especially true in the province of Alberta, which in 1945 was the first jurisdiction in Canada to close teachers’ colleges and to entrust the education of teachers entirely to the universities. Given the stakes, the desire to get teacher education “right” is perfectly reasonable. Such a desire underwrites a myriad of curriculum reform efforts. But the pedagogical challenges of teacher education resist the normal assumptions of curriculum development. Each of these papers constitutes an exploration of these resistances.