J. Kessels

Linking Theory and Practice: Changing the Pedagogy of Teacher Education

The pressure towards more school-based teacher education programs, visible in many countries, creates a need to rethink the relationship between theory and practice. The traditional application-of-theory model appears to be rather ineffective and is currently being replaced by other, more reflective approaches. However, until now the variety of different notions and assumptions underlying these new approaches have not provided a sound basis for further development. Two related theoretical bases are presented for a new paradigm in teacher education. The first uses the concepts of episteme and phronesis to introduce a new way of framing relevant knowledge. The second is a more holistic way of describing the relationship between teacher cognition and teacher behavior, leading to a model of three levels in learning about teaching, the Gestalt level, the schema level and the theory level, which are illustrated by interview data. Building on these two theoretical, frameworks, a so-called “realistic approach” to teacher education is introduced. The teacher educators role within this approach is analyzed as well as organizational consequences. First evaluative results are presented.

The Relationship Between Theory and Practice: Back to the Classics

During the 20th century, scholarly thinking has been dominated by a strong inequality between theory and practice. Abstract knowledge was considered to be of a higher standing and of more value than concrete skills or the tacit knowledge of good performance. Much of the educational research concentrated on theory formation, both descriptive, for explanation, and prescriptive, for behavioral instructions. Consequently, educationalists in different subjects and professions were confronted with the problem of bridging the gap between theory and practice, a task that never seemed to succeed. During the past few decades, this problem has been analyzed in such different fields as education (Schoen, Fenstermacher), anthropology (Geertz), epistemology (Rorty, Toulmin, Lyotard), and ethics (Nussbaum). In different ways, these scholars developed alternative models of knowledge. For the justification of such alternative models, several authors, especially in the philosophical domain, referred to the classical controversy between Platos and Aristotles conceptions of rationality (episteme versus phronesis). In this article, the characteristics of these different types of rationality are discussed, as are the consequences for teacher education of the shift from episteme to phronesis. A revaluation of practical knowledge will be proposed, as well as an alternative view of the relationship between theory and practice.