Margot Cameron-Jones

Support and Challenge in Teacher Education

The study described in this paper reports findings in line with previous studies that discern more support than challenge in the area of teacher education concerned with mentoring of student teachers by teachers. Thus, the teachers say that support was their main emphasis, and challenge a lesser emphasis when they worked with the student teachers. Their students, however, seem unaware even of the amount of challenge which the teachers thought they offered. The paper discusses these findings and puts forward an interpretation based on a comparison drawn from the field of colour perception. The papers conclusion, in drawing attention to the effects which support and challenge might have on one another when they are in combination, endorses the view that it is important not only to study the nature of challenge and support in themselves but also to study the relationship between them.

Mentors’ Perceptions of their Roles with Students in Initial Teacher Training

Abstract Issues have been raised in The Cambridge Journal of Education by Edwards and by Booth about how the work of schools and colleges in initial teacher training can be complementary. In the study reported here, arrangements were made for teachers to spend time mentoring students. The students reported feeling the benefit of this. Although the mentors felt that even more time was required for mentoring than was officially allocated, they were positive about the value of mentoring. Their self‐reports showed that they had perceived themselves as playing roles which could be viewed as complementary to, rather than as duplicating, the roles of tutors. Accordingly, the study brings evidence to bear on the current debate about complementarity in the roles of colleges and schools in initial teacher training

Making Placement More Successful

In the professions, well-known examples of placement are those which occur in connection with legal, medical, engineering, teaching, pharmacy and business training. The growing interest in placements of all kinds in the 1980s was reflected not only in numerous reports about it from the professions which had traditionally used placements as a training method, but also in a growing number of publications which helped employers to organise placements for completely new groups of learners. These new groups of learners included school children (DES, 1988) and their teachers (DTI, 1988). In this period, for example, the DTI Teacher Placement Programme was launched as a major government initiative in the field of placement. Its aim was to have school

Placement as part of higher education

Many students in Britain, especially those training for the professions, do parts of their courses in the form of placements in the field. Most such placements are compulsory. During placements students are the joint concern of their tutors on the campus and their mentors in the field. The placements on the different courses seem dramatically different. For example, some placements are in primary schools, some in hospital wards, some in factory pharmacies and some in electrical power stations. This study shows, however, that despite such obvious differences in the placement settings, student feelings about placement can be remarkably similar. For staff whose courses include placement there are issues which they could usefully discuss in common.

Students' expectations of influence on their competence in initial teacher education

ABSTRACT The context of the survey reported in this paper is the new policy about teacher education in the UK. The policy is described with examples from England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Scotland is farthest forward with change. The survey which is reported is of expectations among the first students enrolled for teacher education under the new arrangements in Scotland. The paper discusses the surveys findings in the light of current debate among researchers about the contributions of schools and colleges to initial teacher education.

The Scottish Pilot evidence on the mentoring in Initial Teacher Training

Abstract Initial teacher training courses throughout the United Kingdom at present have been or are being changed in various ways which enlarge the role of schools and make new demands on the school teachers who act as mentors to student teachers in the schools. Despite the size of this change, it can be quite difficult to find evidence about its effects. Edwards (1994) suggested that one reason for this lack of evidence is that there has been little government support for obtaining it. As Edwards points out, however, the government in one part of the United Kingdom, namely Scotland, did ensure that evidence about the mentor teacher idea was obtained before there was a decision about applying the scheme across the country. The decision that it should be nationally applied was reported in this journals ‘Notes and News’ section in Spring 1995, under the heading of ‘Introduction of a mentor scheme in Scotland’. This paper summarises the main outcomes of the pilot study which informed that decision. The pape...