Maria Teresa Tatto

Examining Values and Beliefs About Teaching Diverse Students: Understanding the Challenges for Teacher Education

This paper presents empirical evidence regarding the capacity of teacher education programs to influence the values and beliefs of those who enroll in them and offers insight into the conditions that may be conducive to such effects. Our study shows that although teacher education faculty and enrollees across the programs studied subscribe to ideals of social justice and fairness in regard to teaching diverse learners, it is less clear how they translate these ideals into their views concerning curriculum design and implementation, assessment of student progress, and classroom and school organization. Our findings indicate that lay culture norms among enrollees are strongly ingrained and that most teacher education, as it is currently structured, is a weak intervention to alter particular views regarding the teaching and management of diverse learners.

The Mathematics Education of Future Primary and Secondary Teachers: Methods and Findings from the Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics

In 2005, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), Michigan State University, and the Australian Council for Educational Research took an important step in advancing the field of education by partnering to develop and implement the first international and comparative study of mathematics teacher education. The study was made possible by the substantial funding received from the National Science Foundation, the IEA, and the collaboration of 17 participating countries. The purpose of this article is to illustrate the methodology used in this major cross-national study of teacher education—the IEA Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics, known as TEDS-M—and to share its main findings related to the mathematical preparation of future teachers.

Designs for initial teacher preparation programs: an international view

Abstract The process of designing Initial Teacher Preparation Programmes is discussed using five examples of recent innovations in this field, two from the ‘North’ and three from the ‘South’. After briefly describing the case studies, the analysis stresses the importance of understanding the historical, socio-economic and cultural contexts in which such programmes emerge, and the political and epistemological tensions which many exist. It then reviews the structural and institutional parameters, such as length, location, time and organisation of the courses, and raises the issues of what the trainees bring with them. Finally curricular strategies are examined, by looking at the aims and objectives, the content and teaching/learning processes, and comparing how these are dealt with in the different countries. The conclusions point to some emerging trends, but emphasise the contextual nature of such programmes.

Improving teacher education in rural Mexico: The challenges and tensions of constructivist reform

Abstract In this article I examine the challenges facing constructivist approaches to educate rural teachers using an innovative program in Mexico. Constructivist approaches seek to help teachers learn new ways of thinking about teaching and learning, acquire better knowledge of different subject matters, form learning communities allowing teacher participation in the development of norms to facilitate shared understandings and dialogue, and develop democratic structures of authority in schools. But the urgency in Mexico for fast and massive educational change in a system with ingrained traditions of control and centralized hierarchical authority, and a disregard for the complexity of educational change processes may bring about a superficial implementation of the teacher education reform thus threatening the success and integrity of the constructivist approach, and introducing confusion and relativism among teachers and administrators.

The Socializing Influence of Normative Cohesive Teacher Education on Teachers’ Beliefs about Instructional Choice

Abstract This paper explores the conceptions held by the teacher education faculty and their teacher learners regarding teachers’ beliefs about instructional choice. Findings show that different conceptions of teachers’ instructional decision‐making were associated with different teacher education designs. In programs where teaching was conceived, for the most part, as an externally regulated profession, teachers had few opportunities to understand, reflect on or align their practice in response to students’ learning needs. In programs where teachers were seen as professional individuals capable of making informed instructional choices, teachers had more opportunities to acquire the knowledge and skills to adjust instruction to learners’ diverse needs. Conceptions of instructional choice and sources of guidance in teaching and learning to teach were, on average, disperse across the programs studied, but in constructivist programs, graduates’ views were more likely to move in the direction of their faculty...

Reconstructing teacher education for disadvantaged communities

Abstract Can teacher education be reconstructed to help teachers acquire the knowledge and skills they need to teach disadvantaged populations as proposed by new theories of learning? What shape should this type of teacher education take? After making a case for a transformative teacher education, responsive to current thinking in teaching and learning, I present two instances of school-based approaches to educating teachers that incorporate elements of constructivist, cognitive, and developmental theory when teaching poor rural children. I discuss these cases vis-a-vis their reach and potential for the future of teacher education.

The interpersonal dimension of teacher education: Comparing distance education with two other programs in Sri Lanka

Abstract This chapter examines a distance education program to train primary schoolteachers in Sri Lanka and looks for evidence of its success. Quasi-longitudinal data on (a) teacher perceptions of the program; (b) teacher knowledge, skill, and attitudes; (c) teacher classroom performance; and (d) pupil achievement are used to compare distance education with two other teacher education programs in Sri Lanka — an institutional inservice program and a preservice approach. More specifically, the interpersonal aspects of this distance education program are examined as a possible explanation of the programs effectiveness when compared with other distance education as well as conventional approaches to educating teachers.

The Value and Feasibility of Evaluation Research on Teacher Development: Contrasting Experiences in Sri Lanka and Mexico.

Abstract This article discusses the value and feasibility of carrying out evaluation research on teacher development and uses as points of reference the authors experiences in two countries, Sri Lanka and Mexico. In Sri Lanka, an evaluation study was designed to understand the effectiveness and costs of teacher development at the elementary level linking teacher preparation with classroom practice and student achievement. The study also evaluated costs and analyzed the possible impact of the results for future policy. The study in Mexico illustrates the challenges of doing evaluation research in an environment dominated by a central state and teacher union politics, and where systemic empirical research on teacher development has been rare. It constituted an initial attempt at looking at the content and the anticipated effects across different approaches to teacher development in Mexico. New calls for greater accountability and better understanding of the reach and limitations of general education worldwide are prompting systems to examine teacher development program effectiveness. In this analytical article, the author discusses strategies and possibilities in the emerging field of teacher development program evaluation.

Examining Mexico’s values education in a globally dynamic context

Discussion about values education has begun to dominate the educational policy agenda in a number of countries over the last 5 years. Of particular relevance are questions on what to teach, how and why. This discussion seems to be more prominent among those countries undergoing vigorous political, economic and social change. In the last few years, Mexico has intensified its active search for democracy and invigorated its march toward modernisation. Both of these intentions have proven to have important influences on the values the Mexican state and educational policy makers see as necessary to be transmitted via education. Simultaneously, Mexican identity, which has evolved relatively consonant with the aims of a centralised and hierarchical state and in line with the principles of the 1910 Revolution, is being continuously challenged by internal as well as external forces. In this article we describe a study designed to understand the approaches to Mexicos values education as a particular instance of a larger comparative project to explore values education in a globally dynamic context. After describing Mexicos political economy, we present the current policy and approaches to values education in general and in the regions included in the Mexican study in particular. We present the findings from a survey to policy makers and educational élites and show regional differences and similarities. We discuss findings from other country contexts to contrast them with the Mexican findings in selected areas. We conclude with a discussion on how this study may help initiate a policy dialogue on values education in Mexico.

The role of research in the policy and practice of quality teacher education: an international review

The stated goal of current education reform is the redesign of education systems in pursuit of quality. Systems that consistently ‘come out on top’ have excited much interest in uncovering the features that have contributed to their success; notably among these is the preparation of future teachers. Research on teacher education quality assurance processes has begun to provide evidence that common features shared by successful systems include the design of teacher education programmes around criteria such as that set by accreditation requirements, in part because they are intended to help shape programmes’ intentions and approach, curriculum design, and outcomes. An important question for the field of teacher education is how to boost the research on diverse approaches’ outcomes to improve programme design as indicated by successful practice, while taking into account the role of economic and socio-cultural factors in the process.