Abstract:
In her new book, Marilyn Cochran-Smith makes an impassioned plea for an end to the performativity-driven forms of external accountability in ITE that now dominate the USA and, to a lesser extent, Australia. Instead she pleads for a ‘democratic accountability’ that would allow local institutions to develop their own more explicit focus on key issues such as social justice in ways that would help to make change happen. But what would this actually look like in practice? Wales, perhaps, provides a case study that may help us to respond to that question.
In the last two years, Wales has seized on the opportunities provided by the national education changes to fundamentally reform ITE provision. The aim has been to ensure that universities and local school systems collaborate in partnership to provide the best learning opportunities for student teachers so as to embed changed practice.
A new accreditation procedure has been established which, in contrast to other countries, begins with a ‘vision’ for student teacher learning, recognising that learning to teach involves students drawing on a range of different forms of professional knowledge.
The vision is itself is based on nearly 40 years of research, research that has focused on three fundamental questions about the process of learning to teach:
* What forms of professional knowledge can only be learned in school – the importance of ‘embodied’ knowledge;What forms of professional knowledge is Higher Education best placed to contribute – research, theory, knowledge of practice elsewhere;How do we design programmes that ensure that ITE is rigorously practical and intellectually challenging at the same time?
In order to achieve the new vision, teacher educators in universities and schools are now required to work together to develop a much stronger role for schools in the planning, management and delivery of ITE, with a much stronger role for research and scholarship amongst all ‘front line’ teacher educators in both schools and universities. Universities have also been required to devolve significant funds to schools.
But will the new model work? Will it increase the ability of new teachers not only to understand but to address issues such as inequality in practice? This paper outlines the changes for ITE in Wales, the research underlying them and considers their likely impact.
In the last two years, Wales has seized on the opportunities provided by the national education changes to fundamentally reform ITE provision. The aim has been to ensure that universities and local school systems collaborate in partnership to provide the best learning opportunities for student teachers so as to embed changed practice.
A new accreditation procedure has been established which, in contrast to other countries, begins with a ‘vision’ for student teacher learning, recognising that learning to teach involves students drawing on a range of different forms of professional knowledge.
The vision is itself is based on nearly 40 years of research, research that has focused on three fundamental questions about the process of learning to teach:
* What forms of professional knowledge can only be learned in school – the importance of ‘embodied’ knowledge;What forms of professional knowledge is Higher Education best placed to contribute – research, theory, knowledge of practice elsewhere;How do we design programmes that ensure that ITE is rigorously practical and intellectually challenging at the same time?
In order to achieve the new vision, teacher educators in universities and schools are now required to work together to develop a much stronger role for schools in the planning, management and delivery of ITE, with a much stronger role for research and scholarship amongst all ‘front line’ teacher educators in both schools and universities. Universities have also been required to devolve significant funds to schools.
But will the new model work? Will it increase the ability of new teachers not only to understand but to address issues such as inequality in practice? This paper outlines the changes for ITE in Wales, the research underlying them and considers their likely impact.