Abstract:
As part of a Higher Education Academy (UK) international scholarship the author will be visiting Canada and Australia during 2013 to undertake a comparative study aimed at improving the long term employability of teachers. Its purpose is to share experience of the practicum element of pre-service teacher education, to compare the effect of the policy landscape in each country and to inform government policy on teacher education. In seeking a strong and sustainable school workforce, universities and schools need to agree what is needed to avoid the common mistake of setting out, with the best of intentions, to solve the wrong problem.
The motivation for this research is the current state of flux within pre-service teacher education in England as a result of simultaneous policy changes focussed on raising the quality of teachers. There is a strong policy directive pressing for school-led pre-service teacher education. Within this new initiative, entitled School Direct, schools bid for teacher education places and specify which university will accredit their trainees and how they will do it. Meanwhile the university retains accountability to the regulator Ofsted; and a tougher Ofsted inspection regime has been introduced together with a new set of Teachers' Standards.
This paper will present findings from participants within the English pre-service education system. The data has been collected through the use of ‘rich pictures' drawn by faculty, school teachers and pre-service teachers to represent their views. Rich pictures are a tool within Soft Systems Methodology, a visual representation of a situation perceived to be problematic. They are used to allow stakeholders with multiple perspectives, objectives and perceptions to agree a common definition of a situation, a necessary starting point for improvement. Although they are not normally employed as a research tool, here they have been used as a technique for stakeholders to map their perception of a situation. In this instance, data has been collected firstly from individuals and secondly within group workshops. The paper will discuss some of the methodological issues that have arisen in using this approach and present a summary of the findings illuminated by the rich pictures. While the author will focus on the data collected in England it may also be possible to reference data collected in Australia and Canada and discuss the emergent findings from the different jurisdictions.