‘THE PROFESSION OF TEACHER EDUCATOR’

Anja Swennen VU University Amsterdam

PLA, Reijkjavik 20-24 June 2010

Improving the profession of teacher educators. What we need to know about teacher educators

This presentation

1. Introduction

2. Who are the teacher educators?

3. Identity of TE

4. Transition from teacher to teacher educator

5. Professional development of teacher educators

6. Recommendation

Why focus on teacher Why focus on teacher educators?educators?

They are responsible for the education of (future) teachers and therefor for the education of all pupils and students

They are the “linchpins” of educational reform (Cochran-Smith, 2003)

If TE do not model good education, how can we expect teachers to engage in quality teaching

Teacher Educators Matter

Introduction

What is the problem?What is the problem?

There is much attention for teachers: their pre-service and professional development

but not for those who have to teach the teachersLack of attention for the quality of teacher educator in (inter)national policyLack of attention for the quality, induction and professional development of teacher educators in TEITeacher educators are not recognized as a specialized educational professional group with their own needs and wishes

Introduction

TE are a heterogenous groupTE are a heterogenous group

University based College based

Subject specialist in TEI / outside TEIPedagogical subject specialist / subject didaktik’Eductional/pedagogical specialist

‘Teacher’Researcher

Institute based School based

PhDMaster degreeBachelor degree

Who are the TE?

Demands for teacher educatorsDemands for teacher educators

PlusTeaching experience (but not always)

Supervising skills

Teaching Internship

Specialized training course (Portugal)

Training course for trainers

Who are the TE

Degree

PhDMasterBachelor

The same as other teachers in higher educationSubject and subject area

Standards andregistration Studying abroad

Names of Teacher Educators

University professor HE professor/Lecturer

lektor/docent Assistent professor Adjunkt Teacher Part time lecturers

Teacher educator (in documents)

Teacher trainer Trainer Mentor Teacher

School based TESupervisorsTutorsTeacher educators (in documents)

Who are the TE

The identity of TEThe identity of TE

An integration of:

Teacher in Higher EducationResearcherTeacher in PE or SESecond order teacher/practitioner(Teacher in general)

The identity of TE

Characteristics of the work of TE’rs of the work of TE’rs

age Complexity Research

Droste effectDroste effectTeaching about teachingTeaching about teaching

Who are the TE?

Teacher in PE/SETeacher in PE/SE

Experience as a teacher Experience in/with profession

of teachers Legitemizing

First orde context

The identity of TE

Second order teacherSecond order teacher (Murray & Male, (Murray & Male, 2005)2005)

Second order teachers teach about teaching

First order teacher teach their subject to pupils and students

The identity of TE

The identity of TE

Second order teacherSecond order teacher

Always aware of the second order context of TE and the first order context of teacher (Not subject content, but what does a teahcers need to know about a subject in order to teach it well)

Pedagogy of teacher education (Loughran, 2007): implies how to teach in a first order context and how to teach in a second order context

Explicit modelling

Teacher+ further study

TE

Transition of teacher to TE

PD

Academic

The experience as teacher and the reflection on that experence is part of the identity of TE

Leraar

lerarenopleider

Teacher in PE and SEPD

The transition from teacher to TE’rThe transition from teacher to TE’r

Intergration of the former identity teacher (in PE or SE) into the identity of TE =

teacher in higher education, researcher and second order practitioner

PD

Transition teacher to TE’erTransition teacher to TE’er

Two to three years

If not: Less interest in pedagogy of teacher

education Less interest in research More interest in school and

pupils/studnets

PD

TE’er as teacher in general

Teachers and TE as one professional group

Rather subject specialist Rather academicus Rather teacher

PD of TEPD of TE Induction (second-phase induction, Morberg & Eisenschmidt, 2009; Van

Velzen et al., 2010) Activities to support and facilitate the transition from 1st to 2nd order teacher PD courses : THE, research

and pedagogy of teacher

education

Resources for TE (on line journals,

books etc), money for PD, visiting conferences etc

PD

Emerging body of knowledge

about and fromteacher

educators TaTE, 2005

EJTE, 2008

PDiE, 2010

PD

RecommendationRecommendation

Professional development as Identity as teacher in HE Identity as researcher Identity as second order context

And realise this asks a lot of the specialists who educate the TE’rs

3

Recommendation