Who are we and

what do we do?

Anja Swennen

Onderwijscentrum

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Workshop IPDA,London, 23 June 2008

Overview of the workshop

Morning: Who are we?The professional identity of teacher educators

Afternoon: What do we do?Congruent Education

1960-1984: My father was a teacher in primary teacher educator 1972-1985: TEI secondary education Dutch and English and master in

Dutch subject pedagogy1978-1989: Teacher in secondary education and higher professional

education1989-1998: Teacher educator at TEI primary education. Active in

VELON and ATEE. Start research on student teachers’ concerns

1998-2008: Work at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam at CETAR, editor Dutch Journal for Teacher Education, associate editor European Journal for Teacher Education; research on congruent education; Dutch and international book for novice teacher educators

2006-2010: PhD about the development of the professional identity of teacher educators

Who am I?

Professional identity

Identity is the socially and culturally constructed self that is formed during life, by lived experiences and by talking about these experiences with oneself (inner speech) and with others in figured worlds (Holland, 1998)

A profession a high status, powerful, service oriented occupation

Professionalism is a historically changing and socially constructed concept-in-use (Holroyd, 2000, 39)

Professionalism is about the quality of practice and the public status of the job (Sockett, 1996, 23)

Professional identity of teacher educators

Life history as the story of professional development of teacher educators and teacher education

Multiple ‘professionalities’ make a profession (Evans,2008)

Task 1Task 1

1. Make a drawing or write a text about your own professional development: your professional biography.

2. What do you call yourself?

3. Discuss 1 and 2 in your group and write down your main findings.

4. Discussion about the results: who are we?

Who are you?

IdentityNames used

Teacher educator; trainer; lecturer Working at…, working with…; people/partner organisations; university

teacher University lecturer; teacher; training and development manager; Lecturer; teacher; academic; scholar

Term used varies with context, who is asking e.g. when applying for insurance; varies with how much people know about education; may be influenced by how we want to be perceived (e.g. ‘academic’ seen by some as = irrelevant); may be influenced by how perceive those with whom we work; Govt and funders may use different terminology e.g. trainer/manager. Political context is powerful in the UK.

Multiple identitiesTeacher in Teacher in

higher higher educationeducation

ResearcherResearcher

In-service In-service educatoreducator

TeacherTeacher

Teacher educatorTeacher educator

Professionals in transition

From teacher to teacher educator: higher status within the profession

From teacher to teacher educator: social rise From ‘college’ teacher to teacher in Higher

Education: gaining status and respect From teacher to academic professional:

conflicting demands From semi-professional to academic

professional: a stranger in one’s own land (Ducharme, 1993)

Teacher of teachers

First order teachersTeach a subject or subject area in school

Second order teachers Teach about teaching in Higher Education

An expanded identity

To become second order practitioners, novice teacher educators not only need to acquire new knowledge and skills, they also need to redefine their professional identity (Murray, 2006)

A professional knowledge base

The knowledge of teachers is about teaching their subject to pupils

- Subject geography or English- Subject pedagogy

The knowledge of teacher educators is about how to teach students to teach their subject to pupils

- Subject: geography or English- Subject pedagogy

- Pedagogy of teacher education- Supervision- (Practitioner) research

What does this mean for us?

Use your own work as a ‘tool’ to educate teachers

Congruent education

The view and methods of the educator are consistent with the view and teaching approach the educator wants to encourage in teachers

Swennen, Korthagen & Lunenberg, 2004

What do you preach?What is the most important idea/ notion/view/conception about good teaching you want to encourage in teachers?

What do you teach?What are the three best methods or approaches teachers can use to give form to this idea?

Task 2Task 2Interviews

Congruent Education

Consciously model

Be explicit

Legitimize what you model

Model

It is modelling the processes, thoughts and knowledge of an experienced teacher in a way that demonstrates the ‘why’ or the purpose of teaching: it is not creating a template of teaching for unending duplication

John Loughran, 2001

Be explicit

Teacher educators need to make their teaching explicit, so the modelling is brought to a conscious level of the student teachers. This requires a high-level of meta-cognition, it is verbalizing the reflection-in-action, (Schön, 1983) the tacit part of professional knowledge in teaching

Kari Smith, 2001

Legitimize

Underpin what you model with theory that teachers know or should know

Swennen, Korthagen & Lunenberg, 2004

Do you model consciously? Sometimes

Are you explicit about your own ´teaching´Hardly ever

Do you legitimize what and how you teach?Never

Task 3Task 3Discussion

Third Order Perspective

Improving the knowledge and skills of educators

Studying yourself and your work

33

Conferences (annual and spring) Research and Development Centres

(RDC’s) Projects Publications

Professional Development of Teacher Educators (PDTE)

Projects Publications

European Journal of Teacher Education

, Volume 31 Issue 2 2008

The induction and professional development of teacher

educators

Becoming a Teacher EducatorTheory and Practice for Teacher Educators

Swennen, Anja; Klink, Marcel van der (Eds.)

2008, Approx. 270 p. 10 illus., Hardcover

ISBN: 978-1-4020-8873-5