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Professional development activities for practice-based research in Teacher Education

This study aimed to examine which kind of support through professional development activities is offered to teacher educators in the (Dutch) teacher education institutes for primary and secondary education regarding conducting practice-based research and supervising students’ research. Two online surveys were executed among deans and teacher educators to examine their views on institutional policies supporting professional development; the offered activities; their evaluation on the activities and teacher educators further needs for professional development. Results show that little attention is paid to professional development activities and if attention is paid it concerns mainly courses or supervised peer-exchange groups. However, support for professional development of teacher educators in conducting research and supervising students’ research is considered important. Most activities are executed isolated in each institute. A need for more collaboration between institutes on contributing to teacher educators’ professional development and collaboration at a national level is considered important.

Enhancing student research in teacher education

Double knowledge creation: learning experiences from teachers doing their own practitioner research and experiences arising from the program for teacher practitioner research.

In our professorship 'Learning Strategies' of the Fontys Secondary Teacher Training College Tilburg, we stress the importance of practitioner research for the professional development of teachers. To investigate our own beliefs, we started a project in which teachers learned to do practitioner research in their own schools. There were two questions we were interested in: 1) Which elements of the program are suitable to help teachers to learn do their own practitioner research? 2) What knowledge do teachers create in doing practitioner research? Several authors mention the benefits of practitioner research performed by teachers (Loughran et al, 2004; Zeichner & Noffke, 2001; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999; Cochran-Smith, 2005; Huberman, 2002; Anderson & Herr , 1999; Robson, 1993, 2002; Onstenk, Kallenberg & Koster, 2007). Doing their own research would increase their professionalism as teacher. Although the relevance of practitioner research is stressed by many authors, not many teachers in the Netherlands are already actively doing practitioner research. Among other causes, the lack of experience in how to do practitioner research might be a barrier. We developed a program for teacher practitioner research, consisting of seven group sessions. In each session, attention was paid to theoretical backgrounds (formulation of a research question, choosing methods, obtaining and analyzing data, reporting on the findings) and to practical implications (participating teachers were advised by each other and by the supervisor). Most teachers worked together in a couple on their research project. The supervisor kept notes about difficulties and experiences of the teachers during the process and interviewed the teachers after they finished their research project. The answers to our research questions are: 1) The theoretical parts of the program were necessary for teachers to obtain knowledge about the (systematic) approach of research. The practical help of the supervisor was crucial during the process as the teachers were insecure about applying their newly obtained research knowledge in practice and needed help to do so. 2) Teachers obtained knowledge about performing practitioner research as well as knowledge about the problem they investigated in their school practice. Furthermore, they mention personal benefits such as 'another look at my profession', 'renewed motivation' and 'new insights'.

In search of teacher excellence

In the Netherlands, and in many other countries, teacher policy and teacher education are strongly focused on ensuring that teachers meet certain minimum standards. As all student teachers need to meet these standards, teacher education programmes might put the main emphasis on the ‘average’ student and pay little attention to students who can perform better, which would lead to a middle-ofthe-road perspective on teachers and teacher education curricula. However, there is a growing awareness within higher education of the diversity of students with respect to their abilities and ambitions. In the Netherlands, there are initiatives to develop excellence programmes and honours programmes that recognize and accept student diversity. Such programmes offer ‘excellent’ students new challenges in the development of their excellence. But as ‘excellence’ is not centrally defined, higher education institutes can define the concept independently. Here, we present two examples of teacher education institutes that have developed honours programmes that emphasize excellent student teachers. While traditionally honours programmes in universities are focused on stimulating outstanding research performance of excellent students, in both examples a different focus is taken. The honours programmes in these universities for applied sciences do not focus on academic performance, but focus more directly on the roles of outstanding teachers in schools. One of these institutes focuses on primary teacher roles, the other on secondary teacher roles. Both use research in the content of the honours programmes and in the evaluation of the programmes. Here, an analysis of the two programmes is related to developments in teacher policy and the teaching profession with respect to teacher excellence, e.g. the recent recommendation from the Netherlands Education Council to nominate the top 5% of teachers as ‘excellent teachers’ – a recommendation that was received with mixed feelings by teachers, teachers’ unions and school leaders

Comparative social research : characteristics

The characteristics of comparative social research.

The Changing Role Of The Innovative Teacher

This paper describes a research about the changing role and competences of teachers and the willingness of the teachers to change. The researchers developed and conducted a survey at Fontys University of Applied Sciences department engineering to find out how teachers teach and how they would want to teach. The conclusion drawn from this research results in five subjects of attention: 1 To investigate new teaching competences 2 To investigate new teaching strategies 3 To develop collaborating professional environments for teachers 4 To develop a formal declaration of how companies can participate effectively in the process of the transition of youngsters to professional practitioners 5 To investigate how the organization should change their culture and structure towards a professional learning environment for students and teachers. The above mentioned items will be subject of further research in the coming study year. The main goal is to develop a business case or strategic plan on how to implement change in teaching engineering education.