Motivating student motivation is important in learning

Dear Iben

I moved from engineering into school teaching and then into teacher education. I know many people in teacher education who have transitioned from school teacher into teacher educator. The biggest challenge is making the mental shift from teacher into academic, and then moving from pedagogy (teaching of children /young people) into what Knowles classes as androgogy (teaching of adults).

It is certainly, in my opinion, a huge advantage to have taught in schools if you are planning to teach others how to do the same - so i would agree that classroom experience is a highly valuable prerequisite for teacher educators.

Best wishes

David

I agree with previous replies in this significant question.

The advantage of having experienced teachers in teacher training (or in-service training) it the understanding of the teachers every-day life.

Teachers work is complex and has many dimensions: follow the curriculum, manage classrooms, diversity, school resources, time-pressure, lesson planning etc. An experienced teacher knows all these dimensions and how they interrelate. This is always useful.

Certainly people inexperienced in teaching can help teacher trianing too. But the experienced ones are needed.

In Greece, there are the coordinators of education work (known as consusltants prior to a recent reform). They are supposed to supervise, advise, train teachers etc. In order to get the coordicators' post, you need to have certain years of experience in teaching, by law.

Thank you all of you. Interesting journey David.

I am fascinated by the weight you all place on the teaching experience, though you David also mention the challenges of adjusting to teaching a different age group.

Personally, I am interested in the aspects of teacher education where teaching experience is not enough. For instance, I can generate tasks in mathematics which guide learners to realise some connections, and practice mathematical reasoning at the same time. Tasks where the task situation provides a substantial amount of the feedback to the learners. But it is much harder to do the same in teaching mathematics teachers, because reasoning is not sufficient; it requires feedback from a broader context which does not necessarily "behave itself".

Another example. Variation theory tells us lots about how to vary our examples in teaching. I can do that when I teach mathematics, and even when I teach research methods. But when it comes to teacher education, I stumble. I am no longer after conceptual understanding but after developing a basis for professional judgement. What examples work for aspects of that?

So moving into teacher education myself meant confronting the difficulties adjusting well-tested theories to the new "content" as well as the new "students". But to this day, I am not certain that my suggestions for what a new teacher education needs to learn, over and above previous experiences etc, are sufficiently solid. That's why I am raising the issue here. What should you have wanted guidance on to make your transition into teacher education smoother?

Regards,

Iben

How about really good colleagues ;)

The first years, I was not in charge of developing new courses. Instead, I had the opportunity to work in courses which were already designed, together with colleagues who taught them before. Of course I could change what I needed, but to get those examples and to be able to ask questions about why, how and when helped me a lot.

In addition, the half-way evaluations with students are often most helpful. Course-evaluations in the end are important, but it is too late to change anything. Students tend to engage more in the half-way evaluations, and teacher students tend to have very important reflections on my teaching in relation to their own teaching and learning.

De maestro a docente, es muy importante saber que la experiencia con los grupos de clases es lo que nos va forjando o puliendo, un maestro por lo general en las escuelas primarias de mi país Nicaragua, saben de todas las disciplinas del conocimiento y son los primeros en conducir a buenas prácticas de estudio a sus estudiantes, el pasar de maestro a docente, permite especializarse y profundizar en una disciplina, sus grupos de estudiantes demandan mayor conocimiento del docente. Además el docente hace investigación que comparte con sus colegas y grupos de estudiantes y sobre todo, muestra humildad, carisma y emprendedurismo.

So lovely to hear something of the experiences of Nicaragua. If I understand your reply correctly, then you feel it is important for the teacher educator to become more aware of the research in the field and its relevance to teachers? I like this point about the content. Thank you Martha Urbina

• Creo que la conciencia de la investigación la deben de tener tanto docentes de maestros como los maestros mismos, la calidad, veracidad y profundidad de sus trabajos dependerá del empeño que cada quien ponga en devolver a la sociedad una excelente investigación en temas de interés común o en la especialidad que cada quien desee desarrollar. Posiblemente un maestro tenga más tropiezos que un docente, porque al docente de educación superior se le exige la investigación como parte de su quehacer educativo, pero el maestro muchas veces pasa el día entero impartiendo clases y no tiene mucho tiempo u oportunidad de investigar aunque lo desee y es probablemente por ese factor tiempo que muchas de sus investigaciones son cortas y someras.

This is a very interesting discussion. In the UK almost anyone involved in teacher education has been a teacher and has ‘Qualified Teacher Status’ (QTS), the government’s effective licence to teach. That stated I would note that the UK government has recently allowed graduates who do not have QTS to teach in some state schools.

Probably the biggest challenge those moving into teacher education face is stepping out of the role of the teacher. If the teacher educator becomes the “teacher” of the student teachers ….the student teachers tend to step into the role of “pupils”. Clearly this is absolutely not what we need in developing professionals. Some people coming from schools find “not being the teacher” quite difficult as sometimes this is the only role they have had if they have not worked in industry before becoming a teacher.

The second challenge is moving from “teacher trainer” to teacher educator. Often teachers moving from school teaching to be teacher educators have engaged in supporting and “training” more junior staff in schools. Such “training” usually involves inducting them in particular procedures and developing specific basic classroom skills. This is substantially different from the role of the university “teacher educator” who is seeking to develop the student as a critical and reflective practitioner.

Thank you, Adrian. I think that is an absolutely wonderful reply. Both "steps" you mention have concerned me greatly, but you have put words to them in an excellent way.

Your latter point, about the difference between "teacher trainer" and "teacher educator" fits with a review of empirical studies of bridging theory and practice in teacher education which a colleague and I have just completed. In the majority of the studies, "theory" was seen as what was taught on campus that student teachers had to go into schools to implement. Do you agree that this points to a "teacher trainer" perspective?

I know that there has been work within the last decade on the so-called "mathematical knowledge for teaching teachers", which is also knowing about the nature of mathematics. I have argued that some knowledge of the philosophy of mathematics would come in handy, and I just saw a paper arguing for the role of history of mathematics in this respect.

Jankvist, U. T., Clark, K. M., & Mosvold, R. (2019). Developing mathematical knowledge for teaching teachers: potentials of history of mathematics in teacher educator training. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 1-22.

But I would also think that a reasonable understanding of curriculum theory, including the political factors impacting curricula and recommended pedagogies, making clear that the school subject and the academic subject are not the same, would be very useful to teacher educators.

I look forward to more interesting views, analyses and ideas.

Before I became a teacher educator on a full-time basis I had been a teacher for almost 25 years and also had part-time experiences as a teacher educator. For me, it is fundamental that teacher educators have a strong school teaching experience as this gives them real-life insights into teaching and an empathy with their student teachers that is not easily acquired otherwise. I would go further to suggest that teacher educators should retain a certain amount of teaching in schools. This would go a long way to address the gap between education theory and classroom practise and, I would argue further, this would lend greater credibility to what teacher educators say and do during thier teacher education lectures / tutorials etc.

Thank you. Many responses have focused on the importance of having experience as a teacher. I get that. I am very curious as to what additional knowledge/expertise/insights/... a teacher educator needs. What were you missing in the transition to being a teacher educator? What did you have to learn fast?

One particular aspect is how you linked to theory and research, but there may be other concerns that I cannot envision because my route was a different one.

Something which I truly wished I had when I became a teacher educator was some form of mentoring - someone who is there to guide you as you enter this new world. I felt at a loss with regards to what was expected from me as a member of a Faculty of Education. I had no clue of the 'do' and 'do nots' both with regards to colleagues and students. It is as if people expect you to know what to do when in reality you do not know. I'm thinking in particular to course structures, assessment procedures, admin work and also what i was entitled to as a university staff member. I felt deskilled even if I had been a part-timer for a number of years. With regards to teaching, I gradually learned that student teachers want thier lecturers to be practical rather than theoretical. As I'm a strong believer in a strong theoretical basis to support teacher practices, i had to learn how to introduce theory through practice. And this seems to work as my students continually comment that they like this approach.