Teacher Education through Active Engagement

Raising the professional voice

Lori Beckett

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136762550
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Teacher Education through Active Engagement identifies and addresses a contemporary issue: the ways in which teaching and teacher education are articulated by politicians, civil servants, business leaders and educational entrepreneurs intent on profit-making in the current global neoliberal policy context. This is often characterised by narrow and ill-conceived ideas about teacher characteristics and competences; recruiting and fast-tracking graduates from elsewhere into the profession; the reform of teacher training with less emphasis on theory and academic study; a narrow focus on teachers' core skills; and the promotion of training in model 'teaching schools'.

In this book contributors challenge this conceptualisation and demonstrate practitioners' necessary intellectual activity to wrest back professional control. By drawing on practice-focused research carried out in sites of educational policy and practice, each chapter exemplifies for teachers, student teachers and teacher educators the sort of 'knowledge work' to coordinate a professional reply to non-educationalists who dictate the terms of teaching and teacher education. The book provides directions for encouraging critical thinking, analytical skills and political activism, which consider the needs and interests of diverse children and young people in real classrooms, real schools and real communities.

Illustrated throughout with practice-focused research and drawing on the historical case of Winifred Mercier and her colleagues at the City of Leeds training college who challenged the establishment to leave a legacy of professional control, the book will appeal to practitioners, academics and researchers in the fields of teacher education and education studies.

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Index

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Page numbers in italic figures refer to figures/diagrams.

absenteeism, persistent absentees 161

‘academic futility’, the most important issue 145

academic partners 10, 166, 172, 176

academies 1, 3–8, 76, 97, 158, 185, 189 see also ‘forced’ academies

academy status, Gove’s claim for 159

accelerating students with additional learning needs 164

accountability: balance shifting in favour of 128; based of narrow range on indicators 84; distinct terminology of 127; new and overbearing forms of xvi; and performance, political logic of 17–18; and regulation in teacher training curriculum 78–9; results of a focus on 163

achievement 8, 9, 17–18 see also underachievement

achievement gaps see performance gaps

ACP see ‘Applied Curriculum Project’

Additional Inspectors (AIs) 36, 40

AfL see ‘Assessment for Learning’

agents of change, curriculum and teachers as 73–5

AIs see Additional Inspectors

AITSL see Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership

alternative cultures, of schooling 145

ambiguity, at the heart of professional responsibility 128

analysis, of performance data 18–22

‘Applied Curriculum Project’ (ACP) 121

appraisal, closer connection to capability proceedings 162

apprentice, teaching best learned as an 71

apprenticeship models: anticipated move from cognitive to traditional 47; as a basis for ITE 46, 176; pedagogic interventions that distinguish between 50, 53

AQA see Assessment and Qualifications Authority

Armed Forces leavers, encouraged to become teachers xv

ASCL see Association of School and College Leaders

aspirations: and the opportunity to fulfil them 144; students seen to have low 164

assessment: authentic, preferred to examinations 147; furore over GCSE in England in 2012 96–7; a high priority internationally 98; need to insist on alternative ways of framing 100; one of the weakest aspects of practice across the UK 99; questioning coalition government’s system 104; ‘teacher owned’ forms of 98; time for a re-think 99

‘Assessment for Learning’ (AfL), become a significant force across the UK 100

Assessment and Qualifications Authority (AQA) 178–9

Assessment Reform Group 99; seven key characteristics 100–1

assessment strategies, self-and peer- 101–2

assessment system, revisions to 97

United Kingdom 84

Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) 17

assumptions: behind performance indicators 126; upon which teacher education reforms based 87

attainment, making a difference in young people’s 141–2, 180

attainment data, of disadvantaged students 166

attainment gap: implementing strategies to...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Routledge Research in Education Policy and Politics
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of contributors
• Foreword by Stephen J. Ball
• Acknowledgements
• Section I The politics of teaching and teacher education
• Section II Aspects of the new policy landscape
• Section III Curriculum, pedagogies and assessment
• Section IV What matters? The challenge for policy and practice
• Section V Practitioners reply
• Afterword
• Index