Initial teacher education programmes in transition: Tensions and possibilities

Lindsey Conner

Abstract

Initial teacher education (ITE) programmes need to accommodate the contemporary demands of their education systems and pre-empt the qualities that teachers will require in the future. ITE programmes are currently in transition, facing changes in society and societal expectations, changing concepts about knowledge and its uses, changing roles for teachers and changes to teaching and learning approaches. These must all be accommodated within the constraints faced by tertiary providers of ITE as they cope with competing demands. The influences and demands placed upon them can be viewed as a tension between forging and constraining the development of quality ITE programmes. This paper discusses these tensions in New Zealand ITE provision and considers the possibilities through the lens of a futures-focused multinational research initiative. The Teacher Education for the Future Project is an example of how providers might identify the essential “qualities” required of teachers and enhance “quality” ITE programmes in and for the 21st century.

Introduction

During this time of active change in education, and in a world that is becoming characterised by “super complexity” (Barnett, 2004), initial teacher education (ITE) programmes are under the spotlight internationally. ITE programmes are accommodating changes in school and early childhood curricula and are trying to address the diverse needs of future learners more explicitly (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005) through ongoing reviews. This is a huge challenge, given the competing demands to provide quality content, theory and experiences for participants in ITE whilst simultaneously ensuring that beginning teachers demonstrate the multiple competencies or “qualities” required for graduation and induction into the profession.

The level of “quality” of ITE is often considered from a “what works” or pragmatic perspective. Research about “what works” in ITE tends to promote research that gathers evidence about what has worked in the past. Given that this is a relatively new field of inquiry and that the field of education is changing rapidly, what may have worked five years ago may not be appropriate now or for the future. A futures approach to research can include what we already know about what works, as well as providing a place to develop theory related to future needs. Such an approach was used in the teacher Education for the Future Project. It opened up possibilities for thinking about what could be emphasised in ITE, given our predictions for the future.

Influences on the ITE curriculum and its implementation often come from opposing perspectives and therefore create tensions for ITE provision, especially in times of great change. These influences include: Traditional and historical concepts of what ITE should provide; teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning (and the aims of education more generally); pressures to get more teachers qualified; and a range of new theories about teacher education and its implementation. This paper discusses these tensions with a focus on the New Zealand context. Firstly, it describes the influences of the New Zealand context on ITE. Then it elaborates on the tensions related to changes to traditional views of teaching and learning, the pressing need for more teachers and how and why new theories about teacher education need to be taken into account. It also outlines some key findings from the teacher Education for the Future Project (Conner, 2008) and discusses how the process used in this project could be used to inform future ITE programmes.

The New Zealand context

In New Zealand there are currently more than 27 ITE providers (early childhood, primary and secondary) that compete nationally for students. By 2005, 85 different qualifications were being offered and implemented through a large variety of delivery modes. In New Zealand, these requirements for ITE are determined by the government and are guided by standards for developing programmes (New Zealand Teachers Council, 2005).

The Graduating Teachers’ Standards (New Zealand Teachers Council, 2007) identify the competencies that graduates of ITE qualifications need to achieve in terms of professional knowledge, professional practice and qualities such as professional values and relationships with students, colleagues, whānau, fono¹ and guardians.

ITE programmes need to be closely tied to the more general directions of the education system and must address current Ministry of Education initiatives. Currently, these initiatives target Māori and Pasifika student achievement, literacy and numeracy, sustainability, gifted and talented students and engagement of senior students. These initiatives require teachers to be mindful of what is best for their students when they plan and make pedagogical decisions. The understanding, espousal and advocacy of sociocultural approaches to learning have been given more emphasis in The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007) than in previous curriculum documents. The New Zealand Curriculum explains that teachers should view key competencies as surrounded by, or embedded in, sociocultural influences and contexts. Teachers are also being encouraged to collaborate in communities of practice (Du Four & Eaker, 1998; Wenger, 1998).

A number of factors have contributed to the increasing complexity of teaching in New Zealand, especially given the varied backgrounds of students and the requirement for teachers to align pedagogical decisions with the needs of the learners in their care. The cultural diversity of students in New Zealand schools has been broadening over the last 15 years or so as people have emigrated from Asian-Pacific, African and European countries to New Zealand. We also have an education system that promotes the mainstreaming of students with special education needs. All this means that teachers need to build an understanding of identity formation and the importance of developing meaningful relationships with students and their guardians.

Changes to what students should learn and how they learn are similar to changes globally. However, the New Zealand education system, with its smaller size, centralised system and ability to respond quickly to contemporary trends, has moved more quickly at a national level than many other education systems. For example, there has been an increase in the development and use of student-centred learning methods, including an emphasis on enabling learners to enhance their learning skills and knowledge through collaboration with others. Teachers are developing ways to help learners build the skills to manage their own learning as well as develop other skills such as memorisation and elaboration (Ministry of Education, 2000). These learning approaches assist students to develop greater self-awareness and reflection, and help them become more autonomous, self-directed, critical thinkers (Conner, 2003; Gunstone & Northfield, 1994). ITE programmes in New Zealand need to ensure these considerations are evident in their overarching philosophies, course structures and pedagogical practices.

Stakeholders have a vested interest in the process and quality of ITE, as stakeholders are the funders and “end users”. They want teachers who are “fit for purpose”. A recent report (Ministry of Education, 2006) indicated that many New Zealand ITE stakeholders were in general agreement about the desirable qualities of beginning teachers. These qualities were given as: the importance of relationship skill development; strong knowledge in specialist domains; and personal qualities such as enthusiasm and flexibility.

In New Zealand, there is a need to enhance ongoing relationships between ITE providers to promote a common vision and understanding of the “quality” of professional experiences that are required for the effective development of beginning teachers’ “qualities”. The Ministry of Education report (2006) also indicated the need for a more collaborative partnership model between schools and local ITE providers.

Changes to the traditional views of teaching and learning

According to Myers (2002), ITE programmes have traditionally relied upon telling, showing and guided professional practice. The traditional conception of knowledge as a commodity that can be assimilated is being challenged. These traditional views of how knowledge can be transmitted and acquired align with the idea that teachers possess knowledge and therefore can pass it on. The recent shift in thinking is that knowledge is less to do with what it is and more to do with what it enables; that is, that knowledge is a process rather than a product (Davis, Sumara, & Luce-Kapler, 2008; Gilbert, 2005). Knowledge is also historically, socially and culturally situated (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989). Contemporary views of knowledge and learning require students to develop skills to access and utilise familiar knowledge, learn unfamiliar knowledge and co-create new knowledge in ways that are relevant to the places where they live and learn (Gruenewald, 2003).

In their recent article, Korthagen, loughran and Russell (2006, p. 1028) outline three cases of teacher-education reform that attempt:

… to develop a more process-oriented view of knowledge and to break with traditional ways to introduce theory into teacher education programs. The cases clarify that what is important is not only a change in the choice of theory that is relevant to teachers, but also a change in the nature of theory in teacher education and the way it is developed in teachers. As Freudental (1998) states, the traditional view is one of ‘knowledge as a created subject’ (p. 72), that is, created by others. Freudenthal advocates a view of knowledge as a subject to be created by the learners themselves, by a process of guided reinvention.

While showing examples, providing resources and facilitating guided practice linked to curriculum is important, a focus on promoting children’s learning is the cornerstone of evaluating teaching effectiveness. As part of implementing The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007), teachers will be expected to infuse the core principles, values and key competencies through curriculum content domains. It is the quality of the children’s learning experiences and how learning is made explicit through reflective practices that will assist students to make connections and allow them to transfer learning processes. Students (at all levels) cannot be expected to transfer learning if they are not aware of the skills to do so (Conner & Gunstone, 2004). An example of where a learning-process approach was used to model how children’s learning could be promoted was an ITE programme in New South Wales, Australia (Power, 2008). In this case, student teachers transferred their learning experiences using an inquiry approach in their ITE courses to support children’s learning through the children’s inquiry process. A focus on learning can build in iterative evaluation as part of the overall strategy.

What we do know is that changes to programme structures and practices require accommodation of shifts in thinking about the fundamental principles of learning, teaching and teacher education (Korthagen et al., 2006). The shift is in thinking about teachers as promoters of learning (Conner, 2004) rather than transmitters of knowledge.

The need to increase the number of teachers

A search for new structures to prepare teachers emerged worldwide at the end of the 20th century, partly in response to the changes in educational complexity and partly due to worldwide teacher shortages. In particular, there was a rise in the number of alternative programmes to get more teachers into schools. This was done either as an in-school development process (United States, parts of Europe and Australia) or in programmes where a high proportion of ITE was conducted in schools (United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand) as part of qualifications gained through tertiary institutions. This meant a stronger emphasis on practice than we had seen previously in ITE programmes (Bullough & Krauchak, 1997) and a swing away from the previous perception that ITE programmes were too theory laden (Korthagen et al., 2006). These alternative “immersion in teaching” programmes have a “craft” or a technicist approach to teacher education, as they tend to downplay the connections between theories in the ongoing development of teachers as professionals (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005).

Currently, faculty in ITE programmes are under pressure to reduce the time they spend on teaching in order to meet the increasing demands for enhancing their performance-based research profiles. There are huge benefits when teacher-education lecturers are actively engaged in research and apply this in their teaching. However, this pressure influences structures and delivery of ITE. While stakeholders want increasing numbers of teachers to be qualified, the consequence of the reduction in teaching time for faculty means there are increased numbers in ITE classes. This trend is perceived by external stakeholders to equate with a decrease in quality of student experience. The challenge for ITE providers is to engage in research because of its value in informing teaching, whilst simultaneously ensuring students have a range of quality experiences that enable them to develop the skills, dispositions, agency and capabilities (“qualities”) necessary for teaching in the future.

Opposing the drive to prepare more teachers is the current New Zealand government’s policy of capped funding for tertiary students. While this will limit the number of ITE students in universities, it could mean selection can be even more rigorous, which may in turn enhance the quality of graduates.

New theories about teacher education

As mentioned previously, the changing nature of education itself provides huge scope and potential for enriching the ITE curriculum in New Zealand. Barker (2008) has raised questions about how new ITE programmes could respond to the developments in The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007). The implications of research from multiple domains, along with the changing nature of education and schooling, need to be considered in the development of new ITE programmes. As Korthagen et al. (2006) suggest, ITE programmes must develop radically new and effective pedagogies of teacher education that link theory and practice more coherently and effectively. This is particularly important if we want to develop programmes that are grounded in developing culturally congruent and empowering experiences that value what Gruenewald (2003) calls a “critical pedagogy of place”.

Contemporary theories of ITE suggest that we need to rethink our views of what constitutes effective pedagogy in ITE, with a particular focus on thinking about the “qualities” of teachers for the 21st century. The wider dilemma of which qualities (skills, dispositions, agency and capabilities) beginning teachers need to be effective teachers largely depends on the beliefs that are held about teachers, teaching, learning and the aims and purposes of education (Conner & Greene, 2006). These beliefs range from the idea that effective teaching requires critical reflection and extensive professional discretion, to viewing teaching as a procedural and preset activity, where teachers deliver a prescribed curriculum designed for children to reach set standards of achievement. In reality, most education systems fall somewhere in between those extremes. They recognise that both technical preparation and responsive pedagogical decision making are important. Quality teachers, regardless of the philosophy underpinning an ITE programme, are expected to be competent, intelligent, humorous and understanding people, who are culturally responsive, connect with other people and care about their students (Shoffner, 2009).

There is a current focus on the graduates from ITE programmes needing to be “fit for purpose” (in other words, that they know how to teach) and learn to do this while in the ITE programme. To align programmes with this need, New Zealand ITE qualification providers are required to be externally approved by the New Zealand Teachers Council, through a peer-review process. The providers receive government funds based on this approval. The programme must enable students to meet the Graduating Teachers’ Standards (New Zealand teachers Council, 2007). A summary of four research reports on ITE in New Zealand (rivers, 2006) concludes that it is “imperative to ensure providers are delivering the best initial teacher education possible” (p. 31). But what does this mean exactly? How do we know what would be considered the best ITE possible? How do the qualities of graduates relate to the quality of an ITE programme?

Notably, in the same report, different stakeholders valued different kinds of knowledge. They also varied considerably in their perceptions of the importance of effective classroom management, understanding of diversity, and Māori and Pasifika perspectives. These distinctly different opinions and understandings underscore the complexity of the interrelated skills, knowledge and attitudes needed to be a professional teacher (Ministry of Education, 2006). The stakeholders’ differences in perception about what is important in ITE are strongly influenced by their ideas and beliefs about the aims and purposes of education more generally, which are often influenced by their previous experiences. These perceptions are not always consistent with wider societal views or with research on teachers as they are mentored into the profession. There is an assumption that ITE programmes should be able to incorporate or respond to recommendations provided by all the various stakeholders and, further, that any new initiatives will not be thwarted by national policies or constraints implicit in how organisations and accreditation bodies operate.

Finally, some ITE theories include transformative ideals, where a teacher’s role is to make a difference to individuals, groups, communities and society as a whole. Student teachers are often more motivated when they believe they have roles as transformative intellectuals (Giroux, 2004) and may use this as a reason for continuing to improve their practices. A transformative or agentic role could be capitalised on in ITE programmes as a source of energy. The ideal of a transformative role was one of the emphases that emerged in the Teacher Education for the Future Project, as discussed in the next section.

The Teacher Education for the Future Project

The teacher Education for the Future Project took a deliberate futures approach and asked participants to predict and further extrapolate what they would like education to provide for a world in which education plays a part in creating a desirable future. This approach assumes that the ITE curriculum is amenable to positive change, towards what is most desirable. This approach is in contrast to the deficit framing sometimes used in other countries. Criticisms of teacher-education programmes by stakeholders are often framed from the perspective of what needs fixing (Tatto, 2007). A futures-focused research approach, in contrast, frees people to think more about the “qualities” necessary to teach in future learning contexts. This approach brings together evidence about what works currently with ideas about what is important to meet future needs.

The first phase of the teacher Education for the Future Project was instigated in 2005 (Conner & Greene, 2006) as a result of a collaborative discussion at a Pacific Circle Consortium conference in Seoul, Korea. The first phase was conducted in seven different countries (Australia, Fiji, Korea, Latvia, New Zealand, Samoa and the United States) and involved focus group interviews with teacher educators, teachers and, in some countries, student teachers. The perceptions of these stakeholders produced the key themes that informed the second stage of the project. The various country co-ordinators worked collaboratively to develop the focus and the research tools for the second phase of the project.

Six countries took part in the second phase of the project, and four case studies from three of these countries were reported on in a special issue of the Pacific Circle Consortium’s journal Pacific-Asian Education (Conner, 2008). The second phase of the project required administering a questionnaire to current students in ITE, teachers in schools and teacher educators. The questionnaire was divided into (a) items that related to the aims of education and (b) future focuses for teacher education.

Participants were asked to rank, in order of importance, the top 10 items for each of the 29 aims and purposes of education and the 24 areas of potential emphasis in ITE. Participants were also asked to write responses to questions about how they implemented their stated beliefs of the purposes of education within their teaching, what obstacles and supports they encountered and how ITE programmes could assist future teachers to incorporate these preferred objectives. The top 10 ranked items for the aims and purposes for education and the implications for ITE were compared across types of participants (in other words, between student teachers, practising teachers and teacher educators) to see if, as groups, they valued some ideas more than others. We clustered the participants’ comments according to themes arising from each question and then summarised these under more broadly based themes.

The educational contexts within and between each country varied considerably for this study. This proved to be both a strength and a limitation. For example, one of the Australian cases was situated in an Islamic school setting (Watson & Chen, 2008), and the other Australian case was in a mainstream public system, where inquiry approaches were being used in primary schools (Power, 2008). The studies from New Zealand and the Us state of Oregon included teachers, teacher educators and student teachers as participants, whereas the Watson and Chen (2008) study only surveyed teachers, and the participants in the New South Wales study (Power, 2008) were student teachers.

The case study researchers in the teacher Education for the Future Project realised very quickly that across all of these contexts, what participants from the various nations valued depended on their particular aims and purposes of education (Conner, 2008). The interpretations presented were culturally embedded and related to what people in different countries believed were the “qualities” of the “ideal person” and, by extension, the “ideal teacher”. Participants also indicated a degree of uncertainty about future educational needs, as there are many trajectories that education could take, and because there is not much technical evidence about what kinds of changes will “work” to improve education in each country in the future.

The results from the countries and educational systems represented in the second phase showed a surprisingly high degree of overlap and similarity. Perhaps this indicates the degree of convergence in educational policy in the countries represented (Australia, New Zealand and the United States). However, it could be that the participants surveyed had similar ideals for ITE for the future, rather than that there was overlap in the programmes in these countries or in plans for educational reform.

The top five categories that participants identified for emphasis in ITE in the studies in Oregon and New Zealand are given in Table 1. These are very similar given that there were 24 items to choose from. There appear to be subtle differences (the emphasis in New Zealand on the importance of critical thinking and adapting resources, compared with the emphasis in the Oregon case on developing a balance between academic and nonacademic outcomes). These differences reflect the educational contexts and policies in each country. New Zealand has a strong emphasis on adapting teaching to meet the needs of individual learners (Alton-Lee, 2003), whereas the standards movement has heavily influenced schooling in the United States.

TABLE 1 TOP FIVE CATEGORIES OF EMPHASIS FOR FUTURE ITE

PROGRAMMES (FOR ALL PARTICIPANT GROUPS)

Interestingly, there was some variation between participants within each of these studies. Practising teachers in both studies valued the categories “Respond to technological change” and “Adapt or change instructional strategies and delivery modes” more highly than teacher educators or student teachers (Conner et al., 2008; King et al., 2008).

When the results from each study were compared, some differences could be attributed to participants’ understandings of terms such as inclusion and sustainability. These terms seem to mean slightly different things in Australia, New Zealand and the United States. Because of the differences in interpretation of language, there were limitations in crosscountry comparisons. It is likely that similar differences in interpretation may also occur between participants in the same country.

Using a futures-focused research approach could be considered problematic, especially if the tools used have to anticipate the preparation of teachers for specific predicted problems, issues and opportunities. This predicted future or problem guessing is difficult to pinpoint accurately. The teacher Education for the Future Project acknowledged this, but researchers in this project took the view that the future is something we can create rather than something that can be predicted. Therefore, teachers and teacher educators can use desired aims and values to create how they might align their teaching and learning in an adaptive and responsive way to the dynamic nature of educational needs of the future. That is, what do we want and how will we create it?

The comments from stakeholders in the New Zealand case (Conner et al., 2008) showed that the most common calls for reform and re-emphasis in ITE programmes were for the recognition of the broadening diversity of cultural backgrounds and ranges of abilities of students, and the provision of pedagogies to address these. It should be noted that none of the participants were from bilingual units or kura kaupapa schools, although one secondary school in the sample had a Māori immersion programme.

Various suggestions for re-emphasis related to:

•&;&;&;&;environmental education or an education that is relevant to individuals, groups, communities and to where people live

•&;&;&;&;authentic use of literacy and numeracy

•&;&;&;&;inquiry-based approaches to teaching and learning

•&;&;&;&;maintaining a healthy body

•&;&;&;&;the role of education within cultural and political contexts

•&;&;&;&;appropriate pedagogical knowledge

•&;&;&;&;appropriate technological competencies

•&;&;&;&;life skills, including lifelong learning skills.

One respondent emphasised the importance of ensuring students are engaged as lifelong learners. She commented, “ultimately the aims of education are about giving children a passion for learning, by asking the difficult questions and fostering a sense of inquiry”.

The implications of the findings from this project are that although the design of ITE programmes can greatly benefit from stakeholder perspectives, any information gained should be understood in relation to stakeholders’ perceptions of the aims and purposes of education. If there is disagreement between different stakeholders about the aims and purposes of education, then further discussion may tease this out. Some of the dilemmas that teacher educators face when designing programmes based on Stakeholder views are:

1.&;&;&;&;What happens when there are competing claims for inclusion or emphasis?

2.&;&;&;&;What are the claims based on?

3.&;&;&;&;Which suggestions should be included into programmes and why?

4.&;&;&;&;Do the suggestions only meet the needs of the community sampled or do they have wider significance and meet the needs of many communities?

5.&;&;&;&;What other information needs to be taken into account when giving credibility to stakeholders’ suggestions?

An unanticipated finding of the teacher Education for the Future Project was that participants themselves reported a change in their thinking through having completed the surveys. This type of process may therefore be useful to get people to think about and question or review what they currently do and can do better. Some participants commented that identifying their own aims and purposes of education and then reflecting on how they translated these into teaching practices (or modelled these, in the case of teacher-education programmes), enabled them to reexamine their practice in light of their stated purposes. As reported in King et al. (2008), participants indicated that this personal reflection was illuminating, validating or, in some cases, challenging.

Reconciling tensions for ITE curriculum development

It is widely recognised that new teachers need opportunities to critique curriculum, teaching materials and pedagogies during ITE and as part of their ongoing development (Grossman & Thompson, 2008). Future developments in ITE must include new ways of knowing that will allow for more complex connections between the content and processes of learning. Probably the most significant shift needed is an understanding of how knowledge is created (Freudenthal, 1978). In short, ITE must shift to accommodate and prepare new teachers for developing different ways of knowing.

In New Zealand, the notion that teachers need to connect with the worlds (communities/cultures) to which students belong is paramount. It is consistent with the principles promoted through kaupapa Māori theories and pedagogies (Bishop & Berryman, 2006) and the Pasifka education priorities of belonging to a learning community (Fletcher, Parkhill, Fa’afoi, & Taleni, 2008). It is also consistent with the view that consultation is a key driver of stakeholder engagement. Providers of education need to acknowledge different cultures and beliefs, respect diversity, facilitate empowerment by identifying and building on strengths, promote the role of whanaungatanga,² fono, family and community in education success. They also need to explicitly understand that language is integral to identity and culture (Ministry of Education, 2001). There is also a need to encourage teacher collegiality so that teachers work collaboratively on transformative teaching practices that enhance the learning of Māori and Pasifika students.

The tensions discussed in this paper stem mainly from ensuring “quality” in the implementation of ITE programmes (selection of content, processes/guidance and experiences) and graduating enough teachers who have the desired “qualities” needed for contemporary teaching and learning. The teacher Education for the Future Project (Conner et al., 2008; King et al., 2008) suggests that there are multiple considerations for ITE programmes. One of the biggest challenges in redesigning the ITE curriculum is reconciling the extent to which we are able to live with ambiguity and disjuncture. We need to use this time of transition to create opportunities to discuss the tensions that influence the quality of ITE. While we have high aspirations for supporting graduates to have desirable “qualities”, the way we do this has to be considered alongside what is practically possible within the limitations of funding, policy and institutional constraints (Barker, 2008). The discussion about what is valued in ITE is vital for the ongoing development of teaching and the future of education more generally. There is an urgent need for wider consideration of the possibilities of what is, could and should be emphasised in ITE programmes, now and in the future.

Notes

1 Extended family.

2 Collegial support/family support/extended family support.

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The author

Associate Professor Lindsey Conner is the associate dean (secondary) in the College of Education, University of Canterbury. Her teaching and research interests include science education, bioethics education, teacher education and futures education.

Email: lindsey.conner@canterbury.ac.nz