Being a school-based teacher educator: developing pedagogy and identity in facilitating work-based higher education in a professional field

Boyd, Pete ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2234-3595 and Tibke, Jon (2012) Being a school-based teacher educator: developing pedagogy and identity in facilitating work-based higher education in a professional field. Practitioner Research in Higher Education, 6 (2). pp. 41-57.

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Abstract

Facilitating work-based learning in higher education involves the educator in developing both their pedagogy and their professional identity. A current policy drive in England is towards school-embedded teacher education programmes facilitated by school-based teacher educators. The promoted schemes involve postgraduate student teachers being formally based in schools for the duration of their programme. This work-based approach involves school-based teacher educators who teach school students regularly as well as having a considerable responsibility for teaching and coaching their student teachers. This is a significant change from previous partnership-based teacher education where university-based teacher educators collaborated with school-based ‘mentors’, experienced teachers, to provide taught sessions in the university plus work-based learning in school. Many of these postgraduate teacher education programmes include credit-bearing modules at Masters level and an award at postgraduate certificate level. After qualification some teachers use these credits to study part-time towards a full Masters award. This paper focuses on the workplace learning and developing identity of a school-based teacher educator who teaches music classes for school students, contributes to extracurricular music activities in the school, and educates ten secondary music specialist postgraduate student teachers completing a one-year postgraduate programme. The study uses a reflective diary kept by the school-based teacher educator for a full academic year combined with semi-structured interviews at intervals. The interview transcripts and selected segments of the reflective diary were subjected to qualitative thematic analysis. The findings of this small-scale study suggest that there is great potential in the schoolembedded approach to facilitate powerful classroom experiences for student teachers supported by coaching and opportunities for collaborative and reflective learning. However, for this integrated teacher education to be ‘higher education’ – rather than technical training – has important implications for the school as a workplace environment and for the professional knowing and identity of the school-based teacher educator. Learning to teach is complex, relational, and challenging and student teachers need space to be learners as well as teachers. Becoming an effective school-based teacher educator, facilitating work-based higher education, will be no less challenging.

Item Type:	Article
Journal / Publication Title:	Practitioner Research in Higher Education
Publisher:	University of Cumbria
ISSN:	1755-1382
Departments:	Professional Services > Research Office & Graduate School (ROGS)
Depositing User:	Linda Shore
Date Deposited:	13 Dec 2012 11:16
Last Modified:	12 Jan 2024 11:15
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/1421

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