Coherence and Assignments in teacher education

The overall aim of the project is to investigate the degree to which different teacher education programs are coherent, are built around a shared vision of good teaching, and provide opportunities to learn that are grounded in practice. The project analyzes program features and instructional practices of teacher education practices in Norway (UiO, NTNU), Finland (Helsinki, Åbo) and the United States (Stanford, Santa Barbara); Chile (Santiago) and Cuba (Havana). An overall aim of the project is to illuminate features of teacher preparation that link theory and practice more effectively in teacher education. Using a comparative design that examines teacher education institutions and program features in three national contexts, this research provides data and analyses that shed light on teacher preparation across countries and programs. Key questions to be investigated are: 1) To what degree are the programs designed around a common vision of good teaching and learning? 2) What program features (such as curriculum, syllabi, and assignments) contribute to program coherence? 3) In what ways does each program address the relationship between theory and classroom practice? 4) In what ways do particular program assignments and opportunities to learn support new teachers to see the connections between pedagogical /subject matter theories and actual teaching practice? Preliminary findings: Initial and preliminary findings suggest that there are great similarities across the data sources (program data; survey data; observation data and interview data) in how the different programs are designed in order to be coherent, however with some interesting differences between the programs. Stanford, but also Havana, stands out as rated highest from their teacher candidates, in terms of perceived coherence between the courses, opportunities to connect various parts of the program, and perceived coherence between the courses and the field placement. Teacher candidates from Helsinki report lowest on perceived coherence between the campus courses and the field placement while the Oslo program (and also the Santiago program) report low scores on opportunities to connect various parts of the program. The program data support these similarities in terms of course composition, their sequencing and thematic areas, and the ratio between pedagogical- and subject didactical courses. All programs are organized with coursework and field placement, however with huge variations in terms of the amount and organization of field placement. A key finding so far is that programs with concurrent practice ? that is going back and forth between campus courses and field placement courses on a weekly bases (Stanford, Santa Barbara, Havana) - are perceived as more coherent that those programs that organize their field placement in periods (Helsinki and Oslo). There are, however, also som interesting differences across the programs, in terms of required expectations and demands. This is visible in the amount of courses and the amount of field placement that the candidates at the different programs are offered, and they are also meeting varying demands when it comes to admittance requirements, assignments and reading list. We are questioning if we see a pattern across the Nordic programs with lower expectations and demands to their candidates. There are further strong similarities in how the programs provide opportunities (and not) to make linkages to practice. From the student survey data, our teacher candidates report to have the most opportunity to discuss experiences from their own field work in university classes; to read, analyze and discuss educational theory specific to their subject matter; and to plan for teaching. On the other hand, data reveals that these students experience far fewer opportunities to examine transcripts of real K-12 classroom talk or student discussion, to examine samples of their own students work, and to watch or analyze videos of classroom teaching. Analyses of the observation data (and also the interview data) support the findings from the surveys in terms of how the programs offer opportunities to make linkage to practical classroom life. Using a four-point scale, we scored the extensiveness of these opportunities, taking into account both their quantity and quality. Our findings show that across the programs, teacher candidates have extensive opportunities to review teaching materials and take the pupils perspective. However, they had fewer opportunities to engage in practices more directly connected to regular and expected classroom teaching practices, namely enact classroom practice, analyze pupil learning, and see models of teaching. Given recent interest on teacher education that is centered on the actual work of teaching practice, our findings suggest that across all programs, attention to enactment of practice may still be an endemic challenge in teacher education

Using a comparative design that examines teacher education institutions in Norway, Finland and the United States, this research project provides breadth (examining preparation across three countries and six programs) and depth (by analyzing program featur es as well as assignments from mathematics and language arts classes in each program). Drawing upon data that include program documents, interviews with program leaders and faculty, and analysis of course syllabi and reading lists, we will examine each of the six programs in order to understand the degree to which each one is designed around a common vision; is coherent; and provides opportunities to learn that are grounded in practice. In addition, we aim to use assignments within the teacher education m ath and language arts courses as lenses to understand the specific instructional practices within these teacher education institutions. Examining assignments allows us to determine the degree to which they provide opportunities for prospective teachers to make links between theoretical ideas and practical strategies that might actually be used in classroom teaching. This is a particularly important contribution, given that we have little knowledge regarding teaching and learning practices in higher educat ion in general nor in teacher education specifically. Furthermore, research suggests that when teachers have these opportunities, measures of student learning are positively impacted. This project will not only identify structural features that may link theory and practice more effectively in teacher education, but will also give insight into the specific instructional practices that accomplish such links. The opportunity to examine the instructional practices of teacher educators across a set of effecti ve programs would represent a significant step in providing empirical evidence that would in turn, help shape strong policies for preparing the best teachers for all our children.