Effective ITT / ITE
Curriculum and programme development
Papers & recommended reading | Editorial reviews | Task for trainees
Focus
Student teachers should be encouraged to perceive education as a discipline
based on a bedrock of constant values and principles, but whose operation
requires continuous shifts in thinking and changes in strategy.
Part of achieving this aim will be to make explicit that Initial Teacher
Education is itself not a fossilised edifice; if it is to be credible, it
needs to portray itself as an evolving, self-questioning area capable of
adaptation and organic reconstruction via intelligent processes enlightened
by research. This should include monitoring, review, and evaluation and
assessment of its own tutees' experiences.
By engaging in these processes, student teachers might both positively affect
the shape of future ITE programmes, and transfer the principles of the monitoring,
review, evaluation and assessment processes to their own tutoring approach
in order better to support their pupils' learning and contribute to a meaningful
and continuous process of school improvement.
Study of this topic has the potential to address aspects of the following
QTS standards when principles are transferred to the student teacher's interaction
with pupils: 1.1; 1.5; 1.6; 1.7; 3.2; 3.3.3.
On the level of collegial interaction, the student teacher will be operating
in a field of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) beyond the scope
of the QTS standards.
Task for trainees
Group discussion
Can you easily relate what you are told by class teachers, mentors and tutors
about your professional progress and the targets set for you to key topics
on the level of the 'bigger headings', for example: assessment for learning,
learner autonomy, behaviour management, target language? Is there consistency
in this respect in the appoach of all the professional colleagues who feed
back to you on your own performance as a teacher?
Observation focus
During any one post-lesson oral debriefing, make additional notes on these
questions:
1 Were you asked your view of the lesson?
2 Were your positive achievements referred to, and in relation to yourtargets?
3 Is your next set of targets clear?
4 Did you contribute to setting your own targets?
5 Will you get written feedback to confirm the content of this oral debriefing?
Check your planning
To what extent are your OWN teaching targets EXPLICITLY or IMPLICITLY expressed
in your lesson planning? Could your planning pro forma use some modification
to make room for YOU in there?
