Developing Creative and Critical Educational Practitioners (Critical Guides for Teacher Educators) - Softcover

Door, Victoria

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1909682373 ISBN 13: 9781909682375

Publisher: Routledge, 2014

Synopsis

This book encourages teacher educators to promote flexible and sustainable practice in their students, enabling them to flourish within an ever-changing educational environment. Research from the UK and US strongly indicates that a coherent theory-practice approach to teacher preparation is key. The book outlines what such a framework can look like, a rationale for it, and how it can work in practice for groups and individuals. It explores the notions of the reflexive teacher, creativity as a basis for practice, and criticality as a necessary underpinning for educators. The discussion draws on the research and experiences of teacher educators, student teachers and in-service teachers, from NQTs to Lead Practitioners and senior management. It proposes the foundational understanding for beginning teachers to join a community of practice based on scholarship, professionalism and ethical practice.

This book is part of the successful Critical Guides for Teacher Educators series edited by Ian Menter.

About this title

About the Author

Victoria Dooris based at Keele University, where she works with developing teachers from PGCE to PhD level, including CPD for whole schools. She is an advocate of keeping educational practice alive and kicking, whether in the classroom or the seminar room, by giving a give high priority to practitioners’ lived experience and through reflexivity.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Developing Creative and Critical

Educational Practitioners

By Victoria Door, Ian Menter

Critical Publishing Ltd

Copyright © 2014 Victoria Door
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-909682-37-5

Contents

Foreword by Ian Menter, 
About the series editor and author, 
Acknowledgements, 
Introduction, 
Chapter 1 Developing educational practice, 
Chapter 2 Developing reflexive practitioners, 
Chapter 3 Developing critical practitioners, 
Chapter 4 Developing creative practitioners, 
Chapter 5 Developing the researching practitioner, 
Final thoughts, 
References, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

DEVELOPING EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE

CRITICAL ISSUES

• Why call it teacher education?

• What is a disposition and why does it matter?

• Why do teachers need to go on developing?

• Why does development need to start early?

• Why is it not selfish to want a flourishing practice?

Education, not training: what's in a word?

Case study: Joe's lesson

Although it was a cold afternoon, the south-facing classroom was hot and stuffy. Eight Year-10 pupils were spread out amongst the tables for their Spanish lesson; two girls both called Sarah sat with the only two boys of the group, three girls sat at the table next to them and Clara sat at the furthest corner of the furthest table, with her head on her arms and her eyes closed. The student teacher had prepared a model lesson, full of good practice, moving from group activity to a series of competitive games using mini whiteboards, to the core of the lesson, which was 'improving written course-work'. But the pace of the lesson gradually slowed. The two Sarahs had ceased to bother, the boys had worked on a couple of their sentences, nobody seemed quite sure what the three invisible girls at the middle table had done, and Clara was sitting glaring at the two Sarahs. Joe, the student teacher, moved from pupil to pupil, encouraging, asking questions, showing, suggesting ideas, but the pace slowed even more and everybody seemed glad when the bell rang. When the pupils had left, Joe sat despondently on one of the tables. Before the lesson, Joe's school mentor Clare, Joe and myself, as Joe's university tutor, had had a conversation about the relative merits of the term 'teacher training' and 'teacher education'.

Clare: You have an idea of what teaching is about before you go into it, so it's not a case of being educated like a pupil ... You are trained, but your training would differ from school to school ... but I suppose the basics of teaching are the same ... What's expected is the progress in your class. Making progress, here anyway, is the cornerstone of every lesson. You train someone to do that. How are you going to do that?

Me: Well yes! Can you train someone to make a class of various kids from various places and various ages make progress?

Clare: Yes. That's what we're here for, isn't it, as teacher trainers?

Joe: I think training suggests there's a set way of doing it. If you do it that way, you always get results.

At the end of the lesson the conversation went like this:

Me: How do you train someone to deal with a class like that? Is it training or..?

Clare: No!

Joe: I think training someone is saying there is a set process, do it like that, then do it again and do it again ... but I don't think you can do it like that in a school. If you said, right, that's how you have to do it, the next lesson they come in and they'd all be fine

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1909682373
• ISBN 13: 9781909682375
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 80