This is the last issue of the European Journal of Teacher Education of 2020. And what a year it was. It is almost difficult to remember how we were teaching at our universities and colleges, visiting students in schools, wishing we had fewer meetings and meeting our international colleagues in places all over the world. All this came ‘to a screeching halt’ as the authors of one of the articles in the Special Issue of EJTE formulated it (Ellis, Steadman, and Mao Citation2020). All articles in the Special Issue were related in one way or another to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and how to deal with these effects.
I think I speak for many teachers and teacher educators (and many other professionals) that we experienced a huge learning curve over the last year. As we went along, we learned how to develop distant teaching and assessment. We uncovered the secrets of online programmes and became skilled in using break out groups and how to use the online whiteboard in a creative way. And, again, I am sure most teachers and teacher educators learned like I did: by trial and error, from informal conversations with colleagues and, more often, with students and we looked for the information we needed on the Internet. And we reflected all the time on our own and with others and improved our teaching in the ‘new normal’ step by step and sometimes in giant leaps. It was one giant and collaborative experience in experiential learning.
While the pandemic lasts, but more so after it disappear (and it will) I hope all educationalists remember these experiences and the strength of experiential learning and are able to apply pedagogies of learning by doing in real and on-line classrooms.
Interestingly, the first article in this issue ‘First steps in a second career: characteristics of the transition to the teaching profession among novice teachers’ Smadar Bar-Tal, Nurit Chamo, Drorit Ram, Zohar Snapir and Itzhak Gilat from Israel is about teachers for whom teaching is a second career. Based on their life experiences these teachers feel they are able to provide children with new perspectives, apply innovative pedagogical methods, and help children apply school knowledge to the real world. The researchers gathered data from questionnaires filled out by 80 novice second-career teachers and a comparable group of 82 First-Career Teachers. They also conducted interviews with eight second-career teachers. The findings show that the most powerful predictor of high job satisfaction among second-career teachers is the availability of support whereas the most powerful predictor among first-career teachers is workload. The qualitative analysis suggests that experience acquired by second-career teachers before they start teaching provides a repertoire of helpful strategies, thus improving their ability to cope with stressful experiences. The findings of the study support teaching as a second career for experienced professionals.
From the beginning of teacher education, it was acknowledged that field experience (internship, school-based education) is vital. As all experience-based education learning to become a teacher in the school context is a complex and demanding task. Not only for the students but also for the supervisors of the student-teachers. The focus of the German researcher Benjamin Dreer in his article ‘Towards a better understanding of psychological needs of student teachers during field experiences’ focuses obviously on the students. Dreer studied the specific psychological needs of the teaching workforce and the fulfilment of student teachers’ psychological needs. The article presents a four-dimensional theoretical framework incorporating both basic and specific psychological needs. In total, 106 student teachers were surveyed in a longitudinal study. The average fulfilment rates and development trends show differences among the four dimensions, suggesting the presence of lower- and higher-order needs. Significant correlations between need fulfilment and success indicators, such as learner satisfaction, learning gain, teacher self-efficacy and level of self-reflection, were found. The results highlight the relevance of high rates of need fulfilment right from the start of the field experience.
The title of the third article reveals what also the authors of the former articles emphasis: the pressure under which student-teachers work in school when learning to teach. The paper of the Dutch researchers Michelle Gemmink, Marjon Fokkens-Bruinsma, Ietje Pauw and Klaas van Veen has been given the title ‘Under pressure? Primary school teachers’ perceptions of their pedagogical practices’. Their assumption is that primary school teachers’ pedagogical practices are under pressure in the current educational context. The aim of this study is therefor to explore Dutch primary school teachers’ perceptions regarding their pedagogical practices, and, specifically, the pressure teachers experience. The researchers conducted a survey among 261 primary school teachers from 115 schools. The data show that a lack of coherence between teachers’ personal vision and the school’s vision influences the extent to which teachers experience pressure. The study showed that pressure on teachers’ pedagogical practices is a general problem in primary education.
Despite all the pressure, complex learning contexts and problems that student-teachers experience, student-teachers have a lot of ideals that help them become the teachers they want and need to be. The Dutch researchers, Heleen Simonsz, Yvonne Leeman and Wiel Veugelers, wrote an article with the title ‘Beginning student teachers’ educational ideals’. The aim of this study is to gain insight into the content and sources of the educational ideals of beginning student teachers. The data were gathered from interviews of twenty-four beginning student teachers. The findings show that beginning student teachers have educational ideals about the personal, interpersonal and societal development of their students. The sources of their educational ideals were meaningful experiences in the context of school, family, jobs and voluntary activities and societal issues.
Teacher educators are able to use former experiences of student teachers to form and strengthen their ideals, the can create new experiences to support the learning of new pedagogies and they have to immerse the future teachers in authentic learning context of schools. Experiential learning will challenge the student teachers and perhaps even more the teacher educators.