Teacher education approaching crisis: external and internal factors

This large issue contains articles that fall into two major areas of interest representing some external and internal factors that come to bear on the career-long business of learning to teach. Examples of the external include network building, community influences and collaborative partnership: these are matters that involve other people, and might be thought of as the zoped (Vygotsky 1986) of teacher education in its broadest sense. Progress in learning to teach is dependent upon the development through the reflection of internal factors such as self-efficacy (Yost 2006), teacher identity (Beauchamp and Thomas 2009), values (Tsangaridou and O’Sullivan 1997) and beliefs (Richardson 2003), positioning (Watson 2007) and meaning-making (John Loughran 2002). The effect of immersion in these various external environments upon the internal is the focus of many of the papers in this issue. The important work of JET as the provider of researched evidence to inform practice continues.

The first article, by Lorelei Mackie, from the University of Stirling in Scotland, addresses the crucial relationship between mentor and mentee in initial teacher education, showing how it involves not only the professional but also the personal. This relational duality of power and collaboration is examined through the Foucauldian concept of ‘flux’, providing a new perspective on the complexity of mentoring. A clear call is made for an enhanced and ongoing programme of mentor education to develop the quality and consistency of learning gains for student teachers during practicum. It is good to see empirical evidence such as that provided by this paper underpinning policy in teacher education.

A contrasting aspect of teacher education is the focus of the next paper, from Chinh Duc Nguyen (Vietnam) and John Trent (Hong Kong), who introduce the concept of community knowledge as they argue for its role in teacher education curriculum reform in Vietnam. Perceptions of members of the public were gathered about teachers and teacher education. Findings included the view that teachers’ knowledge was inadequate and that their approach was traditional and inflexible. The authors call for the involvement of community members, collaborating with teacher educators, student teachers and teachers in schools to transform teaching and teacher education in Vietnam.

The development of teachers’ professional competences and practices is discussed in the next article, from Anna Abramczyk (Poland) and Susanne Jurkowski (Germany). Drawing on data collected from Polish teachers in which their knowledge of, beliefs about and use of co-operative learning in the classroom was surveyed, these authors found that whilst the teachers held positive views about it, there was little evidence of practical implementation. As in the previous paper from Vietnam, the implications for teacher education are outlined, with a recommendation that the effectiveness of co-operative learning for pupils’ academic and social development is reflected in teacher education provision in Poland.

What teachers know and believe is outwardly reflected, but inwardly engendered. The next set of papers look at such elements of professional and personal development in learning to teach as teacher identity, capability, self-efficacy, positioning, reflection, theory development, and, returning to the theme of the editorial for the previous issue of JET (la Velle 2020), transformation.

The next article, from Marta Camarero-Figuerola and colleagues from Spain tackles the issue of leadership in teacher education and when and how this can and should be implemented. Starting from the premise that an important factor in educational success is a model of distributed leadership in which the whole community is committed to learning and to the development of the organisation, the authors show the effectiveness of ITE programmes in which teaching competences are developed through coordination, leadership and collaboration. This is discussed in relation to the development of student teachers’ professional identity and its importance for future educational leaders.

Provision of preparedness for leadership during the initial phase of teacher education is gaining traction because of the expectation of career advancement and early education for a leadership role. The next paper, by Anne Parfitt of Bath Spa University in England, relates the career pathways of two newly qualified teachers, one of whom took up a teaching post and other deciding that teaching was not for him. Using a capabilities analysis approach in the context of the protean career, the author sheds light on the idea of millennials having a different view of a career trajectory from that of previous generations. This is discussed in relation to the current crisis in recruitment and retention of teachers and makes a useful contribution to our understanding of the causes of this.

The career pathway, through the course of the period of initial teacher education, is the crux of the next article, by Katriina Maaranen and Katariina Stenberg from the University of Helsinki in Finland. Student teachers were encouraged to articulate, at the beginning and end of their initial teacher education programme, their beliefs about ‘good’ teaching, thus developing what the authors describe as personal practical theories. The findings indicate that the most important change relates to external contextual factors. The internal, such as development of personal images, ideals and values is thus affected by the external, such as collaboration with others in schools and a shared culture within an organisation and vice versa in relation to learning to teach.

The next paper, by Birgitte Malm, from Mid Sweden University, looks at the influence of their normative beliefs, their relationships with student teachers and their own teaching methods upon the practice of teacher educators. The results of a series of interviews suggest that the teacher educators’ own professional development is largely driven by intrinsic motivation. Both positive (self-esteem, nurturing meaningful relationships, fostering student teachers’ personal and professional development) and negative (heavy workload, professional ambiguity and lack of time and opportunity for scholarly activity) were reported. This article adds to a growing body of evidence showing the imbalance between teaching, research and administration for teacher educators internationally.

Returning to a consideration of the centrality of values in teacher education, the next paper, by Stephen Scoffham from Canterbury Christchurch University in England, focusses upon the transformative, life-changing effect of a study abroad experience. Re-engaging 10–15 years on with a group of teachers who, as students went on a study visit to Southern India, the author shows that the visit had profound and lasting effects on the intercultural understanding, professional practice and personal development of those involved. A model of ethical engagement with self, others and the environment is offered, for which a convincing claim is made for its importance in relation to the increasing global social and environmental crisis.

The final two full papers in this issue of JET centre on aspects of inclusion. In the first, by Dana Shoham Kugelmass and Irit Kupferberg from the Mofet Institute in Israel, presents a theoretical and methodological framework to investigate the self-positioning of student teachers and serving teachers in respect of inclusive education. Using narrative texts analysed thematically, the authors show that differences in the outcomes point to the need for a greater emphasis on inclusion in initial teacher education. An intervention study involving service teaching by Carlos Capella-Peris and colleagues the Universitat Jaume I, Castellón in Spain provides evidence for a clear link between theory and practice, a recurring theme in the pages and recent editorials of this journal (la Velle 2019).

This issue continues with two Research-in-Progress papers, which are designed to give contributors an opportunity to publish preliminary findings of a larger project, still underway. The first is from Handoyo Puji Widodo and Alhasan Allamnakhrah from Saudi Arabia, but researching in Indonesia. Participants in a professional learning community involved in teacher education curriculum reform were shown to change their professional identities as curriculum technicians towards professional identities as curriculum makers. The second article in this section is from Darío Luis Banegas from Scotland UK, but working with his co-authors in Argentina. This paper addresses a novel intervention in language teaching and learning in which student teachers were supported to write for publication as a meaningful and authentic activity. As the editor of a leading journal of education for teaching, I am all in favour of this.

Our final section of articles are the Research-in-Practice pieces, which are short papers describing, evidencing and justifying novel approaches in teacher education. Coming in under 1000 words, these condensed pieces present a considerable writing challenge for authors. We have a large number of submissions and can only accept a limited number, so the standard has to be very high. The first paper in this section is from Erwin Rahayu Saputra and colleagues from Indonesia. Again employing a professional development initiative in the form of a professional learning community, this study was into beliefs and practices of assessment and how practice and ‘assessment literacy’ can be improved. Engaging with the topic of ‘neuromyths’ in education, John Rogers and Anita Cheung from Hong Kong report that worryingly, student teachers endorsed beliefs about such ideas as ‘learning styles’ and ‘multiple intelligences’ at the end of their period of initial teacher education. The final two papers, both from authors in the same USA university, tackle two different, but interesting areas. The first, from Yeol Huh, demonstrates how a 360° virtual reality platform can engender creativity in student teachers. Our final paper, from Dabae Lee, presents a useful statistics course, designed to help both pre- and in-service teachers to develop their skills of data analysis, an area of traditional weakness, but becoming increasingly important.

As I write this editorial piece, the world is in lockdown as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The health emergency will no doubt be followed by an economic crisis, and life will take time to settle into a new reality. All aspects of human existence will continue to be affected and part of this will be the consequences of the pandemic upon the recruitment, education and retention of high-quality teachers, an imperative of the UNESCO (2015) Sustainable Development Goal 4, quality education and lifelong learning for all. Accordingly, this journal will devote two special issues to this current world emergency, the first taking a global ‘snapshot’ of narratives from around the world to serve as a benchmark for further studies, not only of the career trajectories of the cohort of student teachers about to qualify and the professional development of serving teachers but upon how teacher education conducts itself in the years to come. The second special issue of JET presents the publication opportunity afforded by this second wave of empirical and conceptual research that will arise as the Covid-19 situation unfolds. A call will come out shortly and contributions will be most welcome.

On a personal note, I conclude by wishing our JET readership across the world my heartfelt good wishes and those of our Editorial Board for your safety and well-being and that of your loved ones.