Collective Improvisation in a Teacher Education Community

ISBN-13: 9781402091056 / Angielski / Miękka / 2008 / 254 str.

Linda Farr Darling; Gaalen Erickson; Anthony Clarke

Opis

As has been well illustrated in the other books in this series, the notion of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices has been taken up by teachers and teacher educators as they have searched for new ways of better understanding the complex work of teaching and learning. Self-study appears to be attractive to practitioners because a self-study approach to researching practice is largely driven by their questions, issues and concerns. Therefore, one immediate value of self-study is in the way it can inform and almost immediately influence practice. This book, edited by Linda Farr Darling, Gaalen Erickson, and Tony Clarke offers an in-depth investigation of the CITE program (A Community of Inquiry in Teacher Education) and is one of the few examples of that which might be described as an institutional self-study (Loughran, 2005). As such, the book illustrates the level of commitment and concern that these teacher educators have for their teacher education practices and for the learning about teaching of their student teachers. They demonstrate that it is crucial to question the taken-for-granted and that in so doing, to be careful to seek to be appropriately responsive to disconfirming data.

Spis treści

Visions.- Looking Back on the Construction of a Community of Inquiry.- Learning in Synchrony.- Seeing the Complexity of the Practicum.- Enjoying Their Own Margins: Narratives of Innovation and Inquiry in Teacher Education.- Improvisations.- In Open Spaces.- Practicing What We Preach: Helping Student Teachers Turn Theory into Practice.- Social Studies Education in School.- Learning By Design: A Multimedia Mathematics Project In A Teacher Education Program.- Teacher Educators Using Technology: Functional, Participative, and Generative Competencies.- Virtually Aesthetic: The Cite Cohort’s Experience Of Online Learning.- Learning to Teach Technology: the Journey of Two Beginning Teachers.- Mid-Course Feedback on Faculty Teaching: a Pilot Project.- Portfolio as Practice: the Narratives of Emerging Teachers.- Revisions.- Complexity Science and The Cite Cohort.- “The Filter of Laws”: Teacher Education and the British Columbia College Of Teachers’ Teaching Standards.- Stepping Lightly, Thinking Boldly, Learning Constantly: Community and Inquiry in Teacher Education.- Stepping Lightly, Thinking Boldly, Learning Constantly: Community and Inquiry in Teacher Education.

Blurb

This is the story of a teacher education initiative. The project A Community of Inquiry in Teacher Education (CITE) has aimed to transform learning to teach from an experience based on the acquisition of skills to one centred on the cultivation of certain dispositions. CITE creates a program structure for integrating elements of university-based courses and school practicum experiences, with community based activities, and it utilizes a variety of instructional strategies and technology-based tools to create a series of ‘knowledge building communities’.

As small-scale reform initiatives go (36 aspiring teachers each year) CITE has had a long and vibrant life, despite some inevitable struggles. It is the longevity of CITE that prompted the authors to turn their inquiries about teaching and learning to the challenges of sustaining their own project. The result is a collection that chronicles some of their own experiments, deliberations, and the lessons learned through their many experiences. It is more accurate to say that Collective Improvisation is many stories, not just one. That is because this book represents the perspectives of university- based instructors, school partners, former students, and graduate student researchers, each of whom contribute a different and valued voice to the whole composition.