Category: Teacher Education
-
To praise or not to praise: is that the question?
Two years ago a casual conversation with a colleague about my experience of what I call the ‘deficit model of praise’, that is “what is the point of telling someone they have done well? If they are not told that they are wrong then it is obvious that they have done OK” provoked an unexpectedly…
-
Gazing into the teacher supply crystal ball: a response to Educational Excellence Everywhere
Last month’s White Paper provides much for teacher educators to think about. Chapter Two lays out how the class of 2020 might train to teach. The pen portrait of Chris on page 34 has been painted to show a perhaps predictable picture involving school based training at a SCITT as part of a multi-academy trust. The…
-
Teaching observations
“Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.” (Keats) Teaching, by definition, is an activity that is observed, (McMahon, Barrett and O’Neill,2007), and during my career as an initial teacher educator and CELTA trainer I have probably observed literally thousands of hours of teaching practice. Teaching is inherently a very personal activity, since classroom decisions…
-
Are teacher educators the ‘ragged-trousered philanthropists’ of the academy?
In their 2015 book ‘Transforming Teacher Education: Reconfiguring the Academic Work’, Viv Ellis and Jane McNicholl describe a process of ‘proletarianisation’ in which the exchange value of teacher educators’ labours (their academic capital) has declined over time. This, they say, is limiting the potential to contribute new ideas and innovations to schools and the wider…