Professional learning in teacher education

Traditional elements in the creation of professional learning

•Student teacher / trainee – experiences, identities, existing knowledge, motivations & dispositions •Learning contexts – schools, university, communities.

•People & professional interactions – mentors, teachers, tutors, peers, pupils •Explicit & tacit bodies of professional knowledge: curricula, assessment and specified ‘outcomes’ (Standards)•Journeys towards being a qualified teacher and entry into the profession

E-learning and the challenges for teacher education

Educators have slid into the 21st century – and into the digital age – still doing a great many things the old way. It’s time for education leaders to raise their heads above the daily grind and observe the new landscape that’s emerging. Recognizing and analysing its characteristics will help to define the education leadership with which we should be providing our students, both now and in the coming decades. Times have changed. So, too, have the students, the tools and the requisite skills and knowledge’. (Prensky 2005: 21)

‘The potential of technology in developing learning ‘is fully exploited by only 20 per cent of schools and colleges’

(BECTA 2008)

Professional learning in teacher education

In 20 years time - the creation of professional learning?

•Student teacher / trainee – embodied and virtual – avatars?•Learning contexts – virtual classrooms, virtual schools – 3D learning environments•People & professional interactions – in real world and in Web (2)3.0 environments – e.g. Virtual pupils•Boundary crossing – already blurred distinctions between formal and informal bodies of professional knowledge become more indistinct – knowledge exchange & mediation through the web•Very different journeys towards being a qualified teacher and entry into the profession – social and professional networking – teaching the citizens of the mid C21st

Issues emerging from the e-learning research at UEL

• How do you gauge individual and communal professional learning in blended / virtual learning contexts? Can communal element(s) enhance the individual learning?

• Is the potential of problem based learning enhanced in these contexts? Is professional learning / induction accelerated?

• How adequate are current technologies for our purposes?

• What social justice and equity issues should we be considering?