Campus-based contexts

The first context for learning to teach is the university or campus-based

experience. Traditionally, teacher education has occurred in institutions including large, well-established metropolitan universities with schools of education, regional

universities, regional campuses, teachers’ colleges and more recently—in the UK and USA—by privately-owned, professional development providers (Graham, 2006). For the past four decades, learning to teach has involved undergraduate courses ranging from three to five years, and more recently postgraduate studies (referred to as baccalaureate in Europe and the USA) ranging from one to two years.

Since initial teacher training courses began in middle of the 20th century, they have been described as a transmission and positivist model (Allen, Ambrosetti, & Turner, 2013; Wideen et al., 1998). The implicit goal was for the university to provide the theory, skills and knowledge; and the school was to provide the context for

applying, practicing and integrating these theories, skills and knowledge (Allen, 2009). Typically, programs presented knowledge through lectures and tutorials. Lecturers delivered important content en masse in lecture theatres. Tutorials allowed knowledge to be socially constructed, learning to be an active process of meaning making and the application of the content knowledge to problem solving or scenarios. Pre-service teachers’ knowledge and understanding were usually assessed through assignments and examinations. Additionally, this approach to pre-service teacher education also involved practicum-based experiences that became progressively longer throughout the course. The practicum experiences were usually assessed by mentor teachers or principals, with the university supervisor playing a minor role, usually visiting pre-service teachers a few times.

This rather conventional model of teacher education has received persistent criticism, both internationally and nationally, for many years. In a climate of public accountability, publicised standards of student achievement (ACARA, 2013b), national accreditation of teacher education, teacher registration (Western Australian College of Teaching [WACOT], 2004–2012; Teacher Registration Board of Western Australia (TRBWA, 2012), national teaching standards (AITSL, 2011) and media and the public’s simplistic perception of teaching, teachers and teacher education programs have and continue to be criticised. There exists a plethora of reports and research, national and international, outlining the consistent criticisms of teacher education. These include:

• a lack of practical preparation for real teaching (Allen, 2009; MACQT, 1998; Ramsey, 2000; Wilson, Floden & Ferrini-Mundy, 2001);

• the separation of theory and practice (Ingvarson et al., 2004);

• the time lapse between the delivery of content knowledge/theory and exposure to practice, which makes it difficult for pre-service teachers to make

connections;

• use of a transmission teaching model at university does not match good practice in teaching, nor does it emphasise deep understandings (Tardif, 2001);

• assessment methods at university emphasise content recall and regurgitation versus problem solving, collaboration, diversity, inclusivity and multiple opportunities to show what has been learnt. These methods are not widely used as informants to teacher educators (Jehng, Johnson, & Anderson, 1993; Ramsey, 2000);

• lack of accountability in terms of effective teaching that contributed to positive student outcomes and evidence-based outcomes (Hattie, 2012; Commonwealth of Australia, 2007);

• lack of integration, relationships and realistic contexts between units of study, resulting in fragmentation of coursework (Grossman et al., 2014;

Commonwealth of Australia, 2007; Wilson, Floden & Ferrini-Mundy, 2001;Tardif, 2001);

• lack of collaboration and consultation between university, schools and in-service teachers (Commonwealth of Australia, 2007). Such collaborations would help bridge the theory and practice gap, and assist in the provision of research and evidence-based practices that would benefit all stakeholders;

• lack of recognition that learning to teach goes beyond initial teacher preparation, and is a career-long process (Adoniou, 2013; Commonwealth of Australia, 2007; Hammerness et al., 2012; Ingvarson et al., 2004).

Jehng et al. (1993) researched the epistemological beliefs of American students in undergraduate and postgraduate programs of various disciplines. They found that the curriculum of undergraduate programs tended to be more general than specific, more systematically organised and controlled by the university. As a result, undergraduate programs promoted a less sophisticated view that knowledge was certain, unchangeable, in a fixed sequence and delivered by experts. In contrast, they posited that curriculum in postgraduate programs was less structured and certain, open to criticism and required students to actively co-construct ideas and knowledge. The difference in instruction was summarised as assimilation and memorisation in undergraduate programs, and

accommodation and integration in the postgraduate programs (Jehng et al., 1993). Their study also found that postgraduate students in the social sciences, arts and humanities tended to believe that knowledge was less certain, more reliant on their individual reasoning and the learning process was not orderly. This contrasted with students in engineering and business, where there were often prerequisite skills, orderly sequences and relatively certain knowledge disseminated by credible experts. Jehng et al. (1993) concluded that students’ epistemological beliefs were ‘socially shared intuitions about the nature of knowledge and the nature of learning’ (p. 26). As such, the orderly process of learning described by Jehng et al. (1993) was influenced by the contextual ethos and direct instructional effects of prior schooling, individual educational levels and domains of study.

However, there is also evidence to argue that campus-based teacher education programs do impact positively on teacher preparation. In Australia, Ingvarson et al. (2004) surveyed early career teachers on how well they believed they had been prepared for teaching. Both undergraduate and postgraduate students were surveyed, with

undergraduate students reporting more favourably on their course than postgraduate students. On a four-point scale, early career teachers believed that the core elements of

their courses had prepared them to a moderate effect (slightly below three). However, reporting to parents was deemed to be not adequate (slightly less than two). Early career teachers reported that the strengths of their teacher education programs were a strong focus on content knowledge, assessment, curriculum planning and timely and useful feedback. Hence, for the teachers in the study by Ingvarson et al. teacher education did matter and did prepare pre-service teachers for the demands of their first year of teaching. Further, they had completed courses that:

gave them deep knowledge of what they were expected to help students learn, and how students learned it, as well as skill in diagnosing students’ existing levels of understanding of the content taught, planning activities that would promote further development and assessing the extent to which development had taken place’ (Ingvarson et al., 2004, p. 89–90).

The study concluded that the professional capabilities developed during pre- service teacher education were necessary for commencing teaching. However, these capabilities would need to be further developed, confirmed in a number of other studies (Adoniou, 2013; Commonwealth of Australia, 2007; Hammerness et al., 2012;

Ingvarson et al., 2004).

Similarly, in the USA, Beare et al. (2012) collected data from early career teachers about their perceptions of the effectiveness of their courses, following completion of a degree course in education. Beare et al.(2012) collected data over seven years, and they confirmed that graduate teachers at the end of their first year of teaching were satisfied with their preparation for teaching, in terms of their pedagogical coursework, practicum experiences and the quality of the programs to meet

accreditation standards.

These criticisms and praise were based on both qualitative and quantitative research and reports, but they serve to highlight some of the potential context related themes that are likely to be found when pre-service teachers describe their learning to teach experiences. Hence, my study sought to ask pre-service teachers to describe

significant and insignificant experiences of learning to teach at both their campus and school based experiences.

While teacher education remains under scrutiny, the criticisms have highlighted areas in need of reform, to which universities have responded. Darling-Hammond (2006) reviewed seven exemplary teacher education programs in the USA. The programs covered all sectors: public/private, undergraduate/postgraduate, large and small. Further, the programs were credited with producing:

Graduate teachers who were able, from their first days in the classroom, to practice like many seasoned veterans, productively organising classrooms that teach challenging content to very diverse learners with levels of skill many teachers never attain (p. 306).

In her analysis of these effective programs, Darling-Hammond concluded that despite their differences and variety, the programs had some common features (pp. 305–306):

• a common, clear vision of good teaching that permeates the coursework and clinical practices, creating a coherent set of learning outcomes;

• well-defined standards of professional practice and performance used to guide and evaluate coursework and clinical practice;

• a strong core curriculum taught in the context of practice and grounded in knowledge of child and adolescent development and learning;

• an understanding of social and cultural contexts, curriculum, assessment and subject matter knowledge;

• extended clinical practice—at least 30 weeks of supervised practicum and student teaching opportunities in each programme—carefully chosen to support the ideas presented in simultaneous, closely-woven coursework;

• extensive use of case methods, teacher research, performance assessments and portfolio evaluation that apply learning to real problems of practice;

• explicit strategies to help students confront their deep-seated beliefs and assumptions about learning and students, and to learn about the experiences of those different to themselves;

• strong relationships, common knowledge and shared beliefs among school and university-based faculty jointly engaged in transforming teaching, schooling and teacher education.

Zeichner and Conklin (2008) reviewed six multi-site case studies in the USA to illuminate aspects of teacher education programs that appeared to be effective. The critical components of pre-service teacher education programs that Zeichner and

Conklin identified were: institutional contexts and the social and political attributes of teacher preparation programs; program level attributes to do with course organisation and goals; people level contexts (pre-service teachers, teacher educators, school staff) and the substance of programs (coursework, field work, teaching styles and assessment data). Their review established a comprehensive conceptual framework for thinking about teacher education programs. Zeichner and Conklin claimed the conceptual framework served to highlight both the substantive features of teacher education, but also offered a guide to reform, research, compare and contrast, and on its ability to describe attributes that made an impact.

Zeichner and Conklin cautioned that while this framework could be used to evaluate teacher education programs, it should not look simply at the absence or

presence of these features, but rather their ‘elaboration and enactment of [the] particular features’ within and not independent of their contexts (p. 285). They concluded that ‘the search for the universally best practice in teacher education for all types of candidates in all types of settings is likely to be a futile one’ (p. 285).

Some characteristics and reform that look promising for learning to teach included the use of cohorts (Beare et al., 2012; Dinsmore & Wenger, 2006), and shared vision about teaching and learning between all stakeholders (Bransford, Derry, Berliner, Hammerness, & Becket, 2005; Grossman et al., 2014; Tardif, 2001; Wilson, Floden, & Ferrini-Mundy, 2001). The shared vision involved: shared content knowledge about assessment; curriculum planning; key subject area (Lacina & Collins Block, 2011); child development, diverse learners and schools (Allen, 2009; Grima-Farrell, Long, Bentley-Williams, & Laws, 2014); activation of pre-service teachers’ beliefs and understanding (Hammerness et al., 2012; Rinke et al., 2014); use of professional standards (Bransford et al., 2005); strong relationships and communication; use of case studies and authentic examples (Fenwick & Cooper, 2013); and timely feedback.

There are two things to take from this review that are pertinent to my study. First, it is evident that there are different ways of learning to teach and there are

different contexts for learning to teach that may be more or less suitable for the different aspects of teaching that have to be learnt. For example, the practicum is where pre- service teachers have the opportunity to ‘trial’ their practical teaching methods and classroom management. Content knowledge for teaching might require autonomous research and inquiry approaches. Assessment of student’s work might require an approach that uses moderation and collaboration with other teachers (or pre-service teachers). Thus, my study was interested in finding out what types of experiences do pre-service teachers report as useful and helpful for learning to teach and what types of experiences are not useful and may in fact be inhibiting the learning to teach experience. My study was also interested in establishing if pre-service teachers believe or describe any patterns or trends that indicate when certain types of activities are better or worst placed within the course.

Second, pre-service teachers, like kindergarten through year twelve (K-12) students, learn in different ways and at different rates. Accordingly, part of the problem is matching the learner to the learning at the right time. In this regard, many of the ‘good teaching practices’ used in K-12 classroom apply to the learning to teach campus- based classrooms. The purpose of my study and this review of contextual influences on learning to teach were to identify aspects of the campus-based experience that pre- service teachers believe enhance or inhibited learning to teach and more importantly reasons why these experiences were regarded in this way.