Integrating theory and practice in ITE (including perceptions of practicum) Bill did not appear to perceive a gap between theory and practice in ITE, as recognised widely in the

literature. He commented that ‘theory is a servant to practice, and practice is a servant to theory,

because the two can work together completely in harmony’, and explained that he merged and used

competing theories for the student teachers’ benefit – including showing them how they could be used in the classroom. Although he referred to student teachers transferring what they write in their reflective diaries to the classroom, at another point he dismissed ‘transfer’ as ‘quite an outdated

metaphor. ‘Cause you’re not taking something from one area and putting it into another, you’re almost reconstituting it’. Emphasising the importance of working with student teachers’ beliefs, he

observed that

(t)he idea that by giving…some sort of stunning lecture, and all sorts of cognitive messages that suddenly can be transported into some classroom reality, and have some marvellous transformational effect, is possibly pie in the sky.

Similar reservations are expressed by Korthagen (2010b) and van Huizen et al (2005).

He also reported on giving the student teachers practical things to do repeatedly in the university, including making them rehearse in empty classrooms so that they are able to address the ‘pupils’ (desks) by name. This reflects Kazemi and Hubbard’s (2008, cited in Lampert 2010:27) call for the rehearsalof “routine instructional activities” in teacher education, as

a focus on rehearsing and becoming proficient at the routine aspects of teaching can provide a backdrop for learning how to make the more complex interactive judgments that are required in the context of an activity.

A number of times, Bill referred to the failure of student teachers to‘take on board the messages’ and

‘rehearse it into the school, transfer it into the school context’. Suggesting that they ‘drop plates’

because of the amount they have to think about, he commented that ‘despite this being modelled, despite it being made explicit, despite them experiencing, despite them being impressed by it, it still

doesn’t work’, adding that ‘I don’t think there’s any answer, you just keep plugging away!’. Whilst he

referred to ‘creative conflict’ between the school and university, he also suggested that systems within school may have the potential to destroy any originality displayed by student teachers. This underlines perceived differences between first and second order habitus.

4.4.3.3Recognition of distinctions between pedagogy and meta-pedagogy

Whilst Bill talked of acquiring ‘a series of principles which…gave me a template for all learning…be it in the classroom, or...training people to teach’, he was evidently cognisant of a distinction between teaching in the school classroom and meta-teaching at university, and differences as well as similarities between the two fields. This was clearly demonstrated when he talked of his ambition to

make ‘the link between the pedagogy of teacher education and learning generally, and where do the

similarities and differences lie’. As well as being ‘a physical thing’, he saw learning to teach as being ‘about proceduralisation of knowledge, automisation, awareness, meta-cognitive ability’, all of which combined to demand a different pedagogical approach from teaching curriculum subjects in school. An example of this would be to do with his use of PowerPoint, where‘the visual is there to concretise

the meaning of a metaphor, which is linked to some principle’. This demonstrates a clear distinction

between first and second order habitus.

Bill raised the issue of deconstructing practice, giving it the label of ‘noticing’. So, in the semi- structured interview, he commented on the need for students to ‘pull apart’ teachers’ performance, much of which is based on subconscious and instinctive elements, and ‘the slicker it looks, the more

complex it is’ – an issue also identified by Loughran & Russell (2007, quoted in Bullock 2009).

Reflecting Mason’s (2002, cited in Loughran 2010:15) work on ‘the discipline of noticing’, Bill talked in the stimulated recall interview of the ‘big strand on the PGCE course of noticing’, and of

‘putting in thenoticing agenda’ during the observed session; this involved the skill of ‘deciding which bits to make salient at what point in time’. Kessels & Korthagen (1996) also refer to the imperative of

teacher educators helping the student teachers become aware of “salient features of the experience” (p21). Bill acknowledged the layered nature of this when he commented that, for teachers, it was similarly necessary to ‘direct the attention onto the things we want the children to notice’.

4.4.3.4 Theoretical underpinnings of meta-pedagogical practice

Despite his remark that ‘(s)ometimes I just make it up as I go along!’, it was clear throughout the interviews with Bill, as well as through the observation of his session, that he consciously built his practice on highly developed understandings and beliefs of how students learn to teach. This suggests an expanding habitus, and developing cultural capital in the new field.

He articulated a framework for meta-pedagogy with defined theoretical underpinnings, demonstrating an engagement with and a grasp of what might be seen to constitute the current (limited) knowledge base; indeed, this could be acknowledged as an area of apparent strength in his practice as teacher educator. In the stimulated recall interview, he talked of ‘drawing on my knowledge of pedagogy,

teacher education, in the overall theme’ throughout the session, and that one of his activities was

taken from ‘a book on the pedagogy of teacher education’. He recognised stages of development in the learning to teach process, and referred to ‘unconscious incompetence’16 as the initial stage. He paid attention to how he delivered key messages within the session, and said that he viewed

‘everything you do as a teacher educator’ as ‘a teachable moment’.

16

Attributed to Dubin (1962), in Watkins, C., Carnell, E., Lodge, C., Wagner, P. & Whalley, C. (2000) Learning about Learning: Resources for Supporting Effective Learning. London: Routledge.

During the interviews, Bill frequently referred to the theoretical underpinning for his meta- pedagogical practice, which indicated expanding habitus in the new field. These included references to: ‘optimal adaptiveness’, ‘episodic memory pathway’, ‘the pedagogical you’, ‘lexicon of learning’,

‘multiple entry points’, ‘maximum traction for current and future teaching’, ‘cognitive waiting room’, ‘assumptions trail’ and ‘assumption hunting’ (Brookfield17_{) from students’ ‘apprenticeship of}

observation’ (Lortie18

). He expanded upon this in the stimulated recall interview as follows:

I’m hitting on the pedagogy of teacher education, Lortie’s apprenticeship of observation, and getting them aware that, although they’ve spent a lot of time in the classroom, they

know nothing. Other than their own prejudices and that is now the theme I’m moving on to.

This reflects Bronkhorst et al’s (2011) observation that a preliminary concern in challenging the apprenticeship of observation “is making student teachers’ implicit assumptions explicit and subsequently contesting them, inviting student teachers actively to consider and possibly revise their assumptions about teaching” (p1124). Similarly, Loughran (2010) notes the importance of working with student teachers’ prior knowledge to develop understanding, and the potential of erroneous knowledge (including that gained from apprenticeships of observation) to hinder progress.

Bill also talked of working with students’ beliefs, which resonates with Fisher et al (2010). He acknowledged this as ‘one of the key things…from the literature’, and, referring to work by Korthagen, of producing a Gestalt moment which leads to a schematisation process: Socratic questioning could then be used to help students crystalise out their thoughts. He referred to the necessity of making a link between the sessions with student teachers and the mentor training sessions, and that he was aiming for ‘a DNA epigenetic effect on the entire programme’ to amplify key messages.

4.4.4 The impact of former school teacher identity 4.4.4.1Transference of skills and knowledge

Bill referred to skills and knowledge that he was able to transfer, including a ‘certain

philosophy…that people really needed to do things, to experience them in order to understand them’,

and a technique to ‘say something outrageous, and see if they’ll come back at me’. He made a number of references to effective practices which he had honed in the MFL classroom, including oral cloze activities, ‘dripping in’ information, think-pair-share, and techniques to make pupils ‘struggle to

arrive at meaning’, all of which was ‘the kind of thing that we use, that we’ve done for centuries, as language teachers’. This first order habitus was very evident in the observed session. He felt there

were links between how people learn a language and how you learn the skills of teaching, as both

17

See Brookfield, S. (1995) Becoming a critically reflective teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

18

involved automisation, proceduralisation, processing information and working out meanings. He identified the key principle as giving the activity a purpose beyond learning the language/learning to teach. When referring to generating new understandings as opposed to imitation, he suggested that

‘(i)t’s a bit like grammar in a foreign language; you’re able to generate new structures, and new sentences’.All of this is evidence of building upon and expanding the habitus developed as a school teacher in the new field.

4.4.4.2Professional values and commitment to the profession

Bill’s professional values were demonstrated in his comment that teaching is about ‘showing the

interest in individuals and humanity’, and (as referred to above) ‘exploiting the human potential of the

classroom’. He also referred to ‘the wonder and the awe of when the penny drops, and that makes it all worthwhile’. In talking about the changes being wrought by School Direct (a recently introduced

school-based ITE programme, currently still requiring links to an HEI), he felt it important that ‘our

principles need to imbue it’.

4.4.4.3Passion for subject/children/education

This was expressed very clearly by Bill in the following statement: ‘I think you’ve got to be

passionate about children and their education and how to improve it, and how to motivate them’. He

expanded this beyond school teaching when he highlighted his fascination with learning, commenting that‘we’ll never know the answer. And that’s part of the fun’. His affinity with his subject, MFL, was evident when he talked of the skills and knowledge he had transferred from the school setting (first to second order habitus). The observed session was not, however, subject-based.

4.4.4.4Sensitivity to student needs

Bill appeared to place great store on ‘listening to the student’, and of responding to individual need:

‘you know that that student will benefit from x, y and z at that point in time, but you’ve got to hold back’. According to Taylor (2008), the ‘student as teacher and learner’ approach (as identified above)

includes viewing them as independent teacher-learners with different needs:

This is achieved through teaching in which students are viewed as independent teacher- learners because different students have different starting points and concerns at different stages in the programme and relate to these differently. (p78)

This was reflected in his report of telling the student teachers that ‘you’re starting out…with different

world knowledge, and you’ll go off in different directions at different speeds along different paths, and somehow, we’ve got to get you to the same place’.

In both interviews, he demonstrated a particular focus on student needs, and on the imperative of making students feel safe and secure, so that they were able to take the necessary risks in learning to teach; this involved getting ‘the right affective and cognitive scaffolding’. ‘Taking risks’ is acknowledged by Korthagen et al (2006) as a necessary element of learning to teach, and Shulman (2005) suggests that “one of the great pedagogical challenges is to create an environment that is simultaneously risky but not paralytic” (p12). In addition to this, Bill stated that he was aware that some might feel uncomfortable on the course, as ‘some of the things you do, really do spark off emotions in them…, because you’ve got this high intensity of contextualised experience, something

that’s really powerful’. His comments expressing concern for a student who did feel uncomfortable

after one of the sessions, and, for another, ‘when I realised that she was worried about that, I went

immediately to see the group of students concerned’, suggested that he did react to student concerns

and feedback. All of this was reflected in what he explained was his overall ‘message’ to the students:

‘‘this is about risk-taking, this is about support, this is about success! And yes, you will succeed! And

it’s gonna be difficult!’’ This would suggest a confidence in the cultural capital acquired in the new

field.