Pedagogy is just common sense: A case study of student teachers’academic learning practices

The backdrop for this thesis is the persisting criticism against teacher education. Teacher education is claimed to be overly theoretical, unrealistic, and distant from practice. As a result of this criticism, teacher education has been challenged to change. There is a general call for developing new and better ways of organising teacher education that aim to strengthen the link between theory and practice. However, despite the fact that the criticism is directed towards the academic part of the studies, little research has focused on student teachers as learners in higher education. It follows from this that we know little about the part of teacher education that we endeavour to develop. What do student teachers mean with their claim that teacher education is too theoretical? How do student teachers work with their academic studies and what kind of challenges do they encounter? And finally, how do conditions within teacher education influence how they experience and work with their studies? These are the questions that are explored in this thesis. The thesis reports on a case study of student teachers’ academic learning practices. The study is set in a Norwegian secondary teacher education programme and draws upon perspectives from learning to teach, student learning in higher education as well as more recent developments in practice theory. Qualitative and quantitative data have been collected from 78 student teachers enrolled in two successive years of a five-year integrated Master’s programme. Four research questions have been explored in four separate journal articles that are summarises and synthesised in this thesis. Through holistic focus on the academic part of teacher education, this case study provides additional perspectives on the criticism of teacher education with three main contributions. First, this thesis offers alternative representations of the much debated theory-practice gap in teacher education. It is suggested that the constant focus on solving “the theory-practice problem” might sustain an inappropriate dichotomy of theory and practice, which in turn prevents us from considering the whole “ecosystem” of teacher education. Second, this thesis demonstrates the need for reaching beneath and beyond the surface of student teachers’ experiences. The findings direct attention to constraining conditions within the programme and to teacher educators’ teaching practices and social relations. The findings reveal the influence of discourse and power – issues that are rarely discussed in research literature. Third, it is suggested that teacher educators need to rethink traditional structures of authority in teacher education. This implies to include student teachers as active, responsible, participants of their own learning practices, rather than consumers of what teacher education has to offer

When the form stands in the way of content – a study of student teachers’ reading practices

Even though recurring criticism has been directed against the academic part of teacher education, little research has focused on student teachers as they engage in their academic studies. Reporting on a study of 53 Norwegian student teachers, this article explores student teachers’ reading practices in university courses in education. The study draws on the notion of approaches to learning as a particularly influential perspective in research on higher education. The findings reveal that the student teachers predominantly apply a deep approach to learning (with the aim to understand) and that writing academic texts in particular acts as an enabler of this approach. However, the participants also reported considerable difficulties with reading pedagogical literature. The article suggests that, in order to understand the persistent criticism against teacher education, there is a need to pay explicit attention to supporting student teachers in dealing with different text genres and texts from different academic disciplines. It also suggests that the important factor in students’ engagement with theory is not necessarily that it can be used immediately in the classroom, but that they recognise themselves as persons. Finally, the article raises a question about the balance between breadth and depth in the university courses

Communicative learning spaces and learning to become a teacher

This paper explores teacher learning. It focuses on access to ‘communicative learning spaces’ (a concept we coin and develop within this paper) and argues that the creation of such spaces can be a powerful enabler of teacher learning. We draw on the findings from three studies conducted in three different countries - Norway, Australia and Sweden. The studies focused on different stages of teacher learning - initial teacher education, the induction phase of teacher learning in the workplace, and the continuing professional learning of in-service teachers. The paper considers the features that characterise communicative learning spaces and their development. Using the theory of practice architectures we examine what enabled and constrained the development of these communicative learning spaces in each of the three cases

Student teachers’ criticism of teacher education – through the lens of practice architectures

This paper explores student teachers’ academic preparation to be teachers. Despite the fact that a persisting criticism is directed towards the ‘academic’ part of teacher education, we know little about student teachers’ academic learning practice as learners in higher education. The paper reports on a Norwegian study of 24 student teachers and shows how the theory of practice architectures can usefully illuminate some of the difficulties students encounter in their initial teacher education. The findings are mainly elaborated in the construction of two student teachers’ stories. Using the theory of practice architectures, we argue that the rationales for student teachers’ criticisms of teacher education are more nuanced than they are commonly presented in the research literature. We also argue that the theory of practice architectures provides a useful tool to identify conditions that influence student teachers as learners in higher education

Team-skills training and real-time facilitation as a means for developing student teachers’ learning of collaboration

This mixed-methods study investigates whether and how team-skills training and real-time facilitation can enhance students' learning of collaboration. Two hundred and fifty-seven student teachers carried out a group task at two different levels of intervention. The findings show that the intervention had a positive impact on the students’ perceived learning outcomes and on stimulating group reflection. We also identified four enabling structures of the task design. The study contributes to literature on how collaborative learning activities in higher education can be facilitated and argues that cultivating a language around the subject of collaboration is a prerequisite for developing transferrable collaborative skills