Into the Labyrinth : A PhD Comprehensive Portfolio

Teacher Education

Teacher education, for the purpose of this research, is referenced as faculties of education (FoE). These are departments in higher education institutions, usually universities in Canadian contexts, providing a course of study in the discipline of education. Courses in the FoE are designed and delivered to preservice teachers, also referenced as teacher candidates in some literature, who are in the undergraduate program and will graduate to become licensed teachers, usually working within the K-12 sector of education. FoE programs should not be confused with professional development courses, instructional design departments, or higher education centers for teaching and learning, which also provide teaching and learning opportunities and support teacher development without the full range of courses or subject matter found in a FoE.
      FoE differ within provincial jurisdictions since this is a provincial mandate, without national oversight. Ontario has a formal two-year program of intensive education-related course work, called the Professional Years Program, which students enter after completing an initial undergraduate course of study. Some universities offer a concurrent education program whereby education related courses are incorporated into the undergraduate program as electives. A subsequent master level of study should not to be confused with preservice teacher education or professional years study. For the purpose of this research, the focus will be on the professional years of study.
     The term teacher educator describes those individuals tasked with teaching in the teacher education programs. These individuals are frequently educators with extensive practice in the field of education, but can also be those new to the discipline, coming through an academic and research stream of study. While many in Ontario FoE are licensed through the Ontario College of Teachers as K-12 educators, this is not a requirement for employment in FoE as it is in K-12 education in the province. Although role of teacher educators in teacher education are essential, these teachers are often overlooked, embattled and rarely researched within the field of education (Woloshyn et al., 2017). 
     With rapid changes in media and digital technologies impacting the preparation of teachers in FoE, there are increasing demands on teacher educators to improve outcomes (Buss, Foulger, Wetzel, & Lindsey, 2018). Research and change efforts in FoE include: a) the infusion of technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge frameworks (Jaipal-Jamani et al., 2018; Voithofer, Nelson, Han, & Caines, 2019); b) the application of participatory teaching (West-Puckett, Smith, Cantrill, & Zamora, 2018); c) networking teaching and learning (Lohnes Watulak, 2018; Oddone, 2019); d) digital literacies and digital citizenship (Choi et al., 2018; Nascimbeni, 2018); and e) open educational practices (Albion, Jones, Campbell, & Jones, 2017; Kim, 2018). Some of these changes are politically driven, specifically with the US Department of Educational Technology 2016 release of the Advancing Educational Technology in Teacher Preparation: Policy Brief and the European Union Practical Guidelines for Open Education for Academics documents.
     Focusing on these changes, specifically related to digital teaching and learning, rarely examines the practices of teacher educators or the support teacher educators require to enact new initiatives or innovations into their teaching. The 

One area with few This research will focus on the nexus between MDL and OEPr found in teacher educators in FoE in Canadian contexts.
 

This page has paths:

This page references: