Teacher educators: exploring new roles and challenges in pedagogy and research
Teacher educators are facing new demands and pressures in terms of their professional and academic roles, often characterized as a tension between regulative (such as compliance with standards) and agentic (such as professional knowledge) aspects (Nerland 2008:61). Studies of the changing roles of teacher educators have highlighted the following challenges: the growing demand for teacher educators to develop research as well as pedagogical identities (Murray et al 2009); heavy teaching loads and accountability requirements (Furlong 2005); perceived divisions between teacher educators and other academics (Maguire 2000); increased expectations for research components within teacher education programmes (Gilroy & McNamara 2009).
In order to meet these challenges, international studies have identified the importance of activities such as: structured peer support, research training and focused mentoring of teacher educators in their early and mid-careers (Murray et al 2009); collaborative working through in-service programmes (McGee & Lawrence 2009); qualitative self-study (Ritter 2009); and the value of role models (Timmerman 2009).
In this symposium, findings are presented from four studies carried out in different parts of England, which explore these issues in complementary ways, representing a range of stages in teacher educators
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