Transforming Teacher Education: Reconfiguring the Academic Work [Paperback]

Teacher education has a central role in the improvement of educational systems around the world but what do the teacher educators in universities and colleges actually do? Day-to-day, how do they support the learning and development of the thousands of new teachers we need every year? And why does this matter? Drawing on recent research by the authors, situated in the growing international literature,Transforming Teacher Educationputs these questions in cultural and historical context and offers a practical answer in the form of an original agenda for the transformation of current conditions in teacher education with future designs for practice.

Viv Ellis and Jane McNicholl argue that the academic work of teacher education needs to be reconfigured in order to stimulate the renewal of the profession of teaching and to develop new modes of educational research that will have impact on practice as well as building the discipline of Education within the universities. They offer suggestions for future designs for teacher education, drawing not only on the latest research in teacher learning and development but from across the social sciences.

Viv Ellisis Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Education at Monash University, Australia.

Jane McNichollis Associate Professor of Science Education at the University of Oxford, UK.

This book is an insightful and highly readable analysis of the work of teacher educators in England, but its value extends far beyond that setting. Combining original studies of teacher educators with trenchant critique of education policy trends in England and elsewhere, this book is a must-read for those who reject the defend or reform dichotomy and instead want genuine transformation of teacher education. Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Cawthorne Professor of Teacher Education for Urban Schools, Lynch School of Education, Boston College, USA

This excellent book is a very timely and insightflC¹