3 things that you can do right now
Contact your training provider and express an interest in supporting their programme.
Consider your own skill set. Are there any areas in which you have a significant amount of experience or knowledge? How could these be used to contribute positively to a training programme?
Speak with your senior leadership team about your desire to support the training programme and see what opportunities might exist within school as well as within the programme.
In this section
Develop Programmes
In this section we focus on:
- contributing to developing, implementing, and evaluating teacher education programmes that are rigorous, relevant, and grounded in theory, research, and effective practice
Being involved in teacher education offers a plethora of opportunities to further your own development. Providers are expected to deliver a full curriculum of training, ensuring that all pedagogy and subject study related to the programme are covered in depth. This remains a daunting task for providers to achieve. The support of partnership schools and the staff who work within these schools is one of the single most important elements to an effective training programme. That is where you can come in. You may have an individual area of expertise, as well as being a current classroom practitioner. You might have completed a Masters in an obscure area of teaching and hold a wealth of knowledge you would otherwise never have had. Maybe you have led a subject or development area within your own school for years and have now become an expert. Your willingness to contribute to the development, delivery or evaluation of a training programme could be invaluable to the training provider you are working with. Contributing to ITT is a ‘win-win’ situation. The knowledge and skills you have developed during your career will be impacting on and inspiring the next generation of teachers, as well as adding a new element to your own development. A lot takes place within the walls of our teacher training providers and one conversation with a programme lead could launch a whole world of opportunities you did not know were available to you.
Alongside the opportunity to contribute to teacher training programmes, there are numerous CPD organisations that you can support as well as Local Authority led programmes of study that always need expertise to support them. It is a great opportunity to network, develop your own practice and change your day-to-day routine by being able to leave the classroom and share your knowledge and expertise with other teachers. In order for our profession to continue to develop and create better teachers, the opportunity for us all to share and learn from each other is one we should embrace.
Mentoring and coaching for teachers in the further education and skills sector in England
This brief report from Gatsby summarises key findings of research that sought to provide a comprehensive account of existing mentoring for teachers. The entire report is very useful and has implications for us as Teacher Educators. Perhaps the most useful section of the report is on page 4 where a table clearly displays the areas where teachers feel that they would benefit from additional professional development. Although this should not be used as a ‘one size fits all’ approach, using the table to help identify common areas of perceived weakness will help you to ensure you are supporting mentees in the right areas of their practice.
Teachers as Learners: Building a profession of responsive, expert and uniquely talented individuals
Professor Rachel Lofthouse advocates a workforce of teachers who can be their best selves, who can use their knowledge, talents and humanity to great effect, who can feel that not only are they financially secure but also intellectually challenged and rewarded through the quality of the work that they do and the opportunities that they have to flourish.
'Being a teacher and teacher educator: The antecedents of teacher educator identity among mentor teachers' Article in Teaching and Teacher Education, Volume 85, October 2019, Pages 281-291
This journal article, discusses the identities that Teacher Educators assume when they become mentors. Although a paid for journal, the article outlines how mentoring self-efficacy is a strong contributor to the development of teacher identity.
The effects of high-quality professional development on teachers and students
This report from the Education Policy Institute (EPI) undertakes a detailed review of the evidence of the impact of teacher professional development. Ambition Institute have worked alongside the EPI and the report argues that high quality CPD has a significant impact on the learning outcomes of children and adults working with the Teacher Educator.
For Learning in Teacher Education - FLiTE website
Teacher Educator stories illustrate aspects of quality assuring mentoring practice, written by school-based teacher educators. FLiTE resources can be used for individual or collaborative professional development of teacher educators working in initial teacher education partnerships.
Download the resources here:
Teaching, Coaching and Mentoring Adult Learners: Lessons for professionalism and partnership
Heather Fehring and Susan Rodrigues (Routledge, 2017)
This accessible book collates the experiences and knowledge of Teacher Educators from across the world. The book focuses on adult learners specifically and how best to impact on their progress. Each chapter is ‘rounded off’ with a provocation to stimulate professional reflection. If you are looking for an accessible starting point, this book is for you.
Teachers as Learners
Ron Berger of EL Education describes how teachers need to be changing and learning with their students to foster development in their own practice.
What is professional development?
This video outlines a host of online resources that are available to Teacher Educators who would like to further their own development. If you want to choose the CPD you want to carry out and do this in your own time, then this video will be a great starting point.
Develop Programmes - Further Development
