TIGHT BUT LOOSE REGULATION OF TEACHER EDUCATION:
EXPLORING THE NEW INITIAL TEACHER EDUCATION
Forum Highlights
The Forum registration included 38 attendees from 11 Initial Teacher Education Providers.
Opening speaker Graeme Aitken, emeritus professor from University of Auckland, discussed his insider view on the assessment framework and requirements that he and colleague, Claire Sinnema, developed for the Teaching Council’s new program approval requirements, providing some insight into its origins, intentions, and translation by the Teaching Council.
A panel comprising Don Klinger, Pro Vice-Chancellor of the Division of Education at University of Waikato; Cheryl McConnell, Lecture in Early Childhood Education at Eastern Institute of Technology; and Misty Sato, Head of the School of Teacher Education at the University of Canterbury provided some perspectives on assessment in and for pre-service teacher education from sector perspectives, partnership perspectives, international perspectives, and through the lens of other professions.
Sector breakout groups discussed how the new assessment expectations will impact their programme design, partnerships with schools, and research priorities. Notes from these sector groups as follows:
EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
- Discussed the 15-20 skills that we (in programmes) are looking for and that we will stand behind our graduates by
- Not tasks (discrete, fixed etc.) but skills.
- Skills – internal measures within own contexts focussed on learning
- Making meaning to push forward rather than seeking to uncover and save essential fixed truth/meaning.
- Evolutionary responses fits with tight/loose formulate and situated
- TEFANZ research (Delphi strategy about KTTs? KTS?)
PRIMARY
- KTT KEY IDEAS: Big
difference between skills and tasks
- We need to define how/why what we call them
- Build over programme as context changes (prac-prac)
- Needs to include not only the thing you do but also the why you do it/made those choices
- Would be highly problematic if different directions
across the nation
- Example: a lawyer is a lawyer with expectations of what they can do
- A work in progress
- TEFANZ needs to do this Delphi for all to work with/on as needed
- CIA is an opportunity to the tie those threads together, not just stand and present e-portfolio
- In those 1-year programmes, there is the issue of developing conformity
- Many can’t always ask our partners for any more, already time/workload issues
- Sustainability is an issue for them/is
- Partnerships discussion
- We already have
partnerships
- Consultation
- Input into standards
- Course development
- Opportunities are already there regarding current assessments
- How do our assessments we already have map to the standards (KTT’s and CIA)?
- Opportunity for renewal and rethinking, constantly striving for improvement
- Resourcing and time
SECONDARY
- Current assessments may map onto framework moving staff closer to representing standards in their own practice
- KTTs – some aspects within campus-based
learning?
- 15 – 20 representative skills that we are looking for
- Exciting in terms of international connections
with practice
- What’s important being the focus
- Shared understandings and agreement over
aspects such as KTTs
- KTTs as an internal measure
- Context should be at the forefront
- Concerned about relationship between research and KTT
- Recognising that if there is an uneven playing field – context again!
- Chairs will need to be skilled at enabling conversations
- Institutions should be encouraged to push back
- Excited to be able to demonstrate our values, ideas and vision in our context
- Quality of approval panel is critical
- Excited about the opportunity to be innovative and to negotiate with TCANZ to suit our context
- Panel understanding of context is really important
- To do it
properly, resourcing needs to be considered
- Institution
- Sector partners
- Time/resources/space
The Forum closed with the Annual General Meeting of TEFANZ, chaired by TEFANZ Chair Alex Gunn, University of Otago.
