“You will become a teacher ...” YEAH

45

"You will become a teacher..." is a strategical research program addressing teacher students` professional learning at the University of South-Eastern Norway (USN). The overall purpose is to improve teacher education by developing new knowledge about teacher educators` teaching, that is, to teach about teaching.  

The program has a research-based, professional and interdisciplinary perspective on teacher education. The research includes teacher students, practice teachers in schools, teacher educators, leaders at selected partner schools and researchers.

The researchers explore the following topics:

  • Methodological perspectives, concepts and analytical tools on how to research pedagogical interaction.
  • Teacher educators` experiences and students actual learning from teaching, mentoring and workshops.
  • The educational relationship between teacher educators’ teaching and students` learning in teacher education.
  • Teacher educators’ activities; planning, performing, evaluation, implementation and development in teacher education
  • Coherence and tensions between pedagogical theory, didactics and professional practice in relation to curriculum and policy document in teacher education.

"You will become a teacher..." consists of three coordinated projects that, in various ways, contribute to explore, describe and document teaching and learning:

1. Professional practice - Embodied perspective on teaching and learning

We develop a research field that explores the significance of bodies and emotions in learning, teaching and research in teacher education. The project builds on embodied perspectives on learning and teaching and develops a professional language for embodied experiences in pedagogical interactions. The research interest is based on an understanding that learning, teaching and research happens from and between bodies – through movements and affects. We follow teacher educators and their students through reflection notes before and after teaching and practicum, interviews and video observation.

2. Professional mentoring - Collaboration and coherence in teacher education

We explore professional mentoring as a strategy for learning in teacher education and for newly qualified teachers' encounter with everyday life in school. The project works with the development of partnerships, professional communities and uses research circles in data production and analysis. The research circles are led by active researchers who bring participants from different contexts together to analyse data from teacher education and the professional field.

3. Professional workshop - Dramaturgical perspectives on teacher educators` teaching

The professional workshop is a physical arena in teacher education, where students practice the role of being a teacher and explore specific topics, relevant for the profession, and learn about how to compose teaching. We explore qualities in teaching with a professional workshop as teaching and research arena. The arena is well suited for data collection and analysis of specific teaching practices. We use and develop dramaturgical methodology to investigate teaching in general and teaching about teaching.