Section archive - Theories & Approaches

The present study examines 46 teacher-developers’ motivational experiences, like sources of enthusiasm and interest. It also examined their challenges and organisational support needed in the process of educational innovation, namely integration of RDI and education.

The authors examined initial licensure polices in special education to determine how these policies support or hinder reform efforts to develop teacher education programs that prepare graduates for the increasingly complex needs of diverse students. Initial special education licensure policies are described with an emphasis on the differences across states on two key options: whether licensure for special education teachers is a stand-alone initial license or whether the state requires a general education license prior to obtaining a second license in special education.

The purpose of this study was to examine how opportunities to learn to teach writing in preservice preparation mediated candidates’ appropriation of tools for teaching writing. In this study, the author compared between tools and processes across two university preparation programs in United States. The author found that while the candidates in the Madrona program demonstrated a fairly sophisticated appropriation of writing workshop tools, the Altavista candidates appropriated a wide array of tools at a surface level. This permeable setting in Madrona program supported candidates to develop habits of thinking about pedagogical tools, habits that facilitated uptake of integrated instructional frameworks. However, methods activity in Altavista program focused almost exclusively on the tools and tasks presented in that setting.

This article reviews the impact of an educational reform in Namibia in the early 1990s called the Integrated Teacher Training Programme (ITTP), which was an outcome of collaboration between the South West African People’s Organisation (SWAPO), the liberation movement and teacher educators from Sweden and other Western countries. Research questions posed concerned: (1) the ITTP’s perceived impact on the participants’ private and professional lives; and (2) the ITTP’s impact on the participants’ views on knowledge and education in relation to democracy. This follow-up study indicates that the ITTP was crucial for the participants’ professional careers and private lives. The majority saw education as a key to democracy and social transformation, and considered themselves as important actors at local, regional and national levels in forwarding these aims.