Building Teacher Education - A Case Study

How can we best prepare students to become effective and successful teachers? Though a great deal has been written on this subject, nobody (of course) has the answer. Many attempts have been made - some with better results than others. Often, a good teacher will simply say that what he or she learned while in teacher training was soon forgotten, and that the best teacher was simply experience.

The Israeli experience can perhaps be very instructive. Over the past decade a major revisal of the entire system of teacher education has taken place in the country, first via the drawing up of conceptual guidelines, and for the past year and a half their implementation in the field. In an online presentation:

The New Frameworks for Teacher Education in Israel: Rationale, Conceptual Perspectives and Implementation

Professor Tamar Ariav will discuss the two stages of this new framework. Professor Ariav, the president of Beit Berl Academic College in Israel, and a lecturer and researcher in numerous educational fields, served as chairperson of the committee that developed the rationale of the new framework, as well as of the implementation committee. Her perspective on both of these aspects of the development "The New Framework" can be particularly instructive to all educators concerned with issues of teacher training.

The online session will take place on Wednesday, December 10, 2008, 19:00 - 20:30 GMT+2. In addition to the lecture, time will (of course) be devoted to questions and discussion.

Please note - participation in this session is open to paying participants and requires downloading and installing the Interwise online communication tool. More information on these, and registration, can be found at: http://mofetitec.macam.ac.il/calendar/Pages/TheNewFrameworks.aspx

Think Aloud?

Some people think that something must be wrong with them because they talk to themselves. But experienced teachers know that this is a way in which we make sense to ourselves. Sometimes we do this when we're alone - putting ideas into words helps us organize our thoughts. But it can be even more effective when we're in a group. This even has a name: think-aloud.

Think-aloud is a meta-cognitive strategy in which we think publicly about our thinking processes as teacher educators and examine them with our student teachers. Teacher educators use think-alouds to assist their student-teachers to understand how teaching and learning interact by overtly presenting aspects of their pedagogical decision making and putting these forward for discussion, analysis and criticism.

At our upcoming online session (Thursday, December 18, 2008, 20:00 - 21:30 GMT+2) we'll listen to a report of a study in the use of think-aloud conducted simultaneously by teacher educators in Israel, Australia, and Canada. We'll be meeting with the chief researchers:

Prof. Lea Kosminsky,
Kaye Academic College of Education Beer Sheva and The MOFET Institute, Israel
Prof. Tom Russell,
Queen’s University, Canada
Prof. Amanda Berry,
Monash University, Australia

This was a "self-study" in which the researchers examined their own use of think-alouds and the ways these contributed to the learning of their student-teachers. The researchers served as critical friends for each other, sharing protocols of think-aloud episodes and commenting on their insights concerning the use of the think-aloud approach.

The research on think-aloud with teacher training is still rather sparse, and we hope that this upcoming session with spark additional interesting in this promising tool.

Please note - participation in this session is open to paying participants and requires downloading and installing the Interwise online communication tool. More information on these, and registration, can be found at:
http://mofetitec.macam.ac.il/calendar/Pages/TheBoundariesofThink-Aloud.aspx

A bit about us

There are already numerous, perhaps countless, blogs that deal with technology in education. Some of these report on the personal experiences of teachers in the classroom, some deal with larger philosophical issues. Many are very interesting - though even from those that aren't, much can be learned.

But who needs yet another blog of this sort? That's a hard question to answer - but we'll try, though not in a statement of purpose here, but by dealing with issues that are hopefully of interest.

The Online Learning Environments Unit of the Mofet Institute is a group of educators who offer training and support to teacher educators who have chosen to implement online teaching in their courses. The Unit conducts online activities in the form of workshops, symposiums and seminars as well as publishes an online journal in the field of teacher education.

We'll be reporting on these activities (and inviting you to attend them) here. But we also hope to engage you in discussion around these issues.