A Case Study On The Design And Implementation Of Initial Teacher Education Curriculum In Britain

With the global economic competition growing fierce,all major powers in the world put teacher quality into policy agenda,and the trend of “new teacher education” is in formation.Teacher quality has been attached great importance in China since the end of last century,and teacher education reform has been on the rise in the recent decades.Teacher education reform is a complex project,which comprises the implementation of Qualified Teacher Status and the accreditation of teacher education institutions.However,the reform of teacher education curriculum is in the core of all the efforts,whose mission is to provide high-level teacher education and foster high-quality teachers to satisfy the demand for better education in China.As is put in the policy document by China Education Ministry,“improving teacher quality has been the most urgent and essential mission in the educational field”.Some normal universities have been trying on an alliance model of “university-government-schools” in teacher education,which emphasizes the role of teaching practice in teacher development.Therein arises a problem which involves innovations to traditional teacher curriculum and pedagogy to fit in with the new alliance model.How to build a curriculum and pedagogy which can integrate the university teaching and school practice is a great problem which concerns a good number of teacher educators and teacher education institutions.Britain has embarked on a teacher education reform movement since 1980 s,establishing a national administrative system in teacher education.What's more,it has transformed the initial teacher education curriculum in higher education institutions and established a HEI-shools partnership teacher education model.A study on the implementation of British initial teacher education curriculum is of great value in that it serves as a reference and provides insights into teacher curriculum and pedagogy reform for China as well as for the world.This study is to investigate four questions.First,what is the aim and purpose of the British initial teacher education curriculum? What are the underpinning theories of it? Second,How is the initial teacher education curriculum organized and implemented? To put it in another word,how are contents and pedagogical activities organized to develop teachers' competence? Third,What are the effects of the curriculum implementation? What are the influencing factors?Last,what lessons and insights does the curriculum implementation provide for Chinese teacher education reform?The researcher takes a case study on the implementation of Secondary English PGCE curriculum at the Institute of Education,UCL,(IOE,UCL)through classroom observations,interviews,questionaires and video observations and text analysis,while studying at the world-class insititute as an affiliate academic.The research gets lots of findings about the design and implementation of British initial teacher education,which will be of great reference value to our Chinese teacher education curriculum and pedagogy reform.Firstly,British PGCE curriculum is implemented across two different kinds of settings: the university and the partnership schools.The university's integrated curriculum design is the key to initial teacher education implementation.The prime aim and purpose of PGCE curriculum is to develop teaching competency and critical reflective thinking in future teachers.In order to achieve this aim,curriculum contents are organized in thematic units and pedagogical activities are organized in strands to attain the two objectives.The contents of the ITE curriculum include subject understanding and pedagogy,general pedagogical knowledge and methods to teaching,curriculum policy knowledge,knowledge of students and educational values,self-knowledge and identity.The pedagogical activities of the curriculum fall into three different levels: observing and experiencing activities,reflection on action and reflection on theory.To attain the objective of developing teaching competency,observing and experiencing activities and reflection on action are mainly organized.In achieving the objective of critical reflective thinking,reading and observing activities and autobiographical reflections and theoretical reflections are organized.During the investigation,the concept of “reflection” is enriched and redefined,which are used to refer to various forms of reflection,including reflection on action,reflection on theory and autobiographical reflection.Secondly,by investigating pedagogical activities across different kinds of settings,the implementation procedure of initial teacher education curriculum is discovered,which comprises collective subject studies(subject lecture),tutor group seminar(seminar and group work),teaching practice and individual reflection(tasks and assignments).Further analysis of the procedure discloses that the PGCE teacher education model is constructed on the theoretical foundation of situated learning in professional community,which is enlightened by epistemenological contextualism.The initial teacher education model centralizes future teachers as autonomous learners in professional practice,and tutors and mentors as proficient practitioners,skills demonstrators and coachers and guides to critical reflective thinking.The implementation of English PGCEcurriculum is a representation and instantiation of the university's expertise in subject teaching and professional education,while closely encompassing the Teachers' Standards and the National Curricum for secondary school.It is a negotiating compromise between university's professional education ideology and the national administrative system.Thirdly,the research investigates the effects of the implementation of PGCE curriculum at IOE,UCL and the influencing factors.According to the latest Ofsted's Initial Teacher Education inspection report,all PGCE courses at IOE,UCL are rated “outstanding”,which draws on evidence from trainees' outcomes,the quality of education and leadership and management quality.The research also incorporates a survey into PGCE students' evaluation of the teacher education curriculum.Most students rate the curriculum and pedagogy as “very satisfactory”,and they can confidently and successfully carry out classroom teaching,frequently reflecting on their teaching.Students believe that teaching practice is the most beneficial curriculum element and university subject tutors are the most significant promotors to teaching development,while school mentors' contributions vary with placement schools.The integration and coherence of curriculum and pedagogy between university'and placement schools is rated as “average”.Through questionaires and interviews,the research finds that the outflow and instability of school teachers in Greater London is an obstacle to building a constant and stable partnership between university and schools.The national inspection system in teacher education may sometimes play an interfering role in teacher development in their demands for evidence-based good teaching.The research also finds that the length and postgraduate programme of PGCE curriculum constitutes a constraint to full development and integration of teaching comepence and critical relective thinking,which demands lots of theoretical study and amounts of practice.In the end,the research provides some lessons and advice to our Chinese teacher education curriculum reform.First,Initial teacher education reform in normal universities should formulate curriculum aims and purpose on the ground of problems and difficulty in school education in China and design an outcome-driven curriculum and pedagogy.Second,cooperative work of teacher educators should be promoted to design and implement an integrated teacher education curriculum,which can tighten the “observing &experiencingpractice-reflection” procedure,achieving an accumulative pedagogical effect.Third,normal universities should enhance their academic research into elementary education,and innovate teacher education curriculum and pedagogical activities to improve school education quality.Last,normal universities should develop their own character in professional teacher education,providing various kinds of teacher education programmes to promote different expertise in teachers.