In order that teacher education programs can act as significant scaffolds in supporting new teachers to become informed, creative and innovative members of a highly complex and valuable profession, we need to re-imagine ways in which teacher education programs operate. We need to re-imagine how courses are conceptualized and connected, how learning is shared and how knowledge, not just “professional”, but embedded knowledge in authentic contexts of teaching and learning is understood, shaped and re-applied. Drawing on our study of a locally developed program in secondary teacher education called Transformative University of Victoria (TRUVIC), we offer a relational approach to knowing as an alternative to more mechanistic explanations that limit teacher growth and development. To ground our interpretation, we draw on complexity theory as a theory of change and emergence that supports learning as distributed, relational, adaptive and emerging.
The world, influenced by 21st century technologies and ecological challenges, has rapidly changed with more ability to “connect” locally and globally and more opportunities to learn from a range of sources. As a result, our learners and their needs have changed. With such rapid changes, conceptions of educational leadership need to reflect these changes utilizing the complexities of the role in society. As a group of educators who work in a School District, Ministry of Education and University teacher education programs, we ask how educational leaders in school districts and teacher education programs can design spaces that engage everyone, recognize everyone’s expertise and share responsibility for growth and development, and how in teacher education we can begin to move away from the hierarchical, industrialized model of management to one where everyone feels engaged, valued, and heard. In this paper, we draw on sustainable and distributed leadership ideas, termed by Wheatley (2010) as the “new sciences,” informed by tenets from complexity theory. Using a case study approach and narrative insights, this paper elucidates how an ongoing Professional Learning Network (PLN) called Link-to-Practice (L2P) offers an alternative conception of educational leadership. Keywords: case study; narrative, qualitative research, complexity theory
Professional programs in postsecondary education have long been using electronic portfolios (ePs) for diverse purposes, for example, assessment, certification, showcasing, and learning. However, in our practices of using ePs in teacher education for the past several years, we have found that the question of “what is an eP?” requires substantial unpacking. This paper will offer insights on our evolving understanding on ePs in teacher education based on three interacting areas: (a) rich media reframing how we understand professional learning in a digitally linked world; (b) literature from the last 10 years in the use of ePs; and (c) insights from instructors and students using an eP process in one term of a teacher education program. We conclude with a re-visioning of learning in teacher education in relation to the emerging practices enabled by an eP process.Les programmes professionnels d’éducation supérieure utilisent depuis longtemps des portfolios numériques à des fins diverses, comme l’évaluation, la certification, la mise en valeur et l’apprentissage. Cependant, notre expérience des dernières années relative à l’utilisation des portfolios numériques dans la formation des enseignants révèle que la définition du portfolio numérique nécessite un examen approfondi. Le présent article offre un aperçu de notre conception, toujours en évolution, des portfolios numériques dans la formation des enseignants, basée sur trois domaines en interaction: (a) des contenus médiatiques riches qui restructurent la manière dont nous comprenons l’apprentissage professionnel dans un monde interconnecté par le numérique; (b) la littérature des dix dernières années sur l'utilisation des portfolios numériques; et (c) les perspectives d’instructeurs et d’étudiants ayant utilisé des portfolios numériques durant un trimestre d'un programme de formation des enseignants. En conclusion, nous réimaginons l'apprentissage dans la formation des enseignants en tenant compte des pratiques émergentes rendues possibles par les portfolios numériques.
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