The current study is a collective self-study on how we as 15 teacher educators at a university in Norway tried to improve our teaching through working with cases with the aim of better supporting student teachers in making links between theory and practice. We wanted to address the common criticism in teacher education concerning a perceived gap between practice and theory.Our presupposition was that one way to prepare student teachers for work and bring together theoretical and practical knowledge would be through case-based teaching. We agreed that we wanted to try different ways of working with cases and to follow our own actions with research and conduct a self-study. Throughout the project, each teacher educator experienced to learn about case-based teaching, but our joint learning was limited due to practical issues and lack of time. With teacher education as a shared responsibility, our conclusion is that teacher educators need time to develop as a team, not only as individual teachers.

An integrated part of teaching is to face unexpected situations. Teachers have to make immediate decisions, and these decisions may have a great impact on many people. An important question is how teacher education can prepare students for unexpected situations. The aim of this practitioner research study is to investigate if case-based teaching can contribute to reducing the perceived gap in teacher education. A step-wise model was introduced for the students and data based on the student teachers' experiences was collected through questionnaire and focus-group conversations. The findings show three main arguments for why teacher education should be case-based. First, analysing cases helps students to understand that every situation in practice is unique. Second, cases link to practice and theory, and finally, a case opens for different perspectives depending on how the diagnosis is made.

Denne artikkelen retter et kritisk blikk på lærebøker i spanskfaget, og stiller spørsmålet om de ivaretar læreplanens målsetninger om at fremmedspråksfaget skal være et dannings- og kulturfag. Vi skal se at spanskfagets historie og utfordringer skiller seg vesentlig fra de to andre store fremmedspråkene i skolen: tysk og fransk, og det er grunn til å tro at læreboken står spesielt sterkt i spanskfaget. Videre vil vi se at det hersker en forestilling om det spanske språket som turistspråk og et språk man forbinder med populærkultur, og at det er disse forestillingene som ofte ligger til grunn for elevenes valg av språket. Deretter presenteres en analysemodell utviklet for å analysere læreboktekster, og generelle funn fra en undersøkelse av ni lærebøker fra fire ulike læreverk i spansk som er i bruk i den norske skolen. På bakgrunn av denne undersøkelsen vil jeg hevde at lærebøkene bekrefter elevens allerede eksisterende forestillinger om faget. Lærebøkenes verdensbilde utfordrer dermed ikke elevens eget verdensbilde, noe jeg mener et danningsfag bør gjøre. Ved hjelp av et konkret eksempel synliggjøres det også hvilke aspekter ved språkopplæringen elevene står i fare for å gå glipp av når undervisningen blir styrt av læreboken. Avslutningsvis argumenterer jeg for behovet for forskning på hvordan bøkene brukes i praksis, og på lærernes egne forestillinger om spanskfaget.

This article examines the sociocultural shaping of teacher agency by focusing on how various conditions mediate teachers' perceived professional space. Agency is understood from a sociocultural perspective as the mediated capacity to act, which is achieved and exercised in a professional space, and, consequently, shaped by the perceptions of this space. Based on thematic and interpretative analysis of interviews with Norwegian L1 upper secondary teachers, the article identifies several conditions that mediate the teachers' perceived professional space: the exam, the curriculum, accountability demands, school leadership, colleagues, students, learning materials, and subject traditions and purposes. Two aspects of mediation are identified, what we respectively term extension and remodelling. Extension conveys how mediating conditions provide resources or constraints that contribute to expanding or narrowing the teachers' perceived professional space.Remodelling, however, conveys how mediating conditions qualitatively transform the perceived professional space. Findings highlight the subject as a resource for teachers, and teacher agency as socioculturally shaped by the perceived size and character of professional space.

The present study asks what challenges student teachers meet in today's school and how they present, respond to, and reflect on these challenges in an online discussion forum. The study explores these questions by analysing cases written by student teachers in their last practice placement in a one-year post-graduate teacher education programme for secondary school in Norway. The findings show that the cases centre around students and classroom management, and that student teachers take on a role as either participant or observer. The responses are a mix of advice, descriptions of similar experiences, and support. They tend to normalise the situations rather than explore them. Learning from challenging incidents does not happen by itself. Timing is crucial, and so is space for reframing, reflection, and for considering alternative perspectives. This means that there is a need for distance to the situation and a process of interaction with various perspectives.