Welcome to the CATE webblog!As a beginning discussion we welcome your thoughts and questions about one of the first Principles of Teacher Education as outlined in the Deans' Accord:
An effective teacher education program demonstrates the transformative power of learning for individuals and communities.
How is your University program addressing this goal? What are some of the challenges of working towards this goal? What are the long term potentials of framing Canadian teacher education programs using this principle?
These and many more questions we will be addressing at the CATE 2007 pre-conference.
These and many more questions we will be addressing at the CATE 2007 pre-conference.
We welcome your participation.
3 comments:
As we are approaching the CSSE conference and the opportunity to meet as colleagues engaged in teacher education discussions, consider how we can draw our common interests to articulate a coherant voice on teacher education in Canada. The idea of "transformative power of learning" has to be a concept we apply to ourselves as students of teaching, our students (graduate and undergraduate) as we support them on their commitment to education and ultimately to the students in schools who are learning "to take responsiblity for a world they did not create" (Britzman, 2006).
How can we help each other create the type of dialogue on teacher education that we strengthen our joint resolve to enable us to take on social justice and global responsibilty for a world we are creating?
The challenge of this principle is a familiar one--the words sound wonderful, but if the experiences of those we teach don't match it, it rings hollow and empty. I've come to believe that the only meaningful way I can demonstrate the transformative power of learning is by creating such experiences in my pre-service classes. One of our challenges is that research takes on more and more importance in Faculties of Education. Ours could be one of the most powerful places to join teaching and research, but much research by teacher educators often seems to be independent of their teaching. This principle seems to have rich potential if we can enact it in our teacher education classrooms.
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