Teachers and Teaching in Teacher Education: Editorial

1. Introduction

A decade has passed since Goodwin and colleagues asked who teacher educators are and what they need to know and be able to do [1]. During that time, multiple answers were provided concerning teacher educators’ roles such as second-order teachers, researchers, curriculum developers, and coaches [2]. The answers continue to multiply and change in response to global policies and local contexts [3]. This Special Issue makes it possible to see how teacher educators adapt traditional roles to address contemporary challenges.

2. Content of the Special Issue

This Special Issue of Education Sciences has fourteen papers that can be divided into four different roles that teacher educators have: 1. supporting processes of professional identity formation among beginning as well as experienced teachers; 2. providing opportunities for professional learning to student and cooperating teachers; 3. curricula building; and 4. inquiry-based professional learning and development.

2.1. Supporting Teachers’ Identity Formation

The authors in this section conceptualize teachers’ identity formation as a process that takes place throughout teachers’ careers and believe that supporting teachers’ professional identity is one of the roles that teacher educators have. The contributors to this section are as follows:

• Abramson, L.L.; Schachter, E.P. Beginning Teachers Navigating Identity Development Transitions: Identity Motives and Commitment to Teaching. Educ. Sci. 2024, 14, 1170. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14111170
• Avgitidou, S.; Kampeza, M.; Karadimitriou, K.; Sidiropoulou, C. Pre-Service Teachers’ Beliefs about Children’s Participation and Possibilities for Their Transformation during Initial Teacher Education. Educ. Sci. 2024, 14, 236. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14030236
• Schur, Y.; Guberman, A. Conceptual Change of ‘Teaching’ among Experienced Teachers after Studying Attentive Teaching. Educ. Sci. 2024, 14, 231. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14030231
• Jefferson, S.; Gray, C.; Lowe, G. Comfort in the Role: The Core of Positive Veteran Teachers. Educ. Sci. 2024, 14, 998. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14090998

The first two papers (1 and 2) deal with beginning teachers, whereas the following two (3 and 4) focus on teachers with long years of professional experience.

Abramson and Schachter (contribution 1) found that beginning teachers interpret their field experiences in alignment with their identity motives and that the salience of the motives depends on individual as well as contextual factors. Teacher educators are, therefore, called to pay attention to students’ deliberations and reflections concerning their field experience, since they can manifest unresolved identity issues, and adapt the support they provide to their students accordingly.

Avgitidou and colleagues (contribution 2) focused on early childhood student teachers and a particular area of their professional identity—their beliefs concerning children’s participation in educational decisions. The authors described how teacher educators’ intervention changed student teachers’ goals from achieving specific learning outcomes to the promotion of children’s democratic and active participation in their own education.

Changing entrenched, teacher-centered educational beliefs was also the focus of the next paper, authored by Schur and Guberman (contribution 3). It showed how a professional development program facilitated by a teacher educator resulted in a conceptual change in teachers’ role, from a teacher-centered transmissive view into a student-centered dialogical approach. This change involved teachers’ positive feelings of rediscovering the interest and enjoyment in teaching and in their relationships with the students.

The last paper in this section, authored by Jefferson and colleagues (contribution 4) claimed that self-efficacy, good relations with students and colleagues, and reliance upon technology to deal with bureaucratic requirements help experienced teachers feel comfort in their role and maintain their enthusiasm for and commitment to teaching. The authors concluded that these identity-supporting strategies can be explicitly taught to beginning teachers.

2.2. Providing Opportunities for Professional Learning to Student and Cooperating Teachers

The “third space” in teacher education is a learning environment where higher education-based teacher educators, collaborating teachers, and student teachers collaborate in co-constructing knowledge about teaching. The third space provides opportunities to reflect upon the practice and analyze it with respect to relevant theories, thus closing the gap between theory and practice [4]. The second section of this Special Issue includes four papers that deal with the third space and its affordances:

5.

Westbroek, H.; de Vries, B.; Kaal, A.; McDonnell, M. Bridging Theory and Practice: Using Goal Systems to Spark Professional Dialogue and Develop Personal Theories. Educ. Sci. 2024, 14, 458. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14050458

6.

Batista, P.; Graça, A.; Moura, A.; Ribeiro-Silva, E.; Estriga, L. Building Bridges in Teacher Education to Enhance Teachers for Students’ Diversity in Physical Education. Educ. Sci. 2024, 14, 1045. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14101045

7.

Raberger, J.; Gkaravelas, K.; Froehlich, D.E. Empowering Educators: The Impact of Reverse Mentoring on Developing Scientific Mindset and Research Skills. Educ. Sci. 2024, 14, 993. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14090993

8.

Baker, K.M.; Stickney, K.W.; Sachs, D.D. STEM Cooperating Teachers’ Professional Growth: The Positive Impacts of a Year-Long Clinical Residency Collaboration. Educ. Sci. 2024, 14, 899. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14080899

Westbroek and colleagues (contribution 5) described a representation tool through which student teachers’ understanding of the goal–means relationships in their practice can be increased, as well as their reliance upon theoretical notions, while reflecting on practice. They believed this tool can contribute to the development of a shared language among higher education- and school-based teacher educators, thus improving pre-service teacher education.

The next two papers explored both student and cooperating teachers’ learning. Batista and colleagues (contribution 6) utilized participatory action research to promote inclusion among student and cooperating teachers in physical education. Raberger and colleagues (contribution 7) used reverse mentoring projects in which beginning teachers mentored cooperating teachers to enhance mutual learning. Interestingly, both studies found stronger effects on cooperating rather than on student teachers.

Finally, Baker and colleagues (contribution 8) studied the effects of supervising student teachers on STEM cooperating teachers. They found that cooperating teachers learned new teaching strategies and became more reflective after supervising student teachers. Their communication skills improved, and they became more interested in becoming teacher leaders.

2.3. Curricula Building

The third section of this Special Issue is devoted to teacher educators’ curricula building role. It includes two papers that both address timely issues that require professionals’ attention:

9.

Cabral, S.; Mata, L.; Peixoto, F. Preparing Pre-Service Teachers for Family Engagement: Insights from the Initial Teacher Education Syllabus. Educ. Sci. 2024, 14, 674. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14060674

10.

Fisher, Y.; Shatz-Oppenheimer, O.; Arviv Elyashiv, R. The Effect of COVID-19 on a Short-Term Teacher-Education Program: The Israeli Case. Educ. Sci. 2024, 14, 958. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14090958

Cabral and colleagues (contribution 9) analyzed teacher education syllabi and found that too few addresses family involvement and participation in education. Considering the importance of school–family collaboration for students’ socio-emotional and cognitive development [5], this oversight needs to be rectified.

Fisher and colleagues (contribution 10) examined an alternative online short-term teacher certification program from the coordinators’ perspectives. The program was devised during the COVID-19 pandemic, but due to the global teacher shortage and the need to recruit teachers fast, this study may have wide implications. The authors (re-)emphasize that high-quality teacher education preparation relies on candidate teachers’ academic quality and motivation to teach, teacher educators’ qualifications, and supervised “hands-on” field experience.

2.4. Teacher Educators’ Professional Learning and Development

During the last three decades, the interest in higher education-based teacher educators’ professionalism increased, as it became clear that the quality of teacher educators’ work affects teachers’ quality and, ultimately, the quality of education that school students receive [6]. The four papers of the fourth and concluding section of this Special Issue address teacher educators’ professionalism:

11.

Dittrich, A.-K.; Eloff, I.; Boon, W.; Weinberg, L.; Rabani Nia, M.; Mathabathe, K.C.; Agostini, E. Assessing the Professionalism of Teacher Educators in Relation to Sustainability: Developing the Teacher Education and Sustainability Scale (TESS). Educ. Sci. 2024, 14, 1000. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14091000

12.

Avgitidou, S.; Karadimitriou, K.; Ampartzaki, M.; Sidiropoulou, C.; Kampeza, M. University Teaching as a Site for Professional Learning of Teacher Educators: The Role of Collaborative Inquiry and Reflection within a Professional Learning Community. Educ. Sci. 2024, 14, 207. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14020207

13.

Aharonian, N.; Schatz Oppenheimer, O. ‘If You Do Not Write, You Dry Up’: Tensions in Teacher Educator Research and Academic Writing. Educ. Sci. 2024, 14, 972. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14090972

14.

Castro Superfine, A.; Olanoff, D.; Welder, R.M.; Prasad, P.V. A Review of Research on Mathematics Teacher Educator Knowledge: Mapping the Terrain. Educ. Sci. 2024, 14, 810. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14080810

Dittrich and colleagues (contribution 11) developed a questionnaire to assess teacher educators’ knowledge, attitudes, and actions in relation to sustainability. This questionnaire, which was developed with AI assistance and tested in Australia and South Africa, is a first step towards mapping teacher educators’ professional learning needs and devising study programs in this area.

The next two papers deal with teacher educators’ inquiry-based professional learning. Avgitidou and colleagues (contribution 12) explored the positive impact of collaborative inquiry and reflection in a teacher educators’ professional learning community on their professional knowledge construction and practices. In contrast, Aharonian and Schatz Oppenheimer (contribution 13) found that the heavy workload characteristic of teacher education colleges interferes with research and academic writing and that the advancement of teacher education institutions may come at the price of attaining teacher educators’ individual goals. Finally, Castro Superfine and colleagues (contribution 14) conducted an extensive literature review of the nature of math teacher educators’ knowledge.

3. Conclusions

The studies in this Special Issue portray teacher educators’ “researcherly dispositions” [7], i.e., how they engage with research, apply findings to their practice, and participate in producing knowledge through research. They highlighted the importance of teacher educators and students of teaching being both research-literate as users and as consumers of research in an increasingly research-based teacher education context, as argued by Smith [8]. The articles specifically showed how teacher educators intertwine research into the following four areas: supporting teachers’ professional identities, building a “third space” for student and experienced teachers’ learning, building curricula to address contemporary needs, and improving their own practice. The authors implicitly viewed research and teaching as complementary pursuits, with teacher educators committed to improving both for the benefit of their students and society, rather than merely meeting externally enforced standards [9,10].

However, similar to other findings [11,12], the scale of all of the studies in this Special Issue is small, as they were all performed by small teams of teacher educators, with no evidence of institutional support in choosing research foci, forming research teams or implementing findings at the institutional level. The involvement of teacher education institutions’ leadership in promoting evidence-informed practices is notably missing. Nevertheless, by systematically connecting these small-scale studies, a more comprehensive understanding of how teacher educators can integrate research into their practice and develop research-based teacher education may be achieved [13]. Ultimately, this Special Issue contributes to this endeavor in the field of teacher education.