chat+240511+teacher+training


 * 24th May 2011 - How could the training of teachers be changed?**

Below you will see the outcome of the Twtpoll for the weekly #addcym Twitter discussion. As you will see the topic for debate was “How could the training of teachers be changed?” with a landslide 72% of the vote. No need for AV there!

How will the education landscape look in 20 years time? [ 5% (2 votes) ]

Which countries have the 'best' education systems? Why are they the best? [ 10% (4 votes) ]

Why did you become a teacher? [ 8% (3 votes) ]

What is it that helps you get up on a dark and freezing February morning? [ 5% (2 votes) ]

How could the training of teachers be changed? [ 72% (28 votes) ]

There were 330 tweets in this week’s chat with between 20 and 30 contributors.

Initially there was some focus on the ICT training within Initial Teacher Training & Education [ITTE], not unexpected given the fact that the cat was using a Web 2.0 tool - Twitter. There was a suggestion that ‘trainees’ should sign up to twitter and get a Personal Learning Network of their own.

‘Trainee’ was not regarded as the best term so I will use ‘associate’ in this summary from now on!

Suggestions were made about having a longer course - for PGCE I assume as BEd can be three or four years - as is the case in some other countries. Concern was expressed here about the cost implications given the rises in tuition fees etc..

A healthy debate ensued about getting the balance right between practical ‘learning’ as a teacher i.e. time in schools and theoretical ‘learning’ at college/university. Clearly there needs to be a balance here.

One suggestion was that all ‘associates’ should follow or spend time with an excellent teacher. No definition of an excellent teacher was put forward although there are plenty of these on twitter. To some extent one could say that following an excellent teacher in any subject area could be very beneficial as it would be about understanding the pedagogy i.e. how the learners get to learn rather than what they are learning - the subject preoccupation.

Later on it was suggested that the selection of mentors in schools needed to be better as in school experiences did not have the same consistency as the college/university based input. It was suggested that being asked to be a mentor should be regarded as an ‘honour’.

This was a very interesting debate as they often are. It was great to have a real PGCE associate along @simonjperry - thanks for the input. Equally there was some involvement from colleagues across the educational sectors in Wales and I think this is something that we should encourage more of.

Here are a few tweets that really resonated with me:

@bevevans22 tweeted - addcym more focus on practical skills &experience balanced by good grounding in pedagogy. + make joining twitter compulsory...

@ anhalf tweeted - plenty of time to observe,teach,learn,peer mentor,range of experiences,excellent support and more defined career guidance #addcym anhalt

@ sh1916 tweeted - @addcym #addcym A change might be a strict control on the experienced teachers invited to mentor new teachers. Should be regarded as honour!