Ruhi Tyson
NORENSE funding: 20.000 NOK in 2015
Background and motivation for the project
An aspect of teacher training that has remained in need of further development and understanding is the issue of how to provide an education for those aspects of the work of a teacher that are either craft-like or virtue- and wisdom-based, both of which require a predominantly practice-based training. As it involves issues related to practice one way of elaborating on this matter is through research into teacher training programs where it has received unusual consideration. Being practice-oriented this could take the form of more apprenticeship-like programs, programs with extensive role-playing of lessons and programs where there is an elaborated and systematic exchange between practicums of various forms and academic reflection coupled with these. The motivation for the project is to conduct a series of case-studies of institutions with unusual emphasis placed on these matters in order to analyze, compare and discuss different approaches to such practice-based teacher training.
Research question
The research question can be formulated as: what are some of the current curricula for practice-based teacher training, how do they compare with each other and how can they contribute to a deeper and more differentiated understanding of the practical aspects of teacher knowledge.
Sources, methods and theoretical perspectives
The sources of the research project will be a group of, at the most five, teacher training institutions that have paid unusual attention to the development of teacher’s practical knowledge forms. Methodologically the documentation will be of intended curricula and practices of enacted curricula. This implies a combination of textual studies, interviews and observations in order to construct the individual cases for comparison. The theoretical perspective forming the background to the study is situated within practical philosophy as it has developed over the past 30 years, particularly Heron & Reason’s (1997) participatory inquiry perspective as well as Aristotle’s analysis of practical knowledge as part techne (making), part phronesis (practical wisdom or prudence). The Aristotelian perspective together with Schön’s (1983, 1987) views on reflective practice serve as analytical lenses through which to structure, compare and discuss the cases. This theoretical context has been developed in my recent licentiate thesis (Tyson 2015) as well as in a forthcoming article for the journal Vocations and learning (Tyson forthcoming) of which there is an early version in the thesis. References:
Heron, J. & Reason, P. (1997). A participatory inquiry paradigm, Qualitative Inquiry 3(3) 274-295.
Schön, D. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Schön, D. (2003). The reflective practitioner, how professionals think in action. London: Ashgate. Tyson, R. (2015). Vocational Bildung in action. Stockholm University.
Tyson, R. (forthcoming). Educating for vocational excellence, in Vocations and learning.
Publication
Tyson, Ruhi. (2016). What would Humboldt say: A case of general bildung in vocational education? International Journal for Research in Vocational Education and Training (IJRVET), 3(3), 230-249. Link to pdf.