Reconsidering Teachers’ Roles (XI). Teresa Guash & Guillermo Bautista: Training new teachers for Secondary Education: trying out changes and improvements

Notes from the UOC UNESCO Chair in e-Learning VIII International Seminar: Teacher Training: Reconsidering Teachers’ Roles, held in Barcelona, Spain, on October 6-7, 2011. More notes on this event: eLChair11.

Teresa Guasch, Associate Professor, Psychology and Educational Sciences Department, UOC, Spain
Guillermo Bautista, Director of the Master Degree in Teacher Training – Secondary Education, Language Teaching and Vocational Training, UOC, Spain
Training new teachers for Secondary Education: trying out changes and improvements

How is teacher training understood in Spain, how should it evolve or what will be the new approach like, and what would be the main challenges for this evolution to take place.

Traditionally, teachers’ training in Spain was a compulsory short training course, focused in what to teach instead on how to teach. And it was a poorly legitimated course, mainly conceived as a formality.

So, there has been a long discussion around the topic and it was not until 2010 that a legal change was made: now, teacher training consists in a 60 EC master programme, with a common structure for all disciplines and students, and a specific part depending on each one’s original discipline. The common part is made up by several subjects related to learning and personality development; principles and models of educational intervention; society, family and education; and processes and contexts of education; curriculum counselling, educationa intervention for an inclusive education, innovation and research. A third module consists on a supervised practicum + supervised internship. At last, a master thesis is required.

Unlike the previous system, there is now a focus on the pedagogical and social aptitudes of the soon-to-be teacher.

The actual reflection now is about:

  • Both in action and about action.
  • Teachers’ collaboration.
  • Have a global approach.
  • How ICTs can be embedded into teachers’ development process.
  • Ways of introducing an innovative teaching practice. Which most times means preaching by the example.

Main challenges:

  • The design and structure of this programme is not enough flexible to contribute to the development of professional knowledge (different from academic knowledge).
  • To develop a closer relationship between “teacher educator” and teaching practices.
  • To contribute to the integration of ICT uses into everyday teaching-learning.

Discussion

Julià Minguillón: is there any community of practice for this course where people can share their knowledge and experiences? Guasch: That is certainly a very important observation, and this is definitely one of the next steps forward.

Edem Adubra: is this programme official / is there any authority that gives credit for this programme? Guasch: the general design for the programme comes from the Spanish Ministry of Education, so it is official and it is assessed itself. Afterwards, UOC provides its own approach, and it is this approach that can be changed, and being evolved.

Q: how are the schools that offer places for practices and internships chosen? Guasch: schools are part of the Spanish educational system and so it is quite easy to offer places, get in touch with the schools, work with them and coordinate the internships, etc. Indeed, collaboration with schools is very interesting to be able to reflect not only about internships, but about how the new student-teachers implement what they learnt and how the training programme provides answers and tools for them to be able to become real teachers.

More information

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UOC UNESCO Chair in Elearning VIII International Seminar: Teacher Training: Reconsidering Teachers' Roles (2011)

If you need to cite this article in a formal way (i.e. for bibliographical purposes) I dare suggest:

Peña-López, I. (2011) “Reconsidering Teachers’ Roles (XI). Teresa Guash & Guillermo Bautista: Training new teachers for Secondary Education: trying out changes and improvements” In ICTlogy, #97, October 2011. Barcelona: ICTlogy.
Retrieved month dd, yyyy from https://ictlogy.net/review/?p=3832

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