How teacher education can provide quality learning

Recently, I got the chance to discuss and recap the report “Enhancement-Led Evaluation of Quality and Leadership of Teacher Education in Thailand (Hannele Niemi, 2014)”, which looked at how teacher education can make a positive change in education. 

The report came out of the “Teacher Educator Leader-ship” workshop last year that was led by Prof Dr Hannele Niemi of the University of Helsinki. The participants were a managerial group of professors from the Faculty of Teacher Education departments at Chulalongkorn, Silapakorn and Kasetsart universities.

Niemi pointed that there are common difficulties internationally in teacher education, which are as follows:

-Teacher education is isolated from the other educational systems. Teacher education faculties do not have a holistic picture of what happens in the whole educational system and they do not have a strategic macro-level vision of how they can contribute to the welfare of the nation;

-Teacher education is isolated in universities. Teacher education faculties do not have the capacity to do high quality research and they do not have strategic long-term plans on how to promote teacher educator educational research. Projects are very small, narrow and do not have cooperation within a university or partners outside the university like schools;

-Teacher educators do not have a change-oriented mind that would allow them to be more effective in promoting changes in the educational system. Teacher education institutions may have very little freedom or accountability to set long-term strategies for improving education in the nation; 

-Teacher education is isolated from schools and teachers. There can be formal relationships, such as internships or practice teaching, but it happens without a well-established and well-coordinated cooperation; 

-Teacher education is understood only as a pre-service time. Teacher education institutions do not cover new teachers’ induction or in-service training and they do not have a strategy on how to support teachers in their career-long development. 

The workshop aimed to promote enhancement-led evaluation in Thailand and encourage teacher educators to become education leaders. 

Niemi has done institutional evaluations that emphasise education faculties to self-evaluate and conduct communicative evaluations, which stress thinking and doing things with the explicit intention of creating shared frameworks of understanding. The interesting findings and recommendations for teacher education in Thailand are described as follows:

-A need to promote research in, on and for teacher education. Educators’ capacity to do systematic research should be discussed, including how it can be strengthened. Teacher education faculties need a strategic plan on how research can be integrated into teacher education.

On teacher education, she found there was a need to find quality and effectiveness measures focused on, for example, student teachers’ development, teacher educators’ role, tasks and development, and the mentoring of students teachers. 

For teacher education, she found there was a need to introduce new knowledge on how students learn different subjects in schools, how they are being taught, examine the motivational problems many students face and look at how different students could be supported.

-Long term strategies of teacher education for improving education in Thailand. 

How to view the whole educational system and educational needs in Thai society – that’s a task that should be discussed more in teacher education institutions. There should be national driving forces that push institutions to take high responsibility for the whole educational system.

-A Quality Assurance System for teacher education. This would consist of entrance criteria, pre-service education, induction into the teaching profession after graduation and systematic in-service training.

-Cooperation with local schoolteachers who supervise student teaching and more organised training for them. Cooperation between teacher education and local schools can consist of joint-action research, design-based projects or other research-oriented projects in which all partners are working together to improve teaching and learning in schools.

-Information and communication technology (ICT) integrated with teaching in university courses and in local schools. Student teachers should have plenty of experience in using new technology in their university studies as well as when teaching at local schools. They also should have a good understanding and plenty of experience in using ICT in a pedagogically relevant way.

-How to teach and learn reflective practice and pedagogical thinking? A way towards leadership in education. In teacher education student teachers should learn throughout their education how teachers can make a change in teaching and learning.

-Teachers’ future competence. When working methods change to become more learner centred and future working places require active knowledge inquiring and collaborative skills, there will be new requirements to be a competent teacher. They will need new management skills and adopt a different approach to supporting students to become active learners.

-More cooperation between different partners in teacher education is needed both within the departments and between departments and within in the university between faculties.

To complete these findings, teacher education institutions must enhance and promote high quality teacher education in national and local contexts and face changing environments in teaching and learning. 

Redesigning and rethinking teacher education is vital to improve the Thai education system. But all relevant parties must understand that while teacher education plays a crucial role in educational equality, there are many other factors involved. 

So, relevant authorities will need to look at the overall picture and the whole process of teacher production, recruitment, hiring and teachers’ career advancement. 

Training, for example, should be conducted regularly and with inspiration and motivation in place to ensure that teachers are ready to drive national education for the benefit of all. 

 

PRIYAKORNPUSAWIRO, DR. ING.

Learning scientist, Computer Engineering Department

King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi

[email protected]