Section archive - Trends in Teacher Education

This study used Engeström's Cultural- Historical Activity Theory (1987) to examine how portfolio tools, along with external influences and institutional contexts, mediate the experiences of preservice teachers creating program-required portfolios. The analysis revealed the networked nature of portfolio authorship and tensions arising from the network of activity.

This article investigates teacher training by the alternation of classroom work and work analysis. The links between these two professional situations have been identified and analyzed from the perspective of a social conception of meaning and action. This approach allows the development of professional activity in preservice teachers (PTs) to be assessed by tracking how the reflective tools acquired in training evolve in work and/or work analysis situations. The concepts of 'meaning' and 'expectation' are helpful in discussing the empirical data from a research program designed to evaluate the potential for PTs' professional development offered by the alternating work/analysis programs of French University Institutes of Teacher Training.

The paper focuses on the theoretical frame of action research and the teacher as researcher, working through a Norwegian Research Council-funded project in a school that explored learning strategies for pupils' subject and social development. The paper describes the possibilities and challenges for both teachers and researchers cooperating in R&D projects. The paper discusses whether teachers become researchers, or whether they only develop in their role as teachers.

Prospective teachers' shifts of pedagogical beliefs over time were examined in this study. There were significant differences found between beliefs reported at the onset of a teacher education program when compared to beliefs reported at graduation and after one year of employment.