The challenge for teacher education is to provide the best education for the best teachers.
Schools and teacher education institutes have built partnerships with joint responsibility in educating future teachers for primary, secondary and vocational education. School-based teacher education is organized around learning to teach in authentic situations. Guidance and ‘work-based education’ are necessary to support and stimulate students’ teachers learning and to connect theory with practice and the other way around. Workplace learning enables student teachers to experience being part of the school community as ‘colleagues’ and to participate in all teaching and teacher related activities. Partnerships develop their own practices of school-based teacher education. The research group is interested in the diversity of these practices that are used: which ones are effective?
In order to stimulate young teachers to become comfortable and experienced in their jobs, it is important to stimulate ongoing professionalization: starting as a student, to be continued as a junior and experienced teacher. Just think of examples like teachers who become teacher educators themselves or are interested in research projects. We are interested in successful ways of continued professionalization, again: which ones are effective in keeping teachers motivated to do their jobs?
Last, but not least, the research group is interested in the lessons the teacher education institutes can learn from successful school-based teacher education. In what way can the curriculum of the teacher education institute take profit?