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Developing rapport with learners has presented challenges for Higher Education teaching practitioners since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and increasingly practice within synchronous/ asynchronous online learning environments. Podcasts are of renewed interest as a digital learning resource in this context. We explored, inductively, views of podcasts designed for teaching and learning purposes from students (n = 11) and practitioners (n = 5) in two disciplinary settings. Textual feedback on two sample podcasts per student were subjected to content analysis. Findings underscored podcasts value as digital learning resources to help nurture teacher-student relations. Podcasts may help establish teacher credibility, may help teachers feel more familiar/approachable to learners and may provide an outlet to communicate in a kind, informal tone to attenuate learning-related anxiety. We draw on findings from our small-scale exploratory study to present practical guidance for developing podcasts designed (in part) to cultivate teacher-student rapport.

The shutdown of universities and schools in England, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, came just as many pre-service students began their final practicum. This research focuses on the challenges this p...

This paper examines the cumulative effects on teacher educators of a series of ideological and policy changes in the English teacher education landscape since the early 80s. We argue that these rapid changes have marginalized the role of the university in teacher learning and resulted in narrower, more instrumental forms of teacher education. Within this landscape we see a distinct need to re-state (and reinstate) the importance of higher education-based teacher educators, and to reclaim and celebrate their practices and the nature of the professionalism involved. We invite the reader to rethink teacher educator professionalism as what is enacted by teacher educators, as engaged in their professional activities. A view of enacted professionalism gives central stage to and trusts the professional judgement of teacher educators to do what they deem is good, appropriate, or best – understood in a broad sense – to support the professional learning of newcomers in the profession.

Long-term learning with clear relevance to practice and the workplace is a valued goal for those who design professional development opportunities for teacher educators. Such opportunities may take many forms, occurring both in and away from the workplace and resulting in both short- and long-term learning. Some one-off events may be valuable in promoting learning of both types. One question in designing professional development is then: how might short-term learning away from the workplace become a meaningful part of longer-term learning in it? Drawing on qualitative data from a one-off learning event – the Summer Academy within the InFo-TED project – the research questions here are about the short- and long-term learning which occurred for the participating teacher educators during the Academy, and the structures which may have facilitated such learning. The chapter then looks at the wider implications of this small-scale study for designing professional learning opportunities with high relevance for practice. It concludes that teacher educators themselves must be the drivers of their own learning trajectories and the key change agents within their professional workplaces.

Within the context of the European Commission’s recent policy gaze on teacher education (European Commission, Improving teacher quality: The EU agenda – lifelong learning: policies and programme. Brussels, April 2010, EAC.B.2. D (2010) PSH, 2010; European Commission, Supporting teacher educators for better learning outcomes. European Commission, Brussels, 2013; European Commission, Strengthening teaching in Europe: new evidence from teachers compiled by Eurydice and CRELL, June 2015. Available from: http://ec.europa.eu/education/library/policy/teaching-profession-practices_en.pdf, 2015), this chapter contributes to an improved understanding of the hybrid, poly-contextualised identities of school-based teacher educators. At a time of systemic change in the education systems of many countries, teachers in schools are increasingly being asked to be responsible for the education and training of future teachers. Within the English backdrop of a rapidly changing landscape for teacher education, we present initial findings from a small-scale study exploring, through interview data, how the knowledge bases and identities of two groups of insiders, university and school-based teacher educators, were perceived by those hybrid teacher educators (Zeichner 2010) working in schools. Our findings reveal differences in school-based teacher educators’ views on their work and the work of university-based teacher educators, school-based teacher educators’ views on the role educational research has in the work they do and the ways in which different professional pathways (e.g. occupational/university; primary/secondary) influence views on what it means to be a teacher educator.

This article addresses key issues embedded within what some commentators are describing as a ‘virtual’ or ‘digital’ ethnography. Namely, that through the adoption of new (virtual) spaces for ethnographic inquiry it is possible to trouble previous notions of site, place, space and meaning when collaborating in online fields. This article is located within a growing international debate in the field of education concerning digital ethnographic methods. While addressing the issues of what is ‘virtual ethnography’ the article draws briefly upon research based on a period of online ‘field work’ which has lasted for 18 months, exploring the transitional habitual social practices of new teachers as they enter first-time full-time employment in the UK This inquiry positions both the researcher and participants as co-constructors of both the site of virtual interaction, and to a certain extent, as collective decision-makers as what contributes as field and field notes. The article will explore the emerging methodo...

This article addresses key issues in pre-service teachers’ professional learning. The argument explores pre-service teachers’ learning and practice, which is both informed by technology and which uses technologically enhanced practices in classrooms as learning and teaching strategies. The article is contextualized by current international debates regarding technicist and rational post-modern professional learning cultures, performativity and national standards. The article positions pre-service teachers as potential agents of change for schools.

This article explores the nature of the reflective learning undertaken by pre-service trainee teachers training to teach in the lifelong learning sector in the UK. The argument made is that reflecting on the student voice can support novice teacher’s boundary-crossing and legitimate peripheral participation (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Heggen, 2008). This article frames student voice practices as essential within teacher education pedagogy. As a counterpoint to post-Fordist and post-modern challenges to education in late capitalism, student voice practice is used to demonstrate to novice teachers the pedagogic and democratic value that ‘listening to learners’ brings. While recognising the highly contested nature of voice, value is held in both listening to trainee teachers and their anxieties and concerns and providing a reflective and reflexive context through which these can be expressed; and the value to be had for (new) teachers to listen to their own learners. Student voice practice is held to have significance for teachers’ iterative identity (Giddens, 1991), and is seen to provide pedagogic opportunities for the framing of relational agency (Edwards, 2005).

This article explores the usefulness of podcasts as a pedagogic tool.1 It situates the adoption of podcasts for learning and teaching within the context of a brief history of e-Learning itself and briefly reviews the suggestion that e-Learning and social media suit the construction of a new learner – the digital native. While treating much of the ‘digital native’ debate with some caution, the argument is made that podcasting – as one pedagogic choice among many – is a fruitful avenue for practitioner exploration. It goes on to develop both an ideal-type of podcasting and some suggestions for a ‘podagogy’ ( Rosell-Aguilar, 2007 ). The article argues that podcasting is a simple, cheap, accessible and powerful means to explore learning opportunities through the adoption of social media.2 At the same time, podcasting represents a useful starting point for institutions, senior managers and e-leaders to develop e-cultures among teaching practitioners, within a context of leadership for creativity.

This special issue locates teachers’ professional learning within an ‘emerging’ or ‘new’ technologies framework. We define such technologies as including digital, Web2.0, social media, mobile and i...

Practice-based education (PBE) is a pedagogy of professional learning which privileges the importance of learning through reflection in practice, contextualised and situated within professional craft knowledge, tacit legitimation claims and theoretically informed practice. It is “an approach to education that is grounded in the preparation of graduates for occupational practice” (Higgs, 2011), a workbased and workplace training. This locates PBE within wider debates around the role of reflective practice and professional craft knowledge. As such, PBE and related pedagogies often find expression within teacher education and the education of healthcare professionals. There is much congruency of these professional learning practices and contexts – both being characterised by boundary-crossing practices between the field of practice and the academy.