Developing outstanding practice in school-based teacher education

Book excerpt: This book is designed to help the growing group of school-based teacher educators and those based in higher education develop excellent professional practice across their institutions. The first part of the book provides personal challenges to teacher educators, helping them to develop their own identity beyond that of being a classroom teacher and to recognise the values, knowledge and practices that are unique to them as part of the international community of teacher educators. This includes how to develop their pedagogy to embrace the needs of their trainees, and a realistic approach to developing an academic and scholarly aspect to their identity. The second part of the book describes some of the themes that underpin outstanding provision in teacher education including a broad curriculum, an enquiry-based approach, building a learning community, developing reflective practitioners, having an ethos of high aspiration, evaluation of impact and strong partnerships. Theory and practice are closely linked throughout with illustrations drawn from a variety of different settings. This book is part of the successful Critical Guides for Teacher Educators series edited by Ian Menter.