Teacher Education Advancement Network (TEAN)

TEAN online flexible professional development course April/May 2023

The Becoming a Teacher Educator online flexible professional development course is aimed at those who have been appointed to teacher educator roles within the last three years. It focuses on aspects of pedagogy, partnership, advanced scholarship, and research activity.

There is a fee of £150 to join the online Becoming a Teacher Educator course. Delegates to TEAN Conference 2023 are able to claim a fee waiver for the course (a similar fee and fee waiver for conference delegates applies to the Being a Teacher Educator course).

The course is primarily aimed at university-based teacher educators, but school-based teacher educators interested in developing as researchers, or seeking an academic post, may also find the course valuable. It is estimated that around 40% of university-based teacher educators newly appointed in the UK during the last 15 years have completed the course, or its previous face-to-face workshop equivalent.

The course is run in association with the Becoming a Teacher Educator: Guidelines for Induction, published open access by Advance HE. The 3rd edition of the Guidelines is recommended as pre-reading for the course.

The three-week Becoming a Teacher Educator course is comprised of three modules, each supported by self-study materials and online moderated discussion forums. Each module also has an optional live online video discussion session. Workload is estimated at two to three hours per week. The facilitator teams includes the authors of the published Guidelines, Professor Pete Boyd, Professor Jean Murray, and Dr Liz White, plus TEAN executive committee members Dr Lisa Murtagh and Dr Pippa Leslie.

Module One – Pedagogy of Teacher Education. Topics include: programme design; identity work; clinical practice modules.

Module Two – Partnership and Assessment. Topics include: workplace learning; evaluative judgment; professional standards.

Module Three – Advanced Scholarship and Research. Topics include: consultancy; doctoral study; teachers’ research literacy.

The Becoming a Teacher Educator course is hosted by TEAN (Teacher Education Advancement Network). The course fee is £150 and the deadline for registration is the 7th April 2023. Click this link to register.

The course schedule is set out below. There is plenty of flexibility for the self-study element of the course and participants will have continued access to the materials.

Week beginning Monday 10th April 2023	Pre-reading and preparation task
Week beginning Monday 17th April 2023	Module 1 online discussion
Thursday 20th April 2023, 4pm – 5:15pm	Module 1 live session (optional)
Week beginning Monday 24th April 2023	Module 2 online discussion
Thursday 27th April 2023, 4pm – 5:15pm	Module 2 live session (optional)
Week beginning Monday 1st May 2023	Module 3 online discussion
Thursday 4th May 2023, 4pm – 5:15pm	Module 3 live session (optional)

To gain a formal certificate of completion, participants are required to complete and submit a concise, action-oriented, reflective log by the deadline of 31st May 2023.

If you have more than three years’ experience as a teacher educator, you may prefer to go straight to the advanced Being a Teacher Educator course.

Feedback from last year participants in ‘becoming a teacher educator’:

‘The online discussions were particularly enjoyable and helped to alleviate my fears upon entering Higher Education.’

‘This has been a great experience to engage in reflection with others around the tensions in teacher education, I sometimes felt as though it was a little bit beyond my ‘beginner’ level, having come from a primary school class teacher role a few months ago, but it was great to be exposed to some new concepts and I will be taking lots forwards into next academic year.’

‘I have really enjoyed this course and learnt a lot from the discussions and reading.’

‘This has been a valuable course at the start of my career, it has given me a chance to consider the scale of the role change, key elements to address and some thoughts as to how I can develop myself as a teacher educator.’

‘The course was fantastic for me (particularly at a time where I am making the transition fully into teacher education). From a logistical perspective, I enjoyed being able to engage with the course at a time that suited me around other commitments. I thought the modules were logical and enabled me to engage with further reading around the topics. I definitely enjoyed reading through the Padlet discussions to see the opinions of others, or to see how other institutions run their courses.’

‘I found the course hugely useful and interesting. I would highly recommend it for those early in their careers as teacher educators.’

‘A really interesting course that introduced a wide range of literature and covered many aspects of ITE. It allowed for space to stand back from your particular setting and engage with the theory before relating this to the practical and practice… In general, the time spent on, and for, the course, has been energising and helpful in thinking about the way forward.’

‘I have thoroughly enjoyed engaging with the tasks and taking those small chunks of time out to reflect on me and my teaching. The reading really helped with this, and I loved the “further reading/ embedded” element…the signpost to further information was great! I feel like I have really reflected on me and my new role.’

Note: Participants also suggested ways to enhance the course and we will be amending some aspects in line with their comments during update of the course materials and structure for 2023.