Research evidence indicated that the following four key components that most teacher residency programs contain are pivotal in their effectiveness: early and extended periods of school-based teaching practice; integration of theory and practice; reflection, mentoring and scaffolding, and belonging to and collaborating with members of a professional learning community. Each of these will be now be elaborated.
2.2.2.1 Early and extended periods of school-based teaching practice
Instead of a practicum towards the end of the course, or for limited periods as special teaching placement blocks, as in many traditional undergraduate programs, teacher residency programs expose pre-service teachers to school-based teaching practice very early and maintain ongoing exposure. Thus in the TRP teaching is seen to be an integral part of the learning process rather than a short-term opportunity to practise what has been learnt during on-campus classes. This school-based emphasis is consistent with the view that novice teachers with teaching experience are better prepared to understand the ideas, theories, and concepts taught in their course work (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005). Denton (1982) suggested that early field experiences appeared to enhance learning and understanding about the principles of how to teach within a content area. It seems that when pre-service teachers have had multiple opportunities to experience and study the relationship of theory with practice, their learning is enhanced. Darling-Hammond and Bransford (2005) concluded that teacher candidates in these types of programs were more able to “see and understand both theory and practice differently if they were taking course work concurrently with fieldwork” (p. 401).
2.2.2.2 Integration of theory-practice and reflection
Many critics of traditional teacher education programs have charged that they were overly theoretical and separated from practice (Korthagen, Kessels, Koster, Lagerwerf, & Wubbels, 2001). More recently, Ure, Gogh, and Newton (2009) claimed that the separation of theory from practice was a core problem for teacher education. According to Darling-Hammond and Bransford (2005), the breakdown
between theory and practice is an inherent problem in traditional university-based teacher education programs. Solomon (2009) identified three key problem areas: firstly, the traditional approach to teacher preparation adopts a stepwise approach to the “application of theory”, in which teaching candidates are supposed to learn theories at university and then go to schools to practise or apply what they have learned; secondly, the time spent on theoretical learning is overwhelmingly longer than that on teaching practice, and teaching practice is placed more or less at a later stage of the program; thirdly, there is inadequate communication between teacher educators at university and school practitioners, which acts to increase the risk of conflicting practices being advocated in schools and at university.
The move away from the traditional approach to the teacher residency approach worldwide has been prompted by the perceived need for pre-service teachers to undertake course work concurrently with real classroom teaching. Hence TRPs are believed to provide improved learning experiences because pre-service teachers to put theory they have learned into practice and continuously test, reflect on and improve their skills in real classrooms (Berry, Montgomery, Curtis, et al., 2008). This school-based emphasis allows residents to develop the ability to think like a teacher, and to put what they know into action (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005). It is further surmised that residents are more likely to avoid being confused by mixed messages, contradictory theories, and ideas that are superficially conveyed in more traditionally delivered teacher education programs (Darling- Hammond & Bransford, 2005). This implies that a reflective rather than a technical orientation is promoted as the learning approach for the TRPs. Ferguson (1989) suggested that residents should not just stay at the level of simply knowing but be able to connect knowing with why and how. The residency experience provides multiple opportunities for the residents to reflect on how the theories they learn at university fit into the role of a professional teacher.
There is need for a balance between the time pre-service teachers spend in schools and at university. Even though recent teacher education reforms have tended to make programs more practical and school-based, making teacher education programs too practical can create another set of problems. Without sufficient theoretical input, school-based teacher education programs may place too much emphasis on teachers’ classroom management skills, pedagogical skills and their
ability to maintain a supportive learning environment. Moreover, there may be limited understanding about education in its broader sense. In the traditional model for teacher professional development, content-related professional knowledge forms the foundation of a pre-service teacher’s understanding of teaching practice. It is crucial that teacher education programs provide opportunities for pre-service teachers to do substantial amounts of theory learning to facilitate the accumulation of content-related professional knowledge. The possession of content knowledge is also reported to have a generative effect on the development of pre-service teachers’ professional practice skills, such as classroom management and assessment (Ball & Cohen, 1999).These skills need to be practised in an authentic teaching context in order for learners to link theory and practice. Student teachers are more able to enact new practices effectively when they learn content-specific strategies and tools that they are able to apply immediately and to continue to refine in a collaborative learning community (eventually becoming reflective practitioners) (Darling- Hammond & Bransford, 2005). Equally important, knowledge for effective teaching often emerges from the practice itself. Thus, it is not enough for student teachers to just apply acquired knowledge to practice but also to develop innovative understandings of new ideas and actions, which emerge in the context of ongoing interactions.
2.2.2.3 Mentoring and scaffolding
Teacher residency programs recruit, select and train experienced teachers to work as mentor teachers, who work closely with residents inside and outside the classrooms providing scaffolding and support. Research showing the value of mentoring and scaffolding is abundant (Gardiner, 2011{Hawkey, 1997 #41; Hawkey, 1997; Hobson, Ashby, Malderez, & Tomlinson, 2009; McIntyre, Hagger, & Wilkin, 1993). However, just placing students in practicum schools will not automatically provide them with a valuable experience of learning to teach (Goodman, 1986, cited in Ferguson, 1989). More recent work by Korthagen et al. (2001) identified the need for pre-service teachers to learn to link their knowledge about teaching with the knowledge of (doing) teaching. Evidence from Joyce and Showers (2002) suggested that, coaching was crucial for the realisation of skill transfer in teaching. Their work with classroom teachers demonstrated that embedded coaching provided the highest level of transferring a new skill to teaching.
Though Joyce and Showers’ model was constructed mainly from studies of the professional development of practicing teachers, they proposed that this model is equally applicable to pre-service teachers’ learning practices. This model presupposes that the mentor teachers do not just serve as role models, but act as also co-inquirers. Besides giving feedback, mentors often explain, discuss and analyse many issues that arise in the teaching context and help to form new inquiries. Darling-Hammond, Macdonald, Snyder, Whitford, Roscoe and Fickel (2000) claimed that if residents are taught to use strategies that might be useful in the classroom, without examples and models, they are likely to have less chance of gaining a deep understanding. Prospective teachers, who experience a mentored teaching experience that is tightly integrated with course work, are more likely to connect theoretical learning with their teaching. Roth (1989) found that rich conversations between pre-service teachers and mentor teachers brought about the integration of inquiry and explanation. This integration then effectively facilitated the deeper understanding and quicker transfer of the knowledge base for teaching and knowledge of practice. These claims were also supported by more recent research undertaken by Korthagen et al. (2001), who found that the inquiry process was essential to reflective practice, and that clinical supervision at the same time contributed to the residents’ development as reflective practitioners. Rather than in the step-wise apprenticeship model of traditional teacher education programs, residents and Mentors are actively engaged in problem identification, inference, analysis, reflection, problem solving, and discussion of alternative strategies, which are all of pivotal importance in establishing reflective teaching practice (Roth, 1989).
2.2.2.4 Professional learning communities and collaboration
According to Berry, Montgomery, Curtis, et al. (2008, p. 16), teacher residency programs place residents in a school as a cohort “to cultivate professional learning communities and to foster collaboration among new and experienced teachers” Purposefully constructed professional learning communities that share norms and practices can be an especially powerful influence on learning. As Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1999) pointed out,
working together in communities, both new and more experienced teachers pose problems, identify discrepancies between theories and practices, challenge common routines, draw on the work of others for generative frameworks, and attempt to make visible
much of that which is taken for granted about teaching and learning. (p. 293)
Regular meetings of residents help to form an intellectual community that not only connects practice with course work but also deepens professional knowledge. Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1999) also suggested there were three approaches to knowledge development ranging from the development of knowledge for practice, knowledge in practice, to knowledge of practice. Knowledge for practice refers to the knowledge teachers need to develop their practice, and includes knowledge of subject matter content, content pedagogy, theories of learning and development. Traditional teacher education programs have attached great importance to the teaching of these elements of knowledge. This learning is perceived as being transmitted from teaching educators to teachers or from experts to novices. Knowledge in practice emphasises teachers’ knowledge in action, which is what accomplished teachers know about what is embodied in their practice, reflections and accounts. Knowledge in practice is practical, highly situated, and often acquired through reflection on experience. Thus, a collaborative professional learning community is crucial to the development of novice teachers’ knowledge in action. Knowledge of practice is regarded as knowledge constructed in the context of use, emphasising the role of the teacher in constructing knowledge and learning, and growing through that process. Commenting on the importance of communities of practice in their model for teacher development, Darling-Hammond and Bransford (2005) claimed that the professional community placed a central role in pre-service teacher’s development of knowledge of practice. They suggested further that initial teacher development requires “ongoing inquiry by teachers in their own classroom and into other systematic and practical sources of knowledge for addressing critical problems of practice”(p. 383).
2.2.3 Constraints of existing Teacher Residency programs and Alternative