Using Research and Development to establish coherence in teacher education

Abstract

This chapter addresses a significant challenge in teacher education: the lack of coherence between subjects, pedagogy, and practice. The chapter explores an innovation in which a new approach for integrating Research & development (R&D) into teacher education provides coherence between practice, pedagogy, and subjects in the program, preparing student teachers for a more research-based and critical approach to their professional education. We present a model for describing coherence and progression in a program (the UiT R&D Stairway). We then describe the new approach in teacher education in detail before we present an evaluation from student teachers about their training in R&D and how relevant they find this knowledge to be in their future work as teachers. We discuss the UiT R&D Stairway related to results from student evaluation, literature, and coherence.