Transforming Teacher Education: Lessons in Professional Development

Teacher professional development requires a dynamic vision of education. The authors argue that teaching and teacher education are moral rather than technical or instrumental endeavors, and describe a highly innovative master’s program for practicing teachers founded in 1992. By describing important aspects of the program, the authors demonstrate that a moral vision can be enacted in practice, despite many constraints and challenges. They also show that any serious attempt to change practice will, of course, be unwieldy, contentious, and subject to sudden shocks and reversals as well as successes.

The work also provides a compelling and detailed account of the institutional and political conditions in higher education that militate against innovations in teacher education and professional development. Authors of the chapters include the former director of the innovation, the faculty who were involved in teaching and administering the program, and teachers who studied with them. Each chapter examines the practices pedagogically, ideologically, morally, and professionally through the perspectives of people intimately involved with the program.