When students of teaching are viewed as assets in the education system, their
participation can generate powerful professional learning opportunities. With
carefully organized support structures, a partnership model that values students of
teaching can serve to respond to perceived issues in teaching and learning. Working
with colleagues and through cohorts and teams means that the well-noted‘isolat-
edness of teaching’can be addressed and can serve to‘push back’against the
organizational and structural features of schools as workplaces that may encourage
individualism as the default approach to practice.
Placing professional experience at the centre of teacher education encourages
new ways of bridging the theory-practice divide. In the Midland school-University
partnership, theory and practice was seen as intertwined and in a dynamic rela-
tionship, eschewing the notion of a divide needing to be bridged. Conceiving of
professional experience as the backbone of teacher education led to a partnership
that resulted in understanding the traditional boundaries between schools and
universities as points of intersection that led to reframing of purposeful and
reciprocal relationships to make the most of the learning they offered.
When the relation of theory to practice was highlighted by Dewey ( 1904 ), he
similarly noted the way a connection between learning and work (professional
experience) built a sense of vocation. He believed, however, that it was not the role
of learning to adapt to industry but to position individuals to engage with work and
practice and, ultimately, transform it. Re-thinking the relationship between theory
and practice within the context of teacher education offers possibilities for trans-
forming learning about practice by students of teaching. Placing professional
experience at the centre of the enterprise offers ways of going beyond re-thinking to
catalyze action. That could be what is needed if teacher education reform is to move
beyond rhetoric and become reality.
References
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Bernstein, B. (2000).Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity. Theory, research, critique(Revised
ed.). Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield.
Billett, S. (2009). Realising the educational worth of integrating work experiences in higher
education.Studies in Higher Education, 34(7), 827–843. doi:10.1080/03075070802706561
Bridgstock, R. (2009). The graduate attributes we’ve overlooked: Enhancing graduate employ-
ability through career management skills.Higher Education Research & Development, 28(1),
31 – 44. doi:10.1080/07294360802444347
Cochran-Smith, M. (2004). The problem of teacher education.Journal of Teacher Education, 55
(4), 295–299.
Darling-Hammond, L. (2004).“Steady work”: The ongoing redesign of the stanford teacher
education program.Educational Perspectives, 36(1), 12.
Dewey, J. (1904). The relation of theory to practice in education. In C. A. McMurry (Ed.),The
relation of theory to practice in the education of teachers (Third yearbook of the National
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