Learning about Teaching from Teachers : Realizing the Potential of School-Based Initial Teacher Education

The move to school-based initial teacher education has opened up exciting opportunities for student teachers to learn from practising teachers' expertise. Exploiting these opportunities is not, however, straightforward since much of that expertise is embedded in practice and rarely articulated. This book explores the implications of different approaches to helping student teachers to learn from practising teachers. It puts particular emphasis on an approach based on research into that expertise and designed to give student teachers access to it. The wider implications of this work for the development of school-based initial teacher education are examined, and suggestions are made about the conditions that are necessary for school-based initial teacher education to realize its potential.The book will be a key text for all teacher educators, including school based mentors. It will also be important reading for teachers involved in Masters courses in mentoring and teacher education.

Hazel Hagger is Lecturer in Educational Studies and PGCE Course Director at the University of Oxford. She has written extensively on teachers' learning and development, and on mentoring in education.

Donald McIntyre is Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge and has been engaged in research into teaching and teacher education for 40 years. His previous publications include Learning without Limits (Open University Press, 2004).