The subject and the setting: re-imagining opportunities for primary teachers’ subject knowledge development on school-based teacher education courses

The landscape of teacher education is undergoing significant change in many countries and this is often associated with a move towards greater school involvement in the preparation of teachers. One aspect of teaching expertise that is particularly challenging for primary student teachers is the dev...

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Main Author: Knight, Rupert
Format: Article
Published: Taylor & Francis 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43487/
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author Knight, Rupert
author_facet Knight, Rupert
author_sort Knight, Rupert
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description The landscape of teacher education is undergoing significant change in many countries and this is often associated with a move towards greater school involvement in the preparation of teachers. One aspect of teaching expertise that is particularly challenging for primary student teachers is the development of subject knowledge across a wide range of subject areas. Subject knowledge for teaching is multi-faceted and is itself linked to broader questions about curriculum and the content that should be taught. It is timely, therefore, to consider how subject knowledge development might be reconceived in a school setting and how university and school staff might work in new ways with student teachers to this end. Communities of practice theory is employed as a framework for analysing the learning environment and evaluating these future possibilities. It is argued that collaboration with peers, with their mentoring teachers and with a wider professional community is an under-exploited way of integrating facets of subject knowledge: giving this time and status through structured activities might be a particularly fruitful form of hybrid working in situ. The paper concludes by proposing four principles to underpin this sort of practice.
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spelling nottingham-434872020-05-04T18:48:51Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43487/ The subject and the setting: re-imagining opportunities for primary teachers’ subject knowledge development on school-based teacher education courses Knight, Rupert The landscape of teacher education is undergoing significant change in many countries and this is often associated with a move towards greater school involvement in the preparation of teachers. One aspect of teaching expertise that is particularly challenging for primary student teachers is the development of subject knowledge across a wide range of subject areas. Subject knowledge for teaching is multi-faceted and is itself linked to broader questions about curriculum and the content that should be taught. It is timely, therefore, to consider how subject knowledge development might be reconceived in a school setting and how university and school staff might work in new ways with student teachers to this end. Communities of practice theory is employed as a framework for analysing the learning environment and evaluating these future possibilities. It is argued that collaboration with peers, with their mentoring teachers and with a wider professional community is an under-exploited way of integrating facets of subject knowledge: giving this time and status through structured activities might be a particularly fruitful form of hybrid working in situ. The paper concludes by proposing four principles to underpin this sort of practice. Taylor & Francis 2017-06-05 Article PeerReviewed Knight, Rupert (2017) The subject and the setting: re-imagining opportunities for primary teachers’ subject knowledge development on school-based teacher education courses. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice . ISSN 1470-1278 Teacher knowledge Subject knowledge Teacher education Professional knowledge Communities of practice http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13540602.2017.1334642 doi:10.1080/13540602.2017.1334642 doi:10.1080/13540602.2017.1334642
spellingShingle Teacher knowledge
Subject knowledge
Teacher education
Professional knowledge
Communities of practice
Knight, Rupert
The subject and the setting: re-imagining opportunities for primary teachers’ subject knowledge development on school-based teacher education courses
title The subject and the setting: re-imagining opportunities for primary teachers’ subject knowledge development on school-based teacher education courses
title_full The subject and the setting: re-imagining opportunities for primary teachers’ subject knowledge development on school-based teacher education courses
title_fullStr The subject and the setting: re-imagining opportunities for primary teachers’ subject knowledge development on school-based teacher education courses
title_full_unstemmed The subject and the setting: re-imagining opportunities for primary teachers’ subject knowledge development on school-based teacher education courses
title_short The subject and the setting: re-imagining opportunities for primary teachers’ subject knowledge development on school-based teacher education courses
title_sort subject and the setting: re-imagining opportunities for primary teachers’ subject knowledge development on school-based teacher education courses
topic Teacher knowledge
Subject knowledge
Teacher education
Professional knowledge
Communities of practice
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43487/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43487/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43487/