(Scroll to the bottom for the Handbook of Good Practices in Initial Teacher Training in Secondary Education)
Each country was required to demonstrate a good example for initial teacher training in secondary education. The criteria for choosing a good example were the following:
-it focuses on learning to teach in diverse classrooms.
-it is innovative/creative, the good example is in some way innovative/creative in its content and/or its approach.
-it is transferable, it is possible to apply the good example in a different context.
-there is a theoretical underpinning, there is a clear line of argument why this good example would work.
Each country was then given “outline” guidelines for providing an elaborate description of their good practice example, and asked to address the problem the good practice is a solution to, its context and content, the student-teacher competences developed as well as the ultimate impact on student teachers.
You can hereby access each country’s Good practice example:
Belgium-TeacherInstitutesCooperation
Netherlands-VocationalAssignments
Portugal-InterculturalDialogue
Brief Conclusions:
The NAOS partners have collected resourceful, innovative good practices in initial secondary teacher education. As aforementioned, the nine countries all face diverging issues within education of diverse ethnic groups. Some, like the Netherlands, Belgium, and Greece have considerable expertise with super-diversity historically and demonstrate a more-in depth understanding of the collaboration necessary from various stakeholders to confront the challenge. They are already putting forth evidence-based suggestions for migrant students to rapidly grasp the local language and stimulate more inclusion and better participation within the classroom. Others, like Estonia and Lithuania have considerably lower numbers of diverse migrants within their borders but exhibit considerable sensitivity to the promotion of tolerance and are already teaching the relevant stakeholders about the situation and historical baggage of such students. Countries like Cyprus, Portugal and Croatia are in a geographical position particularly susceptible to a large number of arriving asylum-seekers at a time of global unrest and are largely concerning themselves with preventing the formation of discriminatory practice and prejudice that is prone to happen in these cases. The instance of the Norwegian example displays an enthusiasm for experimentation and activity building that seeks to instigate critical thinking and introspective/metacognitive learning in students, rather than forcing ideas on them through regurgitating the same old concepts.
It is of course important to keep in mind that one example of good practice in initial teacher training within a country does not necessarily reflect the majority of efforts made there on the scope of diversity. The partners had complete freedom in selecting their own examples, so it is possible that there is a number of initiatives with emphasis on language acquisition or community/parental involvement despite their apparent lack of appearance here in comparison with pedagogy and social psychology.
However, if we are to draw any comparative conclusions from the entirety of our work within NAOS, it would certainly be that European countries should address the area of community and parental involvement to a greater extent.
The complete overview and analyses of all Good Practices can be accessed here:
For the overall handbooks containing the analyses and reflections, on the one hand, initial teacher training for primary and secondary education and, on the other hand, the ten Study Visits, please go to the separate section/ page: “Handbooks”