This article examines what both in-service and pre-service trainee teachers learn from their early experience of teaching in further education (FE) colleges in England. Despite differences between in-service and pre-service trainees, that early experience is often characterised by isolation and lack of control over practice for both groups.…

Student teachers studying to become primary school teachers in New Zealand can spend up to 24 weeks on professional teaching practice in schools. This paper describes a model (based on the Conversational Framework by Laurillard), developed after conducting an action research study requiring critical reflection on the practice of giving feedback to…

Giving effective instructional explanations requires a special type of pedagogical content knowledge, that is, foreseeing where students could employ different assumptions in building their understanding of a specific content. This paper proposes the importance of rehearsing instructional explanations and fine-tuning the coherence and…

This article explores the development of a generative, research-based approach to mentoring initial teacher training students in a Training School/university partnership. Drawing on data from mentors, trainees and pupils it describes two phases of development, both of which use video recordings of participants' classroom practice to stimulate…

This article, based on the guidance of 17 teacher education students during their final term, presents the theoretical framework, procedures and results of an extensive experiment with portfolio assessment combined with peer tutoring. A recent reform programme in higher education in Norway has as one of its aims to improve the quality of teaching…