Briding the gap between theory and
practice in teacher education.
Coherence for whom?
ISATT Conference 2011
Lars E. D. Knudsen: lada@dpu.dk
Per F. Laursen: pefi@dpu.dk
The Danish School of Education
University of Aarhus
Our central points:
• Student teachers’ experience of coherence is embedded
in their life-modes and basic cultural views.
• In defining coherence student teachers can not be
viewed as blank slates that only have to receive and
store the messages from lecturers and field supervisors.
• Student teachers have their own and often reasonable
approaches to teaching.
• Student teachers have different approaches to teaching
and to teacher education.
A persistent problem
• Many student teachers experience a gap
between theory and practice.
• In Denmark this gap is part of the explanation
of a relatively high dropout rate from teacher
education.
• The theory-practice gap seems to be a bigger
problem in teacher education than in other
professional education courses.
Is coherence the solution?
• Coherence has become a central concept in
research on teacher education, especially
inspired by Pam Grossman, Stanford.
• Coherence is ”the alignment of ideas and
learning opportunities”, especially between
lecturers teaching coursework and supervising
teachers in fieldwork.
• But where are the student teachers?Coherence
for whom?
Approaches to student teachers
• Although most researchers today accept
constructivist approaches to learning and
reflective approaches to teaching, the student
teachers are not viewed as equal partners.
• Student teachers’ approaches and basic views
are often seen as misunderstandings to be
corrected or transformed.
Coherence for whom?
An ethnological perspective
• Students and educators are not tabula rasa but are
culturally embedded in terms of lifemodes:
• “If the social structure as a whole presupposes
fundamentally different forms of practice and
ideology, it should be possible to construct
concepts of several distinct life-modes … which
would entail distinct types of social institutions and
social organization.” Thomas Højrup (2003: 15).
Coherence and life-modes:
• Experiences of coherence depend on students
and educators relations in analytical terms of
four life-modes (Højrup 2003):
 Career life-mode: abstract thinking, self developing
 Self employed life-mode: holistic thinking,
responsibilities
 Wage earner life-mode: pragmatic thinking, rights
and duties
 Person oriented life-mode: ethical thinking, caring
Different life-modes’ views on theory
and practice:
• Career life-mode: Theory as general scientifically
based abstractions and practice as trials.
 Self employed life-mode: Theory as promotion of
pragmatic and holistic efficiency in practice.
 Wage earner life-mode: Theory as a tool to solve
practical problems.
 Person oriented life-mode: Theory as an ethically
based cultivation of the professional’s personal
qualities bound in practice.
Life-modes and coherence: A strife
for recognition between institutions
• Head of teacher education college: “We still have
students who say:”When we go to placement, our
cooperating teacher tells us to forget all about the
theories we have learned””.
• Institutionally: The career life-mode of the college and
the self employed life-mode of the placement strife for
recognition: “What should a teacher know and how?”
• Experiencing coherence is conditioned by such
institutional strifes
Life-modes and coherence: A strife
for recognition between individuals
• Cooperating teacher: “It’s the women who set the agenda
and men who goes along… I think many men have been
gifted by the girls through times … I think it is healthy for
men to be [at placement] without women.”
• Individually: The life-modes of i.e. girls with self
employed life-mode contra men with i.e. wage earner lifemode: “How should we work and learn in placement?”
• Experiencing coherence is conditioned by individual strifes
in groups or with the cooperating teacher.
Life-modes and formation
• Teacher’s college promotes students to a career
life-mode: Academic writing, theoretically based
practice,
• Placements promotes students to a self employed
life-mode: Prepare your own class, make it work,
keep an eye on the wholeness of the class
• Groups of students promotes each other to work
and learn in particular ways
Conclusion: Experiencing coherence
is conditioned by ethnocentrism
• A definition on coherence cannot leave out
student’s perspectives
• Research on coherence must qualitatively look for
cultural signifiers
• Teacher college and placements strive for
recognition
• Certain life-modes are preferred at college, others
at placement