Highlights
- Societal changes intensify the need for Teachers’ professional agency.
- A continuing training model based on cooperation in boundary spaces was piloted.
- Preschool and primary school teachers and student teachers attended pilot training.
- The piloted model supports both pre- and in-service teachers’ professional agency.
- Boundary spaces offer a fruitful starting point for developing teachers’ PA.
Abstract
In this paper, we discuss training aimed at supporting the professional agency of teachers and student teachers. Drawing on socio-cultural and post-structural theories, we conceptualize professional agency as achieved by participation in professional practices. We employ our conceptualization in an analysis of a Finnish pilot training that combined initial and continuous training for preschool and primary school teachers. We argue that the practices of reflection and collective enquiry inherent in the model offer a fruitful starting point for further efforts to understand how to support the development of the professional agency of teachers and student teachers simultaneously.
Keywords
Professional agency, Professional development, Teacher education, Preschool, Primary school
Ukkonen-Mikkola, T. & Varpanen, J. (2020). Integrated initial and continuing training as a way of developing the professional agency of teachers and student teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2020.103189
