International Portal of Teacher Education

Posted on | November 4, 2008 | 2 Comments

If you’re looking for a single repository of international research and thinking on teacher education, you could do worse than point your browsers at the International Portal of Teacher Education, established and maintained by the MOFET Institute, based in Israel.

The portal aims to:

“…..improve the flow of pedagogical knowledge and research on teacher education by helping researchers and teacher educators cope and keep abreast with the wealth of publications in the field….”

The portal itself presents abstracts of papers, with full links and attribution back to the original source, across a broad range of topics:

Teacher Education – General Trends
Theories & Approaches
Technology & Computers
Research Methods
TE Programs
TE & Instruction
Teaching Assessment
Multiculturalism & Diversity
Beginning Teachers
Preservice Students
Teacher Educators
Professional Development
Mentoring & Supervision

I’ve already picked up an interesting paper on Learning with Laptops: Implementation and Outcomes in an Urban, Under-Privileged School by Chrystalla Mouza, of Delaware University, which found that:

“….in the hands of well prepared teachers, laptops enabled disadvantaged students to engage in powerful learning experiences. Although quantitative data did not reveal significant differences in student attitudes towards computers and school between laptop and comparison students, qualitative data indicated that laptop integration created enhanced motivation and engagement with schoolwork, influenced classroom interactions, and empowered students. Such behaviors were not evident among comparison students.

Furthermore, qualitative data indicated that the laptop program produced academic gains in writing and mathematics within the laptop group.”

I might report in more detail on this later.

In the meantime, if you have an interest in teacher education, the portal is certainly worth a look.

Technorati Tags: International Portal of Teacher Education, MOFET Institute, teacher education, Chrystalla Mouza, laptops in the classroom

Category: education, ict, research, teaching

Comments

2 Responses to “International Portal of Teacher Education”

Joe Nutt
November 6th, 2008 @ 3:42 pm

John, very interesting resource. You may not know about a similar website we have built with a number of other partners for the TDA, here in the UK. It’s called the Teacher Training Resource Bank. http://www.ttrb.ac.uk/index.aspx
John Connell
November 6th, 2008 @ 5:31 pm

Thanks, Joe – I wasn’t aware of this. Cheers.