Topic 1: Desired outcomes of a national system of training and credentialing

Re: Topic 1: Desired outcomes of a national system of training and credentialing

by Gary Hunt -
Number of replies: 1
Vivian, Your system of peer review sounds very effective and I think we could certainly adapt it for use here at TRU. We don't have a template such as this so our peer review methods are extremely variable. This is yet another great example of how the UK system permits adaptability to meet the specific needs of teachers. Thank you for sharing!^-)
In reply to Gary Hunt

Re: Topic 1: Summary of Desired Outcomes Discussion

by Vivian Neal -

I will try to summarize the discussion so far to allow those who are just arriving can get an idea of what's been going on, and to help every reflect on some of the ideas that have been shared.  First, I have to admit that I'm surprised that some of the discussion is about whether a mandatory credentialing framework would be appropriate - I expected that we could be talking more about how we might go about making it happen. That's just my perspective....

Last week we started off discussing the benefits of a national framework for credentialing and Deirdre pointed out the benefit of having the weight of authority in a national scheme, while Nick and others underscored the "titanic nature of academe". Barb offered several examples of the possible challenges of such a framework and the implications for higher education. Deirdre, Nick and Barb brought up the idea of starting at the provincial level because this is the level that universities are organized, and getting agreement nationally would be [10 times more :-)] difficult. 

Wendy and others noted that the whole idea of needing a required credential is scary and that there needs to be a large amount of flexibility in any scheme, while several people emphasized the need to make the framework (or at least the implementation) discipline-specific in its structure and learning outcomes to accommodate the many different teaching situations - bedside, in a boat, one-on-one tutorials, classroom lectures, project work, and workplace-based learning.

Finally, there was mcuh discussion about the idea that there needs to be wide support for credentialing to become acceptable, including support from senior administrators, and Rosalie and I talked about the need to change attitudes and culture. Barb added that, champions would be required at multiple levels in the system and in multiple settings to come together and talk about a common framework. While Wendy asked, "who is the 'we'" when we are planning this framework - excellent question.

Moving on to how we might structure a teacher-training framework (Topic 2), Alice and Roselie suggested a framework of reflective practice, and a skills-based approach.  Also Valerie and Irene described other credentialing models in colleges in the US and in Ontario that we can think consider, and I have provided some information about the system in the UK, plus Jo Ann shared some details as well for a possible structure.

I'm looking forward to hearing more ideas, and could I suggest that we move into the Topic 2 discussion, even though we haven't fully finished the first topic....