Research Aim

This literature review examines the essential components of initial teacher education (ITE) curricula to identify best practices that enhance the quality and equity of teacher-training outcomes. It addresses two key questions: (1) What should be included in an ITE curriculum to foster effective teaching? and (2) What are the best practices for achieving high-quality teacher-training outcomes?

Theoretical Framework

The review is grounded in the Holistic Teacher Education theory, which integrates intellectual and pedagogical development with mindful and reflective practices in teacher education. This model emphasizes cultivating teacher dispositions and beliefs, aiming to bridge the gap between teacher education institutions and schools. It advocates for a comprehensive approach that encompasses moral and spiritual education, fosters emotional intelligence, ethical awareness, and personal growth, and encourages educators to engage deeply in their own development to better support students' holistic growth.

Methods
A systematic review of scholarly articles and policy documents was conducted, with a focus on ITE curricula from leading educational systems. The methodology involved synthesizing existing evidence, identifying best practices, and highlighting gaps in the literature to guide future curriculum development.

Findings

The findings reveal that effective ITE curricula incorporate subject content, pedagogy, and comprehensive assessment strategies, combining with practices that foster self-awareness and ethical development. Successful programmes also highlight the importance of moral and spiritual education, equipping teachers to support students’ holistic development. Key practices identified across countries include competency-based assessments, inclusive pedagogical strategies, reflective teaching methods, and values-based education.

Relevance to the Conference Themes

This study aligns with the conference themes of quality teaching and curriculum design for equitable teaching. By comparing international ITE curricula, the review provides insights into creating effective teaching frameworks. The findings have implications for curriculum development and policy-making in Scotland and offer valuable perspectives from international contexts, including Singapore, USA, Canada, and Australia.

Recent changes to the regulations governing initial teacher education in England have included the requirement for all ITE providers to use a new state mandated core content framework (Department for Education, 2019). Initial analyses of this framework indicate that it is reductive and narrow, emerging from a scientistic model of knowledge focusing on technicist learning (Hordern & Brooks, 2023). This paper aims to analyse the CCF document, asking what kind of curriculum it constitutes. It uses a highly original approach to analysis called doppelganger as method. This approach explores situations of conflict asking where a double or doppelganger emerges and how it functions as a technology of power. It finds that the conflicting demands of the CCF and initial teacher educators’ desire to provide transformative education produce a dual curriculum. An authorised curriculum is established by the CCF, while a shadow curriculum emerges from the aspects which are rendered invisible in the framework. The lack of explorations of why teachers teach as they do is a stark omission from the CCF, along with any meaningful discussion of the impact of context on learning. I argue that teachers in England do not however, exclude these important aspects of inclusive and equitable teacher education from their programmes. Rather, they form a shadow curriculum, one which exists within the ITE classroom but is not recorded on official documentation. The shadow curriculum therefore forms a resistance to the CCF, promoting equity and inclusion despite the tightly regulated framework in operation in England.

Department for Education (2019) ITT Core Content Framework. London: Crown.

Hordern, J. & Brooks, C. (2023) The Core Content Framework and the ‘New Science’ of Educational Research. Oxford Review of Education [Online], 00 (00), pp. 1–19. Available from: <https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2023.2182768>.

Curriculum Design for Equitable Teaching is a priority in Scotland. Since the implementation of Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) in 2010, many secondary schools have modified their curricular structure to deliver required pupil entitlements and offer a Broad General Education (BGE) until the end of S3 (age 14-15). The autonomy afforded to Headteachers offers schools significant flexibility in designing their curriculum, which has resulted in a range of curricular structures across Scotland. However, many schools find it challenging to attain a balance between ensuring learners receive their entitlement to a BGE while also supporting progression to the senior phase (age 15–18) (Education Scotland (ES), 2020, 2024).

This paper draws on an empirical study carried out by a Headteacher (Principal) researcher in 2023. It explores underlying reasons giving rise to the BGE challenges, and how the challenges impact on curricular structures. It interrogates policy and examines the curricular structures and organisation of learning in a Scottish local authority’s (LA) (district) BGE curricula, alongside national inspection reports. The researcher employs a Case Study approach (Mfinanga et al., 2019), using the LA secondary schools as case study sites. The study draws from both an interpretive (Cohen, 2018) and a constructivist paradigm, (Cresswell, 2018).

The findings indicate that the wording and expectations in education policy, in addition to the competing demands of CfE and other educational agendas around equity and excellence, have given rise to the challenges reported by ES. The ways in which schools address such demands has resulted in a range of curricular structures and learning experiences in the LA’s secondary schools, particularly in relation to S3. The paper concludes with recommendations for government bodies in relation to practice and policy, to alleviate challenges faces by schools, thus promoting Curriculum Design for Equitable Teaching.

This paper describes the rationale, implementation and assessment of restructuring an online course, where all stakeholders – students, instructors, teaching assistants and a technician – had equitable input throughout the process. The course is designed for post-secondary students aspiring to be elementary teachers. Being offered tri-semesterly, online and asynchronously with students self-led through the material, the course’s learning environment is of paramount importance. Since its creation in Fall 2013, with the advancement of technology, the learning environment of the course has become rich with material offering active and comprehensive learning. However, as the course has grown, its structural complexity grew as well making navigation increasingly intricate. Furthermore, the students taking this course are not only comprised of a variety of ethnic backgrounds in Canada, a multicultural nation, but often identify with disability-related needs (~15%). When student surveys started to indicate that the learning and accessibility of the course were hindered by its navigation, the instructors realized that these undergraduate students needed to be involved in the restructuring process along with the graduate student teaching assistants and the implementing technician. After combining and organizing feedback that was collected both informally and via surveys, representatives from all stakeholder groups met to decide on various design choices and map out a plan to improve the course layout. Undergraduate and graduate students contributed equally to this restructuring plan. Not only were the undergraduate students’ insights thoughtful, but their unique viewpoints were invaluable, leading the discussion as experts in user experience and ultimately guiding many design choices. Moreover, the graduate-undergraduate student relationship that develops within the help centre was leveraged to speak to the common misconceptions that undergraduates face in this course. Student surveys from three subsequent semesters were analyzed. Ultimately, the inclusion of all stakeholders led to a richer and more accessible online learning environment.