One of the benefits for teacher educators of cross-national conversations is that they throw into relief things about your own teacher education experience and policy environment that are shared by an international community, validating understanding. These conversations also shed light on things that seem normal and go unquestioned in one’s own national or institutional context, but which deserve interrogation and challenge understanding. They invite examination of how teacher education is shaped through policy and done in practice, and possibilities for how it might be done.
In this seminar I consider policy shifts (real and potential) that are impacting teacher education and teacher educators in Aotearoa New Zealand. In particular, I focus on teacher education accreditation requirements, secondary school curriculum and assessment changes, and a shift towards flexible learning spaces and curriculum integration. How are teacher educators navigating these spaces? How might they influence the direction of travel – such as through accommodation, adaption, and subversion (Brooks et al., 2024)? In the spirit of ako (a Māori and Pacific concept that means ‘to teach’ or ‘to learn’, depending on context, and emphasises the reciprocal nature of learning as a two-way process [Stewart and Buntting, in press]), participants are invited to share their experiences in the English context, as I share mine of the Aotearoa New Zealand context.

A central question that animates my research is: What supports quality teaching? I have applied this question to curriculum-based teaching and learning in schools, my own teaching within initial teacher education, and more broadly to teaching in the academy. I am deeply interested in the scholarship of teaching. My research coalesces around the practice of teaching and lived experiences of teachers and learners. I have published in relation to teacher development and teacher preparation programmes and systems, practice-focused research in initial teacher education, pre-service teacher identity development as culturally responsive and sustaining teachers, twenty-first century education and development of critical information literacy, curriculum issues and development (with a particular focus on social sciences education), gender relations and ICT.

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