Relational Expertise of Teacher Educators: Theory and Practice (Critical Guides for Teacher Educators)

A valuable text for teacher educators, including ECT mentors in schools, on the topic of relational expertise. It provides a critical analysis of current conceptions of the role of teacher educator and a theoretical basis for practice.

This book provides a concise and clear cultural-historical perspective of the expertise of teacher educators. The theoretical framework of relational expertise draws upon what matters to both the teacher educator and beginning teacher as they work together on the complex problem of learning to teach. It provides a clear basis for their practice and for what happens in their practice, signalling a way of understanding how to undertake the role of teacher educator in terms of the professional learning of the beginning teacher. Concepts explored include relational expertise, relational agency, common knowledge, the double move, metacommentary, and second order practice, offering a critique of the deconstruction of the act of teaching into bite-size chunks to be memorised. Opportunities for critical reflection are also provided throughout the book, which speaks to teacher educators directly in terms of suggesting a clear theoretical basis for their expertise and how to enact this in practice.

Lorna Shires has been a schoolteacher, head teacher, and led a university programme of initial teacher education. She has many years’ experience of teaching trainees in school and at university at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and working with teacher educators in both types of setting.

Ian Menter is former President of BERA, 2013-2015. At Oxford University Department of Education he was Director of Professional Programmes and led the development of the Oxford Education Deanery. Prior to that he was Professor of Teacher Education at the University of Glasgow and held posts at the University of the West of Scotland, London Metropolitan University, University of the West of England and the University of Gloucestershire. Ian was President of the Scottish Educational Research Association from 2005–07 and chaired the Research and Development Committee of the Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET) from 2008-11. He is a Visiting Professor at Bath Spa University and Ulster University and an Honorary Professor at the University of Exeter. Since 2018 he has been a Senior Research Associate at Kazan Federal University, Russia.