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Linking Theory and Practice: Changing the Pedagogy of Teacher Education

Fred A. J. Korthagen and Jos P. A. M. Kessels
EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER 1999 28: 4
DOI: 10.3102/0013189X028004004

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 Linking Theory and Practice:
Changing the Pedagogy of Teacher Education
FRED A. J. KORTHAGEN JOS P. A. M. KESSELS

The pressure towards more school-based teacher education pro- such a w a y that it leads to integration within the teacher.
grams, visible in many countries, creates a need to rethink the re- This latter question, fundamental to the effectiveness of
lationship between theory and practice. The traditional application- teacher education, is seldom discussed in depth in the pro-
of-theory model appears to be rather ineffective and is currently fessional literature, although recent insights into teacher
being replaced by other, more reflective approaches. However, development and the nature of the relationship between
until now the variety of different notions and assumptions un- teacher cognition and teacher behavior could offer a sound
derlying these new approaches have not provided a sound basis for basis for a paradigmatic change in the pedagogy of teacher
further development. Two related theoretical bases are presented for education. This will be explained in the present article, in
a new paradigm in teacher education. The first uses the concepts of which we also describe the so-called realistic approach.
episteme and phronesis to introduce a new way offraming rele-
vant knowledge. The second is a more holistic way of describing the The Traditional Approach to Teacher Education
relationship between teacher cognition and teacher behavior, lead- During the last century, an enormous amount of psycholog-
ing to a model of three levels in learning about teaching, the Gestalt ical, sociological, and educational research has been carried
level, the schema level and the theory level, which are illustrated oflt, offering us a body of knowledge that in principle can be
by interview data. Building on these two theoretical frameworks, very useful to the practitioner. It seems reasonable to try and
a so-called "realistic approach" to teacher education is introduced. disseminate this knowledge. In fact, in many professions a
The teacher educator's role within this approach is analyzed as major aspect of the professionalization process has been the
well as organizational consequences. First evaluative results are introduction of an extensive theoretical basis for the practi-
presented. tioner's work (McCullough, 1987; Hoyle & John, 1995). In
teacher education, the desire to use as much of the available
Educational Researcher, Vol. 28, No. 4, pp. 4-17 knowledge as possible has led to a conception of teacher ed-
ucation as a system in which experts, preferably working
within universities, teach this knowledge to prospective
teachers. In the best case, they also try to stimulate the trans-
Introduction fer of this knowledge to the classroom, for example, by the
use of assignments to be carried out during field experiences.

I
n several places throughout the world, teacher education
This is how teacher education became known as "teacher
is in trouble. The pressure towards more school-based
training" (Bullough & Gitlin, 1994). Schon (1987) critically
programs, which is visible in many countries, is a sign
called it the "technical-rationality model." Barone et al.
that not only teachers, but also parents and politicians, are
(1996) state that many teacher programs consist of a collec-
often dissatisfied with teacher education (Barone, Berliner,
tion of separated courses in which theory is presented with-
Blanchard, Casanova, & McGowan, 1996, p p . 1108-1109;
out much connection to practice. Ben-Peretz (1995) says:
Ashton, 1996). In Great Britain, for example, a major part of
preservice teacher education has now become the responsi- The hidden curriculum of teacher education tends to com-
bility of the schools, creating a situation in which, to a large municate a fragmented view of knowledge, both in course-
degree, teacher education takes the form of "training on the work and in field experiences. Moreover, knowledge is
job." The a r g u m e n t for this tendency is that traditional
teacher education p r o g r a m s are said to fail in preparing
prospective teachers for the realities of the classroom
(Goodlad, 1990). FRED A . } . KORTHAGEN is a professor at the IVLOS Institute of
Teacher educators would object that a professional Education, Utrecht University and the University of Amsterdam.
teacher should acquire more than just practical tools for His address is P.O. Box 80127,3508 TC Utrecht, The Netherlands;
managing classroom situations and that it is their job to pre- fax: +31 30 253 2741; e-mail: [Link]@[Link].
sent student teachers with a broader view on education and He specializes in teachers' professional development, reflective
to offer them a proper grounding in psychology, sociology teaching, teacher cognition, and the education of teacher educators.
and so on. Although these are valid arguments, the polar-
ization that is characteristic of this type of discussion is Jos P. A. M. KESSELS IS an associate professor of philosophy and
dangerous as it focuses on the question of whether teacher education at the IVLOS Institute of Education at Utrecht Uni-
education should start with theory or practice instead of the versity. His areas of specialization are the integration of theory
more important question of how to integrate the two in and practice in education and the use of the Socratic Method.

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4 EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER
 "given" and unproblematic. These views of knowledge content. They have shown that student teachers w h o
are likely to become quite problematic as teachers gain ex- themselves experienced learning in an active w a y are
perience. (p. 546). more inclined to plan lessons that facilitate students' ac-
. Imig and Switzer (1996, p. 223.1 state that in many places in tive knowledge construction. Huibregtse, Korthagen,
the world the tendency to focus on knowledge bases to be and Wubbels (1994) showed that even with experi-
taught to prospective teachers has become even stronger. enced teachers there is a strong relationship between
This emphasis on expert-knowledge (Sprinthall, Reiman, & their preferred w a y of teaching and the w a y they
Thies-Sprinthall, 1996), dominant for many decades, basi- themselves are used to learning: They have a limited
cally has not changed, although many studies have shown view of the learning styles of their students and tend
its failure to strongly influence the practices of graduates to project their o w n way of learning onto the learning
of teacher education programs. Zeichner and Tabachnick of their students.
(1981), for example, showed that many notions and edu- In sum, Corporaal (1988) interprets the poor transfer
cational conceptions, developed during teacher education, of theory to practice as a lack of integration of the the-
were "washed out" during field experiences (compare ories presented in teacher education ("the teacher ed-
Bullough, 1989). Lortie (1975) presented us with another ucator's theory") into the conceptions student teachers
early study into the socialization process of teachers, show- bring to the teacher education program ("the student
ing the dominant role of practice in shaping teacher devel- teachers' theory").
opment. At Konstanz University in Germany, large-scale 2. Another, more fundamental cause of the transfer prob-
research has been carried out into the p h e n o m e n o n of the lem has been named the feed-forward problem: "Resis-
"transition shock" (Muller-Fohrbrodt, Cloetta, & Dann, tance from the student teacher at the time of exposure
1978; Dann, Cloetta, Muller-Fohrbrodt, & Helmreich, 1978; to given learnings and, later, protestations that the
Dann, Muller-Fohrbrodt, & Cloetta, 1981; Hinsch, 1979), same learning had not been provided in stronger
which regrettably went largely unnoticed by the English- doses" (Katz, Raths, Mohanty, Kurachi, & Irving, 1981,
speaking research community. It showed that teachers pass p. 21; see also Bullough, Knowles, & Crow, 1991, p. 79).
through a quite distinct attitude shift during their first year This problem can also be stated as follows: In order to
of teaching, in general creating an adjustment to current learn anything during teacher education, student
practices in the schools, and not to recent scientific insights » teachers must have personal concerns about teaching
into learning and teaching. Building on the work of the ' or they must have encountered concrete problems.
Konstanz research group, Brouwer (1989) did an extensive Otherwise the fruitfulness of the theory is not clear to
quantitative and qualitative study in the Netherlands, also them and they are not motivated to study it. In fact,
showing the dominant influence of the school on teacher this is nothing more than a concretization of the well-
development. He found that an important factor promoting k n o w n principle that learning only takes place if the
transfer from teacher education to practice was the extent to
learner has some personal goal that is, in the view of
which the teacher education curriculum had an integrative
this person, served by the learning (Skemp, 1979). And
design, that is, the degree to which there was an alternation
even if there are such personal goals, for example, be-
and integration of theory and practice within the program.
cause the student teachers have developed concerns
We will return to this issue later.
during their teaching in school, general theory is only
helpful if there is some kind of coaching of the student
The Transfer Problem teachers in connecting the theory to their actions in the
Some of the causes of the transfer problem in teacher edu- concrete practical situations in which they encounter
cation have also been well documented (see also Wubbels, their problems (Joyce & Showers, 1988).
Korthagen, & Brekelmans, 1997). Using a cognitive- 3. A third cause of the problem has to do with the nature of
psychological perspective, w e will mention three major the relevant knowledge. Clark and Lampert (1986, p. 28)
causes here: state that once inside school, teachers "are expected
to accomplish complex and even conflicting goals.
1. A first cause has to do with the learning process within
Under these circumstances, a priori knowledge iden-
the teacher education institute itself, even before the
tified by researchers about the relationship among
implementation stage. Research on learning and
particular decisions or actions and their outcomes is of
teaching shows that prior knowledge plays a power-
limited worth." Teachers need quick and concrete an-
ful role in comprehension and learning (Scardamalia &
swers to situations in which they have little time to
Bereiter, 1989). Students in teacher education do have
think. This type of action-guiding knowledge is rather
preconceptions about learning and teaching (Wubbels,
different from the more abstract, systematized and
1992), but these notions often do not agree with the
theories taught in teacher education programs. Pre- general expert-knowledge that teacher educators often
conceptions show a remarkable resistance to tradi- present to student teachers (Korthagen & Lagerwerf,
tional attempts to change them (Wahl, Weinert, & 1996; Tom, 1997). This issue will be further elaborated
Huber, 1984), which can in part be explained by their in this article, as w e consider it one of the major rea-
firm roots in the many years of experience that student sons for the lack of success of teacher education all
teachers themselves have had as students within the ed- over the world.
ucational system (Lortie, 1975). Stofflett and Stoddart Although the transfer problem in teacher education is
(1994), for example, argue that teachers' conceptions well-known and its causes have been thoroughly re-
of teaching subject matter are strongly influenced by searched, it is remarkable that many teacher education pro-
the way in which they themselves learned this subject grams still reflect the traditional "application-of-theory

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MAY 1999 at Edinburgh
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model" described above (Korthagen & Russell, 1995), al- Fenstermacher, 1994). Consequently, the characteristics of
though it is hard to derive reliable conclusions about this effective types of knowledge, with possible indications
from the literature. Zeichner (1987) once noted that very about what to offer when and to which student teacher, are
little is published about concrete strategies and program as yet unknown. In order to develop such a theory on the
arrangements. In our own work as trainers of teacher edu- use of theory in teacher education, a second theoretical
cators in various countries, we did have the opportunity to basis for teacher education is needed, concerning the rela-
analyze the "everyday pedagogy" of teacher education. It tionship between teacher cognition and teacher behavior.
led us to conclude that the traditional view of teacher edu- Recent insights into this relationship contradict the classical
cation has basically not changed and even that many "new" view of the teacher as a theory-guided decision-maker, but
approaches often take the form of sophisticated procedures a new, comprehensive theory on teacher thinking and
to try and interest student teachers in a particular theory, or teacher behavior has yet to take the place of the old. Several
bridge the gap between the theory presented and teaching notions, which are in fact remnants of an outdated view,
practice. This means that the traditional approach, in which still survive, such as the concepts of "declarative and pro-
teacher educators make an a priori choice about the theory cedural knowledge" or terms like "misconceptions" of
that should be transferred to student teachers, represents a teachers. The variety of different notions and assumptions
very dominant line of thought (compare also Oldfather, underlying new approaches have not yet created a sound
Bonds, & Bray, 1994 and Bullough & Gitlin, 1994). The fun- basis for further development.
damental conception inherent in this line of thought is that This article aims at contributing to the development of
there is a gap to be bridged. One often forgets that it was the these two theoretical bases for a new approach to teacher
a priori choice that created this gap in the first place.
education, the one concerning the nature of theory relevant
Of course, the conditions under which teacher education to teachers, the other concerning the relationship between
takes place are generally not very supportive of a change in teacher cognition and teacher behavior. Moreover, an at-
old habits: Large enrollments and limited time for teacher tempt is made to connect these two theoretical frameworks.
educators to visit student teachers during their teaching The ideas developed in this article are to a large degree
practice are inhibiting factors (Barone et al., 1996, p. 1117). derived from theories on mathematics learning and teach-
Towards a New Paradigm ing. In fact, mathematics education appears to be a domain
where many problems have been first spotted (and also
Although the application model represents the general partly solved) that are very similar to the kind of problems
picture, there are interesting exceptions (see, for example, teacher education faces. However, the connection between
Zeichner, 1995; Clandinin, 1995; Richardson, 1997), but they these two domains has seldom been made. Thus, without
are often realized by a few isolated educators within an trying to dive into mathematics education too deeply here,
institute and are frequently criticized heavily by their col- a short overview of relevant developments in this domain
leagues. As a reaction to weaknesses of the traditional ap- may be helpful to the development of a theory of teacher
proach to teacher education, such innovative educators education. This is the focus of the next section.
have developed new ways of preparing teachers for their
profession. Many of these attempts can be characterized by Mathematics Education as a Paradigmatic Example
an emphasis on reflective teaching (Calderhead, 1989), im-
plying that teacher development is conceptualized as an For two reasons, mathematics education is an interesting
ongoing process of experiencing practical teaching and field on which to build our thinking about teacher educa-
learning situations, reflecting on them under the guidance tion. The first is that for many children, and thus also for
of an expert, and developing one's own insights into teach- teachers, mathematics causes so much trouble. This implies
ing through the interaction between personal reflection and that there is a very strong need to find productive ways of
theoretical notions offered by the expert. helping children acquire necessary knowledge and skills in
a manner that helps them apply what they are learning.
In many teacher education programs this alternative
This need has promoted the development of a theory about
view is currently being worked out. Impressive steps were
made towards the construction of a theoretical basis for learning and teaching mathematics that is directly relevant
such an approach, for example, by formulating the cogni- to classroom practices. Secondly, since mathematics as a
tive psychological underpinnings, mostly in terms of con- field of study can more easily be isolated from other knowl-
structivism (e.g., Oldfather et al., 1994; Bell & Gilbert, 1996), edge domains, psychologists have here been rather suc-
or sociological considerations, generally in terms of goals to cessful in discovering the mechanisms underlying learning.
strive for and methods to reach these goals (e.g., Zeichner, One of the most impressive recent developments in edu-
1983; Liston & Zeichner, 1990), and the ethical dimensions cation has been the introduction of so-called "realistic
involved (Zeichner, 1986). Research into strategies and ef- mathematics education" (Treffers, 1987; Freudenthal, 1991).
fects has also been published (e.g., Zeichner, 1987; Zeichner It can be characterized by a complete break with the tradi-
& Liston, 1987; Gore & Zeichner, 1991). tional approach, which goes from "theory" (principles, rules,
Although the large number of influential publications in theorems) to "practice." For many years, children in mathe-
this area is still growing, there are two respects in which the matics classes had to learn to apply mathematical structures,
theoretical basis underlying this approach remains weak. developed during centuries of study, to practical problems.
First, compared to the traditional theory as found in acade- Although with sufficient support they often succeeded in
mic textbooks, "theory" takes on a completely different working their way through series of textbook problems, in
form in a program aiming at the integration of theory and ordinary life these children were often unable to solve the
practice. The nature of this different kind of theory has not simplest everyday problems, even when these problems
yet been thoroughly studied (an important exception is were similar to those in the math class (Schoenfeld, 1987). In

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EDUCATIONAL at Edinburgh University on May 7, 2012
RESEARCHER
other words, a transfer problem was clearly evident in for learning was created. As is the case in realistic math-
mathematics education. ematics education, the emphasis shifts towards inquiry-
The great mathematician and mathematics educational- oriented activities, interaction amongst learners, and the
ist Hans Freudenthal analyzed this transfer problem and development of reflective skills.
pointed out how, in fact, the traditional didactic approach In our work with teacher educators and program coordi-
contradicted the essential nature of mathematics. In his nators, we often hear the concern that this implies theory
view, mathematics is not "a created subject" to be trans- will disappear from the teacher education curriculum and
ferred to children, but "a subject to be created" (1978, p. 72). student teachers will have to reinvent the wheel over and
When one pursues his line of thinking, mathematics be- over again, the teacher educator's only task being to ask
comes, or rather has always been, a human activity, based in "what do you yourself think?" This is a caricature based on
the reality of the world around us. (This is why he called the a complete misunderstanding of the processes involved in
approach "realistic") Activity leads to consciousness of a realistic approach. During the learning processes in-
structures underlying the problems at hand. These struc- volved, the teacher educator has an important role, al-
tures, constructed by the learner, represent his or her idio- though completely different from the traditional role of the
syncratic way of making meaning out of a problem situa- lecturer. The kind of support that he or she should offer (in-
tion. This means that these cognitive structures are closely cluding theory!) has to be very much adjusted to the specific
connected to the way the learner will deal with similar problems the student teachers are having. As a conse-
problem situations in the future. quence, the nature of fruitful "theory" becomes completely
The realistic approach towards mathematics, as sum- different from that in the traditional approach. This will be
marized in Freudenthal (1991), started in the 70s in the analyzed in the next section.
Netherlands (Freudenthal, 1978). Through the work of the
Freudenthal Institute at Utrecht University, it has now Episteme Versus Phronesis
spread to many other countries as well, for example, to the In teacher education there is much confusion about at least
United States, where it fit into ideas about changing math- two different meanings of the word "theory." Kessels and
ematics education developed in the 80s. An important start- Korthagen (1996) go back to Aristotle's concepts of episteme
ing point in the realistic approach is the assumption that and phronesis to explain the difference. If a teacher educator
students can and should themselves develop mathematical offgrs epistemic knowledge, he or she uses general con-
notions on the basis of practical experiences and problems. ceptions, applicable to a wide variety of situations; this
The problems are presented within a context recognizable knowledge is based on research and can be characterized as
for children, and often taken from everyday situations. Em- "objective" theory, theory with a big T. This is the type of
phasis is put on the practical use of mathematics, inquiry and knowledge that plays a central role in the traditional ap-
reflection, group work, and hands-on activities. Freudenthal proach and that should certainly not be left out of teacher
(1978, 1991) characterizes the resulting teaching and learn- education programs: Now and then student teachers should
ing process as one of guided reinvention (a term also used by be helped to see the larger picture of educational knowl-
Fischer & Bullock, 1984). To put it in its shortest form, the edge. More often, however, they need knowledge that is
realistic approach goes from practice to theory. An interest- situation-specific and related to the context in which they
ing aspect is that the gap between theory and practice dis- meet a problem or develop a need or concern, knowledge
appears, although it is better to say that it is not created by that brings their already existing, subjective perception of
the educational process itself, as is the case in the traditional personally relevant classroom situations one step further.
approach. In cognitive psychological terms one can say that This type of knowledge is called phronesis. We could also
the intended learning processes start from "situated knowl- call it "theory with a small t." The character of phronesis is
edge" (Brown, Collins, & Dunguid, 1989), developed in the more perceptual than conceptual: It—often unconsciously—
interaction of the learners with the problem situations, and focuses the attention of the actor in the situation on certain
that the concrete situations remain the reference points dur- characteristics of the situation, characteristics important to
ing the learning process. This immensely diminishes the the question of how to act in the situation. To put it con-
classical "transfer problem" in application situations. In the cisely, episteme aims primarily at helping us to know more
next section we will discuss the question of what teacher about many situations, while the emphasis of phronesis is
education can learn from the developments in mathematics mostly on perceiving more in a particular situation and find-
education. ing a helpful course of action on the basis of strengthened
awareness. This strengthened awareness of concrete char-
Realistic Teacher Education acteristics in specific situations is also the fundamental dif-
ference between phronesis and procedural knowledge
When comparing traditional approaches to teacher educa-
(knowledge about "how to . . ."). The danger of an empha-
tion with the above example of mathematics education,
sis on procedural knowledge in teacher education is that
there appear to be striking similarities.
student teachers learn a lot of methods and strategies for
In Freudenthal's terms one could say that in this tradi- many types of situations but do not learn how to discover,
tional approach, knowledge about teaching is considered as in the specific situations occurring in everyday teaching,
a created subject and not as a subject to be created by the which methods and strategies to use. Advocates of the tra-
learner, that is, the student teacher. An approach more in

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make a logical analysis of situations, followed by a conscious in constructing meaning and directing behavior. Notions
decision about the course of action to take. In the next section, like images, personal theories, reflection, the washing-out effect,
this assumption will be challenged and a new theory on the conceptual change, and the role of student teacher concerns
relationship between teacher cognition and teacher behav- can be understood from within this framework. In order to
ior will be presented. make the founding principles of this framework under-
standable within the limitations of the present article, we
What Guides Teacher Behavior? start with a relatively simple example of a problem situ-
The "teacher thinking movement," which started in the ation that could occur while teaching a class in primary
70s, has created a view of teachers as conscious "decision- education.
makers" (Clark, 1986). It was assumed that teachers pos- During the days preceding the present episode, the chil-
sess theoretical structures, which they apply to practical dren have worked on many addition and subtraction prob-
situations. Teacher cognition was viewed mainly as being lems like 27 + 5, 68 - 9, and so forth. While teaching the
cognitive and the common line of thinking about the rela- whole class, the teacher, Mrs. Wilson, now wants to offer
tionship between teacher cognition and teacher behavior some more practice with this type of exercise with the aim
fit into the process-product approach in the research on of proceeding to the next topic. She puts the following prob-
teaching prevailing at the time: The idea was that once lem on the blackboard: 34 + 7 = . . .
inside the schools, teachers, when making practical deci- Jim, in the front row, gives the answer 42. Mrs. Wilson im-
sions, would simply use the research-based knowledge of- mediately reacts by saying, "That's wrong. You know that
fered to them. Although, as noted above, this assumption 34 + 6 = 40, so 34 + 7 = 41."
Most educators would disapprove of this reaction. First
of all, Mrs. Wilson made no attempt to discover how Jim
had arrived at the answer 42, even though we know it is im-
portant in teaching to take account of students' preconcep-
tions. Secondly, she did not promote Jim's reflection on how
he had solved the problem, though such reflection is im-
. . . it is remarkable that many portant to developing independent learning. Finally, she
teacher education programs still 4id not help Jim develop his own strategy for solving the
'problem. This increases the likelihood that he will make the
reflect the traditional same type of mistake again next time.
"application-of-theory" model . . . How can we explain the teacher's reaction? For many
years, the view of teachers as "thinkers" and "decision-
makers" has led us to believe that the teacher in our ex-
ample has a theory about this type of situation, interprets
the situation on the basis of this theory, and rationally ar-
rives at the decision to react the way she did. If we ask Mrs.
appeared to be invalid, a more realistic theory of teacher Wilson to explain her behavior after the event, she may in-
cognition and teacher behavior has not yet evolved. Only deed give an explanation that resembles this type of rea-
fragmentary building blocks of such a theory have been soning, that is, a chain of perception, interpretation, logical
introduced by researchers, through new notions, such as thinking, decision-making, and acting. However, is this in-
"personal theories" (e.g., Carter, 1990), "images" (e.g., Elbaz, deed a valid account of what really happened during the
1983; Calderhead & Robson, 1991), or "practical knowl- split second between Jim's reaction and her own?
edge" (e.g., Fenstermacher, 1994). These were interesting Korthagen and Lagerwerf (1996) state that in a case like
attempts at emphasizing the idiosyncratic and situational this, which Dolk (1997) calls an immediate teaching situation,
character of teacher cognition. In Aristotle's terms one it is almost impossible to separate perception, interpreta-
could say that the importance of phronesis was being redis- tion, and reaction, but they all take place within a split sec-
covered. However, researchers using the new notions sel- ond. Together they form a unity rooted in many earlier
dom clarified the relationships of these notions to other experiences in the teacher's life, for example, in situations
related concepts, nor did they say much about the question in which she was a student (compare Lortie, 1975) or situa-
of how cognition influences teacher behavior. This has left tions in which she saw her mentor teacher react to students
the field with a rather confusing series of scattered and un- like Jim. This unity of perception, interpretation, and action
finished attempts at developing the necessary theoretical is certainly not of an exclusively rational nature, and is not
basis for teacher education. even necessarily something the teacher is conscious of.
In a recent article (Korthagen & Lagerwerf, 1996) a pro- Without trying to present an exhaustive list of possible ori-
posal was presented for an integrative framework that could gins of the teacher's behavior, we can quickly see that the
offer this basis to teacher education. This framework takes following aspects may play a role:
account of the conclusion stated by Floden and Klinzing
(1990, p.18) that "teacher educators may be especially in- -feelings, for example, irritation that Jim is still making
terested in studies that describe how teachers learn routines mistakes;
and schemata." It is grounded in recent developments in -former similar experiences, for example, with Jim or with
neurophysiology (e.g., Lawson & Lawson, 1993), linguistics other children who keep making mistakes;
(Johnson, 1987), social psychology (Watzlawick, 1978), and - values, for example, the teacher may find it important
cognitive psychology (Van Hiele, 1986), all pointing toward that children in this grade are capable of performing
the central role of figurative and analog mental structures additions up to 100 without making mistakes;

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 - role conceptions, such as the conception of a teacher as we borrow the notion of closure from Gestalt psychology:
someone who "transmits" correct answers; the tendency of an organism to complete incomplete infor-
- needs or concerns, for example, the wish to get through mation. Well-known examples are that we tend to see a
the present problem quickly and give more attention to whole picture in a number of scattered parts and hear
the other topic she had in mind, or the wish to avoid a the next part of a song if an audiotape suddenly stops. In the
disorderly classroom situation; same way, teachers tend to "close" situations with responses
- routines, for example, the routine of quickly correcting that reflect well-known ways of behaving in similar situa-
a wrong answer as a means to circumvent a problem. tions. In the example of Mrs. Wilson, this may mean present-
ing the right answer. In this way, people's Gestalts often
All these needs, feelings, values, conceptions, and so forth, reflect and at the same time reproduce sociocultural patterns.
together—within a split second—create the personal mean- Many authors use the term images to refer to the holistic
ing of the situation to the teacher, and—often uncon- perceptions guiding behavior (e.g., Denis, 1991; Connelly &
sciously—lead to a behavioral inclination, namely, to react Clandinin, 1984). However, there are two problems with this
by correcting the mistake and repeating the right solution term, causing us to prefer the term Gestalt. First, Calderhead
procedure. Korthagen (1993) proposed the term Gestalt to and Robson (1991) point out that "the concept of image is
indicate the dynamic and holistic unity of needs, feelings, a fairly crude one that has not been very precisely defined
values, meanings and behavioral inclinations triggered by either in cognitive psychology or in research on teaching"
an immediate situation. (p. 3). Indeed, the term is used for different phenomena, for
Gestalts example, both in the sense of a context-bound, concrete
mental picture of a certain situation and in the sense of a
Central in Gestalt psychology is the notion that the most
general view of teaching or education, thus coming close to
elementary way individuals acquire a grasp of their envi-
the concept of a metaphor. Second, the term image seems to
ronment is through the formation of Gestalts, which, often
refer to something visual, while it is important to include
unconsciously or semi-consciously, help us to see objects or
imprints from other sensory perceptions (Dennett, 1991)
situations as an entity and to respond to them as such (Ellis,
and behavioral tendencies. This is in line with recent neuro-
1950). For immediate teaching situations this means that the
physiological research showing how the implicit or nonde-
many and multifaceted conditions and events embedded in
clarative memory processes parallel sensory inputs. Barlow
a given situation are combined into one holistic perceptual
(1990) notes: "Neurons respond selectively to just the char-
identity. This implies a complex interplay between social,
acteristics of the image that the Gestalt school drew atten-
cultural, psychological, and physical factors. Firstly, the
tion to" (p. 21). Indeed, the application of the well-known
knowledge imbedded in Gestalts is linked to concrete situ-
Gestalt laws (for example, the above-mentioned law of clo-
ations previously encountered by the person (often very
sure) to processes in teaching appears to deepen our un-
early in life) and colored by the subjective and value-laden
derstanding of phenomena in educational contexts (see
experiences of such situations. This is in line with Van
Dolk, Korthagen, & Wubbels, 1995 for an elaboration).
Manen's (1990) conception of the interplay of a situation
and the person experiencing that situation and the role of This alternative analysis of the processes going on inside
context in that experience (compare also Clandinin, 1985 the teacher do not imply a complete rejection of the classi-
and Carter & Doyle, 1996). For example, in Mrs. Wilson's cal analysis of the relationship between teacher cognition
situation described above, negative experiences with class- and teacher behavior. It may be that the description of the
room discussions may shape her present behavior. process in terms of a chain consisting of perception—>
Following the work of authors such as Vygotsky (1978) interpretation—^analysis—^decision-faction is more accu-
and Giddens (1984), we can look at the role of context from a rate in cases where the teacher is operating at a fairly con-
broader socio-cultural perspective. For example, it is possi- scious level, especially if the teacher reflects after the lessons
ble that Mrs. Wilson is strongly influenced by her need to get ("reflection-on-action"; Schon, 1987) or if there has been
through the lesson quickly, which may in turn be influenced a fraction of stop-and-think before reacting ("reflection-in-
by pressures put on her by a prescribed and overloaded cur- action"). Probably, not only phronesis but also an episteme
riculum. This may in turn reflect a macro social-economic type of knowledge can be helpful in such situations. How-
emphasis on productivity, and diminishing consideration ever, in most situations during a lesson the "split-second"
for the value of care in human relationships. As Berlak and way of reacting, rooted in Gestalts triggered by the charac-
Berlak (1981) pointed out, the teaching profession is filled teristics of the situations, is probably much more common.
with such dilemmas between conflicting values, goals, con- This assumption builds on the literature on teacher routines
ditions, and personal needs of the participants in classroom (e.g., Clark & Yinger, 1979; Halkes & Olson, 1984), which
interactions. To give an example of the latter, Mrs. Wilson stresses the fact that the automatic or mechanical perfor-
may also be influenced by her feeling Jim's resistance mance of acts is characteristic of a good deal of teacher
toward being asked to reflect on his own thinking, which behavior (see also Unwin & McAleese, 1978). Carter (1990,
again may result from his cultural background. p. 297) concludes that teachers' actions seem to be governed
However, being "in action," Mrs. Wilson will not have largely by rules and routines, with decision-making in a
the time to reflect on such important, but numerous and studied, deliberate sense taking a minor role in their inter-
very complex relationships between the various factors active thinking. Elbaz (1991) notes that teachers' knowledge
imbedded in the situation: Foremost, she has to act, and a is non-linear, holistic, imbued with personal meaning, and
Gestalt of the situation helps her in doing so. largely tacit. As Russell, Munby, Spafford, and Johnston
For the purpose of describing the holistic and direct rela- (1988, p. 67) put it: "professional knowledge consists of
tionship between context, situation, person, and behavior, more than that which can be told or written on paper."

MAY 1999
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Levels in the Development of Knowledge and makes use of concepts, which means that schemata also
About Teaching show characteristics of episteme.
If it is true that Gestalts play such an important role in The schema level itself can also be reflected upon, lead-
teaching, h o w are these Gestalts related to the episteme ing to the theory level. In this reflection, the teacher makes
type of knowledge contained within the available body of logical connections between the relationships in his or her
knowledge about teaching—knowledge that teachers can schema. For example, some relationships in the schema
and should at least partly acquire as a basis of their profes- may appear to be a logical consequence of others, or may
sional thinking? A n d what is the role of reflection-on-action themselves appear to be if-then relationships that apply to
in developing episteme? These are fundamental questions a large variety of situations. Constructivism is such a theory,
asking for a synthesis of the two rather n e w knowledge built on the assumption that people actively construct
bases presented in the two previous sections, one concern- meaning on the basis of their experiences.
ing the nature of "theory" and one concerning the relation- The theory level is characterized by the formulation of
ship between teacher cognition and teacher behavior. definitions, axioms (basic relationships), and logically de-
To answer these questions, Korthagen and Lagerwerf rived propositions. This level has the clearest characteristics
(1996) use a model of levels in learning, summarized in Fig- of episteme.
ure 1, again based on a theory of mathematics education (a After some time, knowledge on the schema or even the
theory developed by Van Hiele, 1986). The bottom level is theory level can become self-evident to the teacher, and the
the Gestalt level, as described in the previous section. If knowledge can be used in a less conscious, "intuitive" way.
teachers come across unexpected situations or if they are It is as if the whole schema or theory has been reduced to
stimulated by someone else (for example, a teacher educa- one Gestalt. Van Hiele (1986, p.46) calls this level reduction.
tor) to take time and look more closely at their teaching, re- We give an example:
flection on their o w n Gestalts is promoted. By examining the Before entering teacher education, a student teacher re-
question of w h a t it is that guides their o w n behavior, teach- acted automatically to a child who wrote down "12 + 9 =
ers can become aware of the elements that constitute these 22" by pointing out his mistake. During teacher educa-
Gestalts and the relationships between these elements. tion she went through a process of change by experienc-
They can start to develop a more consciously available ing in a variety of situations the fact that knowledge
schema, which on the one h a n d is still tied to concrete expe- •| transmission is not actually very effective. She became
riences, but on the other h a n d becomes more detached from aware of the importance of creating learning experiences
for children, and promoting their reflection as a prereq-
these experiences. Van M a n e n (1977) refers to this as "the
uisite for their learning. In supervision and during group
process of analyzing and clarifying individual and cultural discussions, she developed a schema about teaching and
experiences, meanings, perceptions, assumptions, prejudg- learning, of which she is consciously aware. In this
ments, a n d presuppositions, for the purpose of orienting schema, notions like "experience" and "reflection" play a
practical actions" (p. 226). For instance, in the above exam- central role. Having taught for some time on the basis of
ple Mrs. Wilson m a y notice that she uses concepts like this schema, she again reacts "automatically" to a pupil
"slow learners" and "repeated instruction," their relation- who writes "12 + 9 = 22," but this time her reaction is to
ship being that slow learners need repeated instruction. She ask him how he can check his work. In the concrete ac-
tion situation, her schema now functions as if it were a
then starts to develop a schema, that is, a conscious mental
Gestalt: She uses it almost unconsciously.
framework of concepts and relationships, which gradually
gets more interiority (a term used by Skemp, 1979). The kind Thanks to level reduction, the relevant schemata or theories
of knowledge i m b e d d e d in a schema shows characteristics need less attention. This allows the individual to concen-
of phronesis, as it builds on Gestalts and is thus connected to trate on other things.
specific situations and personal perception. It is also highly
subjective, as the example shows; Mrs. Wilson's inference is Illustration of the Three Levels, Based
certainly not in line with the ideas of modern educational- on Empirical Evidence
ists. O n the other hand, the knowledge in schemata is often In this section, we illustrate the three level model with con-
also somewhat more generalized over different situations crete examples. We present data from a type of interview we

Experiences Gestalt Gestalt Schematization Schema Theory Theory (a

with formation (holistic) (network formation logical
concrete of elements ordering of
examples and relations) the relations
in the
schema)
Reflection Reflection

t t
Level reduction
+
FIGURE 1. Levels in the process of learning with regard to a certain domain.

w EDUCATIONAL
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at Edinburgh University on May 7, 2012
developed on the basis of research designs used by other re- Though the interviewer makes several attempts to focus on
searchers in this field, such as Carter, Cushing, Sabers, Stein, the discussion itself, the student is hardly aware of the
and Berliner (1988) a n d Copeland, Birmingham, Demeulle, structure in the communication on the video. Instead, she
D'Emidio-Caston, a n d Natal (1994). In these interviews, the has focused her attention on high school students' prob-
respondents watched classroom vignettes on video and were lems and teachers' classroom behavior. These issues appar-
subsequently questioned about them. The three cases de- ently reflect her "concern," shaping her perception of the
scribed here are d r a w n from semi-structured interviews video. With regard to these issues, she seems to have a kind
about a five minute video recording showing a discussion, of schema with concepts and relationships, even a logical
between a small group of high school students a n d their bi- relationship.
ology teacher, about a test many students h a d failed. However, as far as the communication structure on the
video is concerned, w e are inclined to conclude that she is
Respondent 1: A 13-Year-Old High School Student at a Gestalt level; there seems to be one overall idea that
characterizes the conversation for her, which is something
Interviewer: Can you tell me what you've just seen, in one
like: Such a conversation does not help and is irritating.
sentence?
This is only verbalized after repeated inquiry. The student
Student: A teacher who has a talk with students about a does not seem to have many concepts at her disposal to de-
test they failed. scribe this Gestalt in more detail. It is typical of the Gestalt
level that the phenomenon is self-evident for the person.
Interviewer: What do you think about that talk?
This seems to be the case here. The student seems to think:
Student: Well, I think, that the teacher, he . . . It is indeed This is just the w a y teachers talk. This example shows h o w
kind of dry material. If you would have a book that has cultural factors shape students' perception and is an illus-
pictures and good, readable pieces of text in it. Isn't that tration of the complex interplay between cultural, social,
much nicer to study than when a teacher tells you about and psychological factors in the Gestalt formation process.
things in class you have to memorize right away? It is also the reason w h y w e started with the example of a
Interviewer: So you're saying: I understand what those non-teacher: We found that, as soon as people start to think
students are trying to say. seriously of becoming a teacher, their reflections on the
vMeo are more focused on the teacher-student interaction
Student: Yes. In our class we always have practicals and arid its limitations.
nice pictures and stuff, and then it's easy. You know right
off how everything is put together and how it works, just
Respondent 2: A Postgraduate Student Teacher in Chemistry
from looking at those pictures.
Interviewer: What do you think about the talk? Interviewer: Can you sum up what you have just seen in
one sentence?
Student: You know, teachers always think: this is my sub-
ject and you have to start three days in advance and this, Student: A lecture, he was giving a lecture, pure and
that and the other. But we get other assignments too, you simple. He was trying to find the reasons to explain to the
know! We might well have two more tests to study for be- students why they'd failed the test. He's already analyzed
it completely, he knows exactly what the problem is.
fore that one, and that's it then. Then it's really impossible
That's fairly obvious. It was a lecture I saw.
to study for all of them days in advance.
Interviewer: What makes you say that? Why is it a lecture?
Interviewer: So what you're saying is: Some of the prob-
lems those students mention are well-known to me. What Student: He was talking for a fairly long time. At a certain
do you think of the teacher in that talk? point he's listing the things he thought had caused the stu-
dents to flunk the test. The fast pace, outside pressures. He
Student: That teacher puts it all down to pace, but pace didn't allow the students to speak very often, either. The
has nothing to do with it! If you explain everything well, students tried to, several times, by saying: "Yes, but don't
use good pictures to go with it, and you just understand you think it could've had something to do with the way
everything, you could make it as fast as you like.. .. you teach?" Well, of course that wasn't it, obviously. That
didn't fit in with his explanations. Those were not the
Interviewer: And what did you think of the talk? problems he foresaw. It was more like a one-way transfer
Student: Well, I think things didn't get any clearer for the of what was really at the bottom of it. And as for the stu-
dents' role in it, there hardly was any. . . .
students. I mean, if they studied as hard as they could this
time, then I think they'll probably fail the next test, too. Interviewer: Do you know more about this type of situa-
tion, in terms of the words you use, like lecture, one-way
Interviewer: Is there a logic to what you're saying? transfer?
Student: I don't know. Student: I perceive it as a lecture, because that's how I ex-
Interviewer: I mean, could you make a sentence that goes perienced lectures at university. That's what a lecturer is
like: "If this, then that"? there for, he transmits his views on a particular subject
and you really just absorb that and maybe you put it to
Student: Well, if teachers would explain things better and use at a later stage. There is no interaction, really. Also, I
be clearer and draw easier pictures, then that'd mean the could appreciate where those students were coming from.
grades would go up. Because that is how you often feel, that the teacher really
knows best, because of his experience.
Interviewer: Do you know any theory about this?
Interviewer: When I ask you, what do you know about
Student: No? [The student seems to be surprised by the these things, I am referring to educational and pedagogi-
question.] cal knowledge too. What is your reaction to that?

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MAY 1999 11
 Student: When I look at a situation like this one, I'm like that. This makes up one theory, and then you have . . .
thinking: They'll leave in a minute, but they haven't [He is elaborating the drawing.]
achieved anything. They've discussed the problem, but
whether they'll actually be able to do something about it, Interviewer: You're referring to this as a theory?
that wasn't the issue here. So, I think that in that respect, Professor: You can combine this into one theory, I think
he didn't make the most of the discussion. It was an ex- that in my head this might be something in the shape of
change of ideas, more than anything. The students came one theory, more or less.. ..
to him with a problem, but he didn't solve it for them. At
the end he just goes: "Well now, you'll start to study a Interviewer: You say that was not on your mind when you
couple of days sooner, you'll put in more time. And this were looking at the video, but could you describe it. . .
time, don't just put it off till one day before the test." You
see, he claims that is what happens 99% of the time. And Professor: I'm thinking of guidelines, like if this man really
then their simple admission that they're just not going to wants the students to start now, make them start studying
do that. The discussion hasn't changed anything. for the next test earlier, he'd better do things differently.
That type of thing crossed my mind constantly, but I
Interviewer: Do you know any educational or pedagogi- couldn't simply add them here [in the drawing]; this is
cal theory that could apply to this situation? more like a sort of overall network of concepts. There's
bound to be some logical structure in there, but I can't see
Student: No, you're right, I don't know much about that. that now.
We conclude that this s t u d e n t teacher has reached a There is no doubt that the professor has reached theory
schema level with regard to the communication between a level with regard to the theories he mentions, since he has
teacher a n d his students, in which some first logical rela- written several books on some of them. In the interview he
tionships are discernible. The elements of the schema are even tries to find logical relationships between these sepa-
concepts like "lecture" and "one-way transfer." A logical rate theories. The theories and theory-elements seem to
relationship seems to be: "If a teacher employs such a one- play a role in the way the professor interprets the vignette,
w a y transfer approach, then a problematic situation like but not so much at a conscious level. He is more focused on
this will not change much." From the last part of the in- finding practical guidelines for action. He reports that only
terview, w e conclude that this student teacher has not yet f fterwards, during the interview, he becomes aware of the
reached the theory level. 'connection between these guidelines and the theories. We
are inclined to regard this situation as an example of a re-
Respondent 3-; A Professor of Education duced theory level. This seems to be characteristic of every
In the first part of the interview, this respondent describes situation in which a respondent w h o has reached the theory
his thoughts on what h e saw in the video. Basically, he feels level is asked to reflect on a practical case: It appears that in
that the students in this situation analyze the problem dif- such cases the connection with practice can only be estab-
ferently than the teacher, and that the teacher tries to ex- lished through level reduction.
plain that his w a y really is the right way. In answer to the
question "What d o you k n o w about this kind of situation," Consequences for Teacher Education
the respondent refers to publications by Gordon on teacher- It is important to note that people often try to find logical ex-
student interaction and Leary on interpersonal behavior planations for phenomena before a sufficiently rich schema
and theory of discussion techniques. has been formed. They use "local" orderings leading to a
subjective theory1—for example, one which contains the
Interviewer: Summarizing the things you brought up in
proposition, "If a student does not understand my explana-
answer to my question about what you know about this
kind of situation, I heard you mention Gordon, a number tion, I have to give the explanation again." Such subjective
of his principles, like "whose problem is this," you refer to theories lack the characteristics of an empirically based and
discussion techniques, you comment briefly on the fact coherent "Theory with a big T" (episteme). It is here that
that there's little or no communication in this situation, teacher education becomes difficult: "Reframing" such sub-
you mention Leary, you regard it from a Leary point of jective theories in the student teachers' minds (a term used
view, you picture a Leary-rose [the model for mapping by Schon, 1987) requires much more than presenting sound
behavior, developed by Leary], you thought about what theoretical frameworks to them, as the research on learning
you could do about it, and then you observe that this
and instruction shows. The level model presented above
would be probably very hard, since this type of thing is
usually very deep and fixed. It is rather a lot of different clarifies that a teacher educator should not try to induce
subjects you mention there. Is there any logical structure change on the theory level, but should go d o w n and start
behind that multitude of things? Is there a logic which ties on a lower level, especially the Gestalt level. This means
it all together? that the student teacher should first gain more experiences
that are suited to developing adequate Gestalts.
Professor: If I start with non-communication I'd probably Such experiences could, for instance, be the tutoring of a
be able to draw circles and arrows or something to connect
single high school student. In our o w n teacher education
it to the other concepts. [He starts to make a drawing.]
program at Utrecht University, a one-to-one arrangement is
Leary is one way to study that communication; Gordon
provides another way to look at it, and I should add here the first field-based experience for student teachers (Vedder
that I usually tend to use this to look at classroom situations & Bannink, 1988). The prescription to audiotape the one-to-
and that I apply that to discussion situations outside the one sessions and to analyze them afterwards causes student
classroom situation. And of course they're closely related, teachers to shift from a teacher perspective to a student per-
because of escalating processes, for one thing, symmetrical spective, as generally they quickly notice the communica-
communication and complementary relationships, things tion gap between themselves and the child. At that point,

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EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHERon May 7, 2012
new Gestalts are formed—an auspicious moment for the 4. Train the student teachers in acting in a productive
teacher educator to ask further questions and focus the manner.
student teacher's attention on important details of the in-
This list illustrates that this new approach to teacher edu-
teraction with his or her student. Again, it is strengthened
cation is, in itself, an integration of several older ap-
awareness that is the goal here. Only later on (after a few
proaches: the theory-based approach, competency-based
sessions) can reflection on the newly built Gestalts take
methods, and the reflection paradigm in teacher education.
place, leading to schematization. "Make haste slowly" is the
It should be noted that the realistic approach cannot be
watchword here: A pressure towards developing theory too
equated with the so-called "concern-based" approach to
quickly can easily become counterproductive, as the stu-
teacher education (Fuller, 1969). In this latter approach the
dent teacher's actions in practice will be Gestalt-driven.
curriculum is grounded in research into general stages of
As soon as the Gestalts directing the student teacher's split-
concern development in student teachers and is structured
second behavior are no longer closely tied to the theory
accordingly beforehand. The realistic approach acknowl-
offered by the teacher educator, this theory becomes inef-
edges such general trends in concern development but fo-
fective, especially in cases where the student teacher gets
cuses on a more concrete level, that is, the specific concerns,
blocked by theoretical guidelines that he or she cannot
questions, and problems student teachers take with them to
translate into practice. This means that the "theoretical" el-
the institute today on the basis of yesterday's experiences in
ements offered by the educator should have the character-
the school. This implies a much greater flexibility and more
istics of phronesis more than those of episteme.
limited possibilities to prestructure the program. As a con-
This points toward another fundamental problem: Any sequence, the role of the teacher educator becomes certainly
episteme that is not connected to already existing phronesis not simple. The "what do you yourself think" caricature
will not change the practitioner much. Even if a student forms a strong contrast to the professionalism required to
teacher gradually develops his or her Gestalts into schemata put the realistic approach and the idea of guided reinven-
and finally into sound theories, level reduction should take tion into practice.
place within the student teacher before any attained theory
level is able to influence split-second behavior. This means A very obvious consequence of this approach is that stu-
that in the end, the theory in the student teacher's mind dent teachers' Gestalts should be taken as a serious starting
should itself become a Gestalt, that is, a dynamic unity inter- point for professional development. As we saw, Gestalts are
twined with behavior in a certain type of situation and no certainly not only of a cognitive nature: The student teach-
longer needing much conscious reflection. ers' needs, feelings, concerns, values, and so forth should be
taken into account. This opens up a whole array of neces-
If we consider the long road from Gestalts, via schemata, sary teacher educator competencies, for example, the com-
to theory and then back again to Gestalts, it is no wonder petency to create a safe learning environment by means of
that theory in the traditional academic sense can only have acceptance, genuineness, and empathy (Rogers, 1969). The
a limited place in preservice programs. Still it is an impor- ability to stimulate concreteness is another very important
tant place, as phronesis is to be considered of higher quality competency, as it is the tool by which differentiation within
if it is fed by episteme. On the other hand, if we dare to view the Gestalts is promoted, leading to schematization. Con-
this phronesis as an important part of the relevant knowl- frontation should not be avoided, but a balance between
edge base for practitioners, a lot can be offered to teachers safety and challenge is needed in order to make confronta-
during the preservice period. tion effective. The relationships between the use of teacher
educator competencies and the intended reflective learning
A New Role for the Teacher Educator process in the student teacher are shown in Figure 2.
However, the realistic approach to teacher education re- In the inner circle, the reflection process is described by
quires a special and often unconventional role on the part the so-called ALACT model for reflection (Korthagen, 1985,
of teacher educators. Their main task requires at least four 1988), named after its five phases: action, looking back,
competencies; they must be able to do the following:
1. Create suitable learning experiences for student teach- ALL THE PREVIOUS SKILLS + HELP
IN FINDING AND CHOOSING —
ers in which these student teachers can develop ade- SOLUTIONS f A V - a separate learning-
quate Gestalts, the bases for the next step. programme (if necessary)

2. Promote further awareness and reflection in student / creating \ \

/ alternative methods
teachers on their experiences, thus developing more ACCEPTANCE
EMPATHY of action
HELP IN
elaborated Gestalts and schemata, leading to phronesis. GENUINENESS
\ CONTINUING THE
CONCRETENESS .awareness trjal
It is often helpful to take one concrete, recently experi- J LEARNING PROCESS

enced, and relatively short teaching situation as a

CONFRONTATION I
3 / 1essential 0f
\ HELP IN

starting point for analysis, a situation that still evokes

GENERALIZING
UTILIZING THE
HERE-AND-NOW
HELP IN
V
aspects aclion
(T /
) FINDING USEFUL
EXPERIENCES
some concern or question in the student teachers. MAKING THINGS \ looking back on
EXPLICIT \. the action /
3. Offer theoretical notions from empirical research in
such a way that these notions at a specific moment for
specific student teachers help their phronesis one step ^{^r ACCEPTANCE
further, which means that they start to perceive more EMPATHY
GENUINENESS
in the specific and in similar situations and are able to CONCRETENESS
act upon their heightened awareness. The latter im-
plies that the teacher educator must not only offer the- FIGURE 2. The ALACT model (inner circle) and the necessary
oretical elements but should have the competency to: teacher educator competencies (outer circle).

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RESEARCHER
awareness of essential aspects, creating alternative methods ing to a report to the teacher educator with concrete issues
of action, and trial. The fifth phase is itself again the first and questions, to which the educator can, to a large extent,
(action) phase of the next cycle, which means that we are react in meetings with the cohort group as a whole. Apart
dealing with a spiral model: The realistic approach aims at from the fact that such a method saves staff time, it prepares
on ongoing process of professional development. student teachers for inter-collegially supported learning dur-
Of course, we should realize that many teacher educators, ing the rest of their careers, thus creating a counterbalance to
especially in North America, have to work with large cohort the individualistic and non-collaborative culture of teaching
groups in which close personal supervision of student teach- that Feiman-Nemser and Floden (1986) point at.
ers is not always possible. As we also recognized this prob-
lem in our own program, we have developed structural Organizational Consequences
methods in which student teachers do as much of the super- The realistic approach to teacher education not only has con-
vision as possible together. These methods of so-called inter- sequences for the types of interventions teacher educators
collegially supported learning (Tigchelaar & Melief, 1997) aim at should use to promote the intended learning process in the
structuring the intended five-step individual reflection student teachers, but there are also consequences on the or-
process about concrete teaching experiences (for example, in ganizational level of teacher education curricula (see also
the one-to-one arrangement) through a series of questions Hermans, Creton, & Korthagen, 1993 and Koetsier, Wubbels,
(Figure 3), as well as promoting reflective discussion of the & Korthagen, 1997).
teaching experiences in groups of three to four student teach- First of all, linking theory and practice with the aid of the
ers. For this purpose, the student teachers are trained in ALACT model requires frequent alternation of school teach-
using the very same supervision skills as indicated in Figure ing days and meetings at the teacher education institute.
2, which of course is also helpful for their guidance of their Secondly, in order to harmonize the interventions of
own students in the schools. Moreover, the small group dis- school-based mentors and institute-based teacher educa-
cussion takes place according to a prestructured format, lead- tors, close cooperation between the schools and the institute
is necessary. Not every school may be suitable as a practicum
site; the school must be able to offer a sound balance be-
REFLECTION QUESTIONS tween safety and challenge and a balance between the goal
•|of serving student teachers' learning and the interests of the
school.
Phase 5 of the previous cycle (= phase 1 of the present cycle): Thirdly, the approach advocated here implies that it is im-
1. What did I want to achieve? possible to make a clear distinction between different sub-
jects in the teacher education program. As Korthagen and
2. What did 1 want to pay particular attention to?
Lagerwerf (1996) note, the realistic approach "is not com-
3. What did I wan! to try out? patible with a program structure showing separate mod-
ules such as 'subject matter methods,' 'general education,'
'psychology of learning,' etc. Teacher knowledge, which is
Phase 2 (looking back): assumed to function in practice, is knowledge based on ex-
4. What were the concrete events?
periences; and teaching experiences are not as fragmented
as the programs of many teacher education institutes would
- What did I want? suggest" (p. 185).
- What did I do? Finally, the realistic approach in teacher education re-
- What did I think?
quires specific competencies from both teacher educators
and cooperating teachers, for example, those indicated in
- How did I feel? Figure 2, and most of all the competency to be themselves
- What do I think the pupils wanted, did, thought, felt? reflective with regard to their own supervision practices.
This implies the need for the professional development and
training of teacher education staff and cooperating teachers
Phase 3 (awareness of essential aspects): in the school.2
5. What is the connection between the answers to the previous questions? Empirical Support of the Realistic Approach
6. What is the influence of the context/the school as a whole? in Teacher Education
7. What does that mean lor me? Since the mid-80s, the Utrecht University teacher education
program preparing for secondary education has gradually
8. What is the problem (or the positive discovery)?
developed more and more toward the approach described in
this article. Of course, an important question is: What are the
results? Focusing especially on this question, we will briefly
Phase 4 (creating alternatives):
present an overview of several evaluative studies of the
9. What alternatives do I see? (solutions or ways to make use of my discovery)? Utrecht program, which have been published previously.
10. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?
A national evaluation study, carried out by an external re-
search office (Research voor Beleid; see Luijten, Marinus, &
11. What do I resolve to do next time? Bal, 1995 and Samson & Luijten, 1996), of all Dutch teacher
education programs preparing for secondary education has
FIGURE 3. Questions for promoting reflection, based on the shown that 71% of a sample of graduates of the Utrecht pro-
ALACT model. gram (IV = 81) scored their professional preparation as good

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14 EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER
or very good (the two highest scores on a five-point scale). at an explicitly concrete level. This was recognized by the
This is a remarkable result given that, in the total sample of program staff. It is a difficulty almost inherent to the realis-
graduates from all Dutch teacher education programs tic approach that it is hard and perhaps even counter-
preparing for secondary education (N = 5135), this percent- productive to state in advance what the reinvention process
age was only 41% (p < 0.001). should lead to. Perhaps this is the price to be paid for the
In light of the present article, a fundamental question is: shift from an emphasis on episteme toward the development
Does the realistic approach indeed reduce the gap between of knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are really being used
theory and practice? Several studies have focused on this in practice. On the other hand, after 1992, years of experi-
more specific question. In 1991, an evaluative overall study ence with the realistic approach have enabled the program
among all graduates of the Utrecht University program be- staff to predict rather precisely what types of problems and
tween 1987 and 1991 showed that 86% of the respondents concerns are generated by what kinds of practical experi-
considered their preparation program relevant or highly ences of student teachers, as well as what kind of "theory"
relevant to their present work as a teacher (Koetsier et al., can effectively be connected to these problems and con-
1997). Hermans et al. (1993) illustrate this finding with more cerns. This made it possible to formulate the program ob-
qualitative data from an experiment with a group of 12 stu- jectives more precisely in advance and to not only follow
dent teachers, strictly incorporating all the principles men- the student teachers' concerns, but also generate them (Van
tioned in the two previous sections. All 12 student teachers der Valk, Somers, Wubbels, & Korthagen, 1996). This led the
reported a seamless connection between theory and prac- 1997 committee to score the degree of "completeness and
tice—a noteworthy result, given the many research reports clarity of the program goals" as good to excellent, as well as
from all over the world showing the problematic relation- the degree to which the program goals were achieved. We
ship between theory and practice. Some quotes from stu- believe that this is another indication that a new and sound
dent teachers' evaluations are: "The integration theory/ "pedagogy of realistic teacher education" is now evolving.
practice to my mind was perfect"; "Come to think of it, I The first building blocks of this pedagogy have been de-
have seen and /or used all of the theory in practice"; "The scribed in this article.
things dealt with in the course are always apparent in
school practice."
We already mentioned an extensive study by Brouwer
(1989) into the relationship between program design and Notes
the effects of 24 teacher education curricula (related to 12
different school subjects) in use at Utrecht University dur- 1. The term subjective theory is typically European, while the term
implicit theory is more common in North America (cf. Carter, 1990 with
ing the 80s, that is, the years in which the realistic approach Mandl & Huber, 1983). The term implicit theory has a connotation of
started to develop. At various moments during these pro- "tacit knowledge," which cannot be directly explicated. As the latter
grams and during the first two years in which the graduates type of knowledge is more congruent with what we call a Gestalt, we
worked as teachers, quantitative and qualitative data were prefer the term subjective theory to indicate a local ordering in
schemata.
collected among 357 student teachers, 31 teacher educators,
2. Such a training has been developed and implemented on a large
and 128 cooperating teachers. Concrete learning effects on scale in the Netherlands, causing a shift in the approaches of many
the work of the graduates during their first year in the Dutch teacher educators. The training has also been given to teacher
profession (measured by means of 14 criterion variables) educators from a variety of European countries, the U.S., Canada, and
appeared to depend primarily on the degree to which the- Australia.
oretical elements in their preparation program were per-
ceived by the student teachers as functional for practice at
the time of their student teaching, and on the cyclical alter-
nation between school-based and university-based periods Acknowledgments
in the program. Also, a gradual increase in the complexity
The authors are grateful to all their colleagues and students of the
of activities and demands on the student teachers appeared IVLOS Institute of Education for their contributions to the development
to be a crucial factor in integrating theory and practice. of ideas presented in this paper. Special thanks go to Hans Creton,
Maarten Dolk, Leen Don, Bram Lagerwerf, Mieke Brekelmans, and
Another fundamental question is whether the profes- Theo Wubbels. Our fellow countrymen Pierre Van Hiele and the late
sional community would consider the knowledge base Hans Freudenthal deserve the final credits for showing us the direc-
offered to the student teachers at Utrecht University to be tion to take in our own process of guided reinvention.
sufficient. Some valuable indications may be derived from
two external evaluations, in 1992 and 1997, by two official
committees composed of experts in teacher education, re-
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