Developing a Pedagogy of Teacher Education: Understanding Teaching and Learning About Teaching (John Loughran, 2006)

John Loughran is currently the Foundation Chair in Curriculum and Professional Practice at Monash University. Developing a Pedagogy of Teacher Education: Understanding Teaching and Learning About Teaching is the culmination of two lines of inquiry—pedagogy of and reflection in teacher education—that Loughran has studied for over a decade. In this seminal work, he argues that to build on our current research base on teacher education, the next logical step is to develop a specific pedagogy of teacher education. In this highly readable text, Loughran draws on the work of many well-established scholars of teacher education (e.g., Dewey, Korthagen, Brookfield, Shulman) and uses the extensive research he and his colleagues have conducted on their teacher education programs at Monash University. Loughran believes that the practices of classroom teachers cannot be simply replicated in teacher education programs. “[T]he teacher educator may be viewed as simply being a teacher teaching in teacher preparation” which he feels is inadequate and suggests conceptualizing teacher educators as having “an expertise in teaching and learning about teaching” (p. 13). His conceptual framework cannot be easily labeled as social constructivism or critical pedagogy; rather, it is a set of principles unique to teacher education but one that draws on elements from other frameworks (e.g., from social constructivism he advocates that teacher educators need to develop a strong relationship with their student teachers). Loughran’s book is divided into two parts, the first, Teaching About Teaching, focuses on teacher educators, and the second, Learning About Teaching, shifts to student teachers. Two of Loughran’s insights that I found particularly powerful are (1) teacher educators cannot simply model engaging teaching practices and (2) the importance of student teachers being highly involved in their learning. In regard to the first, Loughran challenges the common notion