Integrating Research Skills in Teacher Education

A teacher educator (also called a teacher trainer) is a person who helps other people to acquire the knowledge, competences and attitudes they require to be effective teachers. Several individual teacher educators are usually involved in the initial or ongoing education of each teacher; often each specializes in teaching about a different aspect of teaching (e.g. educational ethics, philosophy of education, sociology of education, curriculum, pedagogy, subject-specific teaching methods etc.). Being able to educate teachers requires different knowledge and skills than those required to teach pupils or students. In the Teacher Education Program, we believe that the power of teacher-leaders as to be agents of organizational and social change, transforming urban public schools and improving lives. For most of this century, and increasingly in modern times, teacher educators have been impelled to consider ways in which a greater level of reflectivity can be enhanced especially by incorporating research skills into the teacher education program.