The Complexity of Learning to Teach: A Four Dimensional Approach to Designing Teacher Education Programs

This paper discusses what is wrong with the conventional model of teacher education that is stimulating calls for reform and questions whether there is a better way. The paper is organized into three sections. The first examines the relationship between conceptions of teaching and views about learning to teach. The second section identifies the problems that exist in a conventional teacher education model, and the third section proposes a way of.thinking based on four interrelated dimensions that will lead to a more connected way of designing teacher education programs. These are: (1) conceptual links across the university-based curriculum; (2) theory-practice links between university and schools; (3) social-cultural links between participants in the program; and (4) personal links in establishing the identity of a teacher educator. (Contains 31 references.) (SLD) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document