Data-driven guidelines for high quality teacher education

Key findings of the previous papers are examined in terms of implications for teacher education (preservice and inservice). Located in the context of the poor empirical base for teacher education and the contested normative terrain that characterises this field, eight major findings from the SIPA study are addressed with specific implications considered. For instance, demonstrating the relative lack of high quality pedagogy for indigenous students and those from low SES backgrounds highlights a need to ensure that teachers understand and know how to include more challenging and meaningful work for these students. In identifying the relative impact of significance, quality learning environment, and intellectual quality for different groups of students, new ways are identified to focus teachers' energies to support the high quality achievement of all students. By demonstrating the relationship between teaching quality and student achievement, teachers' needs in relation to pedagogy are highlighted. Next we return to an adjudication of the normative debate based on the strong empirical data that underpins the findings, arguing that all three key positions in the debate (which emphasise content knowledge, teaching skill or social justice) are necessary components of high quality teacher education