Developing New Teacher Education Curricula: Why Should Critical Rationalist Epistemology Talk Louder?

Abstract

This paper concentrates on the legitimisation of two basic traditions of teacher education: educational psychology in Anglo-American countries and Didaktik in continental European countries. Having been developed and reinforced largely by empirical research carried out in accordance with their own conceptual premises, these two traditions, when used together in teacher education, cause terminological vagueness and casual overlap of the curriculum. This paper argues for stronger epistemological considertion in legitimising the usage of these concepts in teacher education. It will be argued that a critical evaluation of the scientific content of these concepts -via the critical rationalist tradition initiated by Popper and Lakatos -is logically possible and a practically inevitable task for the improvement of teacher education curricula.

Promoting Teacher Education Curricula by Using Methods of Historical Research: Estonian Case

“…There have also been attempts to see this process in the light of an artificial confrontation between the traditions of German didactics (as former Soviet pedagogy was extensively based on Prussian didactical ideas) and the Anglo-American school of educational psychology (e.g. Mikser 2005).…”

Innovation in Teacher Professional Learning in Europe

“…The discussions about the Estonian teacher education framework (1998)(1999)(2000) concentrated both on a traditional, cognitive, and a social-constructivist, humanistic approach. This discussion reflected changes in general education (1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996), where a social-constructivist curriculum was introduced (Ruus and Sarv, 2000;Mikser, 2005). At the beginning of the 21st century, research was conducted to get a broad overview of the situation in general education.…”