Abstract

Strengthening the Research-Teaching Nexus and the Integration of Subject Didactics in Upper Secondary School Teacher Education

Lena Berggren, Umeå University, Sweden

September 2011 will see the launch of a new national teacher education system in Sweden which among other things will have a stronger emphasis on academic subject content. This, together with recent organizational and strategic changes at the university level, has radically changed the conditions for delivering teacher education on a departmental level. To meet these new conditions, a completely new curriculum for the education of upper secondary school history teachers has been drawn up in our department.

This paper contains a comparison of the old and new curriculum with special attention given to how the research-teaching nexus and the integration of subject didactics have been strengthened. We will now be able to provide more in-depth research-led subject studies taught by highly qualified research-experienced teachers, give more time to research-oriented and research-based course elements such as the application of historical theory, method and source criticism, critical evaluation and inquiry-based learning. We will also be able to spend more time on research-tutored activities such as letting the students write and discuss more individual essays and degree projects and thus academically progress the students further than before.

A further aim with the new curriculum has been to bring together subject didactics, the training of transferable skills and the research-teaching nexus not only in terms of utilizing subject and subject didactics research, but also by integrating subject studies and subject didactics in a more problem-based direction making the education as a whole research-based and, eventually, research-tutored in order to make the students value a research-based approach not only in academic terms, but also in order to become a good teacher. This will be illustrated by using concrete examples from our new courses.