Quality in teacher education through school-university partnership

The main purpose of this paper is to present and discuss a school-university partnership project in the University of Iceland - School of Education as a research project at its initial stage. Teacher education in Iceland is currently under reconstruction due to new laws about teacher education, requiring a master’s degree for teachers at all level. As a part of this reconstruction, the School of Education is attempting to develop closer ties with Icelandic schools at different levels and with other stakeholders, both in regard to policy and practice. One action taken in this respect has been to form a relationship with a number of “associate schools”. These schools have two main roles in this context. First, they take an active part in teacher education as the school community fosters a group of student teachers throughout their studies. Second, they will participate in a learning community of school teachers, student teachers and university faculty focussing on different aspects of education. The partnership is underpinned by mutual commitment and responsibility. The main aims are to bridge the gap between theory and practice in student teachers learning and to encourage cooperation that might lead to school development as well as improvements in the teacher education programme. Related to this endeavour are a number of research initiatives. The main themes investigated in the research projects are: student teachers’ learning, guidance and supervision; the university faculty, content in courses and research focus; the associated schools e.g. school development; and the partnership itself. Data will be collected over the next two years but some preliminary data are available from two pilot studies.