The Values Dimension of Quality Teachers: Can we prepare Pre-service Teachers for this?

Abstract

The idea of teacher quality is at the forefront of educational debates and research globally. A teacher for the 21st Century must be equipped with a sophisticated range of skills and capabilities, but it must go beyond knowledge, understanding and skills, to include effective dispositions, strong student/teacher relationships, communicative capacity, empathic character and self-awareness. Teacher quality encompasses many aspects, including skills, knowledge, attitudes, dispositions and values. This paper reports on a qualitative case study conducted with pre-service teachers in a Faculty of Education in an Australian university. One of the findings of the study points to the benefits of pre-service teachers engaging in an explicit values-based pedagogy. Through their engagement with such pedagogy, in this case Philosophy in the Classroom, the participants became more aware of the values dimension of quality teaching. If teachers are better prepared in the values dimension of teaching, this will make them more holistic quality teachers which will in turn positively impact upon student achievement and well-being.