Summary of the “Comprehensive Study on Pre-service Training, Placement andIn-service Training of Teachers to Foster Students’ Competencies:
Survey Report on Pre-service Training and In-service Training Programs for
Proactive, Interactive, and Deep Learning”

1. Purpose and Summary of the Research Study(1) Purpose of the research study
Integrated reform of pre-service training, placement and in-service training is being promoted inorder to develop the professional skills of teachers so that they will be capable of responding toemerging educational challenges, such as the need to foster the competencies of children so as to enable
them to survive in the 21st century. Among others, developing the practical teaching skills of teachers
so that they will be able to design “a new form of learning” such as improving the lessons from theperspective of “proactive, interactive, and deep learning” is an important issue. Going back and forth
between theory and practice is said to be essential in order to develop teaching skills, and there has
been an increasing number of pre-service training and in-service training programs established throughthe collaboration of the boards of education, schools and universities that actually support this cycle.
Therefore, in this research, we seek to clarify the characteristics of the pre-service training and inservice training programs, which aim to foster “teachers who continually learn” so as to be able tocontinuously improve their lessons, and the characteristics of a pre-service training and in-service
training system that supports these programs.

(2) Summary of the research study
In this research, we conducted a study through collaboration among teacher education graduate
schools and universities and the boards of education and secondary schools on pre-service training andin-service training programs which allow teachers and student teachers (collectively referred to as“teachers”) to be able to learn while going back and forth between learning theories and teachinglessons, and identified the characteristics of the program and system necessary for the training of“teachers who continually learn”. The subjects of the survey were the programs run by the institutionsin Table 1. The study consisted of document research on policy documents, a literature review of thelearning sciences, document research such as on the training system of prefectures and ordinancedesignated cities around the country, a study of pre-service training examples in Japan and abroad suchas those of teacher education graduate schools, and a study of examples of teacher training through acollaboration with universities of seven local governments in Japan.
1Research period: FY2015- 2016, Research Representative: Akihide Osugi (Director of the Departmentof Elementary and Secondary Education Research)

Table 1. Survey subjects of the research
Summary

Subject institutions

Subject persons

Collaboration

Overseas teacher

OISE, University of Toronto

Undergraduates, graduateUniversitiesstudents, teachers

x schoolseducation
Teacher training at a

Graduate School of Education, Fukui

Graduate students

Universities/

teacher education

University(including current graduategraduatestudents)

schools x

Graduate School of Education,

Graduate studentsboards ofShizuoka University(including current graduate

education /students)

education

graduate school

Teacher training by theUniversity of Tokyo CoREF x

Young and mid-career

centers x

boards of education

Saitama and Tottori boards ofteachersschools

education
Exchanges between

University of Tokyo CoREF x seven

the boards of education local governments

Teachers and educational
administration officials

2. Summary of the research outcomes(1) Teacher Standards and Training Programs of Prefectures and Ordinance Designated Cities
around the Country
We examined the teacher standards (ideal teacher images, etc.) and the training programs ofprefectures and ordinance-designated cities by going through various documents including websites,and 70.1% of the organizations were seen to incorporate some form of follow-up training such as
second and third year training with regards to the novice teacher training, ensuring that sustained
learning opportunities were available. Almost all the institutions had established ideal teacher images,
but there were few institutions, which emphasized the role of “teachers designing the learning oflearners” or institutions that set target goals through connecting the image of the teacher to the annual
training program.

(2) Teacher education research in the learning sciences
We reviewed research on the learning sciences relating to teacher education and established thefollowing two hypotheses after confirming the importance of considering both improving the quality2

of the programs and the quality of the entire system encompassing the programs.
1. In teacher education programs, it is important to treat lesson planning as a shared task, and to havethe teachers create a hypothesis, and to examine the hypothesis by focusing on the fact of the learner’s
learning through the teaching, leading to the teacher creating their own lesson design principles andtheories, and deepening their understanding of learning.
2. Even in programs with the same content, from the perspective of guaranteeing the sustainability oflearning (whether there is an opportunity to continue learning), multiple levels (whether various levelsof support can be obtained) and development (leading to exchanges among the student teachers), it iseasier to produce “teachers who continue to learn” if a program is designed and a system is formed.
(3) Examples of pre-service training in Japan and other countries
As an example of teacher education in other countries, we studied the Ontario Institute for Studies
in Education of the University of Toronto (OISE) in Canada, which has multiple programs withdifferent characteristics within the same institution. Table 2 summarizes the four programs. As a resultof the survey, we came to understand that when the programs of (i) and (ii) were abolished at the timeof the master’s degree level of teacher education being established, the MA-CSE program of (iii),
which was the most successful was taken as a model and expanded. It is inferred that the biggest
success factors of (iii) were that the participants (graduate students) are able to experience the cycle ofteaching and evaluating classes on the basis of the theories of the learning sciences at the experimental
school, the site for practical training (hypothesis 1), and that this process is supported by a communityof constructive learning of researchers and teachers (hypothesis 2).

Table 2 Characteristics of the teacher education program of OISE, University of Toronto
Period(i) Consecutive
Teacher Education
Program

One year after
graduation(including longdistance learning)(ii) Concurrent
Teacher Education
ProgramFive years including
undergraduate
studies (concurrentenrollment inanotherundergraduateprogram)No. of students andacquired
qualification
Approx. 12,000
students (30 – 60
students per unit)
BEd, teaching
license(kindergarten – G6 /G4 – 10 /G7 -12)
Approx. 250
students
Concurrent
acquisition of abachelor’s degree,
BEd, teaching
license3Characteristics(measures)

Summary ofachievements

Teaching andreflection(65 days of teachingand reflection;
voluntary internshipplan)

After an extensionof two years → endof recruitment in2015

Emphasis on subject
knowledge(enhancement ofsubject knowledge
from the first year;
emphasis on lessons
on the teaching

Persons working inan occupation otherthan that of ateacher → end ofrecruitment

(kindergarten – G6 /G7 – 12)(iii) Master of Arts
in Child Studies &Education Program

Two years after
graduation

Approx. 45 students
Teaching license(kindergarten – G6),
MA(iv) Master of
Teaching Program

Two years after
graduation

Approx. 130
students
Teaching license(kindergarten – G6 /G4 -10 / G7 – 12),MT

profession for third
to fifth-yearstudents)
Emphasis on thelearning sciences(theory (going backand forth between
knowledge
construction) andteaching(experimentalschools))
Traditional
pedagogy researchsubject

Highest rate of
employment as ateacher (low rate ofleaving the teachingprofession) / model
program after theend of recruitmentof (i) and (ii)
Lowest rate of
employment as ateacher (low rate ofleaving the teachingprofession)

For Japan, we examined two contrasting institutions, the Graduate School of Education of Fukui
University which emphasizes field experience, and the Graduate School of Education of Shizuoka
University (area of educational methodology development) which emphasizes theory and teaching
methods. As shown in Figure 1, Fukui University divides the students into current graduate students
and former graduate students, and aims to develop practical theories by having the students experienceand describe their challenges and lives at the school where they teach, and have them share and discuss
their experiences regularly at conferences from different perspectives. Shizuoka University does notdivide the graduate students as shown in Figure 2 and, after the students have studied learning theory
and teaching methods (bottom of Figure 2), has first-year students work in teams to design, teach andevaluate a shared lesson, while second-year students individually conduct action research (see Figure2), and thereby aims to integrate theory and practice (Figure 2 right). As a result, this suggests that
graduate students at Fukui University acquire the practices of reflection and collaboration, which arethe foundation of the teaching profession, while graduate students at Shizuoka University are able toacquire a fundamental understanding of teaching methods through collaborative lesson planning. As
the next task, the former lists opportunities and places for students taking the course to talk aboutshared lessons such as through collaboration with education in specific subject areas while the lattercites linking classes to theory and transformational changes at each school, although both adopt thedirection of “connections through dialogues on theory and practice” (hypothesis 1).

4

Figure 1. Overview of the program of the Graduate School of Education of Fukui University

Figure 2. Overview of the program of the Graduate School of Education of Shizuoka University5

(4) Examples of teacher training through collaboration between universities and the boards ofeducation

In order to compare and contrast multiple training programs, we examined the teacher training
programs developed by Saitama Prefecture and Tottori Prefecture developed in collaboration with theUniversity of Tokyo Consortium for Renovating Education of the Future (CoREF), which have almost
the same content. As shown in Table 3, both prefectures conducted training using a lesson type knownas the “Knowledge Jigsaw Construction Method”, but the training for high school teachers in Saitama
Prefecture had the characteristics of having the participants 1) adopt the practice of continuous lesson
improvement by twice using the cycle of designing, teaching and reflecting on the lessons (hypothesis1), and 2) forming a system for teachers at different stages in their career to continuously deepen theirlearning by relying on other teachers as a learning resource, and developing and collaborating withmultiple training and research collaborative projects to support the aforementioned practice(hypothesis 2).
Table 3. Characteristics of teacher training programs relating to lesson planning in Saitama Prefecture
and Tottori Prefecture
Saitama Prefecture

Tottori Prefecture

Individual teacher’s lesson design

Provision of a lesson model
Yes (Knowledge jigsaw construction method)
Both design and review (twice)
Design and review (once)
Design and review
Individual teacher’s theory development
Theory and experience (main Theory ⇒ Teaching experience ⇒ Theory ⇒ Teaching
Own theory
experienceemphasis and sequence)
Objective data and subjective Objective data / Subjective interpretationinterpretation
Dialogue among teachers and researchers
Common tasks andThe lesson models are common subjects, while the contents ofindividual tasks
lesson itself are individual tasks set by each teacher
30% of the students continue on to─
Whether sustainability isother programs
guaranteed
Whether multiple layers areguaranteed
Whether development isguaranteed

Five layers of meister, teachingsupervisor, R & D staff, manager,
student
Improvement of the quality of AL
and regular use through thedialogues of the abovementioned
five persons

Three layers of meister,
mentor, student
Possibility of regular use of
AL led by the mentors

When the local governments of the seven prefectures, including the abovementioned twoprefectures, which developed similar efforts endeavored to share and exchange their achievements andissues (through exchange meetings), every institution succeeded not only in improving the quality of
their training programs, but in addition, a plan for system improvement was created that aimed for6

collaboration with other training programs and also to promote networking among participants ordiverse stakeholders. Figure 3 shows the relationship between training and projects in Tottori
Prefecture before the exchange meeting, and Figure 4 shows the relevance in the year following theyear when the ideas were conceived at the exchange meeting. All of these proposals for improvement
have the aim of guaranteeing the sustainability and multi-level aspects of the learning of the students,
such as those falling under hypothesis 2, and the specific measures showed diversity based on thesituation and needs of each prefecture and their past progress suggesting that such diversity can leadto further learning by the institutions.

Figure 3 Tottori prefecture’s FY2015 training system

Figure 4 FY2016 training system7(5) Summary of the results
The results suggest that it is necessary to have pre-service training and in-service training programs
where the teachers themselves are able to engage in “proactive, interactive, and deep learning” so thatthe teachers will be able to equip themselves with the competence to design a lesson that realizes the“proactive, interactive, and deep learning” of the children, and to have a support system such as acollaboration and training system comprising the teacher training graduate schools, the schools where
the student teachers are to teach, and the local governments in which these programs are embedded,and this further suggests that education administration officials, researchers, managerial staff, etc. alsoneed to engage in “proactive, interactive, and deep learning”; and therefore, we acquired results that
support our two hypotheses

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