Re-Imagining Initial Teacher Identity & Learning Study: Final Report Education: Deepening Engagement with Pedagogy (University College Cork). Re-Imagining Initial Teacher Identity & Learning Study

The aim of this research, the Re-imagining Initial Teacher Identity and Learning Study (RIITILS) was to continue writing from and to extend the Learning to Teach Study 1 (LETS1). LETS1, funded by the Department of Education and Skills (DES), was the first study of its kind on the Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) in Ireland, and involved the development and implementation of a study of initial teacher education in the PGDE in post-primary education, in one School of Education. Its aim was to identify the individual and contextual dynamics of how student teachers develop curricular and cross-curricular competences during initial teacher education (ITE). Within an overall framework that explored how student teachers develop their skills, competences and identity as teachers, it focused on curricular competences in mathematics, science and language teaching, and on the cross-curricular competences of reading and digital literacy and the development of inclusive teaching practices. LETS 2 collected data from the 2012/2013 PDE cohort, and extended it by focusing on student teacher development (through interviews, survey and artefacts) to examine how mathematics student teachers engaging with reform oriented Project Maths, in particular, engage with the ‘real world’, reading literacy and inclusion.