A Framework for Understanding Assessment of Innovation in Teacher Education

Context Multiple sources of influence impact the decisions about what and how teacher educators are expected to operate, including the innovations that are adopted. Some of those sources of influence (such as teacher certification boards) can demand that certain curricula be adopted, specific instructional procedures be utilized, and delineate the conditions under which candidates will be selected for entry into teacher education programs. Other sources of influence include how other professionals are prepared (e.g., case-based or problem-based learning from legal and business preparation, constructivist teaching methods derived from educational psychology). Issues involving innovation in teacher education have been studied by education researchers, reformers, and practitioners. For example, in a seminal work, Lilly (1973) wrote, first premise is that the technical soundness of an innovation as demonstrated by educational research is seldom necessary and never sufficient to guarantee adoption of that innovation by educational practitioners ... consider the success of educational innovations [between 1960-1970], some proving successful (Sesame Street) and others apparently dying on the vine (performance contracting) (p. 227). Since then, some teacher educators have evaluated instructional innovation (e.g., Barrell, 1996), and in1996, an entire issue of Teacher Education Quarterly was devoted to innovative colleges of education. Other researchers have studied team teaching in teacher education (Cruz & Zaragosa ,1998); teacher educators' beliefs about professional development schools (DeWitt, Birrell, Cook, Ostlund, Y alternative teacher education programs such as school-university partnerships (Benton and colleagues, 1996). However, Melvin (1993) calls for more concerted efforts to study the influence of professional studies by faculties of education on actual practice in classrooms and schools. Kenneth Zeichner, a past president of the Teacher Education Division of the American Educational Research Association, traced the types of scholarship in which teacher educators typically engaged between 1978 and 1999. He stated that the new scholarship in teacher education is a much richer and more varied body of inquiry than that which existed 20 years ago (p. 8). In addition to studies of the nature and impact of teacher education innovative practices such as electronic technologies, field-based programs, interdisciplinary or subject specific methods courses), methodologies have included case studies, narrative and life history methods, action research, life history and autobiographical methods (p. 11). In this themed issue, Assessing Innovation in Teacher Education, the editors hope to show that the types of innovation in teacher education as well as methodologies to study impact of innovation continue to show variety and ingenuity. In this article, the editors (a) summarize the definitions extant in the literature, (b) briefly describe several taxonomies for innovation, (c) explain the process of innovation, (d) explicate the challenges in assessing innovation, and (e) discuss the implications for teacher education research and practice. Definitions of Innovation A review of the literature on innovation yields multiple definitions, components, and processes that attempt to distinguish a unique element. Characteristic to all definitions are proximal, distal, and confluent properties of innovation. The proximal properties include definitions that conjoin to individual or micro perceptions of innovation, versus distal properties that ascribe a community, or macro, perception of innovation. Thus it can be argued that if an individual learns or performs a task for the first time it may be considered innovative. This also includes tasks that may have been available to the individual yet unperformed. The distal element underscores the value of the perceived task within a community or other external validating entity. …