In order to assist in this process of definition, my study addresses the following questions with the aim of contributing new knowledge to the issue of competencies in teacher education. How are competencies defined and operationalized? What do they mean to and for students and practitioners? What do they look like in practice? How are they evaluated? What assessment instruments need to be privileged? How are quality of preparation and quality of performance assessed?

 

My research methods include scheduled, standardized interviews and spontaneous interviews, which have been conducted at the University de Montraal, where I have been involved in teacher training for over fifteen years.

 

My theoretical framework draws on Vygotsky’s social activity theory (Vygotsky, 1930). I also consider the work of authors such as Lave and Wenger (1991), who shed light on the progressive construction of teacher identity generated in a social and collective, rather than individual, paradigm.

 

I am currently enrolled as a first year Ph.D. student at McGill University, working under the supervision of Dr. Anthony Pare, editor of the McGill Journal of Education. I am also working with Dr. Cathrine Le Maistre, Associate Dean of Education, responsible for McGill’s teacher-education programs. Pare and Le Maistre have published extensively in the area of professional and workplace learning (e.g., Pare & Le Maistre, 2006a, 2006b; Le Maistre & Pare, 2004). My research participants included graduating students from the University of Montreal, where I am involved in teacher education, as well as practitioners working in both the French and English public and private school sectors of the Montreal region. Focus group discussions, included students and teacher educators, were videotaped in order to capture pertinent discourse around the conceptualization and the evaluation of competencies, and finally, I conducted a close analyses of the key texts written around this theme by such sources such as the Minister of Education. While other research has already examined the conceptualization and the evaluation of competencies (e.g., Perrenoud, 1999; Visca & Sercia, 2005), the distinctive aspect of the present study is the comparison that I make between the data collected from both the French and English universities, and between the data collected from both the French and English public and private school sectors. The contrast between the French and English milieux provides further insight into the efforts to define and evaluate the competencies. My fluent bilingualism, and my familiarity with both cultures, served as an asset in this step of my research. Furthermore, a comparison was made between this data and the international literature on the theme of competencies in teacher education.

 

I looked at the conceptualization and the evaluation of competencies through Vygotsky’s social activity lens, which refers to the idea that human activity is mediated and that society and culture offer tools for thinking and learning (Vygotsky, 1930). I tried to determine how Vygotsky offers insight into the more recent work of authors such as Gauthier and Mellouki (2006), whose specific focus is in Quebec, as well as in the work of more international authors such as Lave and Wenger (1991), who shed light on the progressive construction of teacher identity generated in a social and collective, rather than individual, paradigm. For example, a key notion in the research of Lave and Wenger is legitimate peripheral participation, which suggests that mastery or competency is gained gradually under the supervision of oldtimers. A central question of my study was to determine how new teachers can actually gain competencies under the supervision of oldtimers who have never themselves been trained to acquire these particular competencies. Drawing on this literature in teacher education, and on my own professional involvement as both a teacher in the public and private English and French schools in the Montreal region, and a teacher educator at the University de Montreal for over fifteen years now, I wanted to consider the ways in which competencies are conceptualized and evaluated. My paper proposes a basic model for the conceptualization and the evaluation of competencies, inspired by the work of Kelchtermans and Ballet (2002), who argue that professional development is a complex and life-long learning process, encompassing a technical dimension (knowledge and skills of teaching), but also a neglected emotional dimension. I also considered the work of Wenger (1998), who lays the groundwork for learning as a social activity, in my design of a basic model for teacher education.

References

Visca, T. & Sercia, P. (2005). L’étude du développement de l’identité professionnelle (compétence 11, MEQ, 2001) par le biais des cours offerts en formation initiale des maîtres . Unpublished manuscript, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec.