‘Learningplace’ practices and pre-service teacher education in Ireland: Knowledge generation, partnerships and pedagogy

Informed by key ideas from the learning sciences (i.e. metaphors, resources and levels of learning), this chapter addresses some challenges in pre-service teacher education in Ireland and identifies a number of potentially generative concepts from workplace learning research that might advance policy and practice. The main point of this chapter is that, more often than not, work rather than learning appears to be the leading activity in schools during initial teacher education, and that reframing the school as a ‘learningplace’ is central to both teacher education reform and widening the scope of workplace learning research. The challenges are: (1) invisibility-visibility of learners and learning; (2) solo and assisted performance; (3) reframing the knowledge-practice relationship; (4) school-university partnership: which model(s)?; and (5) advancing learning at the system level. In light of workplace learning research, ‘generative concepts’ from the research literature are identified that might inform future research, policy and practice.