CITE:Community and Inquiry For Teacher Education
CITE—Community and Inquiry For Teacher Education—is one of several cohort options that elementary teacher candidates at UBC can elect for their one-year professional program (B.Ed.) in education. The CITE cohort has a yearly intake of 36 student teachers. CITE regards itself as an experimental option that deliberately explores innovative ideas in teacher education.
Participation in CITE is never dull! It means engagement in new ideas and issues in teacher education. The CITE option has undergone many changes over the years. We regard our program is a dynamic system! As Wheatley (1999) notes in an analysis of dynamic systems, “equilibrium is … a sure path to institutional death.” (p. 76). Optimum conditions for dynamic systems require that they have a capacity for change and are alert to alternatives, able to adapt to new circumstances, and are open to improvisation. We are always learning alongside each other and each new year brings new people (teacher candidates, instructor, and participating teachers) into the mix!
• Community: Creating Common Ground for Dialogue and Critique
The CITE community attempts to create an environment that values vigorous discussion and thoughtful critique of teaching practice. At its most basic level this environment is based upon the principle of community where we are all learning alongside each other. CITE practicum schools, and not just the individual teachers who supervise CITE teacher candidates, are committed to teacher education. CITE practicum schools acknowledge that the professional development of teacher candidates is a school-wide responsibility and that each school lives this commitment to teacher education in their daily practice.
• Inquiry: A Defining Feature of Professional Practice
Inquiry is a defining feature of professional practice. Without inquiry, one’s practice becomes perfunctory and routinized. When teachers cease to be inquisitive about their practice—for example, inquisitive about how students learn or about new approaches and strategies—then their practice ceases to be professional. This is an important distinction for CITE practicum schools, since inquiry distinguishes teaching from labour or technical work. Inquiry is focused on understanding why we do what we do as teachers.
Teacher Education: A Career-Long Pursuit
In CITE we regard teacher education as a career-long pursuit in which educators (be they teacher candidates, school teachers, or university instructors) continue to learn about and make sense of their practice. The one-year B.Ed. program is the first step to becoming a teacher. In CITE, we seek to develop and support a disposition for reflection in and on practice as being essential to continuous learning.
