Nurturing Future Educators: Exploring New Frontiers of Collaborative Teacher Training Model

In 2021, the Israeli Council for Higher Education introduced the Vadmani-Inbar framework, marking a pivotal shift in teacher training. This framework, which replaced the Ariav framework, prioritizes clinical training to bridge the inherent gap between theory and practice in teacher training. As academic coordinator of clinical training in the teacher certificate school of Bar-Ilan University's faculty of education, the author has been actively involved, over the last six years, in developing and assimilation of a clinical model for teacher’s training that allows optimal implementation of the clinical core component of the new framework. Over the course of this period two fundamental processes were developed: the creation of a non-disciplinary mandatory course conducted within schools, promoting theory-practice alignment through observations, reflective discourse, and workshops; and the establishment of a specialized disciplinary clinical training track that ensures close coordination between the academia and the field. This clinical training model encompasses a diverse range of learning modalities, including face-to-face and individual instruction, as well as online learning facilitated by learning management system (LMS), and artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Through these academic routs, students are actively engaged in disciplinary and pedagogical content, working extensively within and outside the classroom.
They are expected to generate new relevant knowledge and engage in continuous reflective dialogues in order to contribute to the development of a knowledge base that is continuously evolving. Formative and summative evaluations of each student are conducted collaboratively by teachers and academic coordinators, considering various Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities parameters (KSA). Collaboration with schools across diverse sectors in Israel offers students the opportunity to integrate into different educational settings, fostering discourse and cross-sector acquaintances.
This study focuses on a research of this clinical training track, that won 2023’s Council for Higher Education of Israel call for proposals under the category "experience-integrated academy". Analyzing qualitative interviews and a quantitative questionnaire allows us to examine how this process, led by academic leaders and mentoring teachers, contributes to fostering continuous collaborations of learning communities among students, educators, school personnel, and education professionals. The study provides insights into clinical training, both in terms of the transformative potential of Vadmani-Inbar's framework, as well as its potential to improve teacher education, thereby improving education quality.