A brief overview of the Department of Education’s Academic Professional Profile

The Department of Teacher Education (IPLU) is responsible for the Diploma of Teacher Education, Mentor Education, and for the Practical Pedagogical Education of the University’s own teachers. Through their research and educational development work IPLU plays an active role in schools and other educational institutions as well as in continuation studies. During the latter years there has been a special focus on continuation courses in connection with mentoring, Educational Management and Action Learning.

In general IPLU gives assistance to institutions and places of work through their participation in research, proficiency and development projects and with their offer of continuation courses in learning and skills development.

Action Research has a major role in IPLU’s work, as most of the research projects the department is involved in gives the practitioner a central role in the research work, while the researcher contributes with her/his analytical distance to the actual field of research and takes responsibility for a systematic analysis and the publication of results. This means that in a school situation, teachers together with colleagues and in collaboration with a researcher(s) carry out systematic investigations of, and reflect about, their own practice with a view to developing their own understanding and thereby improve and develop their actual practice situation.

The term Action Learning is often used synonymously with Action Research, but we distinguish between these two terms by linking Action Learning to what teachers do when they examine their own practice, as their work in school is primarily concerned with action. The need for action in a school situation makes it difficult for the schools’ practitioners to fulfil the strict requirements that the traditional research process demands with regard to systematic work, analytical distance and publishing of their findings. Therefore we make a point of using the term Action Learning about what the school staff do when they focus on their work and Action Research about what researchers do when they research together with teachers and school managers.