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learning may be optimised. If they do not have the personal commit-
ment to change then no amount of re-training will have the desired
effect. In respect of both university and teacher tutors, training .
or re-training is not the most helpful conception for it brings with
it the conviction that someone knows precisely wħat is required and
how it may be achieved. If Taylor’s analysis of the paucity of the
knowledge base is accepted then the corollary must be that such
knowledge, organised, accessible and transmittable, is not available.
The challenge of being involved in change is to remedy this situation
by the longer process of development, research, evaluation and
dissemination. The research that is presented here attempts to
reflect an alternative form of practice and of research upon it.
It began from a professional judgment by participants that the Alter-
native Course constituted a form of successful practice (Jones 1981).
The research is based upon a commitment to the use of the participant’s
own understanding at both the explicit and tacit level. The rendering
explicit via research and reflection of the presuppositions and the
problems of new structures and processes serves a dual function.
First that of focusing and refining the practice itself which is
the tacit application of explicit understanding. The importance
of this process in the life of the course will become apparent in
the references made throughout the text to the incorporation of
findings from the pilot stage of the research (Jones 1985) into the
structure and process of the course which is the subject of this
research. Second there is the commitment to improving the knowledge
base of teacher education and to strengthening and directing the
construction of the professional identity which will ensure
development and change.
See microfiche.