The role of research in teacher education is widely discussed among policy makers, researchers and teacher educators, and not least practitioners. Whereas some argue for large scale studies to provide evidence of what produces the greatest impact, others claim that practice-oriented research can inform decision makers and be adapted by teacher educators in diverse contexts. There are also those who claim that teacher education is too contextual to benefit from research conducted in other contexts. In this chapter I will discuss the view that research plays an important role in teacher education, and give serious consideration to the many practical questions this prompts. The key concept, research-informed teacher education is defined using a metaphor from older work on assessment. I will then draw briefly on official documents, mainly from the Norwegian context, before looking at some international research to seek answers to some of the practical questions. I will develop the concept of Researching Teacher Educators: here, researching is used as an adjective to indicate that teacher educators are both consumers and producers of research. My final claim is that research needs to be adapted to the practice of teacher education, and that quality teaching must be informed by relevant research. There is a need to find a balance between research and teaching in teacher education.

This study explores school leaders’ and teachers’ experiences of leadership in assessment during the Covid-19 lockdowns. A total of 148 school leaders and 582 teachers participated in a survey, and 15 school leaders from four schools also participated in focus group interviews. In Norway, the pandemic led to closed schools for long periods, from spring 2020 to spring 2022. Moreover, all final exams were cancelled, and all final gradings were made by individual teachers. In a disruptive and chaotic situation, it was up to school leaders at each school to ensure that teachers’ assessment practices used to decide students’ final grades were valid and reliable. The extraordinary circumstances that the pandemic created in schools also created a need for leadership functions beyond the ordinary. It seems that the disruptive situation during the Covid-19 school lockdowns led to a re-distribution of school leadership tasks connected to assessment, which in turn motivated more development and innovation, even stronger collaboration, and a more focused ability to solve problems related to assessment challenges in school. This study also revealed a need for more teacher support and assessment capability within school leadership to ensure fairness, validity and reliability in final assessment.

This paper discusses the evolution of assessment for learning (AfL) across the globe with particular attention given to Western educational jurisdictions. Scholars from Australia, Canada, Ireland, Israel, New Zealand, Norway, and the United States discuss prominent assessment reforms within their respective countries over the last decade. Particular attention is given to the impact of the pandemic as well as technological developments for classroom assessment policies and practices. Ongoing tensions that exist between AfL and summative forms of assessment within national policy initiatives are also revisited in relation to the seminal version of this article published 10 years ago.

During COVID-19, distance learning has given students around the world unforeseen challenges, including the way their learning is being assessed. Assessment for learning (AfL) can contribute to the development of students' strategies to meet unknown challenges as lifelong learners. The purpose of AfL is to inform learning, and it can play a significant role in achieving lifelong learning strategies, such as self-regulation, effectiveness and independent learning. This article presents qualitative findings from a study examining students' perceptions (24 students) of teaching and assessment practices in upper secondary school in Norway in the spring of 2020. The findings show that students valued individual teacher feedback to support learning. The students experienced flexibility in teaching practices, and moreover, they were trusted to do the work they were told. However, regarding assessments, they felt it was unfair and that student involvement in assessment was lacking. There was little variation in the assignments, which were mostly individual, written assignments. An important message is that they missed collaborating with other students and that many of them were left alone with their schoolwork.

This chapter traces the development of InFo-TED, the International Forum for Teacher Educators' Development, which originated with four European teacher educators in 2013. Given that the role of teacher educators is largely missing in the description of the enactment of teacher education, this work focused attention solely on teacher educators and their professional development, as well on how its membership kept InFo-TED growing and expanding internationally. Two contrasting narratives of teacher educator are included to show the diversity in their preparation and roles. The chapter ends with generic features of teacher educators' work and a discussion of what factors are more nationally, institutionally, and not to be overlooked, personally dependent. Erasmus funding and dissemination were discussed, all with the intent of understanding how to act locally, but impact globally.

In Paper I, we presented an overview of the Southern-sky MWA Rapid Two-metre (SMART) survey, including the survey design and search pipeline. While the combination of MWA's large field-of-view and the voltage capture system brings a survey speed of ~450 square degrees per hour, the survey progression relies on the availability of compact configuration of the Phase II array. Over the past few years, by taking advantage of multiple windows of opportunity when the compact configuration was available, we have advanced the survey to 75% completion. To date, about 10% of the data collected thus far have been processed for a first-pass search, where 10 minutes of observation is processed for dispersion measures out to 250 ${\rm pc\,cm^{-3}}$, to realise a shallow survey for long-period pulsars. The ongoing analysis has led to two new pulsar discoveries, as well as an independent discovery and a rediscovery of a previously incorrectly characterised pulsar, all from ~3% of the data for which candidate scrutiny is completed. Here we describe the strategies for further detailed follow-up including improved sky localisation and convergence to timing solution, and illustrate them using example pulsar discoveries. The processing has also led to re-detection of 120 pulsars in the SMART observing band, bringing the total number of pulsars detected to date with the MWA to 180, and these are used to assess the search sensitivity of current processing pipelines. The planned second-pass (deep survey) processing is expected to yield a three-fold increase in sensitivity for long-period pulsars, and a substantial improvement to millisecond pulsars by adopting optimal de-dispersion plans. The SMART survey will complement the highly successful Parkes High Time Resolution Universe survey at 1.2-1.5 GHz, and inform future large survey efforts such as those planned with the low-frequency Square Kilometre Array.

We present an overview of the Southern-sky MWA Rapid Two-metre (SMART) pulsar survey that exploits the MWA's large field of view and voltage capture system to survey the sky south of 30 degree in declination for pulsars and fast transients in the 140-170 MHz band. The survey is enabled by the advent of the Phase II MWA's compact configuration, which offers an enormous efficiency in beam-forming and processing costs, thereby making an all-sky survey of this magnitude tractable with the MWA. Even with the long dwell times of the survey (4800 s), data collection can be completed in < 100 hours of telescope time, while still retaining the ability to reach a limiting sensitivity of 2-3 mJy. Each observation is processed to generate 5000-8000 tied-array beams that tessellate the full 610 square degree field of view, which are then processed to search for pulsars. The voltage-capture recording allows a multitude of post hoc processing options including the reprocessing of data for higher time resolution. Due to the substantial computational cost in pulsar searches at low frequencies, processing is undertaken in multiple passes: in the first pass, a shallow survey is performed, where 10 minutes of each observation is processed, reaching about one-third of the full search sensitivity. Here we present the system overview and initial results. Further details including first pulsar discoveries and a census of low-frequency detections are presented in a companion paper. Future plans include deeper searches to reach the full sensitivity and acceleration searches to target binary and millisecond pulsars. Simulation analysis forecasts 300 new pulsars upon the completion of full processing. The SMART survey will also generate a complete digital record of the low-frequency sky, which will serve as a valuable reference for future pulsar searches planned with the low-frequency Square Kilometre Array.

This chapter is contributed by InFo-TED, the International Forum for Teacher Educator Development. This newly established community brings together people from across the world to exchange research, policy, and practice related to teacher educators' professional learning and development. We define teacher educators broadly as those who are professionally involved and engaged in the initial and ongoing education of teachers. Our contention is that while there is general agreement about the important role played by teacher educators, their professional education is understudied and under-supported. Here, we elaborate the rationale for this initiative, delineate our conceptual framework, and provide examples of steps taken in Belgium, Ireland, and Norway to develop the professional identities and knowledge bases of those who educate and support teachers, and conclude with implications for a scholarly study agenda having to do with research, policy, and practice relating to teacher educators' professional development.

The lockdowns that began during the spring of 2020 changed the conditions for teaching and assessment across the globe. In Norway, schools were closed, and all school activities took place online. Moreover, all final exams were canceled, and all student grading was based on final grading by the individual teacher. Because of this, teachers' assessment skills became more important. This study examines students' and teachers' experiences of assessment during the lockdown period. The findings revealed that students got little support from the teacher in their learning process; they worked alone and felt insecure about assessment. Teacher collaboration about assessment seemed sporadic and the assessment routines were weak. The study raises concerns about equity in education when teachers have problems implementing assessment practices that support students' learning.

Most central examinations in upper secondary school were cancelled by the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training (NDET) in 2020–22 due to COVID-19. Teacher assessment became the sole final assessment. An illuminative study was conducted to get perceptions of 12 informants representing policy makers, university leaders, teachers, principals, teacher unions, and a student union about central exam cancellation. This study finds that cancellation of central exams is perceived to have both positive and negative consequences on the educational system. The informants argue that students’ stress and anxiety levels concerning central exams were reduced, and students had more time to work with the curriculum. Credibility of students’ final assessment has been challenged and, moreover, sole teacher assessment has created a more favourable basis for admission to higher education due to an increase in average grade points in competition with non-COVID-19 cohorts. The lack of examiner training reduced teachers’ opportunities to strengthen their assessment literacy, since central exams seem to be a key to develop final assessment literacy.

Flertallet av studentene ved landets høyere utdanningsinstitusjoner er kvinner, og det er like mange kvinner som menn som tar doktorgrad. Likevel er over to tredeler av professorene ved landets universiteter og høgskoler menn. Hvordan kan vi forstå denne vedvarende kjønnsubalansen? Hva er det med akademia som gjør at kvinner faller fra på veien opp mot professornivå? Denne boken springer ut av Forskningsrådets BALANSE-program, et initiativ for å bedre kjønnsbalansen i norsk universitets-, høyskole- og instituttsektor. Forfatterne har samlet kunnskap og erfaringer fra prosjektene, og presenterer nye analyser og perspektiver knyttet til kjønn og akademia. Boken løfter frem kjønnsbalanseproblematikken og setter den inn i ulike kontekster. Tekstene inneholder både skråblikk, dilemmaer og nye perspektiver som vil være verdifulle for forskere, studenter og andre som engasjerer seg i spørsmål om kjønn og utdanning.

The role of research in teacher education is a widely discussed topic by policymakers as well as by researchers and practitioners. At the policy level, there seems to be a general claim that teacher education shall be research based (OECD, 2005; European Commission, 2013; Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, 2021; Norwegian Ministry of Knowledge, 2020). The claims are strong, however, the interpretation and the operationalisation of the role of research in teacher education is, to say it mildly, vague. In this paper, I will briefly present voices of some international researchers with the purpose of illuminating the complex roles research plays in teacher education. A major part of this paper will present an example of how Norway has attempted to operationalise the complexity of balancing between teacher educators' researcherly and pedagogical dispositions by funding the National Research School in Teacher Education (NAFOL). The overall goal of the research school is to develop "researching teacher educators" with equal value of all the three words.

Abstract Background In Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), clonal evolution and field cancerisation precedes the development of colitis-associated colorectal cancer (CA-CRC), however the extent and spread of pre-cancerous clones in the IBD colon remains incompletely determined and consequently clinical practice is poorly informed of how best to detect these clones by endoscopy and accurately predict future cancer risk. This study aims to quantify the number and size of mutant clones arising across the length of the colitic bowel, reveal the mechanism of how they arise and spread, and through this gain a detailed molecular understanding of the evolutionary dynamics of progression to CA-CRC. Methods Three IBD patients undergoing a total panproctocolectomy for multifocal dysplasia or CA-CRC were recruited prospectively. Fresh-frozen biopsies were taken at regularly spaced intervals (~2cm) across the entire colon (rectum to caecum, comprising 118, 108 and 25 biopsies respectively). Epithelial tissue was isolated from each biopsy using laser capture microdissection and DNA was extracted. Low pass whole genome sequencing (lpWGS) was performed to generate genome-wide copy number alteration (CNA) profiles. Results Analysis from the first 45 samples from colon 1 show; 1) Multiple CNA events occur in macroscopically ‘normal’ parts of the colon. 2) Recurrent CNAs were shared between biopsies, revealing clonal expansions in multiple areas of the colon, both proximal and distal to the cancer, and comprising in normal, inflammed, dysplastic and cancer-adjacent tissue. 3) Clonal expansions ranged from 4-18cm in size, and were separated by distances of 2-20cm. 4) Certain CNA events occur more commonly across the colon, both independently and from within different clonal patches, such as a gain on chromosome 7 and 20, and losses on chromosomes 5, 8 and 17. 5) Whole genome doubling events within clonal clades. Conclusion These data show that across the IBD bowel, CNAs occur and expand in ostensibly ‘normal’ cells, demonstrating evidence of field cancerisation. Moreover, similar CNAs are seen occurring independently throughout the whole colon, suggesting patterns of convergent evolution. Further work is needed to more precisely quantify the clonal and sub-clonal distribution across the IBD colon, in addition to deriving measures of intra-colon, intra-lesion and intra-clade genomic diversity to complement the above measures of evolvability. This data, along with the genomic-phenotypic mapping (from pending RNA analysis) and analysis of the stromal microenvironment will help demonstrate the mechanisms of CA-CRC progression and therefore help guide clinical practice through endoscopic sampling, to best predict future cancer risk.

Denne femte og siste NAFOL-boken er nok et viktig bidrag til kunnskapsfeltet om og for lærerutdanningene, barnehage, grunnskole og videregående skole. Boken er den siste av en antologiserie med bidrag fra NAFOL-stipendiater, alumni, førstelektorkandidater og internasjonale stipendiater. Alle bidragene er grundig vurdert gjennom blind fagfellevurdering – først abstraktene og så artiklene. Som tidligere NAFOL-bøker, inneholder boken en samling forsknings artikler om lærerutdanningsforskning som krysser nasjonale grenser, fagdisipliner, og ikke minst utdanningsnivå, fra barnehage til videregående og lærerutdanningene. Bidragene reflekterer utfordringer utdanningene møter i dagens samfunn, og viser hvordan forskning kan bygge broer av forståelser innenfor det komplekse domenet utdanningen er. Boken gir et godt innblikk i dagens lærerutdanningsforskning. Også i denne boken har vi valgt å beholde originalspråket artiklene er skrevet på, og det er med glede vi ser at flere norske forskere melder seg inn i det internasjonale forskningsmiljøet ved å skrive på engelsk. Samtidig er det viktig å ivareta det norske språket i forskningsformidlingen, og boken søker å finne en balanse mellom internasjonal og nasjonal formidling. Det er stort mangfold både i forskningstematikk og forskningsmetoder, noe som preger forskningsfeltet. NAFOLs arbeid og bidrag til lærerutdanningsforskning er kjent langt utover Norge, og denne boken symboliserer den internasjonale dialogen om lærerutdanningsforskning som NAFOL deltar i. Boken er en unik kilde for forskere som ønsker å holde seg oppdatert om lærerutdanningsforskning som reflekterer dagens samfunn.

Reducing propagule pressure is critical for preventing the establishment and limiting the spread of invasive species. To reduce the risks associated with propagule pressure, the relative impacts of potential vectors contributing to invasions must be understood. In 2017, the red swamp crayfish (Procambarus clarkii) invasion expanded to include two new invasion fronts in Michigan, USA. To determine potential sources and make inferences about expansion dynamics among introduced populations, we developed genomic resources using restriction-site associated DNA (RAD) sequencing to genotype 175 red swamp crayfish at 1321 single nucleotide polymorphisms. Samples included potential wild and industry sources and collections within each Michigan invasion front. Results based on unsupervised clustering and multivariate analysis indicated that multiple, genetically distinct sources founded the Michigan invasions, which may include sources from the biological supply trade. Results support the recommendation that prevention strategies implement a multifaceted approach targeting diverse user groups associated with the live trades (e.g., biological supply, live food markets, and pet trade). In addition, regulatory frameworks that minimize the presence of a live invasive species should be adopted to reduce the risk of incidental introductions, geographic and demographic expansion, and establishment.

Some of the main goals that education strives to achieve are certification and socialization. To achieve these goals in the best interest of the individual and society is a demanding challenge for all involved. In what context is the certification going to be used? Into what society are those educated expected to socialize? Teacher education is at the heart of the discussion as it is responsible for educating teachers whose task it will be to certify and socialize a new generation into a society, the nature of which is, to a large extent, still unknown. The aim of the NAFOL Year Book 2012 is to contribute to research-based knowledge in teacher education. The anthology consists of contributions from lecturers, invited guest professors, key note speakers, and PhD students in some way connected to the national graduate school for teacher education NAFOL during 2012. The anthology is thought of as an innovation combining the characteristics of a yearbook of a journal and the characteristics of a conference anthology.

The number of doctoral students internationally is on the increase, yet low completion rates seem to be stable. Universities need to learn from each other to strengthen doctoral education. In doctoral education, the person and the doctoral project are intertwined and both must be nurtured and developed. This article presents the signature pedagogy of the Norwegian Research School in Teacher Education (NAFOL). The international and national context of NAFOL is described and the reasons for establishing NAFOL are presented. The pedagogical vision behind the research school is outlined, and examples of how the vision translates into activities are provided. The last part of the article analyses experiences from NAFOL and highlights points that might be useful to other research schools in different contexts. Based on the experience gained at NAFOL, a whole person approach to doctoral students in doctoral education is recommended.

This article reports on a qualitative study investigating how perceptions of feedback and feedback practice developed over the course of a seven-month development project with students and teachers in ten lower secondary schools. The aim of the study was to contribute to the knowledge about how a development project with teachers can contribute to changes in perceptions and in the practice of formative feedback. The data are based on interviews with students and teachers before and after the development project, and the project builds on Hattie and Timperley's feedback model (2007). The findings reveal changes in perceptions and in the use of feedback in learning processes. It is less evident whether clarifying aims and criteria together with the students, provided opportunities for the students to use feedback as a basis for further learning. Formative assessment practice has been implemented to some extent in the schools, and it is essential to strengthen teachers' feedback practice to enhance student learning.