Session Information
01 SES 03 B, Issues of Teacher Agency
Paper Session
Contribution
This study looks at the interplay of teacher agency and bottom-up professional development conferences in Armenia by exploring the types of teacher agency in relation to the features of the bottom-up PD approach. The key elements of the conference are peer learning (sharing and exchanging knowledge and experience), self-directed learning (selecting topics, engaging in professional discussions), autonomous decision-making, promoting engagement, knowledge creation/building and positive communities among teachers (Carpenter, 2016, Bernstein, 2019).
While PD is a key strategy available to schools and school systems for improving teaching quality (Darling-Hammond 2021), frequently changing educational landscapes don’t leave enough time for teachers’ learning and the opportunity to embed those learnings into practice (Pachler, 2007). The available literature fails to explain how teachers learn from PD thus it seems to have little meaning for teachers and consequently for students’ learning (Opfer and Pedder, 2011). Therefore, within this context, there is a need for illumination of the agentic role of teachers in professional development, as agentic action is related to important topics like concepts of teacher professionalism and autonomy (Priestley et al., 2015). Whilst teacher agency might seem an obviously important phenomenon to consider it is an under-researched area, particularly in the context of teacher professional development. Nevertheless, the relevant studies suggest that there are two main approaches to the conceptualization of teacher agency: a traditional approach where the agency is viewed as a possession, a capability (Giddens, 1984) and the emerging ecological approach where agency is concerned with the way in which actors ‘critically shape their responses to problematic situations’ (Biesta and Tedder, 2007, p. 11). Within this conceptualization of agency, it is understood as an emergent phenomenon of the actor-situation transaction (Emirbayer and Mische, 1998 p.963).
Hence, this article argues for a model for teacher-led professional development in which teachers themselves are increasingly becoming ‘agents’ in their own and their peers’ professional development, a PD approach that utilizes a wider range of expertise and input through a bottom-up structure. In contrast to a traditional, top-down model in which ‘teachers are mostly reduced to executors of top-down prescribed ideals’ (Vangrieken, Meredith, Packer and Kyndt 2017, p. 5.2.1), a bottom-up structure implies that classroom teachers are making decisions, selecting topics, and designing workshops outside of the pressures of employers’ goals. Moreover, this type of conference serves the needs teachers feel are most relevant and can promote engagement and positive communities among teachers. It allows participants to engage in a neutral space and therefore tackle issues in an authentic manner with a diverse group of colleagues (Macias, 2017).
The current system of TPD in Armenia is top-down mandating teachers to go through training and attestation[1] every 5 years. The process of training does not allow any differentiation, teachers do not have a choice. Some essential elements of professional learning such as collaborative interaction (Hargreaves and ElHawary, 2018), self-guided learning based on individual needs and interests are missing from teachers’ experiences.
The research questions which arose from my professional experience and the literature, and which are the basis for exploring teacher agency in the context of bottom-up PD are:
What is the interplay of teacher agency and bottom-up professional development conferences?
What types of teacher agency are identified in the context of ‘bottom-up’ TPD?
What potential does the bottom-up PD conference have for practice?
This study generates new understandings of teacher agency in a new bottom-up PD context by providing new insights and implications for educators, policy makers and further research.
[1] In total 110 hours of training to get 9-11 credits. Training incudes some critical topics such as inclusive education, digital literacy, etc.
Method
Building on some principles of the Grounded theory approach (Charmaz, 2008) by using inductive and abductive approaches and thematic analysis, this exploratory study addresses the questions of how teacher agency and bottom-up PD are linked, what types of agency can be observed within the bottom-up PD conference context and what potential the explored context might have for practice. Exploratory research is well-supported by both inductive and abductive approaches as they are mostly qualitative and do not rely on prior theory (Bryman, 2012) as in the case of this study. The participants were teachers who participated in the bottom-up PD conferences for three consecutive years 2019, 2020, and 2021. Four different types of data collection methods were employed to gather teachers’ perspectives on bottom-up PD conferences throughout three years and understand/reveal teachers’ agentic manifestations. The data was collected through the survey and semi-structured interviews (for the years 2019 and 2020) and field notes and informal discussions (for the year 2021), therefor the study had four samples. The sample size for the questionnaire was C. 300 for the year 2019 and C. 1000 for 2020. The questionnaire was sent to all participants, and it was anonymous and voluntary. For the interview self-selection/volunteer sampling was used and seven participants who agreed to be interviewed were invited for it. The first set of data was collected through a questionnaire which consisted mainly of quantitative questions including a few qualitative ones. The purpose of the questionnaire was to look beyond the literature and my perspectives, to identify examples of aspects of teacher agency in the context of PD and understand teachers’ motives for participating in the bottom-up TPD. Insights, feelings and other subjective meanings are evident through the discussion process (Neuman, 2011) thus interviewing was a dominant research method. The data analysis was not theory-driven, particularly I did not have pre-identified ideas that guided my coding, I rather let the data ‘speak to me’, my concern pertained to the process of identifying ideas related to my research objectives, namely teacher agency. I used different colour coding to code my data. After assigning codes I looked for patterns and themes which become the basis for organising codes into categories or displaying data to interpret the data and draw conclusions (Cohen et al., 2011; Robson 2011).
Expected Outcomes
The teachers’ accounts suggest that there is great value of bottom-up PD conferences. Their perspectives about the bottom-up PD were generally the same positively emphasizing the idea of knowledge sharing amongst teachers, voluntary participation and autonomy in decision-making for their own PD, and networking and collaboration opportunities. This study’s results also reveal that there is a positive interplay between the teacher agency and bottom-up PD conference. The bottom-up PD conference features create favorable environment for teachers to exercise their agency however the premise is not straightforward. For example, teachers seem to use their autonomy of choice with a certain level of conditionality. For instance, when choosing what session to attend teachers were choosing the expert’s session even if it had a general topic and was not relevant to their professional needs. Therefore, the relationship between teacher agency and bottom-up PD conferences is complex and influenced by characteristics of the education environment, teachers’ past experiences, their orientation for the future and their current capacity to act but also their responses to opportunities and constraints. The study identifies also four types of teacher agency, namely inquisitive agency, teachers who seek learning opportunities, autonomous agency, teachers who take advantage of their autonomy of choice and decision making, change-maker agency, teachers who are committed to making change both in their student’s learning and their peers, and recognitive agency, teachers who seek opportunities to be valued and recognized. In sum, bottom-up teacher professional development conferences that problematise teachers’ PD practice and the context of PD are proposed as an instrument/context for exercising/building teacher agency.
References
Bernstein, J.M (2019). Can an Unconference Improve Online Pedagogy? Experiences and Expectations of Educators in the California Community College System, Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 43:7, 505-514, DOI: 10.1080/10668926.2018.1503104 Biesta, G. J. J., & Tedder, M. (2007). Agency and learning in the lifecourse: Towards an ecological perspective. Studies in the Education of Adults, 39, 132–149. Bryman, A. (2012) Social Research Methods. Oxford University Press. 4th Edition. Carpenter, J.P. (2016). Unconference professional development: Edcamp participant perceptions and motivations for attendance, Professional Development in Education, 42:1, 78-99, DOI: 10.1080/19415257.2015.1036303 Cohen, L., Manion, L. and Morrison, K. (2011). Research methods in education. 7th Edition. London: Routledge. Charmaz, K. (2008). Grounded Theory as an Emergent Method. In S.N. Hesse-Biber and Leavy (Eds). Handbook of Emergent Methods (pp. 155-172). New York: Guilford Press. Darling-Hammond, L. (2021). Defining teaching quality around the world, European Journal of Teacher Education, 44:3, 295-308, DOI: 10.1080/02619768.2021.1919080 Emirbayer, M. and Mische, A. (1998) What is Agency? American Journal of Sociology, 103 (4), 962- 1023 Giddens, A. (1984). Constitution of society. Polity Press. Hargreaves, E. and ElHawary, D. (2018). Exploring collaborative interaction and self-direction in Teacher Learning Teams: case-studies from a middle-income country analysed using Vygotskian theory, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, DOI: 10.1080/03057925.2018.1502609 Macias, A (2017). Teacher-Led Professional Development: A Proposal for a Bottom-Up Structure Approach. International Journal of Teacher Leadership Vol. 8, N. 1 Neuman, W.L., (2011). Social Research Methods. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc. Opfer, V.D. and Pedder, D., (2011). Conceptualizing teacher professional learning. Review of educational research, 81 (3), 376–407. Pachler, N. (2007). Teacher Development: A Question(ing) of Professionalism. In J. Pickering, C. Daly., and N. Pachler (Eds). New Designs for Teachers’ Professional Learning. Bedford Way Papers. Institute of Education, University of London, pp.242-268. Priestley, M., Biesta, G.J.J. and Robinson, S. (2015). Teacher agency: what is it and why does it matter? In R. Kneyber & J. Evers (eds.), Flip the System: Changing Education from the Bottom Up. London: Routledge. Philpott, C and Oates, C, (2016). Teacher agency and professional learning communities; what can Learning Rounds in Scotland teach us? Robson, C. (2011). ‘Approaches to social research’ in Real world research: A resource for users of social research, (Ch.2, pp.13-41) Chichester: John Wiley. Vangrieken K., Meredith, Ch., Packer, T and Kyndt, E (2017). Teacher communities as a context for professional development: A systematic review. Teaching and Teacher Education (61), 47-59
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