Session Information
10 SES 05 C, Research in Teacher Education: Quality Discourses and Strategies
Paper Session
Contribution
In a number of countries, as part of the lifelong learning agenda (EC, 2002), there is a focus on developing, or modernizing, teaching practice to support a radical revision of school education. This 're-professionalisation' project entails a change in emphasis from teachers being largely engaged in transmitting knowledge to pupils to one of enabling pupils to build and create knowledge for themselves. After more than two decades of reform based upon centrally directed curricula, target setting and quality assurance a current orthodoxy in many Anglophone countries is that school improvement cannot be achieved without focusing attention on teachers' learning (Gewirtz et al,2009 p.6). Certain interlocking themes, familiar from the work of organizational development theorists (Schon, 1983; Senge, 1990; Wenger 1998; Arends & Kilcher, 2010) have emerged as central to this focus:
• an emphasis on collaborative action expressed in various formulations of learning communities in which teachers share good practice, engage in discussion and debate with regard to teaching and experiment with, and make sense of, new practices;
• the promotion of teacher leadership where leading changes in pedagogy is done by teachers rather than school managers; and
• the legitimation of the reflective, self-evaluating practitioner who constantly questions his or her practice and, informed by knowledge of research, policy and classroom evidence, actively seeks to resolve problems related to pupils’ learning (Cochran-Smith & Litle, 2009).
This paper tracks the implementation of this set of themes for the re-professionalisation of teachers by examining the discursive and material relations that were created across social spaces as part of the implementation of a postgraduate masters award. This higher education programme was designed, along with similar courses in eight other institutions, to enable the development, recognition and reward of accomplished teachers in Scotland. The paper examines how a central government initiative, directed at improving teacher professionalism and quality, was translated and transmitted in the course of implementation. In so doing it illustrates some of the dynamics involved in knowledge exchange and creation at the boundaries between government, national agencies, a university and six schools. It shows how an occupational standard for accomplished teaching (SE, 2002) was both effective and effected in passing "into" a university course and from there "into" schools through collaborative professional enquiries carried out by course participants and their colleagues.
The paper uses a materialist perspective, based on events and forms of activity, for examining attempts at changing practice in relational terms, an approach that enables some of the complex interactions of knowledge, and power that arise in the course of implementation to be surfaced. Whilst the focus of this case study is local the approach that is used could be applied to policy-based attempts to alter practice in a variety of contexts (Reeves, 2010).
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Arends,R.I. & Kilcher,A.(2010) Teaching for Student Learning: Becoming an accomplished teacher. New York: Routledge European Commission (2002) A European Area of Lifelong Learning. Brussels:European Commission Coshran-Smith,M. & Litle,S.L. (2009) Inquiry as stance: practitioner research for the next generation. New York: Teachers' College Press Gewirtz,S. Mahony,P. Hextall,I & Cribb,A. (2009) Policy, professionalism and practice: understanding and enhancing teacher’s work in S.Gewirtz, P.Mahony, I. Hextall, & A.Cribb (eds).Changing Teacher Professionalism pp 3-16 Reeves,J. (2011) Knowledge Exchange and Creation on a Practice-based Master’s Programme: Developing Collective Competence. (accepted for publication Studies in Higher Education for February 2012). Reeves,J. (2010) Professional Learning as Relational Practice. Dordrecht: Springer Reeves,J. McMahon,M. Hulme,M. Redford,M.& McQueen,I (2010) Evaluating Accomplished Teaching: Report of a pilot study into means of investigating the impact of accomplished teaching on pupils' learning in the context of the Chartered Teacher Initiative in Scotland. Edinburgh: General Teaching Council for Scotland Schon,D. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner: How practitioners think in action. New York: Basic Books Senge,P.(1990) The Fifth Discipline: the art and practice of the learning organisation New York, Currency Doubleday. Wenger,E.(1998) Communities of Practice: learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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