Professional Learning and the Unfinalizable: English Educators Writing and Telling Stories Together

Standards-based education reforms and intensified accountability regimes are now a feature of most countries’ agendas to improve the quality of their teaching workforces. One of the direct consequences of these reforms is a requirement that teachers demonstrate their ongoing participation in forms of professional development or professional learning throughout their careers. Along with this, there has been a narrowing of what is acknowledged by standards-based accountability regimes as discipline-based professional knowledge and ‘valuable’ professional development. This essay is a dialogic, reflexive account of a professional learning and writing project for English teachers and teacher educators in Australia, begun in 2013, called the stella2.0 project. The project builds on the groundbreaking work of the STELLA project in Australia from the turn of the century, and some other models of teacher writing projects across the world. Drawing on Cavarero, we critically scrutinize writing and storytelling in the dialogic professional community of the stella2.0 project, and in the process ‘speak back’ to standards-based reform policies that undermine English educators’ agency and professionalism.     

Exploring teacher–student interactions: communities of practice,ecological learning systems – or something else?

A small-scale action research project was used to consider the policy and rhetoric surrounding development of the ‘expert learner’ and how this might be further explored to provide opportunities for learners to have greater direct involvement in reflection and discussion with teachers. The research was based within a further education setting, using participants from an ‘HE in FE’ curriculum area: teacher education. It sought to explore how involving students as partners in the peer observation process might be used to engage with student voice and enhance the teaching and learning experience for all involved. To evaluate the creation, sharing and development of teaching and learning that might be generated in such circumstances, the research used two theoretical frameworks to analyse the data: communities of practice and ecological learning systems. This article reviews the literature around these two frameworks and critically reflects on the influences of these approaches in communities of teaching and learning. Analysis of interviews, and the interactions and dialogue contained within these, revealed something else happening within these connections. As such, it considers the opportunities facilitated in this context and how development of a newly-devised continuum of practice may be used to enable professional dialogue to enhance student–teacher interactions.     

The emerging professional: an investigation into teacher education students’ developing conceptions of the relationship between theory and classroom practice before,during and after a postgraduate teaching programme

This article brings together two studies which contribute to the examination of the nature of professionalism in education by focusing on the perspectives of two under-researched groups namely ‘teaching assistants’ and teacher educators working ‘either side’ of the school teacher. The projects were conducted in, and framed by, the UK policy context of public sector modernization and cuts, and raise issues of relevance to international debates on notions of professionalism in education in a context of neo-liberal policy and austerity. The studies drew upon different approaches including autoethnography, life history and discourse analysis. The authors examine the formation and representation of professional identity in education through the discourses of ‘professionalism’ of teaching assistants and teacher educators. Professionalism is articulated through three themes in the accounts; ‘non-standard’ professional transformations, role ambiguity, and the role of classroom experience and higher education in the development of professional identities. Through these themes the perspectives of teaching assistants and teacher educators locate the notion of ‘teacher professionalism’ within a broader concept of professionalism in education providing alternatives to the discourse of imposed policy, and the authors reflect upon the ways in which these voices contribute to the wider international debate on professionalism in education.     

New Labour and teacher education: the end of an era

This paper traces the development of teacher education policy during the first two terms of the New Labour government. It argues that there is substantial evidence to support the claim that during their two terms of office, New Labour forged a policy on teacher education that was distinctively different from the Conservative administrations that preceded them. Like the Conservatives, they have seen the maintenance of a competitive market as essential for the governance of the system. But beyond that, they have significantly moved away from a concern with individual professional formation; individual professional formation has been seen as far less critical than it was, especially at the level of initial training. In the lives of young teachers, the state now provides far greater direct guidance than ever before in the definition of effective teaching, learning and assessment in both primary and secondary schools. And at more senior levels, opportunities for extended professional development are increasingly focused on and achieved through the school as an institution. Teacher education itself is no longer seen as a key site for the ‘re‐formation’ of professionalism. As a result, teacher education is no longer accorded the key political significance that it had under the Conservatives. In this sense, New Labour policies mark ‘the end of an era’.     

The professional identities of teacher educators in three further education colleges: an entanglement of discourse and practice

Initial teacher education programmes have been identified as crucial to meeting the twin policy aims of professionalising the further education (FE) workforce and achieving improved learner outcomes, yet college-based teacher educators are underrepresented in published research and commentary. Drawing on a case study of teacher educators employed by three FE colleges in England, this paper argues that the contested and politicised nature of the FE sector presents a unique set of circumstances that distinguishes this population from other members of their professional group and severely restricts the identities available to them. Through a thematic discursive analysis of documentation, observation and interview data, it is argued that FE positions teacher educator identity through political governance, through the business practices of colleges and through the sector’s historical relationships with vocational and higher education. Within this distinctive context, teacher educators experience competing identities of ‘qualified and credible’, ‘teacher’, ‘different from others’, ‘part of FE’ and ‘employee’ that are entangled with the dominant discourses of English further education. After discussing the implications of these findings for a professional profile of teacher educators, the paper concludes that teacher educators are better understood as a heterogeneous occupational group in order to avoid obscuring professional concerns linked to policy landscapes.     

Creativity and performativity: Counterpoints in British and Australian education

This article explores the complex interplay of power between performativity and creativity agendas—a mutual tension that resides in British and Australian education. Accountability constraints and conflicting policy debates are problematised against the wider imperatives of similar government agendas. This ‘counterpoint’ of freedom and control has significant implications for pedagogy and, through accommodating performativity, teacher agency and professionalism are under threat. The authors propose a ‘rebalancing’ where pedagogy transforms from a site of struggle for control, to one where a higher trust is placed in teacher professionalism. The idea of ‘rebalancing pedagogy’ offers a way for teachers to navigate and be supported through the opposing demands of performativity and creativity. It acknowledges the importance of teacher agency and where teaching is judged against the characteristics of a systemic approach that facilitates the building of creative learning communities capable of supporting any curricula or content‐focused programmes in and beyond schools.     

Contested discourses of teacher professionalism: current tensions between education policy and teachers’ union

This article addresses constructions and redefinitions of teacher professionalism by focusing on the discursive negotiations between the government and the teachers’ union in Norway. Based on an examination of three white papers on teacher education from the past 15?years and policy documents put forth by the Union of Education Norway during the past decade, the authors argue that new constructions of teacher professionalism are produced both by the government and from within the teachers’ union. However, there are differences between the government and the teachers’ union concerning what the main aspects of teacher professionalism are. The government emphasises teacher accountability, research-based practice and specialisation. By contrast, the teachers’ union highlights research-informed practice, responsibility for educational quality and professional ethics. There are three main areas of discursive struggle focused by the teachers’ union: the resistance to accountability policies, the redefining of research-based practice and the lengthening of teacher education. The authors argue that the teachers’ union is adopting an increasingly more active approach, thereby also challenging the idea that the teachers’ union is less interested in developing and taking responsibility for the quality of school education.     

Towards an uncertain politics of professionalism: teacher and nurse identities in flux

This paper is about the nature of contemporary professional identity. It looks at the ways in which ‘discursive dynamics’ come to re-write the professional teacher and nurse as split, plural and conflictual selves, as they seek to come to terms with a political impetus written through what the authors term an ‘economy of performance’ in uncertain conflict with various ‘ecologies of practice’. The teacher and nurse are thus located in a complicated nexus between policy, ideology and practice. Epistemologically, the paper offers a deconstruction of professional identities, and criticizes the reductive typologies and characterizations of current professionalism. Politically, it reaches towards a more nuanced account of professional identities, stressing the local, situated and indeterminable nature of professional practice, and the inescapable dimensions of trust, diversity and creativity.     

Contesting educational assessment policies in Australia

ABSTRACT

Assessment is a major component of education, significant in directing what is identified as valued student learning. This paper is framed within an understanding of imperative and exhortative policy. Two paradigmatically different, and potentially contesting, assessment policy directions in Australian education – educational accountability to monitor school and teacher performance, and teacher assessment practices to improve learning (assessment for learning [AfL] or formative assessment) – are examined for their impact on teacher professionalism. Both approaches have official endorsement in Australian policy. Mandated participation in national tests is indicative of educational accountability assessments under national direction. While also endorsed nationally, AfL implementation is reliant on state and territory direction. Our examination reveals tensions in the alignment of both policies. This is evident in the impact of accountability assessment on AfL implementation, in particular, teachers’ understandings of valued assessment evidence. We conclude that a paradigmatic shift to support student learning in Australian schools is a policy imperative that includes the need for professional development and learning support for teachers.     

Becoming a lecturer in further education in England: the construction of professional identity and the role of communities of practice

Further education colleges in England offer a wide range of post‐school education and training provision. Recently they have undergone major transformations that have resulted in considerable changes to the work of those teaching in them. In this paper we examine how cultures of learning and teaching in colleges are affected and how the nature of professional identity has changed. The paper considers the formation of professional identity amongst a group of trainee lecturers completing a one‐year full‐time teacher‐training course at a university in the English Midlands. Lave and Wenger's work on apprenticeship to communities of practice is used to examine the effect of trainees' teaching placement on the development of professional identity. Rather than identifying effective processes of increasing participation in existing communities of practice, a strong sense of marginalisation and alienation amongst trainees was observed. The paper argues that this is detrimental both to trainees and experienced lecturers if they are to actively engage in building new forms of professionalism for the future.     

A quest for legitimacy: on the professionalization policies of Sweden’s Teachers’ Unions

The aim of this article is to contribute to the ongoing discussion on teacher professionalism by analyzing the professional strategies of Sweden’s two teachers’ unions from an organizational perspective. Drawing on institutional theory, the article argues that the teachers’ unions’ focus on strategies of professionalization has as much to do with questions of legitimacy in the eyes of the public, as with any specific effort at transforming the practice of teaching in a professional direction. Against the background of two recent Swedish education reforms, the article shows that the unions are ‘trapped’ within a normative order emphasizing professionalization as the primary way of organizational development and legitimacy, resulting in a need for the unions to adopt professional attributes. In the case of the Swedish unions, this is accomplished through mimetic processes whereby union policies, aimed at the improvement of teaching, are modeled upon the medical profession, regardless of the differences between the technologies and practices of the occupations. In this way, the professional rhetoric of the unions is decoupled from the practice of teaching in order to maximize the public legitimacy needed for improving the declining societal status of teaching.     

Teacher unions’ participation in policy making: a South African case study

This article contends that teacher unions’ participation in policy making during South Africa’s political transition was characterised by assertion of ideological identity (unionism and professionalism) and the cultivation of policy networks and alliances. It is argued that, historically, while teacher unions were divided along political and ideological lines, they have demonstrated flexibility in contesting for influence in the policy arena. In this regard, teacher unions’ agency plays an important part and is reflected in changes in organisational strategies to ensure their independence or prevent marginalisation. The article highlights the threat of state co-optation for teacher unions and suggests that a framework for managing teacher union–state relations based on ‘professional unionism’ could potentially contribute to more effective education service provision. Comparisons with teacher unions’ experiences elsewhere in the world are also made, while recognising the specificity of the South African situation.     

Redefining what it means to be a teacher through professional standards: implications for continuing teacher education

This article connects with an international debate around the place of professional standards in educational policy targeted at enhancing teacher quality, with associated implications for continuing teacher education. Scotland provides a fertile context for discussion, having developed sets of professional standards in response to a recent national review of career-long teacher education. That review called for a reprofessionalisation of the teaching profession and the revision of the standards was an element of this process. Scotland is utilised as a lens through which one country’s response to international trends is viewed, with a focus on ‘teacher leadership’ and ‘practitioner enquiry’ as policy endorsed sets of practices. The analysis demonstrates the complex and contested nature of these terms and the tensions posed between the need to meet professional standards as part of teacher education and aspirational dimensions of the current policy project of reprofessionalisation. The article concludes by considering the implications for continuing teacher education.     

Developing a ‘clinical’ model for teacher education

This paper reports on the introduction of a ‘clinical model’ of teacher education at the University of Glasgow in 2011. The account is set against the backdrop of a review of major contemporary developments in teacher education. The common focus in this work is on such themes as the key function of the practicum, on ‘teaching schools’ and on the roles and responsibilities of the various players in teacher professional learning. The context for reform of teacher education in Scotland is described, showing how the opportunity for a radical intervention arose. The distinctive features of the Glasgow model are set out and a summary of the findings of the internal evaluation carried out at the University is offered. Issues identified include challenges of communication, the nature of professional learning and the cultural embeddedness of existing practices. In the light of this initiative, the paper then reviews insights gained concerning the relationship between policy, practice and research in teacher education, before concluding with comments on the future of research in teacher education.     

Adapting ‘lesson study’ to investigate classroom pedagogy in initial teacher education: what student-teachers think

This paper reports findings from a project that explored the use of a modified form of ‘lesson study’ in a one-year programme of secondary school initial teacher education (ITE). Twelve mentors and student-teachers worked in pairs to design and teach two ‘research lessons’ in the course of two eight-week teaching practice placements as part of a university–school partnership for the preparation of new teachers. Participating student-teachers reported that engagement in this form of lesson study with a mentor was an effective way to help them grow individual teaching skills, knowledge and confidence in teaching placements. In addition, in most cases, it enabled active and creative participation in a community of teacher learners. However, engagement in lesson study not only supported student-teachers to meet ‘qualifying to teach’ standards, but also offered opportunities for holistic study of teaching and learning, leading to growth in what we characterise as ‘pedagogic literacy’.     

Experiential Learning in Action: a program for preparing educators for health professionals

Education is centre stage in current UK government initiatives to promote multi-agency team work. This paper draws on a research project which explored the way in which multi-disciplinary teams work and learn together in their practice with children, to consider the implications of ‘joined-up’ practice for theorizing dilemmas of knowledge creation and identity transformation for professionals in multi-agency teams. The paper focuses primarily on the experiences of education professionals. We exemplify some dilemmas of ‘joined-up’ team participation in specific workplace activities involving knowledge exchange. We then explore the impact of belonging to multi-agency teams on professional roles, identities and learning. The paper then summarizes strategies which professionals used for resolving dilemmas around learning and knowledge creation, and considers how participating in shared workplace activities might enable or constrain professionals to consoli date their professional identities and learning. Drawing on theoretical research into workplace participation and professional learning, the paper examines implications for theorizing the professional identity of teachers in multi-agency team work, within a systemic model that takes account of: creating new knowledge and practice; enhancing professional identity; and building inter-professional communities.     

The Crucible of Classroom Practice: Alchemy and Early Professional Learning in Secondary English Teaching

This paper explores the metaphor of the classroom as a ‘crucible’ for early professional learning where beginning teachers forge professional identities in complex, unpredictable, paradoxical, affectively and physically potent contexts of practice. It works into the dissonances and contradictions of the micro-narratives embedded in the accounts that three high-achieving early career English teacher graduates give of their early professional learning in schools. It traces the conflicts they experience in the gap between ‘economies of performance’ and ‘ecologies of practice’ within which they improvise new professional identities as teachers. Their effective ‘transmutations’ into teachers are contingent on a bewildering range of factors, many of them out of their control. As the medieval transmutation of lead into gold was analogous to personal transformation, purification and perfection, so new teachers aspire to ideals of practice that may be impossible to achieve. The paper moves beyond simplistic conceptualisations of theory–practice binaries in new teachers’ work and evaluates the impact of new pressures from globalised discourses of standardisation and professionalism that erase singularity, particularity and relationality. Rather, it posits professional learning as complex identity work that is variously constrained and enabled by local institutional factors and broader policy contexts that affect the capacity and desire of beginning teachers to introduce and sustain innovative pedagogies in their English classes.     

绩效评价：教师专业发展的引领和激励

探讨并分析了教师绩效结构的五个维度,即师德、学科素养、课堂教学、学生学习和班主任工作。提出教师绩效评价必然将教师的专业发展与学生的全面发展相联系;必须基于教育教学改善、专业思考和协商参与,增进教师对教育教学的理解并改善实践;必须促使教师从个体竞争走向团体竞争。     

Beyond ‘what works’: understanding teacher identity as a practical and political tool

Drawing on previous research that focused upon the formation and mediation of teacher professional identity, this paper develops a model for conceptualising teacher professional identity. Increasingly, technical-rational understandings of teachers’ work and ‘role’ are privileged in policy and public discourse over more nuanced and holistic approaches that seek to understand teacher professional identity – what it is to ‘be’ a teacher. This article seeks to offer an alternative view, presenting the idea that an understanding of the processes by which teacher professional identity is formed and mediated is central to understanding the professional learning and development needs of teachers and advancing a richer, more transformative vision for education. I argue that instrumentalist notions of teachers’ work embedded in neo-liberal educational agendas such as those currently being advanced in many western countries offer an impoverished view of the teaching profession and education more broadly, and suggest that the concept of teacher professional identity holds the potential to work as a practical tool for the teaching profession and those who work to support them in the development of a more generative educational agenda.