Governing teacher learning: understanding teachers’ compliance with and critique of standardization

This paper examines how policy pressure for increased performance on standardised measures of student achievement influenced the teacher learning practices that arose in a school setting in Queensland, Australia. Drawing upon research and theorising of governing by numbers, and applications to the governance of education, and particularly teachers’ learning, the research analyses how a group of Year 3 teachers collaborated to better inform themselves about the nature of their students’ learning. The research reveals that the governance of teachers’ learning under current policy conditions was manifest through both teachers’ compliance with and critique of a strong focus upon school, regional, state and national data – specifically, students’ attainment in ‘leveled’ readers and other school-based standardised measures of reading and mathematics, and school, state and regional results on national literacy and numeracy tests. There is little research that highlights the tensions around these numbers as governing technologies in relation to specific formal, ongoing instances of teacher professional development practices. The research cautions against the influence of such governing processes for how they potentially narrow teachers’ attention to more standardized measures of students’ learning, even as teachers may critique these more reductive effects.     

Accountability conversations: mathematics teachers’ learning through challenge and solidarity

Teacher learning through professional development is a complex process and is not yet well understood. Some features of professional development programs are known to be important, such as a focus on learner needs, design of and reflection on classroom artefacts, and the creation and sustaining of communities of support for teacher professional learning. In this paper, we describe the workings of such communities in a teacher professional development program, which focused on learner errors in a well-researched mathematical topic—the equal sign. Drawing on data from program sessions where teachers discussed their lesson designs and reflections on their teaching with each other, we develop the notions of challenge and solidarity as important in developing accountability conversations among teachers. We show how our program supported teachers to challenge each other and to build solidarity with each other and in so doing to develop accountability to each other and the profession, for their practices and their learning.     

The quandary of quantification: data,numbers and teachers’ learning

ABSTRACT

Drawing upon recent theorising of numbers and data, and applications to schooling, this paper reveals how tensions between more accountability-oriented logics, and more contextually-situated conceptions of engagement with data, played out in one school in a regional community in northern Queensland, Australia. The research reveals that at the same time teachers’ work and learning were heavily influenced by more reductive processes of quantification to account for teachers’ practices, teachers also sought to draw upon the attention to numeric markers of student achievement to foster more substantive teacher learning for student learning. These tensions were expressed in relation to: efforts to foster improved student learning through collection of evidence via ‘short-term data cycles’; engagement in various ‘data conversations’ with senior members of staff, and coaching by more experienced teachers, and; broader teacher learning initiatives focused on enhancing outcomes for specified groups of students identified as able to perform at higher levels of attainment. The research cautions that such practices present a quandary; even as broader processes of quantification of education may stimulate instances of more ongoing, substantive teacher learning for student learning, more performative applications of these numbers and data mitigate against the educative potential of such practices, and substantive learning for all students.     

Unravelling continuous assessment practice: Policy implications for teachers’ work and professional learning

Assessment policy in some countries continues to promote the use of continuous assessment (CA) within classrooms. Several policy claims have been made about the potential of CA to improve education. Using data from a 2010 evaluation of the Trinidad and Tobago Continuous Assessment Programme (CAP), canonical correlation analysis (CCA) was used to unravel the pattern of relationships between institutional variables, professional learning, teacher beliefs, and CA components. The CA components measured were (1) overall use, (2) multiple assessment formats use and (3) formative feedback use. Each CA component was shown to be associated with different variables, with overall use related to several teacher belief factors such as extra-role behaviour. However, multiple assessment formats use added only a small amount of unique variance to the CCA solution. Moreover, the canonical variate for formative feedback use was not statistically significant. These findings have implications for CA as a policy tool. Successful implementation of CA may require high quality professional learning as well as teacher workforce remodelling. Even when implemented successfully, however, CA may not be a useful vehicle for promoting high quality formative assessment or use of multiple assessment formats.     

Student teachers’ and in-service teachers’ peer learning: a realist synthesis

The aim of this review in the form of a realist synthesis is to understand what makes peer (student) teacher learning activities effective. Three types of peer learning were explored: collaborative, coaching, and assessment activities. Hypotheses were developed and tested against a set of 63 studies. These hypotheses indicated what mechanisms (i.e., characteristics of the activities) would influence the effectiveness of the activities and which contexts (i.e., factors) influenced this process. Findings showed that activities wherein participants gain subject matter and pedagogical content knowledge and apply this into practice made such learning effective. Peer learning is also reinforced by facilitators, reflection, and feedback, and influenced by personal and interpersonal factors. The main contribution of this realist synthesis is the practical implications for developers of peer learning activities, for school leaders and teacher educators, and for (student) teachers.     

Pedagogical well‐being: reflecting learning and well‐being in teachers’ work

Teachers’ learning and occupational well‐being is crucial in attaining educational goals both in the classroom and at the school community level. In this article teachers’ occupational well‐being that is constructed in teaching–learning processes within the school community is referred to as pedagogical well‐being. The article focuses on exploring teachers’ experienced pedagogical well‐being by examining the kinds of situations that teachers themselves find either empowering and engaging or burdening and stressful in their work. The study aims to: (1) identify the primary contexts of teachers’ experienced critical incidents of pedagogical well‐being; and (2) determine the kind of action strategies teachers have adopted in these contexts when they are reported as empowering and engaging. The study included data collected from the teachers of nine case‐schools around Finland. Altogether, a selected group of 68 comprehensive school teachers, including both primary and secondary school teachers, were interviewed. Our results suggested that interaction with pupils in socially and pedagogically challenging situations constitutes the core of teachers’ pedagogical well‐being. Success in both the pedagogical goals and more general social goals seem to be fundamental preconditions for teachers’ experienced pedagogical well‐being. Further investigation showed that teachers’ approaches to socially challenging situations varied. Results suggest that teachers’ pedagogical well‐being is centrally generated in the challenging social interactions of their work. Moreover, the way in which a teacher acts in the situation is found to be a regulator for experienced pedagogical well‐being.     

Enhancing preservice teachers’ professional competence through experiential learning

This report introduces a way of engaging preservice teachers in experiential learning activities to enrich their pedagogical content knowledge and skills. The framework suggested can be applied to instruction in a wide range of disciplines in different contexts. It calls on teacher educators to work on similar experiential learning initiatives to equip novice teachers with the necessary pedagogies and competence for their future careers.     

Theorising teaching and learning: pre-service teachers’ theoretical awareness of learning

We examine pre-service teachers’ theoretical learning during one five-week training module, and their educators’ learning about better lecture design to foster student learning. The study is iterative: interventions (one per group) were implemented sequentially in student groups A–C, the results of the previous intervention serving as the baseline for the design developed for the next. These learning study participants, 79 students from year three of a teacher training programme, studied the variation theory (VT) of learning. Three lesson cycles were completed, each comprising four steps: (1) a pre-test, (2) a 15-min intervention discussing VT, (3) a post-test and (4) a delayed post-test conducted eight weeks later. The results indicated learning differences between groups; qualitative analysis identified three categories of student answers, i.e. emergent, premature and unaware, regarding their theoretical understanding. Group C had more students with emergent knowledge (36%) than did groups A (20%) or B (17%) at post-testing.     

Stories of self and science: preservice elementary teachers’ identity work through time and across contexts

Grounded in theoretical and empirical underpinnings related to identity work and figured worlds, this case study explores the nature of two preservice elementary teachers’ identities for science teaching and the experiences that impacted their development through time and across contexts. The participants in this study portray a range of competencies, interests and orientations to science and science teaching, and hence provide two different kinds of, almost contradicting, identity works. Various data were collected in a period of 3 years with the use of life history methods in order to trace the participants’ identity work over time and across contexts. The analysis of the data showed prevalent differences between the participants’ identity works and identified critical events and experiences in the context of various figured worlds: (a) figured world of family; (b) figured world of childhood; (c) figured world of schooling; (d) outside of school figured worlds; (e) figured world of university and (f) figured world of science. These findings are offered alongside implications for future research and teacher preparation.     

Situated learning and teachers’ digital competence

Computer literacy, media literacy, digital literacy and digital competence are all concepts that highlight the need to handle technology in our digital age. However, when it comes to teachers’ digital literacy there is a need to develop a more pedagogic-didactic content for digital literacy in order to deal with the way in which new digital trends influence the underlying conditions for schools, pedagogy and subjects. This theoretical article will therefore examine whether a broader view of knowledge (situated learning) can be a relevant theoretical underpinning for a new digital competence model for teachers and the Scandinavian English perception of the term competence. The article is particularly angled towards how the complexity of teachers’ digital literacy makes it necessary to expand our traditional perception of this concept. The implications of the article indicate that five vital structures are found to be essential to perceptions amongst teachers of the importance of Information- and Communication Technology (ICT) and achievement of digital competence.

Developing teachers’ capacities in assessment through career-long professional learning

Abstract

In a context of increasing demand for quality and equity in education and a sharp focus on accountability, classroom teachers are also expected to support and improve learning outcomes for pupils in response to their individual needs. This paper explores three issues: how teachers understand assessment in relation to their students’ learning, the curriculum and their pedagogical choices; how teachers’ capacity to use assessment to improve students’ learning can be developed through career-long professional learning (CLPL); and how teachers’ learning can be implemented and sustained in schools, both locally and nationally. In considering these issues, recent thinking about learning and assessment and CLPL are considered alongside empirical evidence from the development and implementation of assessment processes and approaches to professional development in Scotland. The paper emphasises the importance of a dynamic framework of CLPL that recognises the individuality of teachers’ learning needs and the consequent need for tailored professional learning opportunities with different combinations of support and challenge at school, local and national levels.     

Higher education teachers’ professional learning: Process and outcome

In this paper, we first offer an analytic perspective on the papers in this volume, framing our discussion within the context of academic development as a discipline and highlighting common lines that cut across the nine contributions. We then offer insights about the current state of research on the evaluation of academic development and suggest directions that are likely to advance our theoretical and empirical knowledge in this area and anchor us firmly in evidence-based practice. We suggest that clarifying the mechanisms of change when professional learning occurs and measuring the changes in student learning outcomes that are associated with professional learning are important avenues for future research.     

Learning to learn through work? The importance of Australian apprenticeship and traineeship policies in young workers’ learning careers

This paper examines young workers’ beginning engagement in learning through work, placing it in the context of Australian policy on entry-level training. Eleven young people were followed through their first year of full-time work and the significant adults involved in their working and learning lives were also interviewed. The study demonstrates that the presence of a contract of training (an apprenticeship or traineeship) is a strong predictor of a young worker’s propensity to regard the workplace as a learning environment. However, unsatisfactory interactions with employment or training providers can create disillusionment with policy interventions that are meant to assist. Moreover, the habit of learning through work is not only a function of policy and training frameworks, but is also affected by individuals’ abilities to learn how to learn. The paper concludes by arguing that, for those young people starting work who are not in a contract of training, additional assistance may be required in order for them to continue the habit of lifelong learning in the new environment of work.     

Student teachers’ perceptions and evidence of peer learning through co-teaching: improving attitudes and willingness towards co-teaching

European Journal of Psychology of Education - Despite the increasing practice and evidence of its potential, co-teaching has not become a widespread practice in schools yet. Research shows the need...     

Prospective teachers’ teaching experience: teacher learning through the use of video

Background: Future teachers need to observe, interpret and analyse teaching during the initial teacher education period. The use of videoed teaching and learning in teacher education promotes reflection, and analysing videos of teaching is helpful in learning effective classroom practices that prospective teachers mostly do not have the chance to observe during fieldwork experiences. The analysis of videos of teaching can be seen as a way to enhance the development of prospective teachers’ professional vision, which, in turn, improves instruction. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine prospective teachers’ reflections on video examples depicting their own teaching experiences. It aimed to create a professional development environment to facilitate the prospective teachers’ reflection on their own videos and those of their peers to improve their professional vision. Sample: This study was conducted with over 200 (in 31 groups) third-year prospective mathematics teachers in a university in Western Turkey. The student teachers, receiving training to teach first- to fourth-grade elementary school pupils, were taking a teaching methods course. Design and methods: In the first week of the semester, the student teachers, working in groups, were assigned mathematics topics to teach the elementary school pupils. During the semester, each group prepared by trying out their activities in front of other student teachers in other groups. At the end of the semester, one student teacher from each group presented a short lesson related to their mathematical topic to the elementary school pupils. This lesson was videotaped, then later it was watched and discussed by the student teachers. Of the student teachers who undertook the teaching in the videos, 22 volunteers agreed to be interviewed. All groups of student teachers provided written reflections on their experience. Selected videos of the class discussions about the videos of teaching were also used for triangulation. The data were analysed to identify the issues the prospective teachers reflected upon. A content analysis technique was employed. Results: The data indicated that the prospective teachers were able to reflect on several issues related to effective teaching, connect their theoretical knowledge to their practice and consider issues related to pupil learning and difficulties. Conclusion: The findings suggested that the use of video, together with discussions between the student teachers, had the potential to create promising learning opportunities for prospective teachers.     

Integration of learning for refugee and migrant students: VET teachers’ practices through practice theory lens

The study reported here used a practice theory lens to understand vocational education and training (VET) teachers’ current practices in supporting integration of learning in educational institutions and workplaces – specifically for refugee and migrant students. A case study was conducted with 10 teachers delivering aged care programmes in South East Queensland, Australia and in a municipality in West Sweden. During in-depth interviews teachers explained the enabling and challenging aspects of their practice, and specific strategies they used to support students with integration of learning in the two main sites. Analyses of data concentrated on understanding three types of arrangements in the practice architectures at the two learning sites. Teachers extended their everyday pedagogical approaches to support integration of learning and meet the specific needs of refugee and migrant students. Their teaching comprised interdependent practices of VET and aged care in two settings, each with distinct ecologies of practice. Their narratives reflect contestations between practice traditions of aged care practices in Australia and Sweden, and students’ understandings and reflections of practices in their birth countries. We conclude that teacher training and adjustments to these arrangements can bridge contestations between the enacted and experienced curriculum in the two sites.     

Connections between learning and teaching: EFL teachers’ reflective practice

This study explores six Vietnamese, English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ reflections on their experiences of English language learning during the early 1980s to the late 1990s. Data collected in narrative interviews with the participating teachers revealed a wide range of issues that arose during their EFL learning, central to which was the prevalence of grammar-focused practices in all EFL classes. From their perspectives as EFL teachers today, the participants see their learning experience as a way of learning to teach. In particular, they pinpoint the negative aspects of language teaching at that time in the hope that their teaching practice today will not repeat the same mistakes. However, they also reflect on positive aspects, especially their influential teachers, to inform their teaching. Based on the findings, the study suggests that language teachers’ experience of language learning should be considered part of reflective teaching as well as of teachers’ trajectories of learning to teach.     

Addressing contradictions in teachers’ practice through professional learning: an activity theory perspective

ABSTRACT

This case study focuses on the professional learning of 38 K-9 teachers who engaged in a professional development (PD) programme in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) through collaborative action research (CAR). Through the lens of CHAT or Cultural-Historical Activity Theory, the author examined what teachers were learning, the contextual factors that influenced their learning and classroom practice, and the outcomes of this PD initiative. The changing activity system of the teachers is described, as well as how they addressed contradictions in their practice. Addressing these contradictions resulted in an expansion of their object and professional growth. The study contributes to a growing body of research in teacher education which applies CHAT as a conceptual framework to understand teacher professional learning and how interactions among activity system components influence teachers’ development and practice.