Transcript Europe's schools for the 21st century

Who is responsible for the professional
development of teachers?
Teachers’ ownership of professionalism
IPDA 2009 Annual conference Birmingham
Marco Snoek
Marco Snoek
Policy versus practice???
• Is there a dilemma?
• Are there conflicting demands?
Aims
Practice
Providing conditions
Putting it into practice
Strategies
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Consistency
Policy
Outline
• Policy debates on teacher professionalism in
Europe
• Perspectives on Teacher Professionalism
• The role of
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Governments
Teacher education institutes
Schools
Teachers
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EU, education and the teacher
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The open method of coordination
• EU has ambitions but no authority in the area of
education
• How to influence national policies: OMC
– Normative: Defining targets and indicators
– Organizing benchmarks and rankings
– Support and direction through policy papers and council
conclusions
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Common European Principles
Improving teacher education
Key competences for life long learning
Professional development on teachers and school leaders
(Nov2009)
– Focus on mutual or peer learning: sharing policy practices
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Low achievers in reading
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Benchmarks for teachers
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‘Develop indicators that better reflect the issues involved in improving education
and training for teachers and their recruitment, and report on progress in the
quality of teacher education through the biennial reports on the Education and
Training 2010 programme (‘Improving the quality of TE’, EC2007)
TALIS 2009
– Engagement in CPD and in progressive forms of collaboration  higher selfefficacy and use of a wider array of methods
– Addressing teachers’ attitudes, beliefs and practices can lead to considerable
improvement in teaching and learning, rather through individualised support
for teachers than whole-school/system-wide interventions.
– 55% of the teachers: wish for more professional development (in areas like
special learning needs, ICT teaching skills, student behaviour)
– Where teachers paid for their own development, they tended to do more.
– The greatest perceived impact of CPD activities is in teacher research and
qualification programmes
– High unmet needs: 42% of teachers report a lack of suitable professional
development on offer.
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Professional development of teachers and
school leaders (Eur. Council, Nov2009)
Need for
• A clear profile for perspective teachers
• Teachers that take greater responsibility in their LLL
• A coherent continuum of LLL
• With induction programmes for all new
teachers
• Sufficient needs-based CPD opportunities
• Including advanced programmes and
engagement in pedagogical research
• Strengthened learning mobility and
networks
• Regular feedback on performances
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How to get from goals to policy to
practice?
A topic for peer learning: Cluster Teacher & Trainers
Aims
• to develop a common understanding of success factors for the
improvement of policy-making and the implementation of reform;
• to identify and disseminate key conclusions which can be fed
into policy-making and implementation at the national level and
European level.
Through
• Peer learning activities (PLAs)
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Structure of PLAs
• 7 Thematic peer learning activities: Intensive
(4 days), intensive & small scale
• 8 – 10 interested countries
• Policy makers, researchers & practitioners
• Policy examples and reflections on general
underlying policy issues
• Next practices?
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Continuous Professional Development
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Continuous Professional Development
• Lifelong learning: pre-service, induction, in-service
• Focus on classroom teaching, subjects and outcomes
• Active involvement: curriculum development, new
strategies, research
• Facilitating and promoting CPD (time/salaries)
• Roles and responsibilities: ministry, schools, teachers,
teacher education
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School as Learning Communities
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School as Learning Communities
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CPD is not an isolated and individual responsibility and activity
Learning cultures within schools; role models for pupils
Learners’ autonomy, room for experiments
Communities of student teachers, beginning teachers and
experienced teachers
• Focus on pupils’ performances
• Supported and facilitated by schools, ministry, Inspectorate,
TEI
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Relationships between Teacher Education
Institutes and Schools
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Relationships between Teacher Education
Institutes and Schools
• Partnerships to provide the best education for pupils: Focus on
– improving methods for teaching and learning,
– raising the quality of teachers, and
– developing knowledge about teaching and learning through research
• Partnerships as support systems: Integrated and powerful
learning environment for student teachers and teachers
• Intentional steering by the government giving room for local
differences and variations
• Focus on long term partnerships, sustainability, quality assurance
• Identify benefits for schools, TEI, (student) teachers, the system
• All schools or selected schools?
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Policies on the Induction of new teachers
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Policies on the Induction of new teachers
• Induction is the period at the beginning of a teacher’s career in
which beginning teachers, having completed their period of initial
teacher education, first assume full professional responsibility for
learners.
• A effective induction programme
– Bridges (and gives feedback to) initial teacher education and CPD
– Provides personal support, social support, professional support and
emotional support
– can be a catalyst for the further development of the school as a
learning community, and for increasing the school’s collective
learning potential.
– Requires adequate qualities and competence of all the actors (with
emphasis on mentors and schoolleaders)
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Common Themes
• A well educated profession (at master’s level?)
• Teachers’ Lifelong Learning
– Importance of competences & standards
– Support systems
• Ownership, self-esteem & self-accountability
(extended professionalism)
• Leadership (of school leaders and teachers)
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Common Themes
• Partnerships between Education & Training and the
workplace
• Trust: support versus control
• Policies for the whole system and long term planning
• The quality of teacher educators
• Steering and autonomy
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Exciting new insights?
Maybe not, but …
• Collaborative learning of policymakers, researchers
and practicioners, bridging polcy and practice
• Input to question and improve existing policies
• Peer learning on a national level? (Leadership
academy in Austria)
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Perspectives on teacher
professionalism
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Teacher professionalism:
a combined effort
Governments
Schools &
schoolleaders
TEACHER
PROFESSIONALISM
Teacher
education
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Teachers
Teachers and schoolleaders:
Conflicting spheres
Schoolleader
Teacher
Growing autonomy
Decreasing autonomy?
Conflicting spheres (Hanson, 1976):
• Keep the spheres of the schoolleader and the
professional seperated
• …Or create equal partners and a professional debate …
Demands on the professionalism of teachers!
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Restricted Professionality
Extended Professionality
Skills derived from experience
Skills derived from a mediation between
experience and theory
Perspective limited to the immediate in time
and place
Perspective embracing the broader social
context of education
Workplace events perceived in isolation
Workplace events perceived in relation to
policies and goals
Introspective with regard to methods
Methods compared with those of colleagues and
with reports of practice
Value placed on autonomy
Value placed on professional collaboration
Limited involvement in non immediate
professional activities
High involvement in non immediate professional
activities (eg networks, research, professional
associations)
Infrequent reading of professional literature
Regular reading of professional literature
Involvement in professional development
limited and confined to practical courses
Involvement in professional development
considerable and includes learning of theoretical
nature
Work seen as an intuitive activity
Work seen as a rational activity
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Teachers and the government
“The outstanding characteristic of the extended professional is a
capacity for autonomous professional self-development through
systematic self-study, through the study of the work of other
teachers and through the testing of ideas by classroom research
procedures” (Stenhouse, 1975: 144).
“When the knowledge
is organized
outside
the members of
Need forbase
a strong
teacher
force?
the profession themselves, it will not only have a negative
infuence on the quality of education. It will also be the end of
pretending that the
teaching profession
is a real profession.”
Government
interference
(Korver, 2007).
?
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What qualities do extended
professionals need ?
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Leadership (Suleiman & Moore, Hargreaves)
System thinking (Senge, Fullan)
Quality awareness (Hoyle)
Professional Learning Communities (Hord, Senge, Hargreaves)
Classroom research (Stenhouse, Cochran-Smith & Lytle)
Entrepreneurship: ‘an individual’s ability to turn ideas into action, including
creativity, innovation and risk taking, as well as the ability to plan and
manage projects in order to achieve objectives and to seize opportunities’
(EC, 2006)
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External awareness
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Teacher professionalism: the role of …
Governments
Schools &
schoolleaders
TEACHER
PROFESSIONALISM
Teacher
education
Teachers
Need for constructice alignment
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Governments
TEACHER
LEARNING
Government perspective
Teacher
education
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•
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The use of standards
Level of detail of standards
Ownership of standards
Steering or supporting
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Schools &
schoolleaders
Teachers
Policy makers on teacher quality:
Comparing national documents
Comparing
• 4 European policy documents
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Teachers matter (OECD)
Common principles (Eur Comm)
Improving the quality of TE (Eur Comm)
Teacher Education in Europe (ETUCE)
• 9 country documents with formal teacher standards (Be/Fl, Cz,
Gr, NL, No, Pol, Port, Slov, Sw, UK/Eng)
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Outcomes 1
• Application of most documents is limited to teacher education
curricula
• Half of the national documents: involvement of wide variety of
stakeholders
• EU-level: little input from stakeholders
• Impact of the stakeholders’ input?
• Categories vary:
– Main tasks of a teacher
– The context of work
– Taxonomy of knowledge (K-S-A)
• 1 to 2 pages (3 countries), 5 – 8 pages (3 countries), 16 – 21
pages (2 countries)
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Outcomes 2
• Main headings for teacher quality vary considerably
• Most common:
– Ped-did competence – effective teaching
– Co-operation/partnership
– Reflection and CPD
• Unique in EU documents:
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International co-operation
Co-operation with other schools
Professional autonomy
Working with knowledge
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The government perspective
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A shared language is missing! On a national and on a European level
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One standard versus room for diversity?
– Schools and their local contexts and needs are different.
– Teachers are different. Quality indicators for teachers should reflect the
collaborative nature of teaching (ATEE, 2006).
•
Do government policies strengthen or hinder the (extended)
professionalism of teachers (constructive alignment)?
– The need for the professional involvement of and ownership by teachers.
(ATEE, 2006).
– The pitfall to take over responsibilities that teachers should take care of.
– Instruments for control or for development?
•
Involvement of teachers in the policy debate? (McKinsey, PISA,
OECD scenarios,. …)
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Governments
Schools &
schoolleaders
TEACHER
LEARNING
School perspective
Teacher
education
•
Teachers
Do schools create the conditions for a strong and professional teacher
force, fostering, ownership, leadership and entrepreneurship of
teachers?
Individual professionalism
– In their structures and conditions
– In their human resource policies
– …
Trust
?
Collective professionalism
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Control
Schools &
schoolleaders
Governments
TEACHER
LEARNING
Teacher perspective
Teacher
education
“a distinction between
those who talk and those who are talked about …”
• Teachers’ views on teacher standards
• Willing and prepared?
• Accountability?
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Teachers
Teachers’ views on teacher quality
• Comenius Project Identifying Teacher Quality
• Development of reflectiontools focussing on the concept of
teacher quality
• Questionnaire during the pilots: ‘What do you identify as the 10
most essential teacher qualities?’
• 402 responents ( 343 teachers & student teachers), 8 countries
(Cz, Gr, NL, Pol, Por, Slov., Sw, UK/Eng)
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Overlaps & differences
Por
Portugal
Eng
Sw
Gre
Slo
Pol
Cz
NL
2
2
3
1
3
2
0
5
2
0
2
3
4
2
1
0
1
2
3
3
2
2
3
1
1
4
1
England
2
Sweden
2
5
Greece
3
2
2
Slovenia
1
0
1
3
Poland
3
2
0
3
3
Czech
2
3
1
2
1
4
Netherlands
0
4
2
2
1
1
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2
2
Emphasis on categories
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Conclusions
• Strong emphasis on personal qualities (fair/honest, patient,
creative, understanding, open, empathetic, humorous,
consequent)
• More conceptual consensus exists on the knowledge category
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Willing and prepared
• Are teachers willing and prepared to
take the responsibility?
• Schoolcultures are dominated
by laissez-faire
• Teachers hardly address
each other?
• If teachers won’t do it,
others will …!
• Professional development connected
to professional accountability!
• “a right and a responsibility!”
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Teacher education
perspective
• Do we emphasize extended
professionalism in the curricula in TE?
• Do we emphasize personal qualities in
the curricula in TE?
• What about professionalism of teacher
educators (being role models)?
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Governments
Schools &
schoolleaders
TEACHER
LEARNING
Teacher
education
Teachers
And IPDA???
• Policy makers and civil servants?
• School leaders
• ‘Return of the teacher’? While the debate is dominated
by ‘educational experts’.
Where are teachers in IPDA???
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References
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ATEE (2006). The quality of teachers. Recommendations on the development of
indicators to identify teacher quality. Brussels, ATEE.
European Commission Cluster Teachers and Trainers. Reports from PLAs:
http://ec.europa.eu/education/school-education/doc836_en.htm
European Council (2009) Council conclusions on the professional development of
teachers and school leaders.
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/educ/11147
1.pdf
Identifying Teacher Quality: Comenius project on the development of reflection
tools: www.teacherqualitytoolbox.eu
OECD (2009). Teaching and Learning International Survey TALIS.
www.oecd.org/talis.
Snoek, M. (2009). Policy development in teacher education through peer learning
of policy makers. Paper presented at the International Conference on Teacher
Education and Development Udaipur , India 23-25 February 2009.
http://www.kenniscentrumonderwijsopvoeding.hva.nl/content/kenniscentrum/leren
eninnoveren/documenten/India-paper-Snoek.doc
Snoek, M. et al. (2009). European Confusion on teacher quality:How do formal
documents in European Member states identify teacher quality? Draft paper
presented at the ATEE conference Mallorca, 2009.
Marco Snoek
Marco Snoek
Reader at the
Hogeschool van Amsterdam University of Applied
Sciences
Institute of Education
[email protected]
Marco Snoek