Centre stage papers – Days 3, 4 & 5: Extending the vision

Personalising teacher learning and developing teaching values

 

To prepare teachers for education in the 21st century, we firstly need to build consensus around the kind of values to which teachers can ascribe. We also need a personalised approach to teacher learning and professional development that enables teachers to enquire into pedagogy and practice and develop adaptive and innovative approaches within their local context. Finally, we need coherent relationships between teachers, the wider school workforce and other professionals working with pupils.

Teacher characteristics and values

David Hargreaves’ characteristics of a 21st century educator1 are a welcome and natural accompaniment to his vision for personalised learning in schools. In particular, the characteristics that relate to raising pupil participation, engagement and co-construction in learning are crucial. In supporting the characteristics that Hargreaves has outlined, this paper will briefly offer several complementary values and characteristics, focused on ensuring equality in learning, before proposing a model of personalised teacher learning that supports the characteristics.

Teachers involved in a wide consultation on developing the General Teaching Council for England (GTC) Statement of Professional Values and Practice for Teachers2placed particular importance on the values of promoting equality of opportunity – challenging stereotypes, opposing prejudice and respecting individuals. They also recognised the value and place of the school in the community and the importance of their own professional status.

In a reflection of the Every Child Matters outcomes, the statement describes a key role for teachers as enabling children and young people to learn in, and beyond, the classroom, developing the knowledge, skills and attributes for adulthood. Teachers wish to enable all children to achieve their potential as fulfilled individuals who make a positive contribution to society while staying safe and healthy.

Of course, these values and characteristics should also apply across the education sector and the framework in which teachers operate. For example, the curriculum, and the way in which pupil learning is assessed, should serve the needs of today’s pupils and ensure that they have the skills and knowledge they need for life and work. The education system should give teachers greater flexibility to use their professional judgement in determining, within their specific context, the best possible teaching approaches and learning outcomes for pupils

Personalising teacher learning

Teachers need improved opportunities to understand and apply the concept of pupil learning in context. Research from an Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Coordinating (EPPI) systematic review3, commissioned by the GTC with the support of the National Union of Teachers, shows that investing in effective teacher learning and development can, and does, improve the quality of teaching.

A teacher’s development should, of course, reflect the needs of his or her school and pupils, and a teacher’s individual needs and interests cannot be considered in isolation from whole-school needs. However, evidence from the EPPI systematic reviews suggests that teachers’ professional development is most effective if teachers are able to ‘personalise’ their own learning, for example, by identifying the particular focus for learning, by working with their peers and by having access to specialist expertise over time4.

All teachers and school staff would benefit from an entitlement to resourced access and participation in personalised – that is, effective, relevant and sustained – continuing professional development. While 2006 performance management regulations legislate for the procedures whereby teachers identify their continuing professional development (CPD) and learning objectives, there is, as yet, no legislation that secures access to, and participation in, CPD. The outcomes of teacher professional learning and development might also be promoted as an essential part of the school self-evaluation process and the Ofsted inspection framework.

Enabling adaptive and innovative practice

Teachers’ initial training and continuing professional development needs a stronger focus on developing teachers’ understanding of theories of learning and pedagogy.

Professional development should engage teachers with the theoretical and empirical research basis of the pedagogies they adopt, so that their decision-making in the adaptive classroom, and capacity to innovate, are well-founded and generate the best possible outcomes for children and young people.

Teacher learning must fully support teachers’ capacity to innovate and change their practice. This is particularly desirable when it comes to teachers personalising pupil learning, notably through assessment for learning, ‘pupil voice’ and using the potential of new technologies. It is in this ‘mix’ of approaches that adaptive classrooms, which respond reliably and creatively to learner context, needs, aspirations and interests, are created.

By adopting a guiding pedagogy, adaptive practice and a teacher-learner relationship that responds to pupils’ ‘voices’, teachers, schools and other settings will be better placed to deliver the five Every Child Matters outcomes, including high standards of achievement, for all children.

A framework for professional learning

Personalising teacher learning and developing adaptive and innovative practice needs to be based on clear principles and supported by a coherent framework.

Teacher learning should be framed to stimulate learning experiences for teachers which are effective for them, their pupils, their schools and the education service. It should seek to support learning communities within and beyond schools that enrich teaching practice and support innovation.

Based on the findings of the EPPI systematic review, highlighted earlier in this paper, there are now a clear and explicit set of principles that are designed to support teachers to:

• draw on knowledge from research and other colleagues
• plan, evaluate and spread their own learning
• draw on expert support from other teachers, advisers or teacher educators
• experiment with disciplined creativity and learn as much from what did not work as from what did.

These principles are supported by a process of professional development, through which participating teachers can acquire the crucial skills they need to personalise the learning of all their students. The steps in the process are:

• access to peer support, coaching and/or mentoring
• engagement with an appropriate knowledge base
• planning of professional learning and change activity (that is, a teacher learning project)
• carrying out a change activity (that is, implementing the teacher learning project)
• evaluating the impact on practice/own learning
• disseminating what has been learned.

These principles support the concept of personalised teacher learning by offering teachers a way of addressing their CPD goals, through its emphasis on individual development in context, interrogating practice with colleagues and evaluating the effects of changes to practice.

The principles have been used as the basis for the GTC’s Teacher Learning Academy, which offers public and professional recognition for teachers' learning, development and improvement work. It aims to stimulate learning experiences for teachers which are effective for them, their pupils, their schools and the education service. It seeks to support learning communities within and beyond schools that enrich teaching practice and support innovation.

The school and wider workforce

In preparing educators for a new role in the 21st century, we need to acknowledge that a wide range of people can contribute effectively to children’s learning and other development needs. School workforce remodelling does not mean that children with the greatest need of expert pedagogy get less access to qualified teachers as a consequence of the arrangements for their individual support. Yet it is clear that the teacher has no monopoly of expertise on the needs of some children, for example, children with low-incidence special educational needs, and that such children have a right to have access to specialist expertise beyond that of the teacher.

It is critical that schools examine their existing skills and expertise across the whole range of teaching and support roles undertaken by staff, and develop a strong understanding of the role of professionals from other services.5

The GTC intends, over the forthcoming year, to consider the evidence of the impact of school workforce remodelling on standards of teaching and learning, and on other outcomes for children. The Council is also working with the regulatory bodies for social care, and for nursing and midwifery, on the professional values that underpin effective inter-professional work with children and young people. These values, in addition to the characteristics outlined by Hargreaves, will be key when preparing teachers for their role in the 21st century.

Notes
1. Hargreaves, D. (2006). A new shape for schooling, Specialist Schools and Academies Trust.
2. General Teaching Council for England (2006). Statement of professional values and practice for teachers. First published in 2002 and revised in 2006
3. These reviews are available on the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Coordinating (EPPI) Centre website at:
http://eppi.ioe.ac.uk/EPPIWeb/home.aspx?&page=/reel/reviews.htm
4. For further information, please see General Teaching Council for England (2007). A personalised approach to CPD. Advice to Government. January 2007.
5. For further information, see General Teaching Council for England (2002). Teaching and learning: the role of other adults. Advice to Government. October 2002.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mr Andy Hudson is a policy adviser at the General Teaching Council for England, in the United Kingdom.

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