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Making sense of learning to teach:learners in contextTrevor Mutton a , Katharine Burn a & Hazel Hagger aa Department of Education , University of Oxford , Oxford, UKPublished online: 15 Dec 2008.
To cite this article: Trevor Mutton , Katharine Burn & Hazel Hagger (2010) Making sense of learningto teach: learners in context, Research Papers in Education, 25:1, 73-91
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Research Papers in EducationVol. 25, No. 1, March 2010, 73–91
ISSN 0267-1522 print/ISSN 1470-1146 online© 2010 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/02671520802382912http://www.informaworld.com
Making sense of learning to teach: learners in context
Trevor Mutton*, Katharine Burn and Hazel Hagger
Department of Education, University of Oxford, Oxford, UKTaylor and FrancisRRED_A_338458.sgm(Received 31 July 2008; final version received 3 August 2008)10.1080/02671520802382912Research Papers in Education0267-1522 (print)/1470-1146 (online)Original Article2008Taylor & Francis0000000002008Mr [email protected]
The focus of this paper is on student teachers’ learning during the course of a one-year postgraduate programme and the importance of the interaction between learneridentities and the contexts in which student teachers learn to teach: a relationshipthat is critical to our understanding of beginning teachers’ development in whateverspecific context it occurs. The research is based on a series of post-lessoninterviews, conducted with 25 student teachers following a one-year postgraduatecourse within two well-established school-based partnerships of initial teachertraining in England. Four interviews, conducted with each student teacher over thecourse of the year, explored their thinking in relation to the planning, delivery andevaluation of an observed lesson, and their reflections on the learning that informed,or resulted from, that lesson. Contextual factors seen as facilitating and constrainingthe student teachers’ learning were identified. In order to explore the studentteachers’ approach to learning from experience, data were also analysed at the levelof the individual, using a framework which enabled us to plot the student teachers’attitudes and approaches to learning from experience as orientations within anumber of different dimensions. Here we seek to integrate, through a series of casestudies, our analysis of the relationship between the contextual factors and thestudent teachers’ attitudes to learning from experience. We highlight thecomplexity of the process of learning to teach and argue that, while it is temptingto focus solely on improving programme structures, both in schools and highereducation, we need also to address the student teachers’ own conceptions ofprofessional learning, if they are to realise their full potential.
Keywords: initial teacher education; student teachers; student teacher learning;practicum
Introduction
The reform of initial teacher education (ITE) that has taken place in England (DfE1992, 1993), as well as in many other countries over recent years, has been accompa-nied by a significant body of research literature focussing on the process of educatingbeginning teachers, which has long been recognised as being complex. The greaterthe understanding of the nature of this complexity, the more effective teacher educa-tors will be in developing programmes that adequately meet the needs of beginningteachers (Calderhead and Shorrock 1997). In seeking to develop this understanding,we have to take into account two key factors: firstly the student teacher as a learnerand secondly the nature of the practicum itself. As a learner of teaching, individualstudent teachers bring with them preconceptions, ideals and beliefs that are brought
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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into play as key aspects of their learning as adults, providing the schemata whichmay enhance or, in some cases, hinder their learning (Smylie 1995). The practicumcan be seen to serve two purposes. Not only does it provide opportunities for theindividual student teacher to learn, it is also the place where practical competencehas to be demonstrated in relation to specific performance criteria which, in England,are embodied in the professional standards for qualified teacher status (QTS) (Train-ing and Development Agency for Schools 2007). It is during the practicum thatstudent teachers are seen to be enacting ‘their pedagogical knowledge and beliefs inactual classroom settings’ (Putnam and Borko 1997, 1266), but, as Calderhead andShorrock (1997) highlight, there may be tensions between the need for student teach-ers not only to understand teaching but also to perform as teachers in the contexts inwhich they are learning. The complex interplay between learning factors and contex-tual factors in professional learning has been highlighted and illuminated in recentstudies of workplace learning in different professional contexts (Eraut et al. 2004)but in order for effective teaching knowledge to be constructed and reconstructed,Zeichner sees the context as needing to be one in which professional learning candevelop appropriately. Using Dewey’s (1938) term ‘miseducative’, he argues that:
Unless the practicum helps to teach prospective teachers how to take control of their ownprofessional development and to learn how to continue learning, it is miseducative, nomatter how successful the teacher might be in the short run. (1996, 217)
The practicum is therefore also the context in which student teachers learn how to goon learning. Wilson (2005) highlights the tensions and difficulties inherent in a train-ing programme that attempts to resist the pressures for ‘performativity’ and in doingso reminds us of Edwards’ (2002) assertion that meeting performance criteria does notnecessarily ensure that beginning teachers can become professional decision-makers.Furthermore, the notion of context encompasses more than the place itself. As Day etal. (2006) point out there is a multiplicity of factors that have an impact on teachers’commitment to professional learning such as:
… personal factors (values, beliefs, life events and circumstances), situated factors(school leadership, culture, colleagues, working conditions and pupils) and professionalfactors (roles, CPD, external policies). (2006, 48)
In the case of student teachers, ‘professional factors’ specifically include the role andstatus of being a beginning teacher. This simple listing obviously does not begin toconvey the complex relationships between these variables (a complexity richly illus-trated in Day et al.’s extensive study of teachers’ working lives). Theories of situatedlearning (pioneered by Lave and Wenger 1991) have fully alerted us to the importanceof the ‘communities of practice’ that the student teachers are joining. The routine prac-tices and expectations of specific schools – and indeed of particular departmentswithin them – have an enormous influence on the developing dispositions of thenovices learning to participate within them. However, alongside analysis of the rolesthat the student teachers are encouraged (or allowed) to adopt within these communi-ties of practice, proper attention must also be paid to those dispositions with whichthey arrive – dispositions shaped by previous roles in other communities of practice,including the university-based elements of their Postgraduate Certificate of Education(PGCE) course. As Hodkinson and Hodkinson point out, people ‘act (or learn) within“horizons for action” but those horizons are simultaneously subjective and objective,
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depending partly upon the learner’s perceptions of workplace conditions as well as theconditions themselves’ (2003, 5).
Since it is this ‘interplay between individual and contextual variables’ that for eachstudent teacher essentially shapes the ‘interactive and dynamic and idiosyncraticnature of the process of learning to teach’ (Caires and Almeida 2005, 112), we concurwith Van Huizen, van Oers, and Wubbels (2005) that ‘teacher-education programmeswill have to shape the interaction between the reflective enquiry involved in assigningmeaning to teaching and the practical activity in which these meanings have to be real-ized’ (2005, 285). In similar vein, Younger et al. (2004) argue that ITE programmesneed to be structured in such as way as to provide student teachers with ‘the contextsand methodologies whereby they can reflect upon their own preconceptions and refinetheir own understandings as to how they themselves learn as teachers’ (2004, 262).However, what is important is not simply to shape the context in which student teach-ers are learning but also to understand the interrelationship between the ways in whichbeginning teachers learn from experience and the context itself: a relationship that iscritical to our understanding of beginning teachers’ development irrespective of thecontext of their training.
Previous findings from our own longitudinal study concerned with beginningteachers’ professional learning highlight the critical role of experience (Hagger, Burn,and Mutton 2008) and suggest that while the student teachers all learn from experi-ence, the nature and extent of that learning varies considerably within a number ofdifferent dimensions depending on their expectations of, and responses to, thatexperience. We found the most effective way of capturing the five dimensions that weidentified (intentionality, frame of reference, response to feedback, attitude to contextand aspiration) was as opposable orientations (cf. Bullough, Young, and Draper 2004)and argued that within these dimensions particular orientations were likely to be moreconducive to sustaining professional learning for the future (Table 1). Our concern wasthen to build on this awareness of the complex interactions between learner andcontext and to examine specifically:
(1) What claims do the student teachers make about how they are learning to teach?(2) What contextual factors do they perceive:
● as facilitating their learning?● as constraints?
Table 1. Five dimensions according to which the variation among the student teachers’accounts of their learning from experience were analysed.
Dimension Orientation
Intentionality Deliberative ← → ReactiveFrame of reference Drawing on a range of sources
to shape and make sense of experience
← → Exclusive reliance on the experience of classroom teaching
Response to feedback Effective use of feedback to further learning
← → Tendency to be disabled by critical feedback
Attitude to context Acceptance of the context and ability to capitalise on it
← → Tendency to regard the context as constraining
Aspiration Aspirational both as learners and teachers
← → Satisfaction with current level of achievement
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The study
The data on which we draw in this paper were collected as part of a longitudinal studyof beginning teachers tracking beginning teachers on a one-year secondary PGCEcourse and on through the first two years of their teaching career. Thirty six studentteachers were initially recruited to the project from two well-established school/university partnership schemes. They included 12 student teachers from each of threesubject areas, namely mathematics, science and English, the core subjects within theNational Curriculum for maintained schools in England.
In order to explore their developing thinking and practice, the student teacherswere each observed teaching on four occasions across the PGCE year, and each obser-vation was closely followed by a semi-structured interview probing their thinkingabout the planning, teaching and evaluation of the lesson. We focused deliberately onspecific observed lessons in order to access the thinking that informed their practice,rather than their espoused theories of teaching and learning. While such interviewsmay tend to overemphasise the role of the school or classroom as the site of the studentteachers’ learning, our focus on specific lessons recognised that professional learningis concerned with the development of ‘knowledge for action’ (Buchmann 1984). It isin the context of practice in a specific school that the other sources of knowledge onwhich teachers might draw actually come together in action. As Eraut (1994, 19–20)observes:
[a]lthough many areas of professional knowledge are dependent on some understandingof relevant public codified knowledge found in books and journals, professionalknowledge is constructed through experience and its nature depends on the cumulativeacquisition, selection and interpretation of that experience.
The data presented in this paper relate to the first year of the study, i.e. the initialtraining year, during which the student teachers were filmed and interviewed on fouroccasions spread throughout the year. The first occasion was in the autumn term whenthe student teachers’ time was divided between school and university; the next twooccasions were in the spring term when the students were in school full time; thefourth occasion came in the third and final term of the PGCE course.
The interview schedule was derived from the approach first used by Brown andMcIntyre (1993) to help experienced teachers articulate their ‘craft knowledge’ andour aim was to encourage the student teachers to describe and evaluate their teach-ing in whatever terms they chose. One departure, however, from the approachadopted by Brown and McIntyre was to ask the student teachers to discuss thethinking behind their planning of the lesson. As novice teachers, this preactivephase was likely to be much more important for their practice than for experiencedpractitioners (Clark and Yinger 1979), and we therefore encouraged them to explainthe decisions and choices they had made at that stage. They were also asked toconsider what changes to their teaching they might subsequently make as a result ofevaluating the lesson in question. The final part of the interview focussed explicitlyon their learning – firstly asking what they had learnt from the lesson in questionand secondly inviting them to discuss their wider learning at this stage of thecourse.
The discussion in this paper is based on analysis of 100 post-lesson interviews,representing four interviews for each of the 25 student teachers for whom completedatasets were collected during the first year of the study.
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Data analysis procedures
Our original analyses of the student teachers’ learning (reported in Burn et al. 2000,2003) were based on the accounts that they gave of their planning and interactiveteaching decisions and the terms in which they evaluated the observed lessons. Theyalerted us to the complexity of the student teachers’ thinking, even in the very earlystage of their training, and the high level of variation between individuals in the wayin which their thinking developed:
[A]lthough it was certainly possible to discern a number of different types of progressionin the aims that they expressed for their lessons over the course of the year, it was equallyapparent that there were no common starting points for all of the student teachers. Indi-viduals began at different starting points, seemed to develop at different rates andreached different points along each of a series of separate but inter-related continua.(Burn et al. 2003, 314)
Given this variation in the student teachers’ learning as inferred from accounts of theirpractice, we were interested to focus in the next stage of the analysis on their accountsof their learning. How did they conceive of the learning process and how much simi-larity or difference was there between individual student teachers, and over time?
Answers to these questions were sought by identifying and analysing firstly allspecific references that the student teachers made to aspects of teaching about whichthey claimed to be learning, and secondly, all their more general reflections on theprocesses by which they were learning or their role as learners. A ‘what/how’ datagrid was completed for every interview, noting each distinctive aspect of teachingidentified as a learning focus, along with any details given by the student teacherabout the processes by which they had learned this, or by which they believed theywould learn it. These grids also included all the student teachers’ own reflections onthe learning process, and each was cross-referenced against the coding schedulefrom our earlier rounds of analysis (Burn et al. 2003), which captured details of allthe contributions to their learning which they had identified as helpful or unhelpfuland any constraints they had mentioned. Using all this data a short analytic memowas written recording the researchers’ dominant impressions of the changing foci ofeach student teacher’s learning and their approach to the learning process.
As we drew up the ‘what/how’ data grids, it became apparent how much of theirlearning the student teachers simply attributed to their experiences of planning andteaching. Such ‘experience’ accounted for 72% of the instances of learning that theyidentified; of the remainder, 7% were not attributed to any source at all, while no othersingle category accounted for more than 5% of their claims. However, while all thestudent teachers claimed to learn from experience, the individual analytic memos,which drew both on the specific instances of learning identified in each interview andon each individual’s more general reflections, made it clear that ‘learning by experi-ence’ meant different sorts of things on different occasions or – more obviously – todifferent student teachers. The simple category ‘experience’ in fact encompassed awide variety of learning processes that included, for example:
● the deliberate trying out and subsequent review of ideas propounded in theuniversity;
● the implementation of specific teaching tasks outlined in a school’s scheme ofwork, and careful evaluation of their outcomes drawing on a range of evidence;
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● student teachers’ instinctive judgements about a plan’s effectiveness based onhow ‘comfortable’ they felt with it; and
● reflections – often emotionally driven – on what they realised they still had tolearn about engaging pupils’ interest or classroom management.
Working initially on the transcripts from three of the student teachers (12 interviews),two researchers set out to categorise these different approaches to learning from expe-rience, each working independently at first before meeting to share, refine and testsuggestions. Preliminary analysis resulted in the identification of seven themes ordimensions according to which the student teachers’ approaches or attitudes to learn-ing from experience could be categorised. These dimensions were formulated as‘opposable orientations, dichotomous categories, representing aspects of the [studentteachers’] development over time’ (Bullough, Young, and Draper 2004, 368). Theirvalidity was tested against the data for eight more of the student teachers, leading tothe eventual identification and elaboration of five distinct dimensions and their asso-ciated orientations: a series of continua against which we were able to plot the attitudesand approaches to learning from experience of all 25 student teachers. (Fuller detailsof this process of analysis and elaboration of the dimensions can be found in Hagger,Burn, and Mutton (2008).)
Similar iterative and inductive processes were used to categorise all the referencesmade by the student teachers to factors facilitating their learning and to any constraints.
In order to explore the relationship between the student teachers’ approach tolearning from experience, and the learning context – particularly the forms of supportthat they were offered – the data were analysed at the level of individual student teach-ers. The position of each student teacher in relation to each of the five dimensions wasset alongside the summary of the factors that each individual claimed to find helpfuland unhelpful in supporting their learning, and of the types of constraints they identi-fied. This analysis resulted in individual case studies, three of which are reportedbelow.
Findings
Contextual factors seen as facilitating the student teachers’ learning
The 12 categories developed in relation to the forms of support or aspects of thecontext identified as helpful (see Table 2) include many features of the ITEprogrammes that were deliberately provided to support the student teachers’ learningsuch as advice about lesson planning, or feedback on observed lessons.
Unsurprisingly, the mentors emerged as playing a crucial role in supporting thestudent teachers’ learning, most notably through the advice that they gave and theirfeedback on observed teaching. While the orientation of student teachers towardsfeedback on their practice undoubtedly affected the use that they were able to make ofit, the nature of the feedback given was also crucially important.
Helpful feedback took a variety of forms, both affirming successful practice andhighlighting problems requiring further attention. Although specific focused sugges-tions or strategies were often welcomed, many of the student teachers valued thequestions raised for them in the post-lesson discussions as much, if not more, than thepotential solutions offered. Effective feedback raised issues and provoked thought.Feedback, however, could also be seen as unhelpful either if it was regarded as blandand insufficiently critical or conversely, if it was so extensive or detailed that it proved
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overwhelming. The most deeply resented form of feedback was that regarded as unjustor hypocritical:
I’ve got an issue at the moment with low level distraction and just low level kind ofmurmuring and I am trying to stamp on it at the minute but then I go into other people’sclasses and this is after my observer has said, ‘Oh you have really got to watch your lowlevel … annoyance noises’. This is from the observer and then I go into their classes andthere is constant low level murmur all the time! (Science student teacher, Interview 2)
Advice and feedback were the most common forms of help that mentors provided,but the importance of their role in structuring opportunities for learning was evidentin the value that the student teachers ascribed to being given specific sorts of respon-sibilities and opportunities that changed over the course of the year as their expertisedeveloped. An English student teacher, for example, was particularly grateful for theopportunity she was given to run an ‘experimental’ boys only teaching group, explor-ing specific strategies advocated for engaging and sustaining boys’ interest andcommitment. Effective support for learning in school also came from teachers otherthan the mentor, particularly in the later stages of the year. It took a variety of forms,ranging from simply making the student teachers feel welcome and fully part of thedepartment, to providing targeted advice and feedback and allowing student teachersto observe one’s own teaching followed by some discussion. It is striking that obser-vation – often a very common feature of student teachers’ early experience in school– was only identified as valuable for their learning in the second half of the year.Once the student teachers had gained sufficient experience to understand what it wasthey particularly needed to learn, then observation of experienced practitioners couldbecome much more useful to them:
The things you look out for later … are completely different to what I was thinking atthe beginning of the year, which was more – I was still thinking I was being taught the
Table 2. Number of student teachers who identified particular factors as helpful (andunhelpful) to their learning.
Facilitating factors Interview 1 Interview 2 Interview 3 Interview 4
Feedback (from mentor) 19 (5) 9 (5) 11 (6) 11 (4)Advice (from mentor) 2 6 9 (1) 4 (1)Opportunity/responsibility 4 1 8 6 (2)Teachers other than the mentor 6 4Observation of others 1 5 (1) 4 (1)Participation in the research project 3 1 2 3Student teachers’ work 1 3 2University 3 1 (1) 1University assignments 1 4 (1)Other student teachers 2 2Input (at the planning stage) 1 (1) 2 (1)Curriculum tasks 3 (1)Reading 1 2School culture 2 1 (1)Teaching parallel classes 1 1
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lesson – learning a lot about the set book. It’s only later on that I started looking at theway people handle different issues. (English student teacher, Interview 3)
Although school-based forms of support were unsurprisingly seen as the most impor-tant in promoting the student teachers’ learning, input from the university was alsoacknowledged as valuable in a variety of ways that changed over the course of theyear. Direct input from the tutors was identified as useful by a few of the studentteachers early on (when their time was divided between school and university); laterthat input was sustained through the jointly planned curriculum tasks, more extendedassignments and associated reading. The tasks and assignments set in the final stagesof both ITE programmes were identified as particularly valuable:
I’ve found that the self-evaluation … assignment that I’ve been doing has been reallyuseful. It’s only been in one specific small area, but that’s been really useful to all of myteaching and I think there has been a ‘step change’ in the quality of my lessons. (Sciencestudent teacher, Interview 4)
Contextual factors seen as constraints in relation to the student teachers’ learning
Our analysis of perceived constraints (see Table 3) included not only specific refer-ences to factors that the student teachers saw as impeding their learning, but also moregeneral complaints about constraints on their practice – aspects of the teaching situa-tion that they regarded as beyond their control that limited what it was possible forthem to do. Both were considered significant here since the student teachers’ attitudeto their particular context and the extent to which they sought to ‘blame’ it for thedifficulties they encountered formed one critical dimension in their approach tolearning from experience.
Three main types of constraint were identified – the first arising directly from theITE programme within each school/university partnership; the second rooted in theirposition as novices, lacking both specific sorts of knowledge and expertise and thethird derived from their role and status as students, lacking full responsibility andauthority for their ‘own’ classes.
Expectations of them as student teachers. Most of these constraints arose from thestructure of the student teachers’ experience in school, particularly the serial place-ments with which both courses begin and the moves from one school placement toanother. The serial placement was blamed for creating a range of difficulties in termsof liaison with class teachers and laboratory technicians, sharing information aboutprevious work covered, and access to resources. The other main constraint within this
Table 3. Number of student teachers who identified particular aspects of the context as aconstraint on their practice.
Type of constraint identified Interview 1 Interview 2 Interview 3 Interview 4
Expectations of them as student teachers 12 10 5 9Lack of knowledge 12 7 2 6Lack of expertise 10 5 4 1Lack of power 6 4 2 3Pressure to conform 4 5 0 1
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category concerned the specific school-based activities that the student teachers wereasked to carry out as part of the jointly planned curriculum programme. Specific tasksset early in their course became a source of frustration to those who saw them assimply disrupting the pupils’ ongoing learning. Later in the year, a few complainedabout the sheer number of different things they were expected to be doing – assign-ments, in particular, competing with lesson planning for their time.
Lack of knowledge or expertise. Obviously admitting to a lack of knowledge orexpertise tends to be synonymous with the identification of a specific learning need.However, the terms in which such admissions were made often served to differenti-ate between a tendency to ‘blame’ one’s lack of knowledge for particular problemsand an approach in which such problems were used to highlight exactly what thestudent teachers recognised that they needed to learn. Unsurprisingly, the knowledgethey most often felt they lacked was knowledge of the pupils they were teaching.This ranged from simple knowledge of their names to much more detailed knowl-edge of their relationships with others in the class, their levels of confidence, priorlearning and attainment. Such concerns tended to reflect their high aspirations forpupils (and high expectations of themselves in terms of their capacity to support andguide individuals effectively): a strong commitment to encouraging everyone toparticipate in group tasks or whole class discussion, for example, was tempered bydeep anxiety that pupils should not face undue pressure if they lacked the necessaryconfidence or understanding. High aspirations also often lay behind the frustrationthat their own lack of expertise engendered – worries, for example, that their owndependence on written plans and inability to respond flexibly to follow up particularideas or concerns was impeding their pupils’ learning.
Lack of power and pressures to conform. This category – obviously connected withthe fact that the student teachers were effectively ‘sharing’ the regular teacher’s class– included complaints that the student teachers felt constrained either in terms of themanner in which they taught or the specific subject matter that they must cover. Someof the issues seemed to lie very deep in their assumptions about how pupils should betaught or about the very nature of the subject. One English teacher, for example,deeply regretted being required to assign differentiated tasks to students, believing thatthey should all be allowed to make their own choices; another was appalled at thenotion of pupils watching a video as a substitute for reading sections of the class text,Jane Eyre. This category also included a small number of complaints about the regularteacher taking over particular aspects of the lesson (such as the management of thepupils’ entry to the room, or the sudden decision that they should set homework).
While the overall pattern of perceived constraints was clearly influenced by thestructure of the PGCE courses, the student teachers tended to experience fewercontextual constraints as the course went on and they became more settled in school,developing not only their competence and confidence but also their knowledge ofpupils and of the specific context in which they were working. Although that continu-ity was disrupted when they moved schools, creating new constraints arising fromtheir lack of specific knowledge, the move did not reduce them to same sense ofpowerlessness about the specific lesson content and teaching strategies that some hadexperienced early on.
While some of the constraints could undoubtedly be reduced by more sensitivementoring or careful construction of the joint programme, others – such as the lack of
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knowledge of particular pupils, and the inevitable disruption caused by including withinthe programme sources of learning that went beyond their own practice – were an intrin-sic aspect of the whole process of learning to teach. Since they could not be removed,it was important that student teachers acknowledged their implications and sought towork positively within them rather than devote their energies to railing against them.What is significant, therefore, in understanding the nature of their learning over thecourse of the PGCE year is not simply the number or magnitude of the constraints thatindividuals identified but rather the attitude that they adopted towards them, as reflectedin their orientation towards learning from experience. These orientations have beenexplored elsewhere (Hagger, Burn, and Mutton 2008), but here we seek to integrate,through a series of case studies, our analysis of the relationship between the contextualfactors and the student teachers’ attitudes to learning from experience.
The case studies
Each student teacher’s learning obviously followed very different paths, but thefollowing case studies (of three student teachers training to teach science) illustratethe complex interactions between each individual’s approach to learning and thecontext in which that learning was taking place.
Case study 1: Lindsay
Before beginning the PGCE course, Lindsay had completed her PhD in Physics.From the outset, it was clear that she was able to analyse her own teaching and learnfrom that process, identifying a number of things that she would change but alsoaware of the things that had gone well and why that had been the case. She was verycommitted to giving the pupils opportunities to extend their knowledge and under-standing, but initially felt constrained by the approaches taken within the sciencedepartment of her first school and in particular the notion that the teacher only neededto cover what the examination syllabus or the school scheme of work required. Thefirst interview was characterised by a certain sense of frustration which was neverthe-less countered by a desire to get on and learn as much as possible from the experi-ence, in spite of any contextual difficulties. This feeling could be summed up in thefollowing:
I’m trying very much to fit in with what they like. I think that’s how you can get the mostout of that school … They would discourage people who wanted to do anything differ-ently … So I do feel quite constrained, but I have decided that there is no point in tryingto work against that. That what you do is take the framework that they give you andwithin that you do, you know, little bits and pieces that you hope will interest them. Andthe main advantage that you have going as a trainee is that you are a fresh face and youhave no preconceptions about the pupils … you treat them possible better than many ofthe staff have treated them for a long time. (Interview 1)
Lindsay was generally very aware of herself as a learner, what it was that she waslearning as the course progressed and the processes involved in that learning. She hada clear sense of what it was that she wanted the pupils to achieve and thought carefullyabout how she could bring this about, using the evaluation of previous lessons toinform her planning of subsequent lessons. She characterised her development at onepoint (interview 3) as moving away from:
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This is me. I’m a teacher. I’m learning to teach.
to
I’m teaching people to learn. How are they learning?
This learning was, however, greatly dependent on her taking responsibility for herown learning and receiving less guidance than she would have liked. She valued whatfeedback she did receive but felt that it was sometimes too bland and general innature. Overall she would have welcomed more frequent and more specific criticismof her teaching from the colleagues with whom she was working; she had felt thatthey were content for her to be doing what she needed to do, rather than being awareof what she could achieve or, more importantly, challenging her to go further. OverallLindsay felt she was more critical of her practice than were the teachers with whomshe was working. Since she was highly motivated as a learner and able to determineher own development, this was not a significant issue, and she was aware that she wastaking responsibility for directing her own learning.
Lindsay demonstrated that she was proactive in this self-directed learning in anumber of ways. She talked about drawing on a range of sources for her own learning,including the pupils themselves, and as the course progressed she took responsibilityfor arranging to observe teachers in other subject areas as well as organising an infor-mal out-of-school meeting for the whole group of trainees in the school so that theycould discuss issues related to their teaching and learn from each others’ experiences.She saw the advantage of this meeting as providing a forum for discussing alternativeapproaches to teaching and learning, an opportunity which she felt was lacking in theschool itself.
Overall Lindsay was appreciative of the learning opportunities available to her butdesired a lot more. She deliberately took a significant degree of responsibility for herown learning in order to make the progress she wanted – not just to achieve a satisfac-tory level of competence but to develop her teaching in such a way that the pupilswould learn more efficiently and more effectively. She always looked ahead to whereher learning was taking her and by the end of the year was able to look back andevaluate what had been achieved through the process.
Case study 2: Ed
Ed had previous experience of teaching English as a Foreign Language. His subjectstrength was in physics and he was aware of the weakness of his knowledge ofbiology. During the course of the year, his wife had a baby and he referred in thefourth interview to the fact that she was struggling and in need of support.
Ed was absolutely convinced that ‘doing is the best way of learning’, tracing thisconviction back to his experience as a pupil learning mathematics, when advanceexplanations meant nothing to him: he had needed to work through the problems inorder to start to make sense of the concepts. This desire to work things out from prac-tice meant that his approach tended to be reactive rather than deliberative. He wouldlook back on lessons, learning from both the successes and the difficulties he hadexperienced. It also gave him particular expectations of the sort of support he wantedfrom his mentor, and he reacted particularly badly to the excessively detailed feedbackthat he was given in the second term, enumerating long lists of points on which he
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needed to work. He felt overwhelmed by the quantity, but also felt it was given withlittle warmth or genuine support. His attitude to the subject and to the curriculum,however, also meant that he had little respect for the perspective from whichhis mentor was working – an obsessive regard for the petty details of the NationalCurriculum.
Ed’s attitude towards the context changed significantly in the third term when adifferent mentor respected his preferred approach to learning from experience – iden-tifying key issues for him, but then leaving him the time and space unobserved to workthem out before observing with that particular focus again. It was Ed’s attitude thatallowed the context to impact so profoundly on his learning. He blamed it extensivelyfor the challenges that he faced, complaining about sharing other teachers’ classes andthe lack of time he had within the programme structures to develop his knowledge ofthe pupils, and their expectations of science. Throughout the second term, his mainreflections as to how things could be improved in his practice were based on changingthe context. He spent quite a lot of time speculating whether a job in an independentschool would bring better behaved pupils and free him from the excessive prescrip-tions of the National Curriculum. While he had high and somewhat unorthodox aspi-rations for pupils’ learning – deeply frustrated by ‘rigged’ practical experiments, andlonging to be able to pursue extensive projects exploring a range of issues as theyarose – he could not see any ways within his current context of working towards thoseaspirations.
The nature of his response to feedback meant that the last term seemed moreproductive for his learning. His sense of being personally respected by the mentor andthe specific focus of her feedback (coupled with the confidence boost of securing ajob) enabled him to learn more productively from experience. Some of his particularaspirations – for example, to find a way of teaching science without ‘deceiving thepupils by rigging the practicals to ensure that they ‘worked’ – may have been strongenough to create an agenda for deliberate experimentation, but there was littleevidence thus far that he would take active responsibility for planning his learning ashe moved into his first post.
Case study 3: Rob
Rob came to the PGCE course with experience of teaching science in Ghana in verychallenging circumstances. He had become used to coping with large classes, minimalresources and a highly unpredictable support structures. His acknowledged successesin this context undoubtedly had a significant impact on his approach to the opportuni-ties for learning within the ITE programme.
Superficially his aspirations appeared very high: just as one can always acquiremore extensive or deeper subject knowledge, so no one can ever claim to have‘mastered’ teaching. There is always more to be learnt. However, his declaration thatlearning to teach is ‘a never-ending tunnel’ with ‘no Holy Grail’ ever to be attainedactually translated into a pragmatic acceptance that there is no point in even strivingto reach it. His vague aspirations thus never became specific plans for addressingparticular challenges. His learning was entirely reactive. As he declared in the fourthinterview, ‘I’m not learning through a conscious effort – just through experience …which may or may not be useful for the future’. The standard by which he judged hisperformance was essentially a gut reaction – whether or not he ‘felt comfortable’with it.
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Research Papers in Education 85
The sources of ideas on which he drew inevitably became limited once his timewas spent largely in school, and the focus of his learning tended to be the practicalimplementation of various science experiments within the school’s schemes of work.What he learned was usually a reaction to those aspects that had not gone as well ashe would have liked. On only one occasion did he actively seek advice from his curric-ulum tutor, about ways of dealing with a particularly noisy group. As a result of adopt-ing some of his suggestions – which ‘worked’ for some pupils but not others, heconcluded that every teaching situation is unique, so one cannot hope to learn usefulprinciples. He could only go on ‘plugging away’, learning more about each highlyspecific situation – learning which by its nature could not be transferred. It is nottherefore surprising that he tended to attribute the difficulties he encountered to hislack of knowledge of the specific activity or context or to the relatively short time hehad had to build a rapport with pupils.
The pattern of his development as a teacher is very clear. Largely as a result of hisprior experience, Rob rapidly proved himself to be a competent practitioner in relationto the standards for QTS, and was then essentially left unchallenged by his mentor.Only when stimulated by course demands to invest some effort in his learning did hetake action, as for his curriculum assignment, focused on differentiation, when hesought out the views of Teaching Assistants working with particular students.
Given that Rob’s mentor effectively colluded with his assumptions about theprocesses of learning, it is obviously difficult to know how his positions in relation tothe dimensions might have been influenced had they been more robustly challengedby the ITE programme. Although an abrupt shift seems implausible (with strategiccompliance with the teacher educators’ demands perhaps a more likely option), thereare some hints in Rob’s response to feedback that a more positive and proactive atti-tude to learning could have been developed that might have been sustained beyond thePGCE course. These hints come from Rob’s reflections that his mentor was far lesscritical of his early lessons than he himself had been, and his regret that by the timeof the second interview he was receiving very little feedback:
I had a mentor session yesterday in which he said something about – he doesn’t seethe need to observe many of my lessons … He basically said to me ‘You’re competentenough. We want you to work here next year’, which basically misses the point in thatI’m supposed to be learning. I’m supposed to be getting some feedback but I’m not.It’s a problem in a way. If I’m unsure about something I can obviously ask, but I’mnot getting the voluntary response. Maybe there is a problem in my teaching that Idon’t know about and I’m not seeing. (Interview 4)
While Rob’s reaction hints at a desire to be pushed further – an aspiration that couldperhaps have been cultivated – the fact that he took no positive steps to request theobservation and feedback to which he is entitled, nor sought alternative resources,reveals his essentially reactive orientation. He undoubtedly did learn when the oppor-tunities present themselves – acknowledging, for example, how the probing questionsof the research interviews had helped him to identify issues he had not previouslyconsidered – but his lack of initiative in seeking such opportunities or deliberatelyplanning to develop his practice suggests that he was ill-equipped to go on learningand was likely to remain satisfied with the same ‘competent’ performance that hadcontented his mentor. The lack of planning in relation to his own learning was alreadyclearly reflected in his minimal planning for pupils’ learning by the time of the fourthinterview.
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Discussion and implications
Even a sample of three case studies serves to illustrate the most striking finding toemerge from this analysis of student teachers’ accounts of their learning: the multi-dimensional, idiosyncratic and context-specific nature of the complex process ofbecoming a teacher. As the summaries of these cases in Table 4 demonstrate, not onlyis the ITE partnership a different experience for each student teacher (dependent onthe specific schools in which they are placed), but also they all bring to that particularcontext various deep-rooted preconceptions about the nature of effective teaching andlearning, and their own set of expectations about how to develop the professionalknowledge that they will need. As Hobson et al. (2006) conclude ‘one size of initialteacher preparation (ITP) does not fit all’. All the student teachers in the studyreported here rightly assumed that they would learn through experience. Of criticalimportance, however, is that they all had different notions of what learning fromexperience might mean.
Certain orientations towards the process of learning to teach make it more likelythat individuals will learn successfully, irrespective of the contexts in which they findthemselves. As Claxton (1996) observes it is one’s stance towards the learning oppor-tunity that determines whether, and if so when, how and with what intent, learning willproceed (3). In many respects, the environment in which Lindsay was placed, forexample, seemed likely to restrict her learning. She was obliged to work very closelywithin existing lesson schemes established practices, and found little to challenge orstimulate her thinking in the feedback that she was offered. Yet because of her highaspirations, determination to exploit whatever opportunities there were within thecontext and her strongly proactive approach, she was able to experiment quite delib-erately (albeit on a small scale) and to draw on ideas and insights from a wider rangeof perspectives. Those with a more reactive approach to their own learning, and atendency to blame the context for difficulties, are far more dependent on the nature ofthe feedback and or guidance that they are given. Unless they are encouraged to exper-iment in their own teaching or to take new risks, those like Rob who quickly provecompetent in the classroom are likely to ‘plateau’ as Furlong and Maynard (1995)observe. Whereas Kwo (1996) regards a tendency to blame the context as a productof inexperience, we would suggest that it is more likely to arise out of a specificapproach to learning from experience. Those like Ed who tend to blame the context,or who lament the ways in which they are constrained by it, are less likely to exploitthe specific opportunities for learning that it offers, and are more likely to settle forlower standards, for example, in terms of pupils’ learning or engagement, assumingthat they cannot be expected to aim higher. Their own learning is thus restricted.
This is not to argue that we should become complacent about the development ofschools as productive sites for beginning teachers’ professional learning. Establishedteachers need to continue to develop their understanding of the needs of novices aswell as refining their use of appropriate mentoring skills and strategies. However,while the facilitators of learning can clearly be identified and enhanced, many of thefactors perceived as constraints cannot simply be removed since they are rooted in thestudent teachers’ position as novices. The greatest scope for improvement thereforelies in addressing the student teachers’ understanding of the learning process.
Although all the student teachers in the study completed the PGCE course success-fully, meeting the standards necessary for QTS, the orientations towards learning fromexperience that they displayed over the course of the year suggested that only some of
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Research Papers in Education 87
Tabl
e 4.
A s
umm
ary
of th
e th
ree
case
stu
dies
, ill
ustr
atin
g th
e in
terp
lay
betw
een
each
indi
vidu
al’s
ori
enta
tion
s to
war
ds le
arni
ng f
rom
exp
erie
nce,
and
the
cont
ext
wit
hin
whi
ch t
hey
wer
e le
arni
ng.
Lin
dsay
Ed
Rob
Ori
enta
tion
tow
ards
lear
ning
fr
om e
xper
ienc
eD
elib
erat
ive
appr
oach
–
plan
ning
for
her
ow
n le
arni
ng
Rea
ctiv
e or
ient
atio
n –
refl
ecti
ng o
n su
cces
ses
and
diff
icul
ties
Ess
enti
ally
rea
ctiv
e –
on t
he
basi
s of
‘gu
t in
stin
cts’
rat
her
than
mor
e sy
stem
atic
ana
lysi
sD
rew
on
wid
e ra
nge
of o
ther
so
urce
sT
ende
d to
rel
y ex
clus
ivel
y on
ex
peri
ence
Ess
enti
ally
lim
ited
to
the
reso
urce
s re
adil
y av
aila
ble
to
him
in
scho
olV
alue
d fe
edba
ck, a
ltho
ugh
she
rega
rded
it
as i
nsuf
fici
entl
y cr
itic
al
Rec
epti
ve t
o fe
edba
ck w
hen
it w
as
offe
red
wit
h re
spec
t an
d ca
refu
lly
focu
sed
Dis
mis
sive
of
(but
not
dis
able
d by
) th
e li
mit
ed f
eedb
ack
he
was
giv
en. S
ome
sign
s th
at h
e m
ight
hav
e ri
sen
to o
ther
s’
expe
ctat
ions
if
furt
her
chal
leng
edIn
itia
lly
frus
trat
ed b
ut a
ccep
ted
the
cont
ext
and
soug
ht t
o fi
nd o
ppor
tuni
ties
wit
hin
it
Res
ente
d an
d bl
amed
con
text
ual
feat
ures
of
the
scho
ol, t
he
depa
rtm
ent
and
his
posi
tion
as
a st
uden
t te
ache
r
Nei
ther
bla
med
nor
set
out
to
expl
oit
poss
ible
lea
rnin
g op
port
unit
ies
wit
hin
the
spec
ific
con
text
Hig
hly
aspi
rati
onal
for
her
ow
n an
d he
r pu
pils
’ le
arni
ngH
igh
(but
pot
enti
ally
uno
rtho
dox)
as
pira
tion
s fo
r pu
pil
lear
ning
App
aren
tly
high
but
ent
irel
y un
focu
sed
aspi
rati
ons
for
his
own
teac
hing
Con
text
ual
fact
ors
Tig
ht a
dher
ence
was
exp
ecte
d to
the
pre
scri
bed
curr
icul
umT
he d
epar
tmen
t op
erat
ed
acco
rdin
g to
str
ong
conv
enti
ons
as t
o ho
w
less
ons
are
cond
ucte
dL
imit
ed f
eedb
ack
was
off
ered
, la
ckin
g in
cha
llen
geT
here
was
als
o li
mit
ed s
cope
fo
r co
llab
orat
ive
lear
ning
w
ith
othe
r st
uden
t te
ache
rs
Tig
ht a
dher
ence
was
exp
ecte
d to
a
pres
crib
ed a
nd d
ense
ly p
acke
d cu
rric
ulum
Fir
st p
lace
men
t: e
xten
sive
but
, in
disc
rim
inat
e fe
edba
ckS
econ
d pl
acem
ent:
obv
ious
res
pect
fo
r hi
s ex
isti
ng e
xper
tise
and
ti
ghtl
y fo
cuse
d fe
edba
ck
Sta
ndar
d sc
hem
es o
f w
ork
but
no r
igid
exp
ecta
tion
s ab
out
way
s of
wor
king
and
sco
pe to
ad
apt
or e
xten
d pa
rtic
ular
as
pect
sV
ery
lim
ited
fee
dbac
k on
ce R
ob
was
rec
ogni
sed
as b
asic
ally
co
mpe
tent
, wit
h th
e on
ly
stim
ulus
for
fur
ther
ex
plor
atio
n co
min
g fr
om
univ
ersi
ty a
ssig
nmen
ts
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88 T. Mutton et al.
Tabl
e 4.
(Con
tinu
ed.)
Lin
dsay
Ed
Rob
Inte
ract
ion
betw
een
lear
ner’
s or
ient
atio
ns a
nd c
onte
xtL
inds
ay’s
hig
h as
pira
tion
s an
d de
libe
rati
ve o
rien
tati
on
enab
led
her
not
only
to
capi
tali
se o
n th
e li
mit
ed
lear
ning
opp
ortu
niti
es t
hat
she
was
off
ered
wit
hin
the
spec
ific
con
text
, but
to
crea
te o
ther
s fo
r he
rsel
f,
thus
fur
ther
wid
enin
g he
r fr
ame
of r
efer
ence
and
ex
pand
ing
her
lear
ning
Whe
re m
easu
red
feed
back
was
of
fere
d w
ith
scop
e to
res
pond
to
his
expe
rien
ces,
Ed
coul
d le
arn
prod
ucti
vely
. His
ten
denc
y to
be
disa
bled
by
crit
icis
m m
ade
him
vu
lner
able
whe
n fe
edba
ck w
as le
ss
supp
orti
ve. H
e re
spon
ded
by
blam
ing
the
cont
ext,
rath
er t
han
look
ing
for o
ppor
tuni
ties
wit
hin
it.
Wit
h no
wid
er f
ram
e of
ref
eren
ce,
he r
emai
ned
unab
le t
o pl
an a
ny
spec
ific
ste
ps fo
rwar
d in
ach
ievi
ng
his
aspi
rati
ons
for
pupi
l
Rob
’s e
ssen
tial
ly r
eact
ive
orie
ntat
ion
mea
nt t
hat
his
vagu
e as
pira
tion
s to
go
on
impr
ovin
g as
a t
each
er w
ere
neve
r tr
ansl
ated
int
o sp
ecif
ic
plan
s fo
r ac
tion
. The
re a
re
som
e in
dica
tion
s th
at h
e m
ight
hav
e be
en re
spon
sive
to
mor
e ch
alle
ngin
g fe
edba
ck
but h
is m
ento
r’s
com
plac
ency
on
ce h
is p
erfo
rman
ce w
as
judg
ed to
be
com
pete
nt m
eant
th
at h
e ha
d li
ttle
inc
enti
ve t
o go
on
lear
ning
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Research Papers in Education 89
them would go on learning productively as they embarked on full-time teachingcareers.
Those who adopted a reactive approach, assuming that experience would automat-ically lead to learning, were undoubtedly able to develop sufficient knowledge andskills to function as competent teachers. They had not, however, developed strategiesto sustain and take forward their learning once the resources and support structures ofthe ITE programme were removed. Their experience in school had proved ‘miseduca-tive’ (Zeichner 1996) since it had not provided them with the necessary foundationsfor ongoing professional learning. Given the current educational context in whichteachers are expected not only to take responsibility for their own continuing profes-sional development, but also to teach their pupils how to learn, equipping them withthe disposition and skills for lifelong learning, this is a critical failing.
In seeking to address it, we need to alert student teachers to the fact that in teachingexperience is a necessary but not sufficient condition for professional learning.Equally important are the attitudes with which beginning teachers approach that expe-rience: their aspirations and frame of reference and the extent to which they plan fortheir own learning. As Edwards (1998) states, we need a view of learning whichemphasises the ‘transformation of students as learners who are becoming teachers andnot simply acquiring knowledge to be applied while teaching’ (49).
Notes on contributorsTrevor Mutton is a lecturer in Educational Studies at the University of Oxford, where he coor-dinates the modern languages PGCE programme. He is currently engaged in doctoral workfocusing on the theories that inform the development of newly qualified teachers, as well ascarrying out other research in the field of teacher education. His recent work includes a studyof the role of the professional tutors in schools that are working in partnership with a numberof different initial teacher training providers.
Dr Katharine Burn is a lecturer in Professional Education at the University of Oxford, whereshe teaches on the PGCE course, and is leading the development of a new part-time Masterscourse for early career teachers. Her doctoral research focused on an initial teacher educationpartnership in action, exploring the distinctive nature, and relationship between, the contribu-tions of mentors and university-based tutors to student teachers’ learning. Her currentresearch interests include the development of secondary teachers’ subject specific profes-sional knowledge and she is joint editor of a special issue of the Oxford Review of Educationconcerned with learning in and across the professions.
Hazel Hagger has recently retired as director of Graduate Studies (Professional Courses) at theDepartment of Educational Studies, University of Oxford where she had responsibility for thePGCE course and for the Department’s work in continuing professional development. Herresearch interests are in mentoring, partnerships between schools and HEIs, and the nature,acquisition and development of professional knowledge and expertise. Her most recent publi-cation is: Hagger, H. and D. McIntyre. 2006. Learning teaching from teachers.
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