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This article was downloaded by: [University of Chemical Technology and Metallurgy -Sofia]On: 24 November 2014, At: 01:39Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Professional Development in EducationPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjie20
Teachers learning: professionaldevelopment and educationAlex Alexandroua
a Associate Editor and Freelance AcademicPublished online: 23 Jul 2013.
To cite this article: Alex Alexandrou (2014) Teachers learning: professional developmentand education, Professional Development in Education, 40:2, 322-324, DOI:10.1080/19415257.2013.820043
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2013.820043
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governance affects the types of CPD on offer and their effectiveness. As is to beexpected, these are explored from the perspective of the individual and from that ofan institution.
The actual findings are presented in a synthesis of three published reports/articles. The full articles are appended for reference in the printed text, but are notavailable online. What this means is that the reader only interested in the outcomescan read the articles as ‘stand-alone’ reports. Those with a more academic interestin the construction of the methodological and analytical frameworks will enjoy thefirst 128 pages. Also intriguing is that there are short chapters (synthesising thearticles) in Swedish and German, confirming my view that they can be read inisolation of the text as a whole.
Development and Autonomy is fascinating, as it contains original findings. Theoutcomes, for me, are new ways to evaluate CPD. And, indeed, it providesguidance on how to design effective professional development in different contexts.It is consequently a relevant text for students and planners of CPD at a macro level.
Kit FieldSchool for Education Futures
University of Wolverhampton, UKEmail: [email protected]
� 2013, Kit Fieldhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2013.782668
Teachers learning: professional development and education, edited by ColleenMcLaughlin, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013, 146 pp., £50.00(paperback), ISBN 978-1-10-761869-5
This book is part of The Cambridge Teacher series which is edited by members ofthe Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge. Teachers Learning is aconcise volume that has seven chapters, with contributions from eminent academics,such as Philippa Cordingley, John MacBeath and David Pedder, and practitioners,Vivien Rossier and Angela Scott, who have specialist knowledge in relation to spe-cial and additional educational needs from a professional learning perspective. Sucha mix of contributors offers the reader a healthy balance between the theoreticaland practical elements of the subject matter under consideration.
This volume has two key themes – describing and interrogating developmentsand research into teacher learning and development. The contributions to these twothemes cover the following topics: the relationship between learning and teaching;the relationship between teachers’ learning and pupil progress; the role of profes-sional learning in determining the teaching profession’s future; creative reflexivecommunities of enquiry through partnerships; enquiry-based professional learningacross the career course; teacher change and changing teachers via professionaldevelopment; and values–practice dissonance in teachers’ professional learning. Inmy view this is a key addition to the professional development and learningliterature, particularly because one of the key elements of this collection is how itillustrates the close and effective partnerships between practising teachers andteacher educators in developing and running effective professional developmentcourses. It builds on what is termed the ‘Cambridge Tradition’ where academic
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researchers and teacher educators work collaboratively with teachers to ‘… growthe theory and practice of educational change’.
Significantly, this collection takes into account the policy dimension of profes-sional development and learning for teachers and goes beyond the UK and interna-tional rhetoric of efficiency, effectiveness and performance. It does so by providingthe reader with coherent arguments, deep evidence and practitioner experiences thathighlight the effectiveness of well-thought-out professional development and learningactivities and approaches supported by school leaders.
The book is given a sound theoretical underpinning by John MacBeath, who inthe first chapter asks – learning and teaching: are they by any chance related? Hequite rightly points out that the classroom is a living laboratory of human behaviourand that teachers ‘… can learn a lot more from their students than simply things thatchildren know’ and goes on to introduce the 5Ws plus H concept – the why, what,when, where, who and how – arguing that they apply equally when considering anddiscussing teachers’ teaching and teachers’ learning.
The following chapters present significant evidence-based research that, withconfidence, those that choose to do so – be they academics, practitioners or evenpoliticians – can present as part of the policy discourse in the field of professionaldevelopment and learning. Key to this is both the quantitative and qualitative natureof the research and the manner in which the methodologies adopted for the variousstudies were thought out, defended and utilised. For example, using six systematicand technical reviews of evidence, Philippa Cordingley presents five key dimensionsof effective staff learning environments that allow her to put forward cogent argu-ments that making professional learning a key policy priority in terms of the futureof the teaching profession will help the profession respond to challenges, particularlyin terms of modelling learning approaches that society seeks for its young people.
Richard Byers, Angela Scott and Vivien Rossier present an academic-practi-tioner perspective in terms of how a school–university partnership through localauthority involvement develops a professional development approach for teachersinvolved in the education of children and young people with special and/or addi-tional educational needs. They point out there are tensions between the partners.Notably, the differences in focus between schools and universities as to what theywant from professional development activities and how they overcame these froman academic and cultural perspective. What comes out of this chapter is that teach-ers are given the tools, particularly through action research methodology, to developtheir approach and work after their studies with greater confidence and rigour.
The partnership approach is taken a step further by David Frost, who describesthe HertsCam Network (local authority/school/university partnership) project andthe International Teacher Leadership project. He discusses how, through their pro-fessional development and learning, teachers take on the mantle of teacher leaders,particularly from a non-positional perspective that leads to change and improvementin teaching and learning and intellectual and leadership capacity. To this end, Frostsets out the 15 principles that have allowed the HertsCam partnership to evolve andprosper; and such principles I suggest can be adopted and adapted by other similarpartnerships – particularly because they are underpinned by the moral purpose ofimproving the life-chances of students through the development of teachers’practice.
In Moira Hulme’s contribution, the reader is taken on a journey of policyinitiatives and reviews over the past decade that have impacted on the professional
Professional Development in Education 323
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learning of Scottish teachers The chapter highlights the importance of partnerships,how they succeed and how they can be taken away by a partner, notably the Char-tered Teacher programme. What is clear is that the Scottish education system has aclear focus on the career-long professional learning of teachers, particularly teachersusing their professional development to gain postgraduate qualifications. This leadsto the discussion of a new partnership initiative – hub schools. These are partner-ships between universities, local authorities and schools (and similar to the NorthAmerican model of professional development schools), which Hulme argues holdmuch promise if they can successfully merge professional knowledge and academicresearch in a clinical practice model of professional education that promotes ‘…sustained professional deliberation and co-inquiry into authentic pedagogicalproblems’.
The final two chapters are by V. Darleen Opfer and David Pedder. Their firstcontribution examines how teachers change and can be changed throughprofessional development. The importance of this chapter is that the authors throughresearch develop a complex theoretical model of teacher learning. Significantly,from my perspective, master’s and doctoral students can learn much from theirapproach as described in this contribution. The authors and their colleagues describehow they had a hypothesis which they wanted to test, developed a methodology tocollect and analyse quantitative data and then created their new model. For post-graduate students this is an excellent example of how to develop and defend theirconceptual framework, research design and analysis.
Their second contribution focuses on the analysis of a major study of Englishteachers’ professional learning orientations and again is another seminal examplefor postgraduate students in terms of the approach they should adopt in terms ofplanning and executing a research project. Key to this is the manner in which theauthors set out their approach in terms of the research aims and questions; the sam-pling strategy adopted; the survey instrument; and the analysis of the data. Theauthors draw out key themes from the quantitative data and continually delve deepinto the data to confirm and reaffirm certain findings, ensuring that in their discus-sion they can defend their observations, particularly when they discuss key aspectsof patterns of teachers’ learning orientations in terms of understanding characteris-tics of teachers’ learning cultures in schools. Also, especially when they highlightthe dissonance between their participants’ values and practices that can have asignificant effect on their learning and subsequent practice and, as the authors state,‘… may lead to rejection rather than adoption of change’ through professionallearning activities.
The evidence from this collection points to adoption of change rather thanrejection. This is achieved through partnership, understanding cultural differences,the acceptance and use of academic rigour and the adoption and adaption of con-ceptual frameworks that can make a difference to the professional development,learning and practice of teachers.
Alex AlexandrouAssociate Editor and Freelance Academic
[email protected]� 2013, Alex Alexandrou
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2013.820043
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