Perceptions and possibilities: a school community's imaginings for a future 'curriculum for excellence'

This thesis reports research undertaken to explore a school community’s imaginings for secondary education for future generations. The research was designed to trouble the seemingly straightforward constructs of imagination and creativity, not merely to trace or audit their inclusion in the secondary curriculum, but rather to invite a secondary school community to put these constructs to work in exploring their imaginings and desires for good education 25-30 years ahead. The objectives used to structure the research involved: tracing the discourses of imagination and creativity in education curriculum policy; exploring a school community’s experiences and perceptions of secondary education; examining a school community’s imaginings for future secondary education; and exploring a school community’s desires for a future ‘curriculum for excellence’. The research was carried out during the development phase of Curriculum for Excellence (Scottish Executive 2004a) in Scotland which is explicit in its desire to provide opportunities for school communities to be/come imaginative and creative. This is not a new aspiration as imagination and creativity are familiar and enduring constructs in education. At a policy level the resurgence of interest in (imagination and) creativity is closely aligned to a desire for economic sustainability. The focus of my study is to explore how the concepts of imagination and creativity might become an impetus for the school community to think differently about good education for future generations. The study took place in a large comprehensive school community in a rural town in Scotland. Groups of participants, including pupils, parents, early-career teachers, mid-career teachers and school managers were drawn from across the school community. The method of data collection was adapted from Open Space Technology (Owen 2008) to provide an unstructured forum for participants to discuss their experiences and imaginings. A theoretical framework which offered a way of thinking differently about the data was devised from readings of concepts drawn from Deleuze (1995) and Deleuze and Guattari (2004) and used to analyse the school community’s perceptions, imaginings and desires. The findings suggest that whilst the new curriculum seems to open up a space for imagination and creativity the school community’s imaginings tend to be orientated to past experiences and/or closely aligned to the policy imaginary which appears to close down openings and opportunities for becoming. However there was a discernible desire in the school community for ‘good’ education in a fair and equitable system which appeared to be less narrowly focused on economic imperatives than that of the policy. I argue that there is a need for a new way of thinking about future education within current structures and systems which I have conceptualised as an ‘edu-imaginary interruption’. The thesis concludes with some reflections on the potential forms of such interruptions to impact on research and professional practice

Curriculum for Excellence in the secondary school

First paragraph: Secondary education in Scotland at the time of writing is in a state of flux and flow as the sector continues to develop and implement Curriculum for Excellence (Scottish Executive 2004) across 32 local authorities. The pace and scope of change varies as educators, schools and local authorities work, both individually and collaboratively, to make sense of how this policy will enable them to provide a ‘good' educational experience for every child and young person in their own contexts and settings. The full potential of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) has yet to be realised and meantime offers particular challenges for the secondary sector with regards to structural and pedagogical implications

A Productive Relationship? Testing the Connections between Professional Learning and Practitioner Research

This article is written in response to a recent report on a review of teacher education in Scotland undertaken by Graham Donaldson (2010). In particular it questions the recommendation that engaging teachers in professional enquiry and research-informed teaching is the way forward for developing the professional capabilities required of "21st Century teachers". The report reflects an increasing emphasis in the literature on school effectiveness and improvement of the need to further teachers' professional learning and of a pedagogic pressure for equipping them to adopt constructivist approaches to teaching that are based on research evidence about how children and young people learn best. Practitioner research is seen by policy makers as an important strategy for achieving these objectives. This article, based on a series of empirical studies, sets out to identify some of the issues revealed by the attempt to use practitioner research as a vehicle for affecting classroom practice within the context of a policy initiative to support the development of accomplished teaching. It argues that, if such a strategy is to be effective, it is important to conceive of it in systemic terms and to confront the challenges involved in developing the sets of networked relations that will be essential if such a strategy is to prove worthwhile

Extending the constructs of active learning: implications for teachers' pedagogy and practice

Active learning is a pedagogical construct widely appealed to within the global discourse of lifelong learning. However, an examination of the literature reveals a lack of clarity and consensus as to its meaning. This article provides a critical analysis of a range of dimensions underpinning the concept of active learning including policy discourses, definitions, interpretation and enactments in educational settings, and resultant pedagogical implications. A more robust theoretical framework is presented to support educator understanding which synthesises and extends current constructs and which bridges the divide between active learning considered as either theory of learning or pedagogical strategy

Teacher Agency and Curriculum Development

First paragraph: Recent curriculum policy in the UK and elsewhere (e.g. Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence, Successful Futures in Wales, and the New Zealand Curriculum Framework) marks a significant departure from previous directions (see Priestley & Biesta, 2013); a particular change in focus has been the renewed emphasis on the role of the teacher as an active developer of the curriculum and an agent of change. Such policy is now acknowledging the importance of teachers’ professional agency (for an overview see https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/teacher-agency-what-is-it-and-why-does-it-matter; a more detailed account is provided by Priestley, Biesta & Robinson, 2015).Output Type: Blog pos

Curriculum for Excellence: making the transition from policy intention to classroom practice

First paragraph: Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), which seemed so radical in its early days, is now part of the educational landscape in Scotland. It seems odd to reflect that its inception in policy began as long ago as 2004, and we are shortly to enter the seventh year of its implementation phase. Moreover, CfE looks as if it is here to stay, for the foreseeable future at least. The 2015 OECD report (www.oecd.org/edu/school/improving-schools-in-scotland.htm), while offering criticism of the curriculum’s implementation, was broadly supportive of the general direction taken by CfE. Other countries are following suit (e.g. Junior Cycle reforms in Ireland, Successful Futures in Wales, and the New Zealand Curriculum Framework), and this approach to specifying national curricula, which marks a significant departure from previous directions (see Priestley & Biesta, 2013), is now the predominant approach for curriculum innovation in many countries. A particular change in focus – one that is very welcome in our view – has been the renewed emphasis in policy on the role of the teacher as an active developer of the curriculum and an agent of change. Such policy is now acknowledging the importance of teachers’ professional agency (for an overview see www.bera.ac.uk/blog/teacher-agencywhat-is-it-and-why-does-it-matter; a more detailed account is provided by Priestley, Biesta & Robinson, 2015)

Teachers as agents of curriculum change: closing the gap between purpose and practice

Many modern curricula position teachers as autonomous developers of the curriculum (Priestley & Biesta, 2013). Yet, arguably, teachers in many countries have lost much of the craft knowledge necessary for school-based curriculum development, following over two decades of prescriptive teacher proof curricula (input regulation), and heavy-duty accountability (output regulation) (Kuiper & Berkvens, 2013; Kneyber & Evers, 2015). A particular issue is a widening gap between educational purposes and educational practices, as curriculum development is often reduced to the ticking off of outcomes and the implementation of techniques, and as teachers lose sight of the big ideas of the curriculum (Drew, Priestley & Michael, 2016). This paper focuses on an initiative in Scotland, which sought to enhance teachers’ capacity for curriculum-making through the methodology of Critical Collaborative Professional Enquiry. This process explicitly engaged teachers with the big ideas of the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence, framing subsequent curriculum development in terms of fitness-for-purpose – that is fit-for-purpose knowledge content and fit-for-purpose pedagogy. The teachers were supported by university researchers, who opened a critical communicative space (Eady, Drew & Smith, 2014) betwixt school and university, where the teachers could engage in challenging conversations about theories and practices and develop skills of enquiry. The researchers acted as critical colleagues and provided access to pertinent cognitive resources, including research articles, to devise the conceptual frameworks the teachers used to develop innovative pedagogical practices. In the paper, we illustrate, using an ecological understanding of teacher agency (Priestley, Biesta & Robinson, 2015), how teachers’ agency in curriculum-making increased as their confidence and professional knowledge grew, as they developed supportive and focused professional networks, and as their contexts for curriculum development were tailored to explicitly encourage sustainable innovation. The paper draws upon qualitative data generated from three cohorts of participating teachers, including artefacts from the programme, programme evaluations and one-to-one interviews

Enacting educational partnership: collective identity, decision-making (and the importance of muffin chat)

The rhetoric of partnership is ubiquitous in the current policy context. In education, partnerships take a number of forms among which is ‘interorganizational collaboration’ (IOC), defined as a partnership between institutions/organizations aimed at developing synergistic solutions to complex problems. But policy has a tendency to veneer, obscuring its enactment. The purpose of this paper is therefore to examine what such partnerships look like on the ground. Here we present an empirical analysis which aims to produce knowledge about the working of such collaborative groups and to provide insights into leadership within such partnerships. Drawing on communicative constitution of organizations (CCO) operationalised within a schema for understanding the emergence of collective identity in IOC, we undertake an analysis of meetings held by a working group comprising academics and local authority staff set up to develop masters level work-based professional learning for teachers. We ask, how do professionals working within different contexts create a collective identity that supports decision making, and what are the implications for leadership

Curriculum Development Through Critical Collaborative Professional Enquiry

In recent years, there has been considerable interest within education policy in collaborative professional enquiry/inquiry methodologies, both as an alternative to top-down implementation of change and for the purpose of fostering educational improvement. However, researchers have been critical of this approach, pointing to various concerns: these include the risk of reducing a developmental methodology to an instrumental means for delivering policy, as well as issues around sustainability of practices. This paper describes a Scottish university/local authority partnership, which developed an approach entitled Critical Collaborative Professional Enquiry, designed to address some of these concerns. The paper also reports on empirical outcomes related to the partnership project.  This interpretivist study generated qualitative data from multiple sources, utilising a range of methods including semi-structured interviews with teachers and school leaders, evaluation surveys and analysis of artefacts developed during the inquiry phases of the project. This programme exerted a powerful effect on the teachers who participated. The research suggests that teachers developed better understandings of the curriculum, and of curriculum development processes. There is evidence of innovation in pedagogy, some sustained and radical in nature, and further evidence of changes to the cultures of the participating schools, for example a shift towards more democratic ways of working. This paper reports upon an original approach to curriculum development, with considerable potential to transform the ways in which schools approach innovation

Small data, online learning and assessment practices in higher education: a case study of failure?

In this paper we present an in-depth case study of a single student who failed an online module which formed part of a masters programme in Professional Education and Leadership. We use this case study to examine assessment practices in higher education in the online environment. In taking this approach we go against the current predilection for Big Data which has given rise to ‘learning analytics’, a data-intensive approach to monitoring learning. In particular we draw attention to the model of the learner produced by learning analytics and to issues of ‘dataveillance’ in online learning. We also use the case to examine assessment in higher education more broadly, exploring the tensions between the requirements for certification and the need for learning. We conclude that assessment practices in higher education may have more to do with ‘quality assurance’ and regulatory frameworks than with ‘enhancing the student experience’ and inculcating the qualities that mark out higher education as an ethical project