Tutor roles in collaborative group work

Collaborative assessed group work can create challenges for both students and tutors. Both the benefits and challenges of assessed group work are discussed with particular reference to the context of teacher education. The relevance of action research, the concept of living theory and the ethical nature of tutor practice in relation to group work are considered. The concept of 'role' is used to analyse aspects of tutor practice based on outcomes from an extended process of action research. A description of one role system of different tutor roles is given as a prompt for reflection and self-study

Enabling adaptive system leadership: teachers leading professional development

Internationally, there is increasing emphasis on teacher leadership of professional development. This provides opportunities for teachers to initiate and facilitate professional learning activities beyond their own schools. There is a need for theoretical tools to analyse their leadership activity and how to support it. Constructs from complexity leadership theory and the concept of teacher system leadership are used to develop a framework to analyse the purposes and practices of teacher professional development leaders supported by a national programme for mathematics teacher professional development in England. I argue that the teachers’ activities constitute a form of adaptive leadership involving innovating and organising professional development within arenas of leadership, through the processes of mobilising, brokering and the creation of networks. This required engaging in ‘system work’ to fulfil purposes connected to both local and system-wide concerns. The teachers were supported by the enabling leadership of headteachers and by national warrants for exercising leadership. The study demonstrates the value of the analytical framework and indicates that a cadre of teacher system leaders can be developed by attending to the interplay of professional development leadership and a wider system-orientated professional identity and by specific support to develop adaptive leadership capacities and skills. Keywords : Professional development leaders; teacher leadership; system leadership; professional development; complexity leadership theory; teacher networks; mathematics teaching; professional learnin

Ethical dimensions of mathematics education

The relationships between mathematics, mathematics education and issues such as social justice and equity have been addressed by the sociopolitical tradition in mathematics education. Others have introduced explicit discussion of ethics, advocating for its centrality. However, this is an area that is still under developed. There is a need for an ethics of mathematics education that can inform moment to moment choices to address a wide range of ethical situations. I argue that mathematics educators make ethical choices which are necessarily ambiguous and complex. This is illustrated with examples from practice. The concept of ethical dimension is introduced as a heuristic to consider the awareness of different forms of relationship and arenas of action. A framework is proposed and discussed of four important dimensions: the relationship with others, the societal and cultural, the ecological and the relationship with self. Attending to the different ethical dimensions supports the development of a plural relational ethics. Navigating ethical complexity requires embracing diverse and changing commitments. An ethics that takes account of these different dimensions supports an ethical praxis that is based on principles of flexibility and a dialogical relationship to the world and practice

Deepening system leadership : teachers leading from below

The increasing importance of educational collaborations and networks that blur organizational boundaries requires conceptual developments in leadership theory. One approach to both theorizing and promoting such phenomena is through the idea of system leadership. Three different meanings of the term are identified: interschool leadership; a systemic leadership orientation and identity; and leadership of the school system as a whole. Previous descriptions of system leadership, and policy initiatives related to it, have focused on headteachers and senior leaders. However, teacher leaders may also exercise system leadership in relation to all three meanings. Professional development networks and school collaborations provide a range of distinct contexts for interschool leadership by teacher leaders and these are identified. This extends existing theories of teacher and distributed leadership. Further, it is proposed that teacher leaders can, like headteachers, have a systemic leadership practice orientation that is informed by moral purposes. The model of teacher activist professional identity provides a starting point for analysing teacher system leadership identity. Teacher leaders can and do influence system-wide change and, to conceptualize this, the concept of system leadership from below is introduced. In making this argument a number of issues and methodological tools are identified that are important in researching both headteacher and teacher system leadership in relation to the three meanings of system leadership

Trauma informed practices in education and social justice: towards a critical orientation

Increasingly, educational practitioners committed to social justice embrace trauma-informed practices and those who advocate for and enact trauma-informed practices are committed to social justice. However, connecting social justice to trauma-informed practice requires greater conceptual clarity than is currently found, given the malleable meanings of both \u27trauma informed\u27 and \u27social justice\u27. Further, the complex relationship between these educational aims is under-examined. To address these issues, an analytical framework is developed that brings together a model of forms of trauma-informed practice in education with orientations to social justice. This draws on models of social justice developed in social work and teaching, and teacher education. Applying this framework to trauma-informed practice indicates that trauma- informed practice, as so far developed, generally has either a conservative or a socially liberal social justice orientation. Practices are proposed that align with a critical orientation, which attends to cultural and structural relationships implicated in trauma and adversity in childhood. A critical orientation should not only consider practice but also be informed by further theoretical, philosophical and ethical engagement as part of a project of activist professionalism across educational professions

Complexity and leadership in teacher professional development : the case of the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics

There has been considerable interest in the teaching of mathematics over the last two decades, both internationally and in the UK. This has led to a number of government sponsored interventions in both curriculum and teacher professional development. The establishment of the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM) in 2006, arguably, represented a departure from previous policy and initiatives related to professional development for teachers of mathematics. This paper looks at what was distinctive about the NCETM approach (2006-2010) and the impact of its work, as well as exploring a number of theoretical issues that arise when describing these. The paper draws on data from a study of the impact of the NCETM that was informed by interview and case studies. Telephone interviews were conducted with 89 teachers and others with differing levels of involvement with the NCETM. In addition, 10 school-based case studies of different NCETM-supported activity were conducted. This material was analysed using a CPD evaluation model (Coldwell and Simkins, 2011) and more generally in relation to literature on school and teacher change. In this paper, we explore ways in which theoretical tools drawn from complexity theory - complex adaptive systems and formal and informal systems - can be used to describe the nature and consequences of the NCETM's actions. Further, in understanding and assessing the impact of the NCETM intervention on subject leadership and teacher identity we suggest that parallels can be made with analyses of identity in social movements. Finally, we examine the concepts of dispersed and distributed leadership in relation to their applicability to the organic development of mathematics teacher leadership that the NCETM promotes. The paper outlines both the type of outcomes of the NCETM's activity and the factors that supported these. Many of these are similar to those previously identified in relation to professional development that focuses on and supports school-based leadership and can be analysed in terms of theoretical concepts such as distributed and dispersed leadership. However, the NCETM's approach had some distinctive impacts and features that, we contend, are particular to the complex interrelationship of the different forms of NCETM activity

National curriculum sub-levels: assessment practices as assemblage

There is an established critique of the nature and role of assessment practices in mathematics education. This critique centres on the credibility of assessment, and the effects of practices on teachers and learners, including in relation to issues of social justice. This paper adds to these critical perspectives by examining some ways assessment practices come to happen in the way they do employing a sociomaterial analysis using the concept of assemblage. To exemplify the potential for this theoretical approach, I take as a focus National Curriculum Levels in England and in particular the emergence of 'sub levels' and their relationship to various actors, practices and discourses, particularly those concerned with differentiation and ability. I also point to how, even though National Curriculum Levels have been abolished ghosts of levels continue in spite of policy changes as assessment has not (yet) been reassembled

Teacher education for social justice : mapping identity spaces

Teacher education requires an account of the complex ways that beginning teachers negotiate their relationships to social justice. A determinate view of identity successfully describes relationships to relatively stable social justice positions. This supports the adoption of pedagogies of discomfort and inquiry. However, socio-cultural accounts of identity emphasise indeterminate aspects of identity. The concept of striated and smooth identity space is proposed and illustrated by analysing the responses of four beginning mathematics teachers to the experience of a discomforting and inquiry based pedagogy. This challenges teacher educators to extend their pedagogies to embrace additional principles of respect and compassion

Independent study of computing at School Master Teacher programme

Computing At School (CAS) commissioned Sheffield Hallam University to undertake an external evaluation of aspects of its provision to: *understand the impact of CAS Master Teachers on the knowledge and practice of CAS members. *identify implications of this and of the current programme more generally for future evaluation activity