Book Review - 'Learning in Landscapes of Practice: Boundaries, Identity, and Knowledgeability in Practice-Based Learning'

Etienne Wenger-Trayner, Mark Fenton O'Creevy, Steven Hutchinson, Chris Kubiak, Beverly Wenger-Trayner (eds.

Creativity and Enquiry in Action: a case study of cross-curricular approaches in teacher education

The current Key Stage 3 National Curriculum for England orders that our education foster determination, adaptability, confidence, risk-taking, enterprise, creativity and enjoyment in a cross-curricular context in pupils. To appreciate these dimensions student teachers need to have multiple opportunities to experience such a curriculum for themselves. However, initial teacher education is an intense and demanding experience; student teachers veer between phases of basic survival and personal innovation as they develop their individual pedagogy and personal philosophy. For new secondary teachers their own subject specialism forms a core feature of their emerging professional identity and can act as a barrier to collaborative practice beyond that specialism. This paper discusses one example of a cross-curricular approach in which Art and Geography PGCE students reflect on their experiences of a collaborative event designed to break down subject barriers while exploiting the potential of subject specialism. Data collected from semi-structured interviews conducted with a sample of students during the two-day event is discussed. Data revealed that critical outcomes of the event included the practice and development of genuine collaboration, negotiation, teamwork, and leadership

Building Research-Informed Teacher Education Communities: A UCET Framework

©UCET December 201

A new model of collaborative action research; theorising from inter-professional practice development

The development of pedagogies to meet the needs of diverse communities can be supported through inter-professional practice development. This article explores one such experience, that of speech and language therapists developing a new video-based coaching approach for teachers and teaching assistants in multi-cultural settings with high numbers of children learning English as an additional language. To support them in developing and trialling the coaching approach, the expertise of a teacher-educator and educational researcher was provided through a university business voucher. It is this working relationship that the article has as its practical focus, as it transformed to one of collaborative action research. The action research is described, providing the context for a discussion of the characteristics of collaborative action research and the proposal of a new model. This model offers a way of conceptualising collaborative action research through time, and of recognising the importance of the partners’ zones of proximal, contributory and collaborative activities in sustaining change and knowledge-creation

Blogs and e-Portfolios: can they support reflection, evidencing and dialogue in teacher training?

A blog with explicit support for structured skills/competencies and community publishing was integrated within an e-Portfolio and evaluated with three successive cohorts of PGCE secondary students at Newcastle University in order to support reflections on practice, weekly lesson evaluations, and to evidence Teaching Quality Standards (TQS).The technologies were initially piloted with a single subject (English with Drama) in 2007/8, with roll out to all thirteen PGCE programmes in 2008/9 (156 students and seven tutors). Focus groups and questionnaires were used to investigate students' perceptions of using the blog to support both reflection and evidencing, to identify factors relating to engagement, and to explore informal use of external social networking with course-mates. Tutors' views were also captured.Students accessed the portfolio an average of sixty three times each (the range being from 4 to 254) and uploaded a total of 1,785 files over a ten month period in 2008/9. Students made an average of 27 blog entries each (36% published to a community). Analysis of questionnaire data (37% response rate) indicated that students liked the approach of linking one item of evidence to multiple TQS and feeling 'in touch' whilst on placement. Students (89%) used external social networking sites (47% of students used them for course-related purposes). The main barrier to engagement with the e-Portfolio was the perceived lack of time on a busy course.This study informs debate on the level of structure required in e-Portfolios/blogs for vocational subjects and factors relating to engagement and concurrent use of formal/institutional and informal social networking sites

Concerning collaboration; teachers’ perspectives on working in partnerships to develop teaching practices.

Teachers are often encouraged to work in partnerships to support their professional development. In this article we focus on three forms of working partnerships based in English secondary schools. Each has an intended function of developing teaching practices. The cases of mentoring, coaching and an adapted lesson study come from both initial teacher education and continuing professional development, but have common practices of one-to-one meetings, planned activity and shared reflection. The participants’ perspectives on these practices were investigated through a multiple case study using semi-structured interviews. We established the degree to which their experiences could be considered to be collaborative, basing our analysis on the extent to which there was evidence of working ‘together’, not just working ‘with’; and working towards a common goal, pooling knowledge and problem-solving. We conclude that collaboration for the development of their own teaching practices allows teachers to engage in more informed decision-making and to construct a shared understanding of the nature of the desired learning outcomes and how they might be achieved in their own contexts. The teachers indicate that this experience often runs counter to their experience of the school cultures driven by performativity

Resistance and relational activism: exploring teacher education at the interstices

For a decade the teacher education sector in England has been in the hands of DfE policy makers who view teacher training as a market to be manipulated, as illustrated by the results of the 2022 Initial Teacher Training (ITT) accreditation process. In 2015 Ellis and McNichol argued that as a sector the universities had not recognised or responded with enough force to the threats of the policy implementation of the ideologically based transition from teacher education to teacher training in England. The lack of attrition gained by the 2013-14 BERA-RSA Inquiry into Research and the Teaching Profession also indicated that research in the field typically fails to gain the attention of the DfE. If we are to believe the dominant DfE narrative the most attractive feature of the current teacher education map is the ‘golden thread’ of ITT, the Early Career Framework (ECF) and National Professional Qualifications (NPQs), all offered by the designated providers representing a pincer movement on the sector in which many teacher educators feel they now have limited agency. Teacher education at the intersticesIn this increasingly prescriptive teacher training landscape, it is worth noticing forms of teacher education and learning undertaken in the interstices, including those engaging educators within and beyond the 11-16 school sector. Social media is used as a mechanism to bring people together, share knowledge and approaches, and to both share and challenge the dominant narratives. Teacher professional development gatherings framed as TeachMeets, unconferences and festivals have proliferated. Networks have emerged which support the wellbeing and progression of educators in minority groups, and those at transitional stages in their careers. The pandemic created new momentum in many of these as well as ensuring that they occupied the online spaces used by educators.In this workshop participants will explore the proposition that our traditional academic approaches to influence policy and to construct practice in teacher education are falling short and new ways of being are needed and being created in the interstices. We will draw on narratives, provocations and freshest thinking to explore the extent to which these interstitial spaces might be experienced as resistance and/or relational activism.The workshop will be in four parts:Video narratives. Short video narratives of interstitial teacher ‘education’ from the doctoral research of four members of our own university-hosted network will be shared (Sidebottom, 2021, Holme, 2019, Mycroft, 2020, Tremayne, 2021). The researchers will provide fresh perspectives on their work and its current and potential implications.Conceptual provocations. Key ideas from three non-disciplinary sources will be introduced; how to resist, challenge the system and influence decision making (Bolton, 2017), conversations to restore hope to the future (Wheatley, 2009) and relational activism (O'Shaughnessy and Huddart Kennedy 2010). Personal and professional narratives. Using a co-coaching approach (developed through 2020-22 Erasmus project designed in response to the educational challenges of the pandemic) participants will be invited to contribute their own narratives. This will offer an opportunity to consider the realities of practice, to reflect, to respond and to begin to re-imagine what might be possible. Freshest thinking. Drawing on the principles of the thinking environment (Kline, xxx) the workshop will close with a thinking round in which participants will offer their freshest thinking. Anticipated outcomesWorkshop participants will be invited to video record their own narratives and freshest thinking at their convenience, and to share these with the facilitators. A collated and edited video will be produced and published through the university research and practice centre (permissions and consent will be gained). A BERA blogpost will be submitted to introduce the video and to encourage dissemination. An opportunity to form a new teacher education network associated with the themes of this workshop will be developed. ReferencesBERA-RSA (2014) Research and the Teaching Profession: Building the Capacity for a Self-Improving Education System, British Educational Research Association https://www.bera.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/BERA-RSA-Research-Teaching-Profession-FULL-REPORT-for-web.pdfBolton, M. 2017. How to Resist: Turn Protest to Power. Bloomsbury, London Ellis, V. and McNicholl, J. (2015), Transforming Teacher Education: Reconfiguring The Academic Work, Bloomsbury, London and New York, NY.Holme, R. 2019. An investigation into teacher-initiated or DIY Professional Development: the push and pull of teacher Professional Development, EdD Thesis, University of DundeeKline, N. 2002. Time to Think: Listening to Ignite the Human Mind, Cassell Illustrated, Octupus Publishing Group Ltd, LondonMycroft, H.L. 2020. Strange Times: The creation of a nomadic community education Imaginary. Doctoral thesis, University of Huddersfield. O’Shaughnessy, S. and Huddart Kennedy, E. 2010. Relational activism: Reimagining Women’s Environmental Work As Cultural change, Canadian Journal of Sociology, 35(4) Sidebottom, K. 2021. Rhizomes, assemblages and nomad war machines – re-imagining curriculum development for posthuman times. PhD thesis, Lancaster UniversityTremayne, D. 2021. More than just a chat? Online teacher-learning communities as sites for professional learning and teacher agency, PhD thesis, Leeds Beckett UniversityWheatley, M.J. 2009. Turning to each other: Simple conversations to restore hope to the future (2nd ed), Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. Oakland, C

Design for sustainability: A practical approach

Famham Surrey, Englandvii, 184 p.: bibl. ref., fig., index; 25 c