David Pedder

Conceptualizing Teacher Professional Learning

This article adopts a complexity theory framework to review the literature on teachers’ professional development practices, the generative systems of these practices, and the impact that learning experiences have on their knowledge and changes in classroom practices. The review brings together multiple strands of literature on teacher professional development, teaching and learning, teacher change, and organizational learning. In doing so, it illustrates that process–product logic has dominated the literature on teacher professional learning and that this has limited explanatory ability. The review demonstrates the ways the elements of three subsystems (the teacher, the school, and the learning activity) interact and combine in different ways and with varying intensities to influence teacher learning. The limitations of studies focusing on specific elements or subsystems are highlighted. The article concludes that to understand teacher learning scholars must adopt methodological practices that focus on explanatory causality and the reciprocal influences of all three subsystems.

Pupil voice : comfortable and uncomfortable learnings for teachers

The study explores how teachers use the ideas that pupils offer when consulted. Six teachers (two each in English, Maths and Science) and their Year 8 classes at three secondary schools were involved. The research was carried out in three stages. During the first stage the focus was on eliciting pupils’ ideas about classroom teaching and learning and teachers’ responses to their pupils’ ideas. Six pupils from each class were interviewed individually about each of three observed lessons. Transcripts of these interviews were fed back to the teachers. Teachers were interviewed about their reactions to them. During the second phase teachers’ use of pupil ideas was investigated and both the teachers’ and the target pupils’ evaluations of what happened were sought. In the third stage, each teacher was visited some six months later, in the following academic year, to explore how far the pupil ideas had had a lasting impact on the teachers’ practice and what use the teachers were making of pupil consultation. Our main findings were: (1) Pupils’ responses were characterised by a constructive focus on learning, consensus about what helps learning, and differences in articulacy; (2) Pupils agreed that interactive teaching for understanding, contextualising learning in appropriate ways, fostering a stronger sense of agency and ownership, and arranging social contexts amenable to collaborative learning were all helpful to the learning; (3) Teachers tended to respond positively and were reassured by the insightfulness of pupil ideas; (4) Teachers differed in what they did in response to pupils’ ideas. Three types of teacher reaction were identified: ‘short‐term responsiveness’, ‘growing confidence’, and ‘problems with using pupil consultation’. Some of the conclusions, based on evidence from the six teachers and their classes, are reassuring for teachers, others are perhaps less so. We construed them as ‘comfortable’ and ‘uncomfortable’ learnings.

Learning How to Learn and Assessment for Learning: a theoretical inquiry

This paper stems from the ESRC TLRP Learning How to Learn—in Classrooms, Schools and Networks Project, and explores how Assessment for Learning (AfL) relates, conceptually, to learning how to learn (LHTL). The term LHTL was intended to draw attention to a primary focus on learning practices, and we have related the processes of AfL to LHTL. A third and more common term ‘learning to learn’ (L2L) has recently come to the fore in the teaching and learning practices of schools. This paper explores the relationships between all three, in three main sections. First, the meaning of the concept LHTL is explored. This is approached initially using the analysis of Dearden, followed by an exploration of the links with other research in the literature on learning. This exploration examines the construct L2L and argues against its implication that there is a distinct capacity with generality of application across all forms of learning. The second section considers the ways in which teachers and schools might give more priority to pupils’ capacity to LHTL, drawing on some research projects that demonstrate improved pupil outcomes, and hence support the rationale for the emphasis on learning practices. The third section examines the problem of assessing LHTL. An attempt to construct an instrument to assess LHTL did not succeed, but did serve to expose both the practical and the theoretical problems in characterizing pupils as having ‘learned how to learn’. The overall conclusion is that emphasis should be placed on practices that have potential to promote autonomy in learning, a common theme in the literature at all levels, and one reflected in our empirical work on teachers’ attitudes and practices.

Learning How to Learn, in Classrooms, Schools and Networks: aims, design and analysis

This article provides an introduction to the TLRP Learning How to Learn Project and a context for the articles that follow in this special issue. The origins of the research, in a concern to investigate the organizational and network conditions that support innovation in teaching and learning, and in a perceived need to align research on pedagogy and assessment with research on school improvement, are described. Details of the overall development and research design are given as well as an explanation of the ways in which different forms of quantitative and qualitative data analysis are being integrated to interrogate a ‘logic model’, both at whole sample level and in case studies.

How Teachers Value and Practise Professional Learning.

If teachers are to sustain engagement with the challenges involved in promoting Learning How to Learn in classrooms they need to continue learning, and to be supported to do so by their schools. This article addresses the research question, ‘How do teachers value and practise professional learning?’ Data are reported from the ESRC TLRP Learning How to Learn project’s Staff Questionnaire in 2002; 1018 Questionnaire returns were obtained from primary and secondary teachers and managers at 32 schools: a return of 73%. Theoretical and empirical insights that influenced the construction of Questionnaire items are discussed. Four hypotheses about teacher learning were developed on the basis of a review of over 30 years of research into teachers’ learning: (1) teachers’ learning is an embedded feature of teachers’ classroom practice and reflection; (2) teachers’ learning is extended through consulting different sources of knowledge; (3) teachers’ learning is expanded through collaborative activity; (4) teachers’ learning is deepened through talking about and valuing learning. Item specific analysis, and factor and cluster analysis were carried out. The strong factor structure provides support for the hypotheses. Our main findings are: (1) teachers appear to differentiate between learning that takes place in the classroom and learning that takes place outside the classroom; (2) teachers tend to value a wide range of individual and social learning as important for creating opportunities for pupils to learn; (3) levels of practice for classroom‐based learning tend to be lower than for out‐of‐class learning. This was particularly marked for learning that involves engaging with research and pupil ideas and feedback. We conclude by arguing that, despite the risks involved, teachers’ classroom‐based learning and the institutional support for it are indispensable to the sustained provision of high quality education in schools.

The Lost Promise of Teacher Professional Development in England.

This paper explores three influences on the effectiveness of teacher professional development for improving schools – the individual teacher, the learning activities in which teachers participate and the structures and supports provided by schools for teacher learning. It does so by relying on survey data collected for a national study of teacher professional development in England. The analysis indicates that while the professional development of teachers in England is generally ineffectual and lacks school level systems and supports, the professional development and supports for professional learning by teachers in high performing schools display many of the characteristics associated with effective professional learning. Given the results showing a link between school factors and professional learning and the lack of influence of individual teacher factors, the paper concludes that the previously reported importance of school capacity in influencing learning and improvement is supported by the findings.

Organizational conditions that foster successful classroom promotion of Learning How to Learn

This article addresses the question, ‘What organizational conditions foster successful classroom promotion of Learning How to Learn?’. Data are reported from the ESRC Learning How to Learn Project’s Staff Questionnaire administered in 2002 and 2004. In 2002, 1212 Questionnaire returns were obtained from primary and secondary support staff, teachers and managers at 32 schools. In 2004, 698 returns were obtained from 23 schools. Thirty items in Section A are about classroom assessment, 28 items in Section B are about teachers’ learning, and 26 items in Section C are about school management practices and systems. Factor analysis generated sets of factors from items in each of the three sections of the Questionnaire. Levels of teachers’ values and practices are reported and compared for each factor. These factors were then used in multiple regression analyses of baseline responses to the Questionnaire in order to explore relationships between classroom assessment, teachers’ learning and school management practices. Patterns of change for each dimension of practice are explored by analysing the difference between 2002 and 2004 mean practice and values factor scores. Main findings are: (1) in‐class teacher learning practices appear to be a key precondition for the classroom promotion of Learning How to Learn; (2) organizational conditions, understood in terms of school management practices and systems, appear to influence what happens in classrooms through the mediation of teachers’ learning, particularly learning that has a clear basis in classroom activity; (3) values remained ahead of practice in 2004 for the four dimensions of school management practices identified in this study. This indicates considerable challenges for schools that decide to develop organizational strategies for sustaining change in the classroom through promoting Learning How to Learn.

Learning how to learn: Tools for schools

Learning how to learn is an essential preparation for lifelong learning. This book offers a set of in-service resources to help teachers develop new classroom practices informed by sound research. It builds on previous work associated with ‘formative assessment’ or ‘assessment for learning’. However, it adds an important new dimension by taking account of the conditions within schools that are conducive to the promotion, in classrooms, of learning how to learn as an extension of assessment for learning.

Lesson Study: Towards a Collaborative Approach to Learning in Initial Teacher Education?.

Lesson Study (LS) case studies were conducted in two secondary school teaching practice placements in England. Using Dudley’s framework, Geography and Modern Languages trainees and school-based colleagues collaboratively planned a ‘research lesson’. This was taught by the mentor while the trainee and other teachers observed the learning of three ‘focus’ students. The lesson was reviewed and revised for teaching to a parallel group by the trainee and the cycle of observation and evaluation was repeated. In post-lesson study interviews, analysed from a Communities of Practice perspective, mentors claimed that LS facilitated rapid integration of the prospective teacher into departmental working practices while trainees claimed they benefited from the team approach inherent in LS. The process enabled participants to explore collaboratively the ‘pedagogic black-box’ enriching the experience and learning of both trainees and mentors. Successfully integrated, LS improves support for teacher development in teaching practice placements.

Lesson study as a vehicle for collaborative teacher learning in a secondary school

This paper reports the outcomes of a ‘lesson study’ project conducted in a mathematics department with four serving teachers in a secondary school in England. Using Dudley’s lesson study framework and drawing on Hargreaves and Fullan’s notion of professional capital, the feasibility and value of collaborative lesson study as a vehicle for the development of teacher learning were explored. Planning and evaluation meetings as well as end-of-project interviews were analysed to investigate how teachers planned research lessons together and how these were evaluated. Despite time constraints, teachers who engaged in lesson study reported that the process improved understanding of their students; that collaboration helped them to develop less-teacher-centred approaches and created a stronger sense of teacher community. The project demonstrated that lesson study has potential as an alternative or complementary model of teachers’ learning, but it also throws up substantive organisational challenges if its use is to expand.