Helen Grimmett

The practice of teachers' professional development: A cultural-historical approach

This book uses Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory to provide a unique theorisation of teachers’ professional development as a practice. A practice can be described as the socially structured actions set up to produce a product or service aimed at meeting a collective human need. In this case, collaborative, interventionist work with teachers in two different Australian primary schools sought to simultaneously identify, understand and develop the necessary conditions for supporting the teachers’ development as professionals. The in-depth analysis of this practice provides interesting insight into professional development for teachers at all levels of schooling, and provides strong support for educational researchers, administrators and consultants to reconsider many existing forms of professional learning/development programs.

Informing new string programmes: Lessons learned from an Australian experience

Although there are many examples of notable string programmes there has been relatively little comparative analysis of these programmes. This paper examines three benchmark string programmes (The University of Illinois String Project, The Tower Hamlets String Teaching Project and Colourstrings) alongside Music4All, an innovative string programme run over three years in five primary schools in regional Australia. The paper discusses difficulties encountered in the Australian experience and gives recommendations for future programmes including allowing adequate time and resources for the planning phase and the importance of ongoing professional development for staff.

The Problem of "Just Tell Us": Insights from Playing with Poetic Inquiry and Dialogical Self Theory.

Abstract Contemporary approaches to pre-service teacher education and in-service teachers’ professional development increasingly reflect the general paradigm swing in education, advocating for dialogic co-construction of understandings of teaching and learning rather than monologic telling of how to be a teacher or how to improve teaching practice. However, teacher–learners sometimes have difficulty adapting to the different stance required of them to participate effectively in this change of approach. Successfully facilitating the development of learners to take an active, inquiry stance requires engaging in the process of development of oneself: being open to new approaches, being prepared to be uncomfortable and being willing to extend one’s comfort zone as a teacher educator. In this self-study project, I use iterations of poetry writing and reflection to document my introduction to Dialogical Self Theory (DST) and the development that these explorations provoke. By exploring different perspectives of why learners sometimes ask teachers to “Just tell us,” I have become more thoughtful about the nature of dialogue and how this might be supported in engaging with learners. I argue that using DST as an analytical tool has not only provided meaningful personal insights that have affected my own professional practice as a new teacher educator, but also shown potential for facilitating the development of teachers at all stages of their professional becoming.

Exploring Cogenerativity in Initial Teacher Education School-University Partnerships Using the Methodology of Metalogue

This chapter explores the concept of ‘cogenerativity’ by providing three different examples of initial teacher education school-university partnership projects in Australia. The first of these professional experience projects drew on the use of participatory approaches in a new Master of Teaching program; the second involved a project of co-teaching triads; and the third concerned the development of university, school and system partnerships. The authors used the methodology of metalogue to engage in dialogical exchange about the notion of cogenerativity in relation to the literature and through the lens of each project to examine the nature of the concept for developing and sustaining professional experience partnerships. The chapter concludes that cogenerativity may be useful for conceptualising why and how initial teacher education school-university partnerships flourish. The knowledge developed may assist educators and researchers not only to create supportive conditions for the development of initial teacher education school-university partnerships but also to [re]imagine the possibilities of such partnerships to realise continual expansive transformative learning for all involved. The use of metalogue offered a unique research methodology for the authors who each explored their experience of school-university partnerships. At the same time, the use of metalogue illustrated cogenerativity in practice. The approach also enabled the authors to highlight possible challenges and limitations for creating and sustaining cogenerativity in the context of initial teacher education school-university partnerships.

Reimagining the role of mentor teachers in professional experience: moving to I as fellow teacher educator

ABSTRACT New accreditation requirements for Australian initial teacher education programs require that universities and schools establish quality partnerships to ensure strong links between pre-service teachers’ university-based learning and school-based professional learning experiences. This paper focuses on the shifts of identity, thinking and practice that occurred for five school-based mentor teachers as they co-created new professional experience practices alongside university-based teacher educators in a Teaching Academies of Professional Practice (TAPP) project. Interview data was analysed through the theoretical framework of Dialogical Self Theory to examine how the repositioning of mentor teachers as fellow teacher educators allowed for expansion in the understanding and enactment of their role. The findings of this study suggest that partnerships between schools and universities can enhance learning opportunities for all participants when commitments are made to creating collaborative and dialogical spaces to support new approaches to teacher education.

Cultural-Historical Theory and the Vygotskian Project

The above quotation reminds us that adopting a particular understanding of a concept can allow us to bring a new perspective to a phenomenon that has previously been studied or understood in different ways. It is my intention throughout this book to use this unique framework of cultural-historical concepts to shed new light on current understandings of the institutional practice of professional development.

Stories from the Third Space: Teacher Educators’ Professional Learning in a School/University Partnership

In this chapter, the authors, as teacher educators, present a narrative account of the professional learning they gained from their involvement in a school-university partnership, which focused on the provision of the professional experience component of an undergraduate initial teacher education (ITE) course. The authors outline the context and aims of this ‘third space’ partnership, then recall significant events/moments that triggered deep reflection and learning about what it is to be a teacher educator involved in collaborative partnerships with schools to provide innovative professional experiences for pre-service teachers. They found that the collaborative nature of the partnership helped them to reassess the purposes of professional experience in ITE, and their role in its provision. The collaboration was generative in terms of the structure and organisation of the practicum, the pedagogical strategies developed, and the professional relationships that were established. The authors argue that, despite the challenges, school-university partnerships are essential to the successful implementation of productive and sustained professional experience for pre-service teachers.

Within Practice PD

This chapter brings the book to a conclusion by presenting several interrelated theoretical, methodological and practical insights that were developed through the course of this research. The theoretical insights summarise and further expand upon the findings and analysis discussed so far, gradually building upon each other to elaborate a new representation of what I have chosen to call ‘WITHIN practice PD: Professional development WITH a teacher, IN their practice.’

Developing Situated Conscious Awareness

This chapter begins by drawing upon the data and discussion presented in the previous three chapters to discuss how the practice of professional development cocreated with Sia in Phase 2 of the study was a development of the PLZ created at Banksia Bay in Phase 1.

Co-Teaching with Sia

In March 2011, I began to seek a school and teacher who would be willing to collaborate in a new practice of professional development organised in line with the models developed in the previous chapter. That is, a school and teacher who would allow me to co-teach WITH the teacher, IN their classroom.