Trevor Mutton

Practice makes perfect? Learning to learn as a teacher

The context of this research is one in which teachers are now expected to equip their pupils with the disposition and skills for life‐long learning. It is vital, therefore, that teachers themselves are learners, not only in developing their practice but also in modelling for pupils the process of continual learning. This paper is based on a series of post‐lesson interviews, conducted with 25 student teachers following a one‐year postgraduate course within two well‐established school‐based partnerships of initial teacher training. Its focus is on the approaches that the student teachers take to their own learning. Four interviews, conducted with each student teacher over the course of the year, explored their thinking in relation to planning, conducting and evaluating an observed lesson, and their reflections on the learning that informed, or resulted from, that lesson. The findings suggest that while the student teachers all learn from experience, the nature and extent of that learning varies considerably within a number of different dimensions. We argue that understanding the range of approaches that student teachers take to professional learning will leave teacher educators better equipped to help ensure that new entrants to the profession are both competent teachers and competent professional learners.

Looking forward: rethinking professional learning through partnership arrangements in Initial Teacher Education

We draw on evidence gathered from teachers who had responsibility for initial teacher education in their schools as part of training partnership arrangements with universities, in order to examine how they are working within their schools and with their higher education partners. Evidence consisted of questionnaire returns from 60 teachers, interviews with six of these and analyses of partnership documentation. Analyses revealed that many of the schools were working with more than one higher education institution and that some schools were increasingly seeing teacher training as a set of practices which were school‐led and which therefore reduced the disruption to schools that may arise in school‐based training. With this as a background we then use the lenses of activity theory and findings from two recent studies which have examined boundary crossing in other aspects of schools’ work to interrogate the dataset and to consider the implications of multiple partnership arrangements for future developments in the professional learning of both student teachers and teacher‐mentors; and links between schools and universities.

Learning to plan, planning to learn: the developing expertise of beginning teachers

Learning how to plan is recognised as a key skill that beginning teachers have to develop but there has been little research examining how they may actually learn to plan. This paper, based on the analysis of 10 post-lesson interviews with 17 secondary school teachers across three years (the PGCE year and the first two years in teaching) focuses on: what these beginning teachers learned about planning; the nature of that planning; and the development of their awareness as to what planning could and could not achieve. The findings demonstrate that learning how to plan is a feature of beginning teachers’ learning well beyond the PGCE year, indicating that it is through planning that teachers are able to learn about teaching and through teaching that they are able to learn about planning. We discuss the implications for teacher educators and others involved in the professional learning of beginning teachers.

A review of ‘research-informed clinical practice’ in Initial Teacher Education

This review examines the kinds of relationship between research and practice that have been envisaged in programmes designed to provide opportunities for beginning teachers to engage in ‘research-informed clinical practice’. Although the terminology varies, scope for inclusion is defined by an intention to facilitate and deepen the interplay between the different kinds of knowledge that are generated and validated within the different contexts of school and university. A variety of approaches have been taken to achieving this kind of integration; not merely extending the time that beginning teachers spend in school, but focusing on the processes by which professional knowledge is created, for example, by equipping beginning teachers to act as researchers, adopting a problem-solving orientation to practice. A range of approaches within and beyond the UK are examined, acknowledging the policy contexts in which they have been developed and comparing the rationales advanced in support of them. Finally the paper examines the claims advanced for the impact of such research-based clinical practice and the quality of the evidence that underpins them, in relation both to beginning teachers’ professional learning and to student outcomes.

Mentor skills in a new context: working with trainee teachers to develop the use of information and communications technology in their subject teaching

This article reports on the findings of a study looking at the role of the school‐based mentor in developing the competence of trainee teachers in relation to the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in the classroom. One key factor in determining the contribution of the mentor appears to be the level of confidence in his/her ability to use ICT, both personally and in the classroom, which in turn has an effect on both the nature and range of the support given to the trainee teacher. Questionnaire and interview data indicated that many mentors feel that their ICT expertise is often not as great as that of the trainee (and therefore feel less confident and/or willing to offer guidance in this area) and that they are unable to offer support to trainees in relation to contexts that involve the use of ICT in the classroom. The authors would suggest that traditional approaches to mentoring might need to be reviewed in the light of this and they would argue that there could be benefits from adopting more innovative ways of working whereby the trainee’s ICT knowledge and skills might be used to full effect when combined with the mentor’s understanding of classroom teaching and learning. Such a model has implications for the providers of initial teacher training and these are discussed.

Developing language teachers through a co-researcher model

This article reports on a small-scale study tracking the development of three newly qualified language teachers. There were two phases to the study. During the course of their first year in post the three teachers were observed and interviewed by a researcher in order to ascertain how their teaching had been changing or developing since finishing their training and what factors were influencing that change or development. As a result of this research, two of the teachers agreed to continue with the project into a second year during which it was agreed to focus on a specific aspect of classroom practice, their oral interaction with the students. Thus, in the second year, three lessons per teacher were video-recorded, transcribed and analysed by the researchers, and the teachers were asked to react to the data on their lessons. It is suggested that this study, with the beginning teacher as “co-researcher”, may act as a model for future professional development.

Surprising but not shocking: The reality of the first year of teaching

The need in many countries not merely to recruit but – critically – to retain effective teachers has been a key factor in shaping induction policies. Past reviews of teacher induction have highlighted two important sources of difficulty: novices’ own unrealistic expectations of teaching and of students, and others’ unrealistic expectations of the novices. This article, which examines the relationship between teachers’ expectations of the first year of teaching and the realities that they encounter, explores the ways in which two policies in England – school-based initial teacher education partnerships (established since the early 1990s) and formal induction arrangements (re-introduced in 2000) have impacted on beginning teachers’ experience of the transition. Drawing on data from a three-year longitudinal study it focuses specifically on how the teachers’ reflections on their experience of their first year in teaching are related to the accounts that they give of their learning over the same period.

Developing reading achievement in primary learners of French: inferencing strategies versus exposure to ‘graded readers’

All primary school children in England are to be entitled to learn a foreign language by 2010, based on the belief that an early start is beneficial for language learning in the long run. However, the evidence of the benefits of an early start is inconclusive, and it is also unclear what type of curriculum and pedagogy would be most appropriate for these young-beginner learners. This pilot study of Year 6 (ages 10–11) children learning French aimed to provide some initial evidence that a literacy-based component has a place in a primary language learning curriculum. A group of learners were given an intervention comprising some special materials designed to develop their ‘inferencing strategies’ when confronted with new or unfamiliar French words in short texts. This group was compared with a group of learners who were simply exposed to a diet of ‘graded French readers’ without any strategy instruction. Both groups were, in turn, compared with a control group which continued with their normal learning experience. Both the inferencing strategies group and the graded readers group made significant advances in their reading comprehension, but, further, the inferencing strategies group outperformed the graded readers group in inferencing ability and in the learning of function words. The findings suggest a need to pursue this area of enquiry further with a larger and more controlled study.

Strengthening and sustaining professional learning in the second year of teaching

The data discussed in this paper derive from post‐lesson and end‐of‐year interviews with 17 teachers in their second year of teaching. They form part of a longitudinal study which first tracked these teachers through their initial postgraduate teacher education programme and induction year. In the light of earlier analysis, which had highlighted both the enduring importance of individuals’ dispositions towards their own learning and the profound sense of professional isolation that some teachers experience once the support of their induction year is withdrawn, this paper focuses specifically on the interplay between teachers’ orientations towards their own professional learning and the nature of the learning environments in which they are working. The complex interrelationships between these two dimensions are illuminated by six case studies, which offer strong support to those who have challenged exclusive conceptualisations of ‘learning’ as either ‘construction’ or ‘participation’. The findings have important implications for all those responsible for the professional education of beginning and early career teachers, especially as they respond to the government launch in England of a new ‘national framework’ intended (eventually) to offer opportunities for Masters level professional learning to all newly qualified teachers.

Teacher education in times of change

Why are policies regarding teacher education politically, sociologically, and educationally significant? While teacher education as a practice has long been recognized, the importance of teacher education policy has only recently begun to be appreciated. Teacher Education in Times of Change offers a critical examination of teacher education policy in the United Kingdom and Ireland over the past three decades, since the first intervention of government in the curriculum in 1984. Written by a research group from five countries, it makes international comparisons and covers broader developments in professional learning, placing these key issues and lessons in a wider context.