Findings from the Early Professional Learning project.
Presentation given at the local authority probation managers' seminar on 28 October 2009 by Jim McNally & Allan Blake, Department of Curricular Studies, University of Strathclyde
Practical Research 1 Lesson 9 Scope and delimitation.pptx
Findings From The Early Professional Learning Project 281009
1. Findings from the Early Professional Learning project Jim McNally & Allan Blake Department of Curricular Studies University of Strathclyde
2. EPL Project Background ESRC TLRP Phase 3 (2004-2008, £770K) Stirling and MMU Develop and test a model of EPL Combine qualitative and quantitative methods Enhance competence-based professional learning ?
15. Mean scores of the rank ordering (1-12) of most significant person with whom NTs interact Person category N Min. Max. Mean Std. Deviation Teacher your department 46 1 7 2.83 1.539 Pupils I teach 44 1 9 2.84 2.145 PT or faculty head 47 1 12 3.21 2.095 Mentor/supporter 46 1 9 3.52 2.178 Other new teacher 46 1 9 4.13 2.072 Teacher in nearby room 39 1 12 4.49 3.128 Family or friends 45 1 11 4.62 2.766 Teacher other department 43 1 10 5.70 1.934 Other staff 43 2 11 6.42 2.096 Senior manage team 44 1 10 6.64 2.263 LEA staff 29 2 12 8.21 2.731 other 12 5 12 8.50 2.355 Mean scores of the rank ordering (1-12) of most significant person with whom NTs interact Person category N Min. Max. Mean Std. Deviation Teacher your department 46 1 7 2.83 1.539 Pupils I teach 44 1 9 2.84 2.145 PT or faculty head 47 1 12 3.21 2.095 Mentor/supporter 46 1 9 3.52 2.178 Other new teacher 46 1 9 4.13 2.072 Teacher in nearby room 39 1 12 4.49 3.128 Family or friends 45 1 11 4.62 2.766 Teacher other department 43 1 10 5.70 1.934 Other staff 43 2 11 6.42 2.096 Senior manage team 44 1 10 6.64 2.263 LEA staff 29 2 12 8.21 2.731 other 12 5 12 8.50 2.355 Mean scores of the rank ordering (1-12) of most significant person with whom NTs interact Person category N Min. Max. Mean Std. Deviation Teacher your department 46 1 7 2.83 1.539 Pupils I teach 44 1 9 2.84 2.145 PT or faculty head 47 1 12 3.21 2.095 Mentor/supporter 46 1 9 3.52 2.178 Other new teacher 46 1 9 4.13 2.072 Teacher in nearby room 39 1 12 4.49 3.128 Family or friends 45 1 11 4.62 2.766 Teacher other department 43 1 10 5.70 1.934 Other staff 43 2 11 6.42 2.096 Senior manage team 44 1 10 6.64 2.263 LEA staff 29 2 12 8.21 2.731 other 12 5 12 8.50 2.355
22. What’s in a name? “ Instead of standing there, well talking the way that I probably should as a teacher. I will be more slangy with them because that is what they understand and I will be, not their friend, but I will be more friendly with them than what I probably should be. I call one of the boys, I say, ‘Come on Shauny Shaun’, and it is like, ‘nobody calls me that, just you’. You know, he appreciates that, but I would never do that with any other class but that is what they need. …. I started thinking … I need to respond to you the way that you need me to…. and that has worked.” (Kerry)
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Hinweis der Redaktion
The Early Professional Learning project. The Early Professional Learning project was conceived to explore the extent to which a grounded theory of early teacher learning could enhance the competence-based model for new teachers and contribute to the practical formulation of that process. Findings revealed a striking contrast between the experiences of new teachers in schools and their development through use of professional standards. We found that the main engagement with the standard by new teachers was in relation to their need to complete their interim profile. The all-encompassing process in learning to teach was about becoming a teacher: that is, gaining an identity through a number of discernable dimensions of experience – emotional, relational, cognitive, material, structural, ethical and temporal – a process for which the standard provided no guidance or structure. As one participating new teacher put it, the ‘idea that we can give everything an [interim profile] code… is completely meaningless’.
Based on a qualitative data set of interviews with 154 new teachers in 45 schools in Scotland and England, and a quantitative data set comprising over 5,000 returns from five indicators of teacher and pupil experience, our model of early professional learning depicts the experience of beginning teachers as a process of identity formation that is largely dependent on affective engagement with colleagues and pupils taught.
Our reading of this earlier research identified the need for a more progressive focussing on Early Professional Learning, including the need for a sharper instrument that might better elicit the subtler layers of the beginning experience. It was in order to realise these intentions that we employed teachers as researchers in Scottish schools, and it was precisely their insider knowledge that elicited data which struck us as ‘hot’ (immediate, spontaneous) in contrast to more conventional, ‘cold’ ethnographic interviewing where respondents recall their experiences in more reflective and arguably rationalised ways.
Given that relativism saps political commitment, we arrived at a general theory of relationality. Using a correlational design, dimensions of the EPL model were operationalised as independent variables in relation to a series of learning outcomes as measured by the project’s quantitative indicators. By correlating new teachers’ induction experiences with their responses to a job satisfaction survey, for example, we found that as much as 41% of the variation in new teachers’ overall job satisfaction was attributable to working relationships with colleagues in their departments. Whilst statistical correlations in themselves do not prove causation, they can be read in conjunction with the personal narratives and the sense of individual identity formation obtained from reading the transcripts of the new teachers’ interviews. The analysis of the narrative data of the teacher from a moment ago, one of the few to record outright dissatisfaction with her job on JOBSAT, reveals how her negativity was rooted in the way she was undermined by other teachers in the department.
As to the reasons why conversations were important to new teachers ‘I felt better’ is the explanation most often cited (n 102, 43.2 per cent), followed by ‘I learned something’ (n 82, 34.7 per cent). It is worth noting that it was conversations with another teacher that most often caused new teachers to feel better (n 28, 46.6 per cent). Conversations with a mentor or supporter appeared to be less significant in this regard (n 16, 35.5 per cent). In discussing these findings we to tend to agree with Eraut (2004: 267) in thinking that the emotional dimension of professional work is much more significant than normally recognised, with ‘informal support provided by people on the spot’ - in this case, other teachers - tending to be most valued. Of the 45 occasions when a new teacher sought to speak to their mentor, in 22 per cent (n 10) of those intended interactions the colleague in question was unavailable. The indication from interact then, within this sample at least, is that in the first three months of teaching the affective component of interactivity (‘I felt better’) appears to be of moderately greater significance to new teachers than say the cognitive (‘I learned something’), a finding that appears to support the importance of the emotional-relational dimension in the learning of new teachers.