SUSTAINING TEACHERS' PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT THROUGH
ENRICHED ACTION LEARNING
Garry Hoban
University of Wollongong
Abstract-This paper explains the theoretical nature of a framework
called enriched action learning used to design a professional
development program for a small group of high school science teachers
over a period of two years. Action learning is underpinned by four
educational principles-reflection, community, action and feedback-that
enhance each other producing sustained professional development. In
this study the community discussions were enriched by teachers
listening to recorded interview data from the teachers' own students
describing their positive learning experiences across different
subjects. The professional development program caused substantial
changes in the teachers' beliefs about the relationship their teaching
and their students' learning.
INTRODUCTION
Teaching involves regular changes in curriculum, resources, students,
school organisation and ideas about best practice. Professional
development, therefore, should be an ongoing process so that teachers
can respond to these continuing changes. The reality, however, is that
teacher learning is often an ad hoc process with most professional
development opportunities consisting of occasional workshops in which
teachers are presented with ideas to implement in their practice with
little follow up support (Fullan, 1992).
Some long term professional development programs involve collaborations
between teachers and teacher educators who form a community to meet
regularly and share ideas about teaching practice (Bell, 1994;
Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993; Baird & Mitchell, 1987; Darling-Hammond,
1994; Mitchell & Erickson, 1995). What is common to most of these
communities is that they encourage teachers to conduct action research
on their own practice with each teacher framing research questions,
systematically collecting and analysing data and often sharing
conclusions with their colleagues (Carr & Kemmis, 1986; Lewin, 1952;
Northfield & Mitchell, 1997; Stenhouse, 1975).
This form of professional development in which teachers and teachers
educators interact as a community on a regular basis has been called
"collaborative action reseach" (Baird, Mitchell &Northfield, 1987) or
"practical inquiry" (Richardson, 1994). The role of teacher educators
in these collaborations is often to help teachers structure their
action research and to assist them to link their experiences with
events beyond their existing context (Baird, Mitchell & Northfield,
1987). Richardson (1994) explained that the type of research conducted
by participants in these communities is not formal research, which
contributes to an existing knowledge base, but is an inquiry into
teaching practice so that "a group may become more systematic in
thinking about their work, collect and analyze data related to
perceived problems in their classrooms and schools, and, thereby
understand and improve their practice" (p. 7).
Another type of collaborative workplace learning involves participants
in a community sharing experiences on a regular basis rather than
systematically collecting and analysing data. Action learning is a
collaborative process which enhances individuals learning through
experience. Although not common in educational literature, action
learning has been used extensively in business management with small
groups of three to seven participants meeting regularly to help each
other improve their work practices (McGill & Beaty, 1995; Pedler, 1991;
Revans, 1981, 1982; Zuber-Skerritt, 1993). This collaborative type of
workplace learning has been explored in various contexts: executives in
a textile company (Lewis, 1991); supervisors in an electronic firm
(Boddy, 1991); doctors in a hospital (Winkless, 1991); university
students in a Masters of Science course (Thorpe & Taylor, 1991); and
insurance agents attempting to improve the quality of their service
(Schlesinger, 1991).
Action learning is similar to action research as both have cycles of
action and reflection, but in action learning the focus is on the
informal sharing of experiences in a community to assist personal
reflection on action, whereas the focus of action research is on
individuals conducting research by systematically collecting and
analysing data. The regular meetings or sets (Revans, 1981, 1982) in
action learning involve individuals reflecting on personally relevant
events, issues or problems which is enhanced by group discussions to
provide different perspectives on an individual's personal experiences
leading to some form of action plan. There are four main educational
principles which underpin action learning.
Educational principles underpinning action learning
The purpose of action learning is to maximise learning through
experience by engaging in an ongoing process of reflection on personal
experences and action using perspectives from colleagues in a community
to deepen the understanding of personal experience. Action learning
is underpinned by four principles which enhance each other to sustain
professional development-reflection, community, feedback and action.
Independently, none of these principles are new, but structuring a
professional development program which encapsulates all four
principles provides a framework for sustained professional learning.
The first principle, reflection, means participants analysing their own
practice to develop a self-awareness of the reasons for why they teach
the way they do. It has been well established that we learn through
experience by reflecting on past events to making sense of the
interactions which helps us to cope with similar situations in the
future. This notion of reflection was originally proposed by Dewey
(1933) as a particular form of thinking about an experience that has
some aspect of puzzlement which practitioners can attend to:
The function of reflective thought is, therefore, to transform a
situation in which there is experienced obscurity, doubt, conflict,
disturbance of some sort, into a situation that is clear, coherent,
settled, harmonious. (Dewey, 1933, pp. 100-101)
This notion of reflection has been expanded over many years to include
levels of reflectivity (Van Manen, 1977), types of reflection (Schon,
1983; 1987) and stages of reflection ( Hatton, 1995) and has been the
foundation for many studies in teacher education (Griffiths & Tann,
1992; Grimmett & Erickson, 1988; Ross & Hannay, 1986; Zeichner &
Liston, 1987; Zeichner & Teitelbaum, 1992). Reflection has been called
"a cornerstone of learning and of personal and professional
development" (Baird, 1992) and a vehicle for teacher change to frame
and reframe their practice:
To achieve change, teachers need to discover that their existing frame
for understanding what happens in their classes is only one of several
possible ones, and this, according to Schšn, is likely to be achieved
only when the teachers themselves reflect critically upon what they do
and its results. (Barnes, 1992, p. 17)
In action learning, it is crucial for individuals to reflect on their
practice to not only identify personally relevant issues or problems
but to make meaning from their experiences.
The second principle, community, means participants sharing their ideas
with colleagues to provide different perspectives on personal
experiences to assist individuals to gain a deeper understanding of
their meaning. This social influence on learning was highlighted by
Dewey who defined the notion of community as "sharing in each other's
activities and in each other's experiences because they have common
ends and purposes" (1916, p. 75). More recently, the notion of sharing
ideas in a community has been used in various educational settings such
as school classrooms (Berieter & Scardamalia, 1993), professional
development programs for teachers and teacher educators (Baird &
Mitchell, 1987; Bell, 1993; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993;) and for
teacher training in professional development schools (Darling-Hammond,
1994). Recently, Louis, Marks & Kruse (1996) identifed five elements of
professional communities: shared values, focus on student learning,
collaboration, deprivatized practice, and reflective dialogue. Similar
elements are present in action learning with a key principle being the
sharing of ideas with the same small group on a regular basis.
Commonly called a "set", this small group does not have a formal
meeting structure but "the rationale for a set to be together is to
work on the future action and support the learning of each individual
set member" (McGill & Beaty, 1995, p. 25).
The third principle, action, means learning by doing so that
participants try ideas in their practice that have been generated from
their reflections and community discussions. This learning by doing or
experimenting with ideas is also not a new concept. It was one of the
main tenets in Dewey's (1938) theory of learning through experience and
Kolb's (1984) experiential learning cycle. The implication is that
putting ideas into practice gives meaning to them providing a deeper
understanding of their consequences. The fourth principle, feedback,
means monitoring the responses of actions. This means that teachers
take notice of how students react to a change in their teaching but
this does not mean that teachers systematically collect and analyse
data as in the case of action research. It is this feedback that
teachers discuss at the next meeting in which they again share their
ideas as a community.
Although communities of teachers and teacher educators who focus on
sharing experiences have continued over long periods of time, the
opinions being shared within a community are limited by the experiences
of each of the participants (Hatton, 1988). The implication is that
communities sometimes repeat exising practices and need to move beyond
their usual discourse. In support, Huberman (1994) argued that
communities need "conceptual inputs" to enrich their discussions by
introducing ideas to extend the way the participants frame their
practice. This can occur with the introduction of research into the
community discussions (Bell, 1993; Richardson, 1994), views of teacher
educators (Baird, Mitchell, & Northfield, 1987; Darling-Hammond, 1994)
or information from professional journals, professional organisations,
television programs or market research (Cusins, 1995). What has not
been explored in communities of teachers and teacher educators is the
regular input of students' views about teaching to enhance the
community discussions in an action learning group. In the current study
interview data from high school students describing their learning
experiences across different subjects were collated onto audio tapes
for teachers to listen to during their meetings to provide an
alternative perspective on their own classroom experiences.
This study has two purposes. First, the value of action learning as a
framework for professional development was explored by monitoring
teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning over a period of two
years. Second, the role of introducing student data into the community
discussions in the form of recorded student interviews was also
ascertained.
METHODOLOGY
Set in a small rural high school 240 km from Sydney, Australia, the
study involved three male teachers who constituted the entire science
department at the school. At the beginning of the study, one teacher
was in his first year of teaching, another was in his fifth year of
teaching and the third (head of department) had taught for 14 years.
As a teacher educator working at a rural university 50km from the
school, my main role was to design the professional development program
and to interview the teachers' students to collate the data onto audio
tapes which were used to enrich the teachers' discussions about their
practice.
The professional development program was conducted for two years from
December 1994 to December 1996. At the beginning of the program I
intiated teacher reflection by asking each teacher to select a grade 9
science class and to document in a diary their thoughts in considering
the question, "Why do you teach the way you do?" over a period of a
month. During this time I interviewed students from each of the
classes as explained below. At the beginning of 1995 we held our first
meeting on a pupil free day and listened to three of the student tapes
as a trigger for teacher discussion. During this time the teachers
stopped the tapes at whatever place they selected and discussed the
issue raised. We had an after school meeting several weeks later to
discuss some action plans as a result of discussions in light of the
student tapes. The teachers then decided on ideas to try in their
teaching which was followed up several weeks later by another meeting.
In all over the two year period we had three full day meetings and 10
after school meetings to discuss ideas about teaching and learning in
light of listening to the student tapes.
The research used a case study methodology (Yin, 1994) to monitor the
teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning over a period of three
years. Three data collection methods were used to gather data over the
period. First, teachers were interviewed several times throughout the
three year program. At the end of this time the teachers participated
in two conversational interviews (Quinn-Patton, 1993) to ascertain the
beliefs that underpinned their practice. The teachers were interviewed
twice more in the next 12 months to ascertain if there was any change
in their beliefs. Second, the teachers completed a survey at the
beginning of the study and 12 months later that asked them open ended
questions about their practice. This survey had previously been used
in a large scale professional development program for secondary science
teachers (Bell & Gilbert, 1993). Third, several group meetings during
the two year study were audio-recorded in which the three teachers
discussed their beliefs about their practice. Data collected using
these three methods were analysed to ascertain if there was any change
in the teachers' beliefs about their instruction over the two years.
To collect student data to enrich the teachers' community discussions,
at the beginning of the study I interviewed 10 students from each
teacher's grade 9 class to gather their views about their positive and
negative learning experiences in high school. In all 30 students were
interviewed and were asked to describe their positive and negative
learning experiences in science as well as positive learning
experiences in other subjects across the school. The focus of the
interview was to ascertain the "ways that help you to learn and ways
that do not help you to learn" in classes. Data from the interviews
were then transcribed and analyzed to identify aspects of teaching and
learning using Cambourne's conditions for learning (Cambourne, 1988) as
categories. As the questions in the interview referred to teaching
strategies that help students to learn, a good deal of data collected
referred to the social interactions between teachers and students to
support learning. Any data that did not fit into these eight categories
were placed into other categories as they emerged. For instance,
Cambourne's conditions refer only to the social influences on learning
and not individual understandings such as prior knowledge/experiences
or reflection.
I then collated the student comments about a particular category
(positive and negative comments were interspersed) by re-recording them
onto 16 separate audio-tapes that provided 10 hours of student comments
collated into various themes related to different aspects of teaching
and learning. The themes of the audio tapes were as follows: prior
knowledge; reflection; relationships; modelling; expectations;
responsibility; practice; trial & error; feedback; interest;
discussion; science practicals1 ; writing; reading; best science
teaching; and best subjects for learning. For example, the tape on
prior knowledge had 12 student anedotes with students describing how
their previous learning experiences helped them to understand
particular science concepts. The purpose of this collation of audio
data was to present the student data in a coherent manner to the
teachers and I anticipated that mixing up the comments would maintain
student confidentiality. If a student comment related to more than one
category (eg. trial & error and practicals) then they were recorded
onto both tapes. This was similar to constructing a qualitative data
base of comments about classroom learning from the students'
perspective.
To monitor the process of their learning, teachers were asked at the
end of the professional development program to sketch diagrams
describing the process of their learning. In addition the teachers
were asked to explain these diagrams. The next section presents change
in the three teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning followed by
their description of the professional development framework.
RESULTS
Change in Teachers' Beliefs
David: From a "structured" teacher to a "flexible" teacher
At the beginning of the program in 1993, David was 23 years old and was
completing his first year as a secondary science teacher. His
professional qualifications included a Bachelor of Applied Science and
a 12-month post Graduate Diploma of Education. His duties at the
school focused on the teaching of science to grades 7, 8 and 9, grade
11 Science for Life (a general science course) and grade 12 Biology.
David was also the grade 7 patron which involved providing pastoral
care to students in their first year of high school. His expectations
for his involvement in the professional development program were to
"gain a better understanding of the ways in which students at the
school learn best; to gain a better understanding of my own beliefs
about teaching; and to improve my teaching" (survey 1, Dec. 1994, qu.
11).
David's initial beliefs about teaching and learning: At the beginning
of the program he described himself as a "structured" teacher because
his lessons were tightly organized to provide students of the same
ability level with the same knowledge. He categorized science
knowledge that he taught into two types; "working knowledge" for lower
ability students and "in-depth knowledge" that more able students
should learn as well:
Well basically I feel that my job here, my role as a teacher is to give
the kids a working knowledge that they can take away with them. I like
them to get something concrete every lesson that they can pick up,
something new that perhaps they didn't understand or didn't know
before. I feel that if the kids don't do that then sometimes maybe I
am wasting my time. At the same time I like to filter out material
that's inappropriate for certain classes and certain kids. . . . I
think I have a fairly structured style as I said earlier. (Int. 1, Dec.
94, TU 13-27)
David explained that his beliefs about being a "structured" teacher
were based on his assumption that his own students would learn science
in the same way as he did at high school. Furthermore, his structured
way of teaching matched his ordered approach to life as well:
I think that a certain amount goes back to my schooling when, in
particular in science, I had it very straightforward. If ever we did an
experiment it was aim, method, results, conclusion. It was always
straight down the line and a lot of it was theory and library work and
stuff like that which I like I guess. I get sick of it sometimes, but
I do like it that way or I used to when I was at school. Why else? I
guess well maybe everything I do in life is structured too. I sort of
always think about it and by doing this I do that step, then that step,
then that step and that step. (Int. 2, Dec. 1994, TU 23)
Accordingly, he adapted the level of content he taught according to the
perceived ability level of students in his class. For example, when
David taught the topic of "Plants" to grade 9 students, he presented
"working knowledge" to all students such as general descriptions of
plants, types of roots and how plants survive and more detailed
"in-depth knowledge" to more advanced students such as plant
classification using botanical names. In both situations he planned
lessons in sections to present students with knowledge in a step by
step sequence progressing from simple to more complex concepts such
that "I think in my own mind I see doing little units of work that fit
into a bigger unit" (Int. 1, Dec. 1994).
Change in David's beliefs about teaching and learning. Five months
after the program started in May 1994, David was beginning to have
doubts about his beliefs about being a structured teacher and, "I'm not
convinced that what we are teaching at the moment is what we should be
teaching" and was contemplating "a pretty big shake-up." Having
listened to some of the student tapes during this time in group
meetings he began to think more about "how the kids are going to learn
it." This was a change from his previous beliefs because he realized
from listening to the tapes that students did not learn very well when
he presented knowledge in "small blocks". He described this change of
"mind-frame" in an interview in May, 1994 influencing him to be "a lot
more flexible" than he was before as a "structured teacher":
The thing that has affected me the most is when I'm thinking of what
I'm doing, I try to think of how the kids are going to learn and how
they're going to learn it best and I don't think I ever had that
mind-frame before. I never thought of it in that way before....The way
I teach, that has changed. I think by focusing more on looking at the
ways the kids learn, I think I've become, as I tried to describe
earlier, a lot more flexible. Trying to do different types of things
with kids that I wouldn't have thought of before. (Int. 3, May, 1995,
TU 77-82)
A developing characteristic of David as a flexible teacher was that he
now did not expect all students to learn the same knowledge in class
and was prepared to change his teaching during a lesson depending on
how the students were responding. For example, when he taught the
topic of "Astronomy", he used a jigsaw technique and allowed students
to chose between 15 different options on the topic. Students then gave
presentations on their research to the whole class. Another
characteristic of David was that he now tried to get an understanding
of his teaching from his students' perspective by putting himself in
their place during a lesson and imagining what they were thinking of
his teaching. If he thought that the students were not responding to a
particular teaching strategy then he would change this at the time
rather than adhere to his predetermined structure.
In summary, at the beginning of the professional development program,
David's understanding of himself as a "structured" teacher was based on
a view of student learning that knowledge should be presented to
students in a structured way which was consistent with the way that he
learned science at school. Accordingly, he organized lessons in a
specific "step by step" sequence based on blocks or subsets of content
so that students acquired the "working knowledge" or "in-depth
knowledge" that they needed for future schooling. Six months into the
program he described himself as a "flexible" teacher who would change
his lessons to suit the way the students were responding and his
understanding of student learning. He explained that listening to the
student tapes challenged his beliefs that students best learn in the
structured way that he learned at school and that discussions with
other teachers provided him with different ideas to try.
Craig: From a "fun" teacher to a "open learning" teacher
At the beginning of the program in December 1994, Craig had been
teaching science for 5 years and was at his second high school. His
professional qualifications included a Bachelor of Science (major in
Chemistry and Geology) and a post Graduate Diploma of Education. He
taught general science to classes in grades 7, 9 and 10 as well as
grade 11 Chemistry and 4-unit science to year 12 and was year patron
for grade 8. His expectations for his involvement in the professional
development program were to get "something useful, to get more out of
teacher-teacher interchange rather than academics coming in and giving
a professional development seminar" (Survey 1, Dec. 1994, Qu. 11).
Craig's initial beliefs about teaching and learning. At the beginning
of the program he stated that his teaching had not changed much in five
years and he described himself as a "fun" teacher whose role was to
"give the students a good understanding about why/how things are or
happen in our environment, also to give them good skill levels in
useful skills" (Survey 1, Dec. 1994, Qu. 9). His five years of
teaching experience had taught him that students often do not retain
information provided to them as, "most of them will forget 90% of what
you tell them anyway when they leave school, most of them probably
forget 90% of what you tell them when they leave the classroom" (Int.
1, Dec. 1994, TU 18).
Craig's beliefs about being a fun teacher were based on the assumption
that his own students would learn science in the same way as he did at
high school by conducting short experiments which demonstrated science
concepts. This was the way that he was taught science in years 9 and 10
by his favourite science teacher. Craig believed, therefore, that
students learn science most effectively by doing practicals so "three
quarters of what I do is prac[tical]s and 25% is theory. It is a bit
hard to work out a percentage, it depends on a topic. If I have six or
so lessons in a week, probably four we would do some kind of
prac[ticals]"(Int. 2, Dec. 1994, TU 15). Hence, Craig taught science
by presenting a sequence of science concepts which were supplemented by
practicals:
Basically I just sit down, write down everything that comes to mind
I've done in the past in a topic and then one of the things I think
about is prac[tical]s. And I think about what I can do on the topic
and think about the prac[ticals] that relate to them depending on what
we've got. A couple of the experiments I remembered from what I did
at school, some were from university but most of them I suppose I got
from another teacher when I first started teaching. (Int. 1, Dec. 1994,
TU 75-77)
For example, when he taught "Magnetism" he provided students with
magnets so that they could try to work out what materials in the
classroom were attracted to magnets, followed by activities to
demonstrate the concepts of attraction and repulsion. This was
followed by a sequence of concepts to explain electromagnetism and then
electric motors.
Change in Craig's beliefs about teaching and learning. Although Craig
still believed that practicals were the best way for students to learn,
there were some major changes in the way he organized them as a result
of listening to the student tapes and sharing experiences with his
colleagues. By May 1994, he realized that his view of organizing
practicals differed from the views of his students and this initiated a
change, "It became clear from the tapes and stuff, like I always wanted
to make the stuff fun for the kids, but it became clear that my idea of
what was fun and their idea of what was fun were slightly different.
They're sort of the same along the same lines but the way I did it
possibly wasn't right." (Int. 3, May 1994, TU 3). Accordingly, he
changed the way he organized practicals from being short and
prescriptive that he directed "bit by bit" to being longer, more
open-ended and with less definite endpoints so that students could
investigate their own ideas. His practicals now involved "more
problem-solving rather than instructional activities" to enable
students to explore their own ideas which resulted in much longer
practicals. He described how the students on the tapes preferred to
learn in science:
The majority of kids, not all, but the majority of kids said they like
doing things hands-on, so that's all this practical stuff. They like
the fact that they have some trial and error, if they muck it up they
can start again. But on the other hand with those problem-solving type
things, they like a little bit of direction and a little bit of prior
knowledge always helps. They like to do things by themselves but they
like to know where they're going. They like to know what the end-point
is going to be without getting the answer and they want to know what
way they're going to go, but they want to sort of hop along the line by
themselves. And the fact that they like that, means they can own what
they're doing and if they make a mistake they have got to fix it up, so
they are doing it in their way but with some direction. (Int. 3, May
1995, TU 61)
A characteristic of being an "open learning" teacher was a change in
the way he expected students to record their experimental results.
Instead of insisting that students follow a traditional "problem,
method, results, conclusion" format, he encouraged students to write
about their science experiments in a less structured way using their
own words, "It's messy in some cases but I get a much better
understanding of what is in the student's mind. Therefore I can
evaluate the success of the activity better and also it has allowed for
stages/speed of learning to be more individual (Survey 2, Dec. 1994,
Qu. 3). He also introduced more flexiblity into his teaching allowing
students to cover 50% of a topic with the class then choosing an
elective to concentrate on for the remaining 50%. In November 1995,
Craig stated that he thought that students should be researching topics
that interested them rather than him teaching the whole class the same
concept at once as he did in his first five years of teaching.
In summary, at the beginning of the professional development program in
December 1994, Craig described himself as a teacher who tried to make
science "fun" for his students assuming that they would learn science
in the same way as he did at high school. Consequently, when he
thought of content to teach in a topic, he thought "about the
prac[tical]s that relate to them" and taught them in a prescriptive
way. By May 1994, however, from listening to the student tapes, he
realised that the students' ideas about fun and his ideas were
different so he decided to change the way he organised his practical
classes. As a result, he encouraged students to "own what they are
doing" in experiments and to explore their ideas rather than simply
following his instructions.
Geoff: From a "reflective"teacher to a "much more reflective" teacher
At the beginning of the program in 1994, Geoff had been teaching
science for 14 years and was at his third secondary school. His
professional qualifications included a Bachelor of Science and a post
Graduate Diploma of Education. This was his first appointment as the
head of a science department and he taught general science to classes
in grades 8, 10 and Physics to grades 11 and 12. His expectations for
his involvement in the professional development program were to
"improve and clarify teaching methods and to look at teaching in
relation to student learning" (Survey 1, Dec. 1994, Qu. 11).
Geoff's initial beliefs about teaching and learning. At the beginning
of the study Geoff described himself as a conventional teacher in his
first 10 years of teaching who organized lessons so that all students
covered the same content that he presented in a linear sequence:
When I taught astronomy, I set out a deliberate sequence and the
sequence came from me. And what I did I had in my own mind that the
sequence would start from the history of astronomy and from the earth
and then build out from the solar system into the universe and try and
show a structure. Now, for most parts, the way we would have done it,
we would have had some individual assignments and things like that, but
mostly we would have gone from one part to the other and I would give
them notes from the board and overheads, that sort of thing. At the
end of the six weeks, we would have a test, and every one of the kids
in the class would have had exactly the same experience. (Int. 1,
December 1994)
At the beginning of the professional development program in December
1994, he described himself as a "reflective" teacher because over the
previous few years he had begun to question not only the content of his
teaching but also his teaching methods, "I have started to question and
reflect on how I teach it as well as what I teach." This reflection was
stimulated because he started to think about why some students failed
in science. This coincided with several professional development
courses about learning styles and constructivist views on learning.
However, he found himself in a state of flux trying to change his
method of teaching from teacher centred to being more student centred
by giving students more responsibility to conduct their own work rather
than him instructing the whole class together.
He found this attempt to change "very uncomfortable" and experienced
dilemmas as he experimented with his teaching. Perhaps this was
because he was doing this in isolation from other teachers when trying
to create better learning opportunities for his students. For example,
he stated that he had taught "The Human Body" traditionally three times
every year for 13 years by presenting the content in a sequence to the
whole class at once so that all students studied one body system at a
time. In a major change, he organized it differently with his 8A
science class by using a jigsaw method. He gave each of the students a
system to study in order to become an expert so that they could conduct
their own research and then teach it to the class. Surprisingly, he
found that the students' assessment results were the best that they
ever had achieved. This was a mystery to Geoff and a concern, because
he had less control over the process he had used as he did not teach
the class the same concept at the same time. In addition, he
experienced some dilemmas when he taught in this manner because he had
less control over what the students were learning. In fact, he
sometimes felt like going back to his conventional teacher-centred
methods because he felt that he could control what the students were
learning.
Change in Geoff's beliefs about his teaching and learning. Twelve
months after the program started Geoff described his himself as a "much
more reflective" teacher stating that he had done more reflection in
those 12 months than he had done in his whole teaching career.
Consequently, the program had provided him with a foundation for change
as he had a better understanding of his practice. In December 1994,
when he filled out his second survey he wrote that:
This course [professional development program] has crystallized my
ideas about what is good science teaching. It has confirmed some
aspects e.g. students learn by doing, but it [professional development
program] has extended my knowledge of why I am doing things. I am much
more reflective now about how successful my teaching is and also more
aware of real learning by the students" (Survey 2, Dec. 1995, Qu. 1).
As a result of listening to the student tapes and sharing experiences
with colleagues, Geoff had developed a "knowledge base about how the
kids are learning and what they understand by their learning . . . then
it all adds up to a real base for your teaching" (Int. 3, May 1995, TU
47) which increased his understanding of the relationship between
teaching and learning.
Geoff gave an example of how his teaching had changed to provide
students with opportunities to explore their own ideas based on his
insights into learning from listening to data on the student tapes.
For example when he now taught "Astronomy" the first half of each topic
addressed a common core of outcomes and then in the second half of a
topic students choose various electives to investigate based on their
interests:
One of the ways that this [professional development program] has
affected us is we've actually looked at our programs and we've made our
programs center about a core of outcomes which are actually knowledge
outcomes, not nearly as many so the core is much smaller than in the
past than I would have expected students to learn. So the students
have the same core experiences in our topics in grade 7, that core of
knowledge is centered around the earth. So the way I've done it now is
that each of the students specialize in one area. Some of them did
eclipses, some of them did tides, some of them did the phase of the
moon, some of them did the seasons, the lower ability kids did day and
night. They each had to present a little play where they themselves
became a part, became a planet or so on, and then they presented that
to the rest of the class. And the rest of the class had to ask
questions about it and then I questioned them. And the other thing
that the rest of the class had to do was they had to make up little
diagrams and notes for themselves about what the students learned.
(Int. 4, Nov. 1995)
This organization was typical of the way the teachers have reorganized
all the science topics in the year 7-10 curriculum as a consequence of
the two year professional development program.
In summary, at the beginning of the professional development program,
Geoff described himself as a "reflective teacher" who had been
attempting to change his own instruction over the previous few years
but was in a "state of flux" because he was unsure whether these
changes were beneficial for his students. As a result of the
professional development program he described himself as a "much more
reflective teacher" as the student tapes confirmed and extended his
beliefs about teaching and student learning that he had generated
himself as a result of his own reflections. At the end of the program
he stated that he thought he was a reflective teacher before the
program started but his reflections were based solely on his own
experiences and understanding of teaching and learning. He now
realised that he needed an alternative perspective on his practice to
enhance his reflections which were provided by discussions with his
colleagues in light of data on the student tapes.
The Professional Development Framework
After participating in the professional development program for two
years, the three teachers held two meetings (several weeks apart) which
were audio taped to explain their perspective on the framework which
underpinned their learning. At the end of the first meeting the
teachers sketched a diagram that represented the process of their own
learning which is shown in Appendix 1. The teachers described the
process as a "complex relationship" of many factors. The diagram shows
that their professional development involved an interplay between the
teachers' own prior knowledge, time to discuss practice and time for
preparation, their collegiality, teacher reflection, student tapes,
teacher interviews, outside agent, change in practice and programming.
Several weeks later the teachers held another meeting and fine tuned
their first model because it was too complicated. They produced a
second model which indicated a clearer relationship between the main
factors and this is shown below in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Teachers' Revised Model Representing Professional Development
Process
The teachers also described their model during the meeting on the audio
tape and how the main components or factors related. The teachers
stated that what started the process was the juxtaposition of
reflecting on their own practice in light of listening to the student
tapes which allowed them to compare their ideas about teaching and
learning with the ideas of their own students. During the recorded
meeting, Geoff, the head of department stated:
The thing that starts you off is the combination of listening to the
students' tapes and having the opportunity to reflect on your own
performance and to sort of put down what you think about teaching onto
tape in our interviews. Now, all of that was really important because
it's like a starting point, it uses something to base what you're doing
on.
Once the teachers continued reflecting on their practice and discussed
ideas with colleagues, they generated ideas to try in their practice.
However, it was not a one off event. The personal reflection and
discussion with colleagues continued as they developed into a community
who shared experiences and ideas for the common purpose of improving
their practice. Geoff stated in the second meeting:
But then the important thing was that it continued on over time and all
the time we were coming back to these, we kept going back to these
inputs that came in. And then other things came in from the side, your
input, your views, things like that, all taken on board. The
collegiality, talking to the others, working towards a common purpose
that encourages you because you tend to lose the plot of it in the day
to day hurly-burly.
Having reflected on their teaching, listened to feedback on their
practice from the student tapes and sharing experiences with their
colleagues, the teachers started to think about change. This means
that the teachers considered action to put into practice some ideas
that they discussed in their meetings. Geoff stated:
What happens then is you start to think about change and then what
happens is you look at change and then you get the feedback . . . from
the students, how you feel it's going, from the collegiality again,
from your colleagues talking it over.
What the teachers emphasised in their meeting as they discussed the
framework underpinning their professional development was that it was
an iterative process which involved the teachers in a back and forth
pattern of reflection, discussion, feedback and trying ideas:
The basis of it is that skeleton, that starting point-the student tapes
and your own opportunities for reflection, and then the change,
feedback, more reflection, change, feedback, that cycle all the time
bringing in ideas from outside, from other inputs, from your
colleagues, from you and so on. And I think if any of these factors
had been missing, then it wouldn't have worked.
In summary, the teachers described this process of professional
learning as a "cycle of change" because their learning was linked to a
framework that made it different from other professional development
programs in which they had been involved. Geoff summarised this for
the group:
So the whole thing becomes sort of a cycle of change where you start
with the student tapes and you start to reflect on the various aspects
that you practice and you bring in all these external influences and
you bring them together in your head and try work out what you're going
to do yourself in a classroom. And the important thing about it is
that, and this is where it is different to other forms of professional
development and this is why it's caused change, is that it is
continually reinforced because it is ongoing and because it has this
framework that we keep coming back to, we feel as though we're part of
a project and part of a process that's ongoing and not short term. It's
not a stick a finger in the dyke here, stick another finger in the dyke
there, learn about literacy here, learn about assessment there-it's a
whole integrated package.
In the next section I will discuss the value of action learning as a
framework to underpin teachers' professional development and the role
of introducing student interview data to enrich teachers' discussions
about their practice.
DISCUSSION
For each of the three teachers there was a substantial change in their
beliefs about teaching and learning as a result of the professional
development program. David's change was the most dramatic which is not
surprising considering that he was in his first year of teaching at the
beginning of the professional developent program. He began his teaching
career as a very "structured" teacher whose pedagogy was mainly based
on a transmissive view of teaching as he believed that his role was to
deliver prescriptive knowledge to students in a deliberate sequence
from simple to more complex. His understanding of student learning was
limited, however, as he assumed that all students learned science in
the same structured way as he did at school. As he developed a deeper
understanding of student learning throughout the program, he changed
into a "flexible" teacher and began to adjust his teaching to
accomodate different ways of student learning.
Craig also showed substantial change in his beliefs about teaching
which had stayed relatively static during his first five years of his
career. His views were also based on the assumption that his students
would learn science in the same way as he did at school by doing
science practicals which demonstrated a sequence of concepts.
Geoff, however, did not change his beliefs about teaching and learning
as much as the other two teachers. He had many more years of teaching
experience than the others and was already a reflective teacher before
the professional development program started. Nonetheless, the
professional development program had a major influence on him as it
confirmed many of his teaching ideas that he had been experimenting
with but was unsure about the benefit of these changes for students.
In particular, the professional development program gave him a
knowledge base of student learning upon which to base his teaching.
For this small group of enthusiastic teachers, the action learning
framework was very benefical for their professional development. In
particular, the teachers formed a community which is the educational
principle at the heart of the action learning process. However, the
teachers attributed their learning over two years to other factors as
well. The factors shown in Figure 1 are consistent with the action
learning principles which were discussed at the beginning of this
paper. For instance, "discussion and collegiality" in the diagram is
similar to community, "change" is similar to action, "reflection" is
the same and student tapes equates to feedback. The teachers also
included "time' in their diagram which was an important aspect of the
program for them.
The professional development program had a marked effect on the
teachers because it was based on four recurring principles. This is the
theoretical basis of the program- teachers reflected on their practice
and listened to feedback on their teaching from their students and
shared their ideas as a community and were able to experiment with
their ideas. So the starting point for professional development was
each teacher's understanding of his current practice which was then
influenced by other principles of learning on a recurring basis.
Furthermore, these four components are interrelated because they have a
common thread-each teacher's own practice. This means that the
professional development program has a very personal influence. The
teachers are reflecting on their own practice, hearing comments about
their teaching from their own students, discussing ideas with their
colleagues and trying ideas in their own practice. Hence, each
teacher's practice is the context linking the four principles so that
they interact with each other to encourage teacher learning.
This interaction creates a synergy between the principles such that
collectively they have more influence than individually. Consequently,
action learning becomes "holististically synergistic" (Cusins, 1995).
This means that each principle enhances each other so that the effect
of the whole professional development becomes greater than the sum of
each of the component principles. For example an individual can reflect
on a personally relevant issue or problem, invite colleagues to share
ideas as a community to address the issue, and then experiment with
some of these ideas in his/her own practice. The outcomes of this
experimentation are then reflected upon and discussed at a subsequent
meeting. In this respect the common thread is the issue or problem
that is being considered, discussed and experimented with. Hence,
action learning is most effective when all four principles are
operating together with the principles acting like the four blades of a
propeller to drive the professional development program.
Although the educational principles underpinning action learning are
shown in Figure 1, the diagram is limited as it is not representative
of the dynamic nature of the process. For example, it is the recursive
nature of the four principles interracting together that drives the
program and keeps the teachers thinking about their practice.
Furthermore, there are alternating phases of sharing ideas (community
phase) and personal action (action phase). This is similar to Argyris
and Schon's (1974) notion of double loop learning except that enriched
action learning is more like multiple loop learning. Perhaps a more
representative diagram that demonstrates the recursive nature of the
educational principles of action learning is shown below in Figure 2:
Community Reflection
Action Reflection Community
Figure 2. Professional Development Model showing
Enriched Action Learning Cycles
What made this professional development different from other
collaborative programs was the introduction of recorded student
interviews describing their learning experiences for the teachers to
listen to in their discussions. For both David and Craig, listening to
the student data in their community meetings challenged their
"apprenticeship of observation" (Lortie, 1975) that their students were
learning science the same way as they did at school. In effect,
challenging the assumptions that underpin their practice provided
dissonance in their thinking and acted as a lever to encourage
reflection on their practice. Hence, listening to the student data
initiated a need for David and Craig to change and helped them to
engage in conversations about improving practice with their colleagues.
Conversely, listening to the student data confirmed many of Geoff's
beliefs about his practice that he had been exploring himself to
improve his teaching based on his "gut instincts". Furthermore,
student data gave the teachers directions for change as data identified
effective teaching practice across other subjects within the school.
This was a valuable resource for teaching ideas because it was the
students, not teachers, who are exposed to a wide range of teaching
approaches across different subjects on a daily basis. For instance,
David began to "think like a student" in class and Craig considered
many of the suggestions made by students about good teaching practice
and reorganised the way he conducted science practicals.
The student data on tape also provides a resource for use at any time.
Because the data were organised onto 16 theme tapes, the teachers could
listen to them at their convenience over two years. In effect, it was
the dissonance created by the student data that was the catalyst for
change. However, the teachers valued the input of student data
describing their role as "critical" in stimulating their discussions.
But listening to student data is not enough on its own to sustain
teachers' learning. All three teachers claimed that it was essential
in the program to have time to reflect and discuss ideas with their
colleagues. Furthermore, what urged them in changing their practice
was the sense of community generated among the small group from sharing
their ideas about their teaching. This is because the teachers were
committed to developing as a faculty which provided them with momentum
to undertake group projects such as developing a new year 7-10
curriculum and assessment procedures.
CONCLUSION
The learning environment for teachers in most secondary schools leaves
a great deal to be desired as they are extremely busy places and it is
not unusual for a teacher to have five different classes a day which
means teaching up to 100 students. Furthermore, meetings of teachers
are often to disseminate administrative details or new programs.
Rarely are meetings dedicated to exchanging ideas about teaching or to
encourage reflection on their practice. The consequence is that a
teacher's pedagogy is often dominated by their knowledge of subject
matter, not student learning or different aspects of pedagogy.
This study has shown that action learning is a process which starts
with how teachers understand their practice and develops their
understanding of the relationship between how they teach and their
students' learning. In particular enriching the community discussions
with interview data from their own students challenges their
assumptions about teaching and informs them about the complexity of the
relationship. In short designing a professional development program
based on enriched action learning provides a learning environment for
teachers to share what they value most-their own experiences, the
experiences of other teachers and the experiences of their own
students.
There have been major changes in the practice of science teaching at
this rural high school in Australia as the teachers developed a broader
platform upon which to base their teaching. It has taken several years
and it has involved some personal discomfort in terms of the teachers
reflecting and listening to data on their teaching from their own
students. But the teachers have kept it going voluntarily for three
years and have been in charge of their own change. Perhaps this is
because the teachers were not told how they should be teaching, but
were helped to better understand their current practice and were
supported in efforts for change that they decided upon.
The challenge now is how to engage other subject faculties in the
school as small action learning communities. It is Key to this process
are opportunities for students to inform teachers about their quality
of their instruction to initiate a dialogue about the relationship
between teaching and learning. The outcome is that teacher learning is
driven by student learning-a catalyst for sustaining teachers'
professional development.
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