Conceptualizing a Model for Teachers’ Knowledge Development and Mobilization

• In Event: Mobilizing Teachers’ Research Knowledge: School Improvement in Leeds, United Kingdom

Abstract

1. Objectives of the session
This paper aims to analyse the ‘Leading Learning’ project’s model of CPD, designed to strengthen the professional knowledge base required for teaching pupils disadvantaged by poverty and deprivation and disengaged and alienated from school. The objectives are to (a) investigate the opportunities in this pilot study for engagement in joint work, critical reflection and problem solving geared to individual, collective and school improvement (Lieberman and Miller, 2008); (b) examine teachers’ preferences for learning in this particularly turbulent period for teacher education in England (Whitehead, 2011), given the political and social context of their work; and (c) construct a reply to the reform of training, notably the controversial directions to focus on techniques like behavior management and teaching reading (Gove, 2011), which in many respects has a long history (Gilroy, 1992).

2. Overview of the presentation
The presentation will map and assay academic partners’ negotiations with the former school Head and teacher researchers about the CPD, with a specific focus on common challenges: creating and maintaining a strong partnership, establishing and embedding an excellent model for teachers’ lifelong learning, and coping with shifting contexts for schools and the university (Murray, 2011).

3. Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
A review and synthesis of findings from current research and development about professional learning communities (Lieberman and Miller, 2008) informs this case study of the pilot study school, guided by a practical question: how can we support good teaching in order to narrow the gap in achievement? Modeling an inquiry stance (Cochran-Smith and Lytle, 2001, 2009), further questions are asked about teachers’ professional knowledge, academics’ research knowledge, teaching practices, the school’s community, and the shared values and principles driving the school’s work.

4. Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials
Data includes policy briefings to the local authority and Board of Governors in regards school closure; records of negotiations with the school to establish a professional learning community; fieldwork notes; samples of teacher researchers’ work; transcriptions of digitally recorded CPD sessions; Interim Reports (Hagon and Beckett, 2010; forthcoming); and a log of reflections.

5. Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view
This case study work will identify the opportunities for building capacity for teacher research, especially focused on the social class attainment gap (Lupton, 2006; Perry and Francis, 2010), and kindle reflections on the relationship between teacher research and knowledge for and about teaching (Cochran-Smith and Lytle, 1998, 2001, 2010).

6. Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work
The work in this pilot study school, committed to improving outcomes for disadvantaged pupils, provokes an interrogation of the ‘Leading Learning’ project and the CPD model for developing and mobilizing teachers’ research knowledge. Done in a specific political and social context, fraught with controversies, it contributes to democratic deliberations about the education system (Pollard and Oancea, 2010). The work reported has utility for building professional learning communities across the city of Leeds, and promoting the use of evidence in policy and practice decisions locally and nationally.

Author

• Lori Beckett, Leeds Metropolitan University