Teacher education as a nexus for endogenous pedagogic innovation: exploring a systems model for scale-up

• In Event: Sustainability/development

Proposal

Education for sustainability scholars argue for educational transformation at the level of ontology (Sterling, 2016). Reflecting on our own experience of pedagogic innovation and modest scale-up within teacher education in Tanzania, we argue for reconceptualizing scale-up. Turning to sustainability theory, we critically explore the potential of autopoietic complex systems as a model for how scale-up can be achieved through pre-existing professional networks. We show how this model is compatible with research literature on scale-up in low in come contexts (Samoff, Dembélé, & Sebatane, 2013) and the role of teacher education in improving pedagogy within education systems (Dembélé & Lefoka, 2007; Stuart, 2002).

Within the Language Supportive Teaching and Textbooks project, pedagogy was treated as endogenous knowledge, developed within the context of implementation. Science teacher educators collaborated with language and communications experts at two neighbouring universities and three linked teacher colleges to develop a pedagogic approach to integrating language with science learning. Scale-up was planned as a process of embedding ‘language supportive pedagogy’ within science education programmes, one teacher education module at a time. Hence, a pedagogic innovation was shared with teacher educators across five institutions through a process of collaborative professional inquiry, intended to develop theoretical understanding as well as practice.

What followed was that the teacher education programmes provided a structure and network for ongoing development and scale-up of the innovation. Having introduced their students to language supportive pedagogy, teacher educators looked for ways to support students’ practice during their three-month period of teaching practice in schools. This involved introducing the school leadership at the placement schools to the innovation. The teacher education colleges insisted that language supportive pedagogy should be implemented uniformly across the curriculum and demanded seminars for their whole staff. This has created the need and opportunity for further professional inquiry focused on the language learning demands of arts and humanities secondary school subjects. Within the university, which originated language supportive pedagogy, project leaders have shared their language supportive approach with academic staff of other faculties. Teacher Colleges have demanded the project introduce the innovation to quality assurance officers.

Dominant models for conceptualising change within education systems do not capture the interplay of professional agency and institutional structures that has allowed language supportive pedagogy to scale-up. The ‘stages of development’ schema has been a zeitgeist of international development since the 1960s. Its logic underpins the identification and transfer of ‘best practice’, often critiqued within comparative education. Within Tanzania, the structure of the education system is modelled as a hierarchical pyramid. Change can be transmitted downward through a chain of command or emerge as a subaltern movement from the grassroots. Education for sustainability offers an alternative model of complex systems. Connections between institutions are understood as multidirectional within a system that is autopoietic, inherently capable of self-organisation or self-learning. This schema is compatible with the notion of collegial professionalism, where expertise is located within teachers, who are continuously learning from one another(Hargreaves, 2000). It also compatible with Samoff et al.’s (2013) arguments that scale-up should focus on the conditions that make an innovation successful.

We use the concept of autopoietic systems to identify the conditions that made scale-up language supportive project possible. Our analysis focuses on the role of professional agency, teacher educators and external experts in pedagogic renewal. We argue that autopoiesis inheres within the interaction between professional agency and institutional structures. Collegial professional learning does not just spontaneously emerge but is actively chosen and patiently nurtured. Two features of the language supportive pedagogy illustrate this. First, teacher education institutions became a nexus for pedagogic innovation because they are, structurally, well placed to be a “fulcrum for change” (Stuart 2002) within education systems. However, that potential was only realised when teacher educators engaged in collaborative inquiry as a form of action research. Second, scale-up was in many ways an extension of the process of innovation. An expanding circle of teacher educators were invited or requested to engage with the praxis of innovation. So far, engagement with the project has always been a matter of choice. As our community of professional inquirers expands and communicates with professionals in schools and across university faculties, the potential exists for other communities of practice to engage in professional inquiry around similar or related pedagogic problems. The paper concludes by arguing that an ontological shift in how we conceptualise change within education systems is a necessary step towards creating the possibility of scale up of innovation.


Dembélé, M., & Lefoka, P. (2007). Pedagogical Renewal for Quality Universal Primary Education: Overview of Trends in Sub-Saharan Africa. International Review of Education, 53(5/6), 531-553. doi:0.1007/s 11159-007-9066-8
Hargreaves, A. (2000). Four Ages of Professionalism and Professional Learning. Teachers and Teaching, 6(2), 151-182. doi:10.1080/713698714
Samoff, J., Dembélé, M., & Sebatane, E. M. (2013). Scaling up by focusing down: creating space and capacity to extend education reform in Africa. In L. Tikly & A. M. Barrett (Eds.), Education Qualty and Social Justice in the Global South: Challenges for policy, practice and research (pp. 121-138). London and New York: Routledge.
Sterling, S. (2016). A Commentary on Education and Sustainable Development Goals. Journal of Education for Sustainable Development, 10(2), 208-213. doi:10.1177/0973408216661886
Stuart, J. S. (2002). College tutors: a fulcrum for change? International Journal of Educational Development, 22(3), 367-379. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0738-0593(01)00058-X

Authors

• Angeline M. Barrett, University of Bristol

• Francis William, University of Dodoma