Learning Together: Researchers and Teachers' Collaboration as a Mechanism of Professional Development

• In Event: School Leadership of Teacher Professional Development as Contested Practice Globally: Roles of Professional Learning Networks

Abstract

Nowadays, teachers have to deal with a wide range of professional challenges to adapt their practices according to the new knowledge management, students' expectations, and new types of cooperation and collaborations influenced by the networked society (e.g., van Schaik et al., 2018).

In Romania, there is an agreement that teachers have to be involved in professional development and learning opportunities during their entire professional life in both formal and informal settings. Traditionally, teachers used to participate mostly in structured activities such as educational courses, workshops, or seminars, oriented towards improving their teaching promoted mainly by the public administration ( School Inspection, Ministry of Education) through structured and systematic activities and usually implemented by the university academics. Although such activities introduce teachers to valuable knowledge and skills, they are also perceived as unlinked to real classroom situations and context (Ion & Iucu, 2014).

To address specific teachers' needs and considering that teachers find their learning occurring horizontally, from peers and in the group (Ion & Iucu, 2016), in the last years emerged several initiatives promoting professional learning, driven by the motivations, interests, and needs of teachers. Universities have supported these initiatives, others by the schools themselves or private organisations as consortiums of professional associations, NGOs, firms, etc.

In this communication, we focus on the potential of professional networks promoted by universities as teachers' professional development mechanisms. We explore the: 1) role of academic researchers, school leaders, and teachers in PLNs, 2) the dynamic of teachers- researchers interaction to foster knowledge mobilization and teaching improvement.

The data derive from an analysis of different initiatives driven by universities and public/private entities and illustrates it with a good practice of university-school collaboration in the framework of the Rodawell project. This project is implemented by the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Studies at the University of Bucharest in partnership with VIA University College Denmark, aiming to develop together with 27 schools and kindergartens interventions to foster socio-emotional and behavioural wellbeing of children. Rodawell intervention focused on five main directions: training with teachers, development of action plans for institutions, bimonthly coaching meetings with teachers (post-training intervention), workshops developed by schools to share practices and train of trainers' modules for teachers to transfer the model of intervention designed in the project.

The data analysis reveals perceived benefits of PLN promoted by the university: 1) teachers actively engage with reflexive practice during the coaching sessions with researchers; 2) leaders played a critical role in the selection of reference teachers in schools but during the intervention teachers gain autonomy and feel empowered to maintain the intervention after the project ended 3) the collaboration between university and schools through the coaching meeting stimulate teachers’ authentic actions based on the real analysis of the context and enriched with data extracted from their practice (Ciolan, et al, 2019).

Authors

• Mihaela Stingu, University of Bucharest

• Georgeta Ion, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona