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Rethinking Teacher Capacity

Rethinking Teacher Capacity. Bill McDiarmid Boeing Professor of Education University of Washington. Who Am I. Teacher (36 years) Elementary, secondary, higher ed Rural & urban Father & husband Partnership builder Researcher (rural teachers & schools) Product of rural America.

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Rethinking Teacher Capacity

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  1. Rethinking Teacher Capacity Bill McDiarmid Boeing Professor of Education University of Washington

  2. Who Am I • Teacher (36 years) • Elementary, secondary, higher ed • Rural & urban • Father & husband • Partnership builder • Researcher (rural teachers & schools) • Product of rural America

  3. Why this topic? • Capacity: “Innate potential for growth, development, or accomplishment.” • Aid in thinking about how best to support teachers -- along the continuum • Radical changes in the context of teaching unacknowledged

  4. Story of Teacher Capacity: Continuities Categories are still useful • Knowledge • Skills • Dispositions

  5. Continuity: What Teachers Need to Know & Be • (1) Subject matter: “careful review of the branches of knowledge required to be taught in our schools” • (2) Pedagogical methods: “the art of teaching…” • (3) Learning: “the laws which control the faculties of the youthful mind in pursuit and attainment of the truth” • (4) Positive moral influence on students • Massachusetts Governor Everett at the opening the Barre Normal School, 1839

  6. Knowledge • Learners -- both in general & specifically • Content -- what they teach • Methods -- how they create learning opportunities • Context -- School, community, state, regional, national, international

  7. The Teaching Triangle Learner Context Context Teacher Curriculum Context

  8. Skills • Craft knowledge-- i.e., How to … • organize a classroom • manage groups of (often reluctant) learners with individual needs • counsel children/youth • present new ideas, information, & processes • assess what students are learning • work with parents, colleagues, staff, administrators, community members • manage paper flow • perform a range of non-instructional tasks • use constantly changing technology • mentor beginning teachers

  9. Dispositions • Attitudes, Values, Beliefs, Commitments • Caring about kids, colleagues, the community • Believing that all children can learn what is in the curriculum • Committed to ensuring each child learns • Valuing public schools -- where all are welcome & nurtured -- as critical to democracy • Valuing the transmission of essential cultural knowledge • Valuing the intellectual, social, & spiritual development of every child

  10. Story of Teacher Capacity: Discontinuities

  11. How was teaching different 36 years ago? • Students, classrooms, & schools • More homogenous ethnically & linguistically • Special needs students segregated • Teachers more control over curriculum, methods, assessment • Stronger local control, far less federal & state regulation

  12. How was teaching different 36 years ago: Standards for Success • Largely locally determined -- therefore, uneven (lower in some rural areas) • High school graduates worthy & employed members of community • Maybe higher ed • Kids “happy,” learned social skills

  13. What social & cultural factors account for differences? • Immigration & changing demographics • Changes in family make-up • More single parents (most work) • More mothers who work

  14. What economic factors account for differences? • Fewer good paying manufacturing jobs • More low paying service sector jobs • Fewer rural jobs • Greater global competition for markets • Housing less affordable in some areas • Higher education much more expensive

  15. Summary: Changes over the Past Several Decades • More ethnically & linguistically diverse students (and growing more so) • Mainstreaming of special needs students • Less local control • Higher expectations for student performance • Changing family structure • Fewer well-paid blue-color jobs • Global competition

  16. Internal Changes: Rethinking Learning New standards emphasize students’ ability not only to master key information, & process but to understand underlying ideas & concepts. Teachers’ task: Understand the underlying ideas/concepts & transform them for diverse learners.

  17. Internal Changes: Rethinking Learning • Understanding learning as a social rather than solely individual phenomenon • Understand our world through interactions with others • Language -- a social medium -- shapes what we experience • Question: How do we take advantage? How can technology be used?

  18. Internal Changes:Rethinking Knowledge • New knowledge being added a dizzying pace • Impossible for individual to know an entire field • Greater interdependence -- no one has the whole truth -- rather, strands • Debate about what cultural knowledge to pass on -- hence, debate over standards

  19. Internal Changes:Rethinking Learners • Increased understanding of differences in learners -- modalities but also prior experience • Persistent lack of success for same groups of students • Poor -- both rural & urban • Students of color • English language learners • Special needs • Price paid by unsuccessful students never higher

  20. Rethinking Schools & Democracy 19th c. origins: common schools as “social cement” & educating the citizenry 20th c.: increasing emphasis on economic role of schooling -- individual & national Measure of ed success: International competitiveness Teachers: responsible for nurturing the dispositions, habits, & practices critical to a democracy

  21. RethinkingTeacher Learning & Expertise • Teaching as a practice that is shaped… • Colleagues & school community • Surrounding community • District & state policies • Textbook & curriculum publishers • Standardized assessments • Requires knowledge & skills to negotiate a practice -- not acknowledged

  22. RethinkingTeacher Learning & Expertise • Nature of teaching expertise • Routine expertise: “years of problem-solving experiences in a given domain, can solve familiar types of problems quickly & accurately” • Adaptive expertise: “go beyond the routine competencies … flexible, innovative, and creative competencies rather than … speed, accuracy, and automaticity of solving familiar problems”

  23. RethinkingTeacher Learning & Expertise • Developing adaptive expertise requires time & support -- occurs across the continuum • How do we support teachers across the continuum in developing their adaptive expertise? • Requires rethinking teachers’ careers as well as opportunities to learn from their practice & colleagues

  24. What Does All this Rethinking Suggest • Developing “cultures of evidence” in schools & universities • What’s the evidence that what we are doing is helping every student learn? • Not just gathering data -- but interpreting it for practice in a transparent process

  25. Conclusions • Discontinuities outweigh continuities in our understanding of teacher capacity • Changing what teachers need to know, be able to do, & care about • Contextual changes -- in society, politics, economy, & accumulation of knowledge • Internal changes -- in understanding the social nature of learning, how teachers learn over time

  26. Implications? What do you think?

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