Recruiting the Best: Assessment and Coaching in Teacher Education

1. HRK German Rectors’ Conference 2014 • How Can We Recruit the Best? • Assessment and Coaching • for Degree Programmes • in Teacher Education, Induction Phases • and Teaching Assignments • Input 2 • Jim O’Brien, The University of Glasgow

2. Presentation Outline • Discovery v Integration • Recruiting the Best • Teacher Standards • Induction • Assessment and Coaching • Career Long Professional Learning • Questions for Consideration

3. Scottish Context : policy priorities and prescriptions • Pre-devolution characteristics of teacher education policy & practice • Central control & National Committees • Funding changes for CPD, competition & national packages • Staff development & review • Post-devolution • The McCrone Agreement and Standards Framework • “Fuzzy” ill-defined Partnership - Employers/Providers • Challenges: Purposes • Control or Empowerment? • Sound structures but strategy light? • Donaldson Review

4. Scottish Context: Donaldson Review & National Partnership Response • Donaldson Review • Career long learning for teachers including leadership development • Eclectic mix of recommendations - no weighting provided • National Planning Group Response, September 2012: • Bringing it all together? • Recognition of changes happening eg revitalised PRD and introduction of professional update • Partnership KEY - players - teachers, schools, EAs, Unions, GTCS, Education Scotland, ADES, Universities, Other providers • Masters level teachers/ Enhanced Leadership/ Quality enhanced learning and leadership/ Professional Inquiry/ Coaching and Mentoring/ Leadership Framework - Scottish College of Educational Leadership • National Implementation Board • Reference: O’Brien, J. (2011) Continuing professional development for Scottish teachers: • Tensions in policy and practice. Professional Development in Education, 37(5), 777-792.

5. Discovery or Integration BOYER'S FOUR SCHOLARSHIPS DISCOVERY INTEGRATION APPLICATION TEACHING

6. Discovery or Integration BOYER'S FOUR SCHOLARSHIPS "Basic research has come to be viewed as the first and most essential form of scholarly activity, with other functions flowing from it. Scholars are academics who conduct research, publish, and then perhaps convey their knowledge to students or apply what they have learned. The latter functions grow out of scholarship, they are not to be considered a part of it. But knowledge is not necessarily developed in such a linear manner. The arrow of causality can, and frequently does, point in both directions. Theory surely leads to practice. But practice also leads to theory. And teaching, at its best, shapes both research and practice."

7. Discovery or Integration 6

8. New Context for Life-Long Learning 7

9. New Meaning for Life-Long Learning It is not just an idea: it's a very detailed plan to repair all the types of molecular and cellular damage that happen to us over time. And each method to do this is either already working in a preliminary form (in clinical trials) or is based on technologies that already exist and just need to be combined. This means that all parts of the project should be fully working in mice within just 10 years and we might take only another 10 years to get them all working in humans. When we get these therapies, we will no longer all get frail and decrepit and dependent as we get older, and eventually succumb to the innumerable ghastly progressive diseases of old age... I think the first person to live to 1,000 might be 60 already. Dr Aubrey de Grey(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4003063.stm)

10. Major References Used Totterdell, M., Woodroffe, L., Bubb, S. & Hanrahan, K. (2004) The impact of nqt induction programmes on the enhancement of teacher expertise, professional development, job satisfaction or retention rates: A systematic review of research on induction. Report for EPPI-Centre, Social Science Research Unit, Institute of Education (London). Guarino, C. M., Santibanez L. & Daley, G. A. (2006) Teacher recruitment and retention: A review of the recent empirical literature. Review of Educational Research, 76(2), 173-208. OECD (2006) Teachers matter: attracting,developing and retaining effective teachers. Paris: OECD OECD (2006) Teachers matter: attracting,developing and retaining effective teachers . Paris: OECD Donaldson, G. (2010) Teaching Scotland's Future: Report of a review of teacher education in Scotland. Edinburgh: Scottish Government Ingersoll, R.M. (Ed.) (2012) A Comparative Study of Teacher Preparation and Qualifications in Six Nations. Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) Draper, J. & O’Brien, J. (2006) Induction ~ Fostering Career Development at All Stages. Edinburgh: Dunedin Academic Press. Schleicher, A. (Ed.) (2012) Preparing teachers and developing school leaders for the 21st century – Lessons from around the world, Paris: OECD Darling-Hammond, L. (1999) Reshaping Teaching Policy, Preparation and Practice: influences on the National Board for Teaching Professional Standards. Washington, DC: AACTE Publications.

11. Recruiting the Best QUALIFICATIONS QUALIFICATIONS QUALIFICATIONS

12. Recruiting the Best • Schleicher, A (ed.) (2012) Preparing teachers and developing school leaders for the 21st century – Lessons from around the world, OECD:Paris • [Chapter 3 Preparing teachers : matching demand and supply] • The challenge of teacher shortages • Making teaching an attractive career choice • Compensation schemes to match teacher supply and demand • Establishing effective employment conditions • Ensuring high-quality initial teacher education • Providing for attractive careers • Meeting the need for ongoing professional development to address issues of teacher supply • Conclusions

13. Recruiting the Best

14. Recruiting the Best • Characteristics of effective teachers: • High levels of subject knowledge • Teaching expertise • High levels of literacy & numeracy • Interest in improving & self-development • Reflective and research oriented • Strong interpersonal & communication skills • Ability to innovate and cope with change • High Performing systems think carefully about: • how many teachers are needed • making the profession attractive and competitive - status, pay and conditions • pre-service selection process eg graduate only profession • pre-service education & training • how CPD and PM reduce attrition • Approaches Adopted: • Golden Hellos in shortage areas • Training salaries or bursaries • Major advertising campaigns • Alternative Routes to teaching • Scotland’s approach to recruiting teachers: • High levels of subject knowledge • Evidence of a desire to teach • Moving to tests for literacy and numeracy • raised the tariff for entry to TE in University • All applicants interviewed by HE/Profession • Joined up thinking re school curriculum • Issues: • STEM recruits • Straight from School • Wider access policies • Recession • Alternative more attractive employment • Concerns about innovation fatigue

15. Teacher Standards

16. Standards = Quality Teachers? Teacher Standards are introduced and justified by the claim they make schools and teachers more professional and thus more effective with a prime purpose being to raise the attainment of students or learners in schools. “teachers’ qualifications – based on measures of knowledge and expertise, education, and experience – account for a larger share of the variance in students’ achievement than any other single factor, including poverty, race, and parent education” Darling-Hammond et al, 2001 • “… to improve educational performance of educational systems and to improve the practices of teachers in classrooms. In some settings, professional standards have been imposed by governments and are used as regulatory frameworks and bureaucratic controls over teachers, particularly as they relate to licensing and certification procedures. In other instances, they are used as an initiative for teachers to gain professional control over what constitutes professional work” • Sachs, 2003

17. Standards a warning? • Teaching standards are not a magic bullet. By themselves, they cannot solve the problems of dysfunctional school organizations, outmoded curricula, inequitable allocation of resources, or lack of social supports for children and youth. Standards, like all reforms, hold their own dangers. Standard setting in all professions must be vigilant against the possibilities that practice could become constrained by the codification of knowledge that does not significantly acknowledge legitimate diversity of approaches or advances in the field; that access to practice could become overly restricted on grounds not directly related to competence; or that adequate learning opportunities for candidates to meet standards may not emerge on an equitable basis. • Darling-Hammond, 1999

18. http://www.gtcs.org.uk/standards

19. Teacher Standards Australian Charter for the Professional Learning of Teachers and School Leaders, Aug 2012

20. Scotland Context Curriculum for Excellence Donaldson Review Initial Teacher Education Teacher Standards Teacher Professionalism & Development

21. Assessment and Coaching • Assessment is a “2 way street”: • teachers are being assessed • teachers are assessing the career in terms of their immediate contexts and socialisation processes - ‘Am I staying or going?’ • Mentoring and Coaching • Formal mentoring with an allocated and trained mentor • A named personal Tutor • Residency programmes - clinical medical approaches combining coursework with mentoring and extensive field practice • Importance of having staff trained in mentoring and coaching roles • Collaboration and ‘learning communities’ encouraged • Tension between Support and Assessment

22. Teacher Induction • Induction may be understood in many different ways: • as a period of time where new staff are allowed not to know about the organisation; • as a set of supportive experiences; • as a route for early feedback and review; • as a requirement; • as an entitlement; • as an obligation on employers; • as an opportunity for learning; • as a trial by fire (proving competence); • as an investment in new staff; • as an extended process of staff selection; • as a time when identity may be further shaped; • as a time when support is offered for development. • Two key aspects: • induction as a time of proving competence or of developing practice which links to fitting a prescribed pattern of practice and developing as an individual teacher; • induction as a time where support is offered. • Draper, J. & O’Brien, J. (2006: 12) Induction ~ fostering career development at all stages. Edinburgh: Dunedin Academic Press.

23. Promoting Career-long Teacher Education • Career long teacher education is • a coherent approach to teacher • education which is underpinned by a • framework of standards which signpost • the ways in which professional capacity • should grow progressively across a • career (p 10). • Donaldson Report (2010)

24. Scotland Reforms: Key principles • Process – standards review and development • Coherent framework • Values across all the standards • Links to National Partnership Group process and key stakeholders

25. The Professional Standards:(GTCS, 2012) • The Standards for Registration • The Standard for Provisional Registration • The Standard for Full Registration • The Standard for Career-Long Professional Learning • The Standards for Leadership and Management • The Standard for Middle Leadership • The Standard for Headship

26. Professional Development • Career-long teacher education: • What is the model of professional progression: tension between legal requirement for SFR and teachers’ ongoing professional learning and development? • How do we balance expectations of leadership as a permeating theme and the development of pedagogy?

27. Career long teacher education: issues and tensions • Having as a system determined that ITE cannot be isolated we need to be careful in moving forward • purposes: developmental versus accountability • individual models: encouraged, incentivized, compelled? • impact: institutional versus individual • sustainable partnerships • career patterns and the problem of linearity • construction of expertise • changing role and position of the teacher: teacher as consultant?

28. A Technicist Approach? Wilkin (1999: Section 1) Teacher training has become painting by numbers, or rather learning to teach by numbers; and, moreover, institutions are to be checked to see whether they are painting carefully and accurately within the lines. Wilkin, M. (1999) The Role of Higher Education in Teacher Training. Occasional Paper No.12,. London : Universities Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET)

29. Control or Empowerment? • Day, C. and Gu, Q. (2007) 'Variations in the conditions for teachers' professional learning and development: sustaining commitment and effectiveness over a career', Oxford Review of Education, 33: 4, 423 — 443 • In summary, performativity agendas, coupled with the continuing monitoring of the efficiency with which teachers are expected to implement externally generated initiatives, have had five consequences. They have: • (i) implicitly encouraged teachers to comply uncritically (e.g. teach to the test so that teaching becomes more a technical activity and thus more susceptible to control); • (ii) challenged teachers’ substantive identities; • (iii) reduced the time teachers have to connect with, care for and attend to the needs of individual students; • (iv) threatened teachers’ sense of agency and resilience; • (v) challenged teachers’ capacities to maintain motivation, efficacy and thus, commitment. • (pp 424-425)

30. Thank You • Jim.O’Brien@glasgow.ac.uk • University of Glasgow

31. Discussion: Some questions • Does the approach being adopted in Scotland resonate with what happens in States within Germany? • With what may be proposed in some parts of Germany? • How to bring Standards to life for good professional learning? Avoiding misuse? • How do the different stakeholders, particularly providers and learners, use a standard? Who monitors such usage? • How will these standards inform future policy in teacher education and professional learning? • What difference will standards or any of these approaches adopted or in the process of adoption make for learners? How will we be able to tell?