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Leading collaborative professional enquiry in your own establishment: the costs and benefits

Leading collaborative professional enquiry in your own establishment: the costs and benefits. ACTS Conference Alison Fox February 2011. Plan. Brief overview of the research Nature of collaborative professional enquiry (CPE) Focus of the CPEs studied Issues and positions

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Leading collaborative professional enquiry in your own establishment: the costs and benefits

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  1. Leading collaborative professional enquiry in your own establishment: the costs and benefits • ACTS Conference • Alison Fox • February 2011

  2. Plan • Brief overview of the research • Nature of collaborative professional enquiry (CPE) • Focus of the CPEs studied • Issues and positions • Negotiating different positions • Discussion and questions • Report on positive impact of these CPEs • Further discussion and questions

  3. The research • Two associated schools: one secondary and one primary • Four aspiring Chartered Teachers leading four CPEs • Interviews with fourteen teachers and two school managers • Assignments / dissertations from the aspiring CTs

  4. Collaborative Professional Enquiry • 1. It can be understood in technical terms • 2. It can mean an orientation to practice, a professional disposition, a way of being a practitioner • 3. If we believe professional growth and development to be a socio-cultural phenomenon, professional enquiry has to be understood as a collective and interactive process. • I’Anson et al. (2008, p.73):

  5. It “is about exercising the power to change … It is about changing frameworks and disrupting custom. It is inherently dynamic and unstable in socio-cultural terms”. • I’Anson et al. (2008, p.75) • A distinguishing feature of CPE in this setting is that it was initiated and led by the teachers themselves and while it was likely to be consistent with the school development or improvement plan and supported by managers within the school, they did not drive it.

  6. The CPEs • Secondary school • AifL: Feedback and feedforward across 7 departments • Social education: developing respectful relationships through outdoor education • Primary school • Evaluation of introduction of Thinking Skills programme in the early years • Use of collaborative learning strategies / AifL in the context of teaching Writing

  7. Positioning • Chartered Teachers • No formal authority or power • Can lead but not manage • Neither one thing or another • School Managers • Tended to position teachers as reluctant and in need of persuasion • Positioned the Chartered Teachers as exceptional though ‘daunting’ to others

  8. In turn, school managers were positioned • By socialisation and the accountability regime to act in particular ways • By some teachers as obstructive and naïve • By aspiring CTs as in a difficult position – they understood the dilemmas

  9. Negotiating new positions • “the “holes” in an organization are the sites of opportunity, not the clearly defined slots for promotion in a traditional bureaucratic pyramid” (Sennett, 1998, p.84) • “bonds of trust … develop informally in the cracks and crevices of bureaucracies as people learn on whom they can trust” (Sennett, 1998, p.141)

  10. It seemed then that the emergence of CTs disrupted the established ways that relations of power were exercised in schools • Both the CTs and their managers were working hard to create new ones. • This appeared to be problematic for both groups as there still seemed to be a certain ambiguity and uncertainty about the professional identity of the CTs, and what is and can be expected from them.

  11. Impact of CPEs • Benefits for pupils • Enhanced professional knowledge and confidence • Professional and personal satisfaction through working together and sharing experiences

  12. Benefits for pupils / Enhanced professional knowledge and confidence • Teachers’ enhanced subject / pedagogical knowledge leading to pupils’ enhanced knowledge and understanding • Changed perceptions of pupils due to engagement with them leading to higher expectations • Improved rapport, empathy and communication with pupils • Increased understanding of metacognition and its importance • Improved cross-curricular working leading to increased understanding of pupil experience

  13. Professional and personal satisfaction • Offered the teachers and CTs opportunities to enact a more pro-active professionalism. • Enabled them to become the teachers they wanted to be, improved and re-invigorate their professional practice and led to a more satisfying professional life.

  14. Offered CTs a cover behind which to enable and encourage more democratic relationships with colleagues while engaging with their managers in new, more strategic ways. • Led them into dangerous, unknown (and exciting) territory, where their position was undefined

  15. References • I’Anson, J., Reeves, J. and Whewell, C. (2008) Developing excellence in teaching: redefining professional enquiry. In J. Reeves and A. Fox (Eds) Practice-focused Learning: Developing excellence in teaching. Edinburgh: Dunedin Press • Sennett, R. (1998) The Corrosion of Character: Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc

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