Knowledge, Inquiry and Concern

Teachers need to be reflective if they want to develop. They can do this in the following ways:

• Professional Knowledge (reading)

Teachers need to be current in their professional knowledge and recognize its relationship to practice. There is a lot of content available for teachers to read and when they encounter new situations or experiences they should research further for more insight or reasoning.

• practice inquiry

Practice-based learning and improvement should be guided by the following principles:

- It is interdisciplinary

- It is concerned with complex problems with not just one or two variables but problems which are multivariate

- The procedures and instruments used must be capable of examining many variables, but not necessarily through complicated statistics

- It is not necessarily generalizable

- It is not located in any one paradigm - research of this nature tends to be eclectic

- The researcher must be as unbiased as possible (this may well be an issue in interpretive research), must not have a vested interest in the outcome - commitment and interest should not interfere with objectivity

• Identifying teachers' concerns

Teachers need to take the time to talk to their colleagues and find out their concerns, these concerns could be common amongst the teachers and therefore form the basis of practitioner inquiry.

Raising Issues and Questions

As a start to raising issues and questions in my educational practice I took a few moments to think about my own professional context.

Concerns about what goes on…

• No mentoring/training for new or inexperienced teachers
• Students seem, at times, unmotivated
• Lack of professional development
• little communication between upper management and teachers

Things I am unhappy with…

• Management decisions lack planning and analysis
• Heavy work loads for teachers
• lack of teacher support
• lack of student discipline

Practices I am unsure of…

• Beginning lessons with a short statement of goals.
• Whether technology is more beneficial in student understanding.
• creating self disciplined students

Things which challenge me…

• Differentiation of different levels of ability within one class
• Teaching English content to ESL students
• Enabling students to take responsibility for their growth in learning
• Providing systematic feedback and corrections

Academic vs. Practitioner Knowledge

There can be academic and  practitioner contradictions when considering the role that research and specifically practitioner inquiry does, and could play, in changing practice.

After reading academic literature about action research I was reflecting on the differences between academic and practitioner knowledge. I decided to carry out an exploration. I interviewed three people in my professional context about the role that inquiry and research has and could play in developing their practice.

The result showed that practitioners mostly appreciate the knowledge creation between peers. They share different teaching methodologies and give each other advice. This advice is then put into practice and the results are once again shared with colleagues. All interviewees said they engaged in reflection whether it was conscious or not. Some subconsciously reflect on lessons and change them for the better next time, others actively take time to reflect on their day or week and the research how they could improve. The evidence showed that practitioners mostly engaged in reflection on action whereas academics write how reflection in action is more beneficial in which teachers are ‘questioning the assumption structure of knowing in action’ (Handal and Lauvas, 1987: 25).

Academics view the relationship between new knowledge and changes in practice as being only partial to a schools success. If a teacher is to have greater vision of transformation and aspiration the knowledge needs to be internalized, reflected upon when practice or whilst being practiced. However, the practitioners interviewed mentioned that they rely heavily on the knowledge of others, rather than create their own. Although this knowledge from others is improved or adapted according to the practitioners experience or further research.

The practitioners said that the major factors that inhibited the use of inquiry and research in their contexts was time, other commitments and the struggle to survive in the school context. Although, they did feel supported by their peers and any professional development they received but their inquiry is limited to these factors. Academics state that teachers who are unreflective  and inhibited to create new practiced based knowledge tend to be those which accept the everyday reality in schools and their thinking does not allow the possibility of framing problems in more than one way.

If schools are to engage in beneficial change their teachers need to steer away from those routine action based, on-going assumptions. Instead we should be questioning, analyzing and participating in reflection in action and  on action. However, this could prove difficult for those who are newly qualified, have heavy workloads or a lack of time.

Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Lee Shulman (1984) came up with this term and argued that it was one of the particular characteristics of teaching.

Teachers need to be knowledgeable about what they teach (content) and how to teach (pedagogy), but they also need to develop knowledge of specific ways of making that content accessible to learners – So how do we teach what we teach?

PCK comprises a cycle of several activities that a teacher should complete for good teaching: comprehension, transformation, instruction, evaluation, reflection, and new comprehension.

I would say that PCK as an idea is useful but in my own experience content knowledge has not always been a necessity. It is good practice to be an expert at the subject you teach so pupils have confidence in you as a teacher, although there is something very human about not knowing everything which learners will relate to. Questions on a subject matter in which you might not know the answer to are an opportunity to collaborate and do some investigational work whilst relating to your students to develop the student teacher rapport. It gives the message that its OK to make mistakes because no one is perfect – an important lesson for life. Obviously, this should not be a habit but once in a while can be beneficial.

Rather than having a deep set knowledge of everything, your teaching planning can have a very effective role. Once you form a relationship with your students and gain an insight into their strengths and weaknesses you can anticipate concepts that they will find confusing, and therefore incorporate simplified ways of explanation into your lesson plans. Another importance of having teaching knowledge rather than content knowledge is that, after experience, reflection becomes a subconscious habit allowing you to think about what went wrong, what worked well and investigate ways to improve which will then, again, be reflected in future lesson and curriculum planning.

Changes for the Future of Education

Three small changes I could realistically make to my own teaching, which would move things forward in beneficial ways:

1) Make learning relate to real life by (for example) incorporating activities which incorporate collaboration and team work; allowing each pupil to utalise their skills and appreciate the abilities of others. This will encourage respect for other’s beliefs, culture and way of thinking.

2) Enable pupils to change dispositions for the better and allow them to realise their full potential by the use of self reflection; writing their own reports every 4 months. This will enable them to find meaning and enjoyment in things they learn.

3) Establish each pupil as an individual by using a needs analysis, make them proud of their strengths by utilising them in group work, displaying work and delegating class responsibilities. This will increase confidence encouraging intrinsic motivation for learning.

Preparing for the Future

OECD summarises 6 future scenarios of education. These include:

The “status-quo extrapolated”

Scenario 1: Robust bureaucratic school systems

Scenario 2: Extending the market model

The “re-schooling” scenarios

Scenario 3: Schools as core social centers

Scenario 4: School as focus learning centers

The “de-schooling” scenarios

Scenario 5: Learner networks and the network society

Scenario 6: Teacher exodus – the meltdown scenario

Details of these scenarios are included in this PDF:

http://www.oecd.org/site/schoolingfortomorrowknowledgebase/futuresthinking/scenarios/38967594.pdf

When I think about the current education system in which I work and related it to these scenarios, I would predict that in 2020 scenario 4 could seem probable.

In this scenario:

‘Schools are revitalised around a strong knowledge agenda rather than a social agenda, in a culture of high quality  experimentation, diversity and innovation . New forms of evaluation and competence assessment flourish. ICT is used extensively alongside other learning media, traditional and new. Knowledge management moves to the fore, and the very large majority of schools justify the label ‘learning organisations’ (so equality of opportunity is the norm), with extensive links to tertiary education and other organisations.’

I predict that many businesses will invest in Indonesia in the future and as a result there will be a market for high tech businesses. This would be the logoical route to take considering the type of students we attract and links into to our school ethos to

‘provide learning experiences through which knowledge, skills, attitudes and action encourage the development of creativity and problem solving capacities to achieve excellence in the interconnected world’

The scenario which is preferable to me would be a mix between scenario two, three and five; A school which enables shared responsibilities between different schools and  communities with sources of expertise from institutions of further and continuing education. This school will utalise learning networks, quickened by the extensive possibilities of powerful, inexpensive ICT. Learning will be relevant to real life and encouraged by reforms of funding structures, incentives and regulation enabling pupils to learn professionalism.

Using future scenarios as an approach for thinking about the future is very useful, it enables you to relate to your pupils and have empathy for the world they will work in. Reflecting on future practices ensures that as a teacher your teaching techniques are relevant and helpful for learners of the future. As a leader in education this strategy can empower you to develop a niche of learner spaces in order to maximise learning.

Looking into the Future

Each of these web links show a video presenting implications for education in the future:

Clip A

http://archive.futurelab.org.uk/projects/beyond-current-horizons

Clip B

http://wearethepeoplemovie.com/

When analyzing these videos it seems that the dominant messages from each clip is that there needs to be a change in the education system which will cater to the changing world and help solve global issues.  One of the implications for education is the availability and accessibility of technology, we also need to teach students how to think critically and collaboratively. Education should respond by training educators to use teaching techniques which enable pupils to work collaboratively at a global scale whilst incorporating  the use of technological resources.

The main difference with each clip is that the latter is focusing on preparing future generations to solve problems whereas the first focuses more on the importance of change and tools of the future which enable effective learning to occur. If I could use one (but only one), as stimulus with a group of teachers to consider the future of education, I would choose clip A. Clip B seems to focus more on preparing future generations to solve problems whereas Clip A does the same without suggesting how, it requires the viewer to think in depth. Clip B doesn’t motivate me as much as Clip A, which presents ideas about the importance of change and hints at tools of the future which can enable effective learning to occur. It raises questions for further discussion on how to enable learners to make a change to future scenarios and is very thought provoking. Both clips touch on the idea that teachers need to relate to pupils by learning with them, understanding their perceptions and utilizing technology to enhance understanding whilst enabling collaboration, if this the message you would like to convey to colleagues it is best to do it in a stylistic way which would appeal to the learners of today.