Professional Placement: the Critical Partnership between

Schools and Universities for Quality Teacher Education.

Brenda Cherednichenko

Professional Practice & Professional Learning

• Young People and their learning as the central focus of teacher professional learning

• Educated Teachers

• Professional Practice & Professional Learning for Educated Teachers

• National Accreditation, New Teacher Education and Professional Practice

Young People and their learning as the central focus of teacher professional learning

How can I know I have learned anything?

How can we know others have learned?

Learning is….‘what students do with what they learn when they can do what they want to do’.Eisner, E. 2001 ‘What does it mean to say a school is doing well?’ Phi Delta Kappan. 82 (5), 367-372 (p. 371).

DOMAIN OF TEACHERS’ KNOWLEDGE AND JUDGEMENT mediates other domains

Context: Community, Industry

Teaching and Classroom Practices

Teacher Education

Practitioner Research

Improved Student Learning

Systems, Structures, Policy

• The Context: Individualism, Globalisation, Marketisation, Eco-Sustanability and Corporatisation

• The Process: A Partnership between Teaching and Learning

• Learning which is democratic, inquiry based, achievement orientated, respectful of individual and global citizenship, personally connected.

• Teaching which is democratic, reflexive, critical and dynamic

• The Outcomes: Principle based considered action – social, political, just, free.

EDUCATED TEACHERSREDEFINING TEACHER POWER

• ‘.... research is systematic inquiry made public.’

• Stenhouse, L. (1975) Rudduck and Hopkins (1991) Research as a Basis for

Teaching

EDUCATED TEACHERSFrom Giddens…..• Globalisation - What is it and what implications does it

have?• Individualism - In what sense if any are modern societies

becoming more individualistic?• Left and Right - Do they have meaning any more?• Political Agency - Is politics moving away from

democracy?• Ecology – How will we live in the world together? • Economy - How should they be integrated into social

democratic politics?And…• Certain Uncertainty – Only 1 thing is certain!For• Civic Responsibility and Courage – Education as the key to

our future development• From Unconscious Action to Discursive Critical

Consciousness and Social Action

Australian Council of Deans of Education: New Learning: An Education Charter, 2001

New Learning: Eight Propositions• Education has a much larger role to play in creating socially

productive persons• Learning will be lifelong and lifewide• Opportunity and diversity: education is one of the main ways to

deliver on the promise of democracy• A new basics if emerging• Technology will become central to all learning• The work of educators will be transformed• The place of the ‘Public’ and the ‘Private’ in education will be

redefined• The focus of Education Policy must change form public cost to

public investment.

Professional Practice & Professional Learning

Assumption: Professional Practice Practitioners work is about the achievement of school student learning!

• What is it about your work that gets in the way of preservice teacher learning focussing on the learning of school students?

• How do you know?

• What bothers you about preservice student learning in your university?

Professional Practice & Professional Learning

Lessons from the Past

Theory – Practice

University driven hierarchy

Practice – Theory

Partnerships

Praxis Inquiry in a Discursive Environment

Restructuring Teacher Education

• Focus on school student learning

How can partners in teacher education respond directly to this?

• Changing teaching and teachers = means changing academics/ teacher educators

= changing universities, university teaching and university structures = changing other partners…..etc.. = civic courage!

How can we improve universities and business, community, government?

Professional Practice & Professional Learning

Changing Teaching in schools and universities means working with community, industry and professions.

Partners in the development of new communities, better communities means listening to each other, working together to solve problems and learning from each other.

Partners in Teacher Education

Students

Parents and families

Teachers (preservice and graduate teachers)

Teacher Educators

Community, Industry and Professions

Government

THE UNIVERSITY PROGRAM

Generalised practices and academic discourses

Practice-theory related to formal theory

Formal organisation of knowledge

Course structures Reward as

Assessment Teaching program

time organisation

THE WORKPLACE Inquiry into

personalised, localised practices and discourses

Theory often implicit Less formal

knowledge organisation

Industry structures Reward for

competence in performance

Workplace Time organisation

Aim of Partnership Relationship in Teacher Education Enhancing the

learning of school students.

(Graduating teachers who are competent and reflective practitioners)

Practice -Theory of Partnerships Practical description

of competence - debated, agreed

Practice described, interpreted and theorised

Practices of learning in a Discursive Environment

• Reflexive engagement with practice• Flexible selection of ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ inputs• Assessment as description, interpretation, theorising / change

of practice

Project Defined

Praxis Inquiry Negotiated

Praxis Outcome Agreed

Partners for Improved Practice

• Practice described

• Practice explained

• Practice theorised

• Practice changed

• Practice made public

• Practice embedded

Teacher Education as a Professional Community of Inquiry

• Democratic• Active Listening• Reasonableness• Critique of ideas not people• The right to change you mind in the light of

improved knowledge• Understanding of the world• Basis for informed social action

Opportunities, Challenges & Issues in Change

• Improved learning outcomes for school students• Knowing what we need• Uncertain times• Mentoring and the Discursive Environment• Student responsive, authentic pedagogy & assessment• Funding and payment• Lifelong and lifewide learning• Critique of practice, sustaining good practice and change

for improvement• Inquiry based learning for all partners• Learning from the Past for the Future• Preparedness to Change: Ontological Risk!

The Third Way Values

EqualityProtection of the VunerableFreedom as Autonony (or Autonomy as Freedom)No rights without responsibilities (or No

responsibility without rights)No authority without democracyCosmopolitan pluralismPhilosophic conservatism

Adapted from Giddens, A (1998) The third way: Therenewal of social democracy. Polity Press, Cambridge,p.66.

Collaborative Partnerships for Teaching, Learning & Research

• Partnerships as Mutual Benefit- school student, student teacher, teacher, teacher educator, industry partners, community and government - the primary reason for the Partnership (not $) - leads to demand for…

• New knowledge for the advancement of the interests of partners which enables…

• Collaborative Practitioner Research and NEW KNOWLEDGE and PRACTICE for socially just, democratic and inclusive teaching, research and therefore, learning.

• Community Invested Relationships for Young People’s Learning

The New 3 R’s…..

• Rigour• Relevance• Relationships

Above all, new directions in education demand collaborative research informed decisions for the enhancement of rigour, relevance and relationships which support effective learning for all.

Professional Conversations about practice initiate with description, inquiry and reflection as responses to recent instances of practice. Practitioner Mentoring supports such conversations.

As the partners begin to collaborate, negotiate and understand each other needs and strength a Reflective Dialogue develops which involves active listening and to the statements and concerns of others.

The development of a Discursive Environment is evident when the conversation is focused not only on immediate problem solving, but identifies substantive teaching and learning issues resulting from inquiry about student learning needs through continuous practice. It is an active engagement with practice. Responsibility for learning of students is the focus of the inquiry and is shared by and inclusive of all partners. In such an environment the inquiry is generated from critical reflection on the documented descriptions, achievements and dilemmas of practice.

Discursive Environment

Discursive Environment to Praxis Inquiry

THE PRAXIS INQUIRY

The group of students negotiate with mentor teachers and uni colleague(s) that they will work on an Early Years Numeracy Program. The Praxis Inquiry might be negotiated as...

Methodical: How to teach eg 1:1 correspondence with the group of students, using

given resources? Understanding of context and environment. Technical: What are the general strategies of classroom management to teach

mathematics in the Early Years effectively; the ‘measurement’ of learning eg a learning product which ‘indicates’ a learning outcome?

Epistemological: What is the nature of mathematical understanding; ways of inquiring

mathematically; how young people learn mathematics/mathematically; connections between forms of learning and the structure and processes of mathematics? How I learn mathematics?

Ontological: How can different students be engaged in authentic learning of

mathematics? How can the teacher take account of the motivations and consciousness which young people have for learning and learning mathematics in particular? How is mathematical thinking embedded in the experiences of the students in school, family and community (ie social class, gender, race relationships and their impact on learning mathematics)? Mathematics of morality, desire, interest?

Invested Partnerships for Teacher Education are

school initiated based on the learning needs of school students and as such the primary interest of teacher education is its direct contribution to the learning of school students

a negotiated and evolving agreement about student learning

the reflection of student teachers’ competence as it directly related to their contribution to the learning of school students

Rationale for Community Invested Partnerships

• Moral commitment to education for social justice, and civic wellbeing

• Improved learning for school students• Practice-theory inquiry in teacher education fostered

through Mentoring (Discursive Environment)• Collaborative Practitioner Research• Authentic assessment at the University• Reform of University and School learning - structures

and practices• Elevating agency to level of influence of Uni structures

What’s worth Learning?

Biggs has argued that in order to function adequately in society as a worker and a citizen we need to be able to draw upon four types of knowledge.

The four forms of knowledge identified by Biggs are:

• procedural knowledge – knowing how;• declarative knowledge – knowing what;• conditional knowledge, a combination of the

above – knowing when and why; and • functioning knowledge – the integration of

each of these knowledge forms, so that individuals can ‘perform’.

Mentoring: the Learning Partnership

Mentoring is a mutual relationship between school students, student teachers, teachers and teacher educators which enables

• learning with and • learning from

leading to changed practices for improved learning outcomes for all.

Productive Pedagogies

• Recognition of Difference• cultural knowledge, inclusivity, narrative, group identity, active citizenship

• Connectedness• connectedness to the world, problem-based curriculum, knowledge

integration, background knowledge

• Intellectual Quality• Higher order thinking, deep knowledge, deep understanding, substantive

conversation, knowledge as problematic, metalanguage

• Supportive Classroom Environment• Student direction, social support academic engagement, self-regulation,

explicit quality performance criteria

PRODUCTIVE PEDAGOGIESIndicators of successful learning environments• students’ direction &knowledge integration• problematic knowledge & cultural knowledge• higher order thinking• depth of knowledge and student understanding • substantive understanding• inclusivity• connectedness to the world beyond the

classroom• student self-regulation• Narrative and Active ListeningSee for example: Newmann & Wehlage 1995; Lingard, Ladwig & Luke 1997

COSTA’sHABITS OF MIND

• Persistence: • Managing Impulsivity:• Listening with Empathy and Understanding• Thinking Flexibly:• Thinking about your Thinking : Metacognition• Striving for Accuracy• Applying Past Knowledge• Questioning and Posing Problems• Thinking and Communicating with Clarity and Precision• Gathering Data Through All Senses• Creating, Imagining & Innovating• Responding With Wonderment and Awe• Taking Responsible Risks• Finding Humour• Thinking Interdependently• Remaining Open to Continuous Learning

THE RISK MATRIX

Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten...By Robert Fulgham

Most of what I really need to know about how to live and what to do, and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school. These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup? The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup -- they all die. So do we. And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: look. Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and sane living. Think what a better world it would be if we all -- the whole world -- had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.