professional learning

school (university) stuff’ and ‘practical stuff’

On the one hand, throughout the western world newly established regulatory bodies such as the Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT), in Australia, are already requiring teachers to demonstrate that they are learning professionally, from their first year of teaching. One of the professional standards needing to be ‘met’ if one is to be registered as a professional teacher in Victoria refers to teachers’ obligation in terms of their professional learning. Teachers must demonstrate that they:

identify their own professional learning needs and plan for and engage in professional development activities.

VIT- Standards of Professional Practice for Full Registration
http://www.vit.vic.edu.au/pdfs/Standards.pdf

Very recently, the government body in Victoria has mandated a set of seven Principles of Professional Learning, which oblige teachers not just to demonstrate that they are learning. They must demonstrate that their learning is not at all self-interested and ‘irrelevant to their teaching’ [sic.].

Professional Learning in Effective Schools

In some places throughout the world, especially in the USA, the effectiveness of every individual teacher’s professional learning is measured against clearly delineated, visible and demonstrable improvements in their students’ learning outcomes. It’s worth considering the consequences on teachers’ sense of professional identity in this sort of environment.

Another view of professional learning is that it can not, and should not, be forced, and that threatening punitive consequences for teachers failing to demonstrate their attainment of narrowly articulated professional learning outcomes is likely to inhibit teachers’ professional learning, not encourage it. The argument goes like this: richer forms of professional learning tend to emerge differently from different local contexts; they cannot be centrally prescribed or controlled. Professional learning can be a central dynamic of teachers’ intellectual professional life and offers ongoing opportunities for development and renewal of teaching practice. As the STELLA standards articulate it, teachers who are continually reflecting on and taking responsibility for their professional learning are demonstrating that they are accomplished English teachers.

Accomplished English/literacy teachers recognize that the context of their teaching is continually evolving…. With their own learning goals in mind, accomplished English/literacy teachers pursue new knowledge through professional renewal activities such as classroom-based action-research, professional reading, academic study, discussion and debate with colleagues and participation in conferences and workshops.

STELLA, 3.2 - Teachers continue to learn

respond

Do you feel professional learning should be, or can be, mandated, and therefore forced, in teachers’ lives? Two questions for early career or more experienced teachers: ‘What are some of the richest professional learning experiences you have had?’ and ‘To what extent were they the result of professionally mandated directives?

Now compare this scenario with the students in Ruth Graham’s class who rejected the notion of ‘school stuff’ and who, instead, wanted ‘practical stuff.’ If you were teaching Ruth’s class, would you be wanting to send your students out into the world only having given them practical stuff’? Perhaps you have an expectation that this course had better include 'practical stuff', and not ‘university stuff that isn't going to do you any good’- or else! Some people see the range of thinking about teaching and learning, and all education, as falling into two easily distinguishable categories. They tend not to refer to it as ‘school stuff’ and ‘practical stuff’, but this is I think what they mean when they speak of theory and practice. The implication behind this binary is that these are two separate and discrete notions. Has this been your experience so far?