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Effective professional learning communities? The possibilities for teachers as agents of change in schools
... While multiple definitions and conceptualizations have been proposed in the English-language scholarly literature [4,5], existing frameworks have characterized teacher PLCs as voluntary and loosely organized learning organizations. In them, teachers with common purposes and goals take the initiative to share and critically interrogate their practice in a continuous, reflective, cooperative, and growth-oriented manner, often supported by professionals external to their schools [6,7]. It is assumed that quality leadership and management are essential for schools to become effective PLCs [5]. ...
... Note that the purpose of a conceptual overview paper is different to that of a systematic literature review [16]. To support our alternative position on the topic, brief narrative summaries of each of the selected studies are used to challenge specific core principles of Western PLC frameworks, as briefly summarized in the Introduction [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. ...
... This conceptual overview paper demonstrates that Western characterizations of teacher PLCs as bottom-up, loosely organized structures driven by teachers' own interests [4,[6][7][8] differ substantially from the top-down, heavily regulated approach to PLCs in Chinese preschools. For example, Western frameworks propose that a shared vision should derive from teachers' own values, motivations, and beliefs [9], whereas these are determined by school leaders in Chinese preschools and subsequently internalized by teachers [11,32,58]. ...
In the education field, professional learning communities (PLCs) are regarded as an effective method for fostering professional development for teachers, enhancing student learning and achievement, and promoting school reform. Quality leadership and management are understood to be essential for schools to become effective PLCs. Mainly proposed by Western scholars, existing PLC frameworks explicitly or implicitly assume that PLCs should be initiated and led by teachers themselves, following a bottom-up approach. The goal of this conceptual overview paper is to challenge certain taken-for-granted core principles of Western PLC frameworks by analyzing the current approach to PLCs adopted by preschools in mainland China, which follow a top-down leadership and management approach. We review multiple research streams, including policy frameworks and regulations, as well as the most relevant conceptual, theoretical, and empirical studies published in recent years. After reviewing China’s core socio-cultural traditional values, we describe the recent policies that have mandated the establishment and implementation of PLCs in Chinese preschools. We then review several recent studies that demonstrate that, despite profound differences toWestern frameworks, PLCs in Chinese preschools are effective in benefitting teachers and highly regarded by the relevant stakeholders. The literature shows that Chinese preschools enact culturally situated versions of PLCs, characterized by some standard PLC principles (e.g., shared vision, collaboration, and collective responsibility) alongside features that resonate with Confucian values (e.g., strong hierarchical structure, guidance of external experts, internal leadership support, and greater emphasis on ecological support rather than personal agency and autonomy). We conclude that Chinese preschools merit international attention, as their approach to leadership and management allow us to reconsider certain core principles ofWestern PLC frameworks. Future directions for PLC policy and practice are suggested.
... Same issues of isolation/balkanisation (Watson, 2014) as in other communities Input from outside sources is important to support the PLC (Stoll and Seashore Louis, 2007). ...
... A joint commitment to developing shared practice is an important strength of communities but also one which requires a certain level of time and engagement (ibid) and there is also the danger that communities can become places which are closed to others (Watson, 2014;Wenger et al, 2011). The greater number of personal connections in networks can help information flow more easily and allow opportunities for spontaneity but may also result in too much 'noise', making it harder to decide which information is most valuable and relying much more on the decisions of individuals to filter information effectively and responsibly (Wenger et al, 2011, p. 11). ...
... In contrast to this situation, Priestley et al argue that agency is not enacted when teachers 'follow routinized patterns of behaviour ' (2015, p. 141). This mirrors the argument that in teacher-learning communities a focus on shared values and the notion of belonging may simply result in an inward-looking group (Watson, 2014). ...
While large numbers of teachers engage with social media sites such as Twitter, it continues to be the case that professional learning and development is often subject to narrow interpretations which focus on the physical actions of practitioners (Evans, 2019). This research makes visible the informal learning which is often unrecognised (Eraut, 2004) as more formalised, traditional models of professional learning remain privileged in an audit culture which favours a tick box approach to continuing professional development.
This study explores the informal and self-directed professional learning of teachers through focusing on an established weekly Twitter chat which is aimed at FE educators in the UK context. It considers how their participation in the chat supports professional learning and the development of teacher agency. A netnographic approach is taken to the study which uses multiple methods in order to provide both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ perspectives on the site through a combination of participant observation, social network analysis and interviews.
The findings build on previous research by highlighting the ways in which the structure of the Twitter chat is key to providing opportunities for teachers to share resources, experiences and ideas; to make and build connections both on and beyond Twitter; and to offer and receive emotional and professional support. It contributes new knowledge by considering a Twitter chat through the lens of ecological teacher agency and providing insights into how such spaces may help to ‘grow’ both individual and collective agency as well as examining the links between teacher agency and professional learning explicitly. The methodological and ethical approach taken in the study provides a rich picture of an online teacher-learning community and foregrounds the voices of those who participate in it in ways which future studies can continue to develop.
... (S2T4) This excerpt reveals that because the young teachers mimicked their mentors, their teaching styles were similar to that of their mentors. This kind of similarity or conformity might lead to conservatism instead of innovation (Little, 2003), which would impede the professional learning and teaching improvement of the teachers, and also cause hindrance to the development of PLCs (Watson, 2014). ...
... In this process, innovative ideas were likely to be engendered. This has been proven to be the best approach for handling diverse views, and can contribute to organizational learning and reform (Watson, 2014). ...
... Finally, the results indicate that besides having a collaborative culture, a culture that advocates change, innovation, and a certain amount of risk-taking is also essential. Effective learning is best facilitated when diverse viewpoints are encouraged and investigated through meaningful debates (Watson, 2014). ...
This study examines how teachers learn in professional learning communities (PLCs) and the influencing factors in two schools in China. Drawing on data from interviews, field observations, and documentary analysis, the findings revealed that the learning culture of one school's PLCs was innovation-driven with the generation of new ideas and practices through continuous inquiry, while the other school's learning culture was inheritance-led with the acquisition of existing knowledge through one-way transmission of experience. It also found that effective teacher learning relies on a shared vision, in-depth collaboration, supportive and distributed leadership, a facilitative structure, and a collaborative and innovative culture.
... It is also argued, albeit less frequently, that these contrived communities, when imposed on teachers, have the potential to 'function as a means to silence dissatisfaction through the hegemonic appeal to "community" and its normalising function as arbiter of ideological control' (Watson, 2014: 27). Despite the tensions and challenges associated with cultivating and participating in LCs, they can initiate change in institutions by the conscious confrontation of competing values (Watson, 2014) and contribute to microchange in schools (Gonçalves et al., 2020). ...
... Within education literature, LCs are referred to using a variety of terms including professional LCs (PLCs), communities of learners, school communities, teacher communities, and communities of practice (CoP). Community has become an overused term (Patton et al., 2005) and PLC as an all-encompassing term has lost much of its original meaning (Armour et al., 2017;Watson, 2014). Acknowledging that PLC and CoP are the main theoretical constructions adopted to define LCs (Blankenship and Ruona, 2007;Vangrieken et al., 2017), the definitions and characteristics of each are pivotal. ...
... This uncertainty contributes to a misunderstanding about LCs (Vangrieken et al., 2017), and the varied use of the terms CoP and LC is problematic. When discussing PLCs, Watson (2014) warned that the term has been used as a kind of catch-all phrase that has lost much of its original meaning. Future research, therefore, should detail the nature of community and fidelity to the theoretical framework. ...
Learning communities (LCs) in a variety of formats are touted as an effective strategy for continuing professional development (CPD) in physical education. This study’s purpose was to provide an overview of the research on LCs in physical education for professional development between 1990 and 2020. A scoping review undergirded the research process and search parameters included full-text empirical studies in 12 languages. Ultimately 95 studies were found. A descriptive analysis revealed teachers as the focus in 75% of the studies; fewer studies focused on initial teacher education students, teacher educators, and facilitators. The largely qualitative studies reflected an international database (18 countries; four multinational studies) with South Korea, the US, and England dominating the literature. Four features spotlight thematic findings: (a) facilitation, (b) the process of community development, (c) the focus of the group and (d) the product(s) of the group. Learning communities as a CPD approach in physical education appear to be effective in a variety of ways. Little evidence, however, exists regarding their sustained nature over time, or how teacher engagement in LCs may result in substantive student learning. Contributing to the scattered nature of literature to date was the interchangeable use of communities of practice (CoP) and other forms of LCs. Often communities were not theoretically aligned, the development process of communities not explained, nor evidence provided as to how the community studied contained the qualifying features of a CoP or LCs. Future research, therefore, should detail the nature of community and fidelity to the theoretical framework.
... Ref. [23] studied teachers and principals from 67 southeastern U.S. schools, finding that collegial trust, an academic emphasis, and the enablement of school structures serve as key prerequisites for the development of successful PLCs. Additional studies have established that teachers and school leaders should work collaboratively to design and develop the PLC structure, an important first step in building trust that supports a culture of learning for continuous improvement and higher student achievement outcomes [10,21]. ...
... In addition, school staff strongly believed they operated in alignment with the district's vision for improvement that focused on increased student learning outcomes at their schools (r = 0.581; p < 0.01). High levels of confidence in DO support for Shared Values and Vision (β = 82) suggested that teachers felt they were operating in a culture of trust supportive of conditions that free PLCs to move beyond minor distractions toward planning improvement for higher student achievement outcomes [10,21]. Finally, participants strongly believed that their districts provided school-level PLC teams with both tangible and intangible supports essential for the success of teachers and their students (r = 0.698; p < 0.01). ...
Previous researchers examining professional learning communities (PLCs) claim that effective building-level PLCs improve teacher collaboration and student achievement. However, the role of district office leadership in supporting the success of site-level PLC teams is presently underexplored. Using an online survey, we investigated the claim that district office support enhances the success of site-level PLCs. Quantitative data were collected from 596 participants employed at 21 schools within 16 school districts in the north Texas region. Findings derived from correlation and structural equation modeling analyses revealed a significant direct effect of district office leadership support on successful PLC team implementation, suggesting that district leaders play an active role in the districtwide implementation of PLCs.
... The PLC members track the answer to questions about learning goal, professional practices and entire students' attainment in learning. He pointed out some more attributes of PLC including (1) inclusive membership; (2) shared faith, respect and collaboration; (3) sincerity, network and partnership (Watson, 2014). ...
... Seemingly, due to cultural pattern success rate of collaborative activities in this society is not so remarkable. This observation echoed with the investigation of Watson (2014) where he gives emphasis on shared vision, mission, goals and interdependent collaborative structure. On the contrary, lack of motivation, leadership role and professional culture of the country also accountable for this miserable condition. ...
The study is intended to investigate the nature and challenges of PLC in government colleges of Bangladesh by applying mix method approach. The investigation is conducted principally based on primary data in collaboration with some sort of secondary sources of data which make the study more consequential. Accordingly, to conclude the finding it triangulates the quantitative analysis, qualitative information and researchers’ observation. Consequentially, the inference drawn from the investigation implicates that there is no programmed PLC practices exist in Bangladeshi college education as CPD activities. In addition, there is some factual and potential challenges exist to implement PLC related to institutional reality and personality trait that is motivational in nature. The motivational aspect of professional is also engendered by institutional practices. Finally, to find out the challenges the study also has drawn some recommendations for resolution of the identified challenges.
... The matter of sustainability, while not in the foreground of PLC literature, is inextricably built into PLC design and rationale. On the one hand, it is widely believed that the quality of an education system depends in large part to the quality of its teachers (Barber & Mourshed, 2007;Borko, 2004) and on the other, there is a growing awareness that traditional, workshopbased continuing professional development (CPD) has critical limitations, such as that they are [1] decontextualized and episodic, when it should preferably be embedded in day-to-day teaching, closer to practice (Cordingley & Bell, 2012); [2] not reflective of teachers' needs and learning preferences (Christ et al., 2017;Pang & Wray, 2017); [3] often implemented in a top-down fashion, thus eroding teacher agency (Hardy, 2012;Philpott & Oates, 2017;Watson, 2014). In other words, there is the view that sustainable, future-facing education requires teachers to engage in in-service learning, and that workshops alone appear insufficient for the task. ...
... Consider Watson's (2014) warning of how the idealistic rhetoric of PLCs can mask deeper problems. The appeal to shared vision and values which comes with PLCs, for example, risks creating social exclusion of those who do not conform to status quo, discouraging diversity among the teacher teams. ...
Open Access here: https://melta.org.my/journals/MAJER/downloads/majer16_02_02.pdf
In this article, I scrutinise the theory and practice of professional learning communities (PLCs), focussing on their implementation for the Malaysian context, seen mainly through the lens of sociocultural theory. PLCs in Malaysia are a relatively new development over the past decade and have been affirmed as a key strategy under the Ministry of Education's 'New Narrative of Educational Practice' in 2019. Here, I consider both theoretical and empirical literature to argue that, in theory as well as practice, PLCs can be a sustainable and viable model for professional learning; however, important caveats apply. The arguments put forward here are primarily from the perspective of sociocultural learning theory, which draws attention to (1) dialogue as the primary mechanism for learning in PLCs and (2) sociocultural context as influential for enabling or constraining said mechanism. Building on these, I review some of the specifics of the Malaysian context, drawing possible connections to practice and positioning them as 'foreshadowed problems' (Malinowski, 1922). The paper concludes by issuing a call to action for practitioners and researchers, inviting further work to clarify and better understand PLCs in Malaysia and internationally.
... The PLC concept is contentious. Mention was made of weak conceptualisations, inadequate definitions of the PLC characteristics and the need to re-examine assumptions underpinning PLCs (Watson, 2014). identified gaps in the research base, the concept of community and the effects of PLCs. ...
... Other investigators point to weaknesses, such as weak conceptualisations, inadequate definitions of the PLC characteristics and the need to re-examine assumptions underpinning PLCs (Watson, 2014). Despite the volume of research, empirical flaws exist. ...
... One of them concerns professional development initiatives which focused on improving classroom instruction by observing the impact of mandatory policies on faculty instruction. In other words, one of the key elements of most of these reforms is the professional development of teachers-that is, for society to finally realize that teachers are not only one of the "variables" that must be changed to improve the educational system, but they are also the most important agent of change in these reforms (Watson, 2014). Rightly so because research shows that quality teachers are essential to enhance student learning and quality teacher training is deemed essential to have quality teachers (Liston et al., 2008). ...
The current investigation aimed to assess the level of participation and recognition received by faculty members from State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) in the Province of Iloilo as part of their faculty development programs. The obtained results will be utilized to develop an improved five-year faculty development plan. This study employed a quantitative research design, utilizing a descriptive method to determine the degree of engagement with various components of the faculty development program, which would serve as the basis for the faculty development model. A total of 848 respondents were randomly selected through simple random sampling and completed a survey questionnaire. Frequency count, percentage, mean, and standard deviation were employed to provide a descriptive analysis of the data. Furthermore, Chi-Square, Mann Whitney U Test, and Kruskal Wallis Test were utilized to examine significant differences in the extent of faculty development program utilization. The findings indicate that the majority of faculty members from SUCs expressed "very satisfied" levels of satisfaction regarding their engagement in scholarships, seminars, training, conferences, and symposia. They also reported being "satisfied" with their involvement in other faculty development programs, with the exception of fellowships. Moreover, the study revealed that there was no significant relationship between the extent of satisfaction with the faculty development program components and demographic profiles, except for the plantilla position. Post hoc analysis indicated significant differences among respondents holding the positions of instructors and associate professors, as well as assistant professors and associate professors.
... So, in these ways, professional agency is formed, developed and sustained by institutions, norms and values connected to different schooling contexts. Still, teachers as reflective practitioners are expected in most systems to draw on a variety of knowledge(s) in order to adapt to challenging circumstances, exercise ethical judgements, show commitment to their pupils, and critically engage with knowledge, pupils and colleagues (Stoll et al., 2006;Watson, 2014). ...
... To better support novice teachers' professional development, initiatives such as professional learning communities (PLCs) and teacher collaboration at schools are receiving increasing attention (Hairon & Tan, 2017;Toom et al., 2017). Such initiatives are intended to help teachers generate learning opportunities and develop through professional collaboration and interactions, improving the learning effectiveness of students (Hargreaves & O'Connor, 2018;Hargreaves, 2019;Stoll et al., 2006;Watson, 2014). During this process, the way in which novice teachers perceive and handle varying opinions, differences, and conflicts in the community is considered one of the key indicators to confirm whether learning has truly occurred (Hargreaves, 1998;Stoll et al., 2006). ...
Using intersectionality theory as a heuristic lens to expose and understand conflicts in professional learning communities (PLCs), this qualitative longitudinal study explored how and why some Chinese female novice teachers fail to manage conflicts in PLCs. Through two rounds of in-depth interviews with four Chinese novice female teachers five years apart, this study constructed an intersectionality framework of how culture, professionalism, and gender contribute to their failed conflict-handling experience in PLCs. Findings from this research not only shed light on enhancing novice teachers' professional development in PLCs, but also demonstrated the potential for applying intersectionality theory in this area.
... Bhandari (2021) mentioned that quantitative research focuses on gathering, analyzing, and interpreting data with the help of numerical data. Moreover, descriptive-correlational is specifically employed to determine the levels of the variables and the relationships that occur naturally between the involved variables in the study (Stangor & Walinga, 2019). ...
This research journey attempted to investigate the impact of organizational trust, teachers’ self-efficacy, and school culture on professional learning communities in public elementary schools using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to 400 elementary school teachers in Davao Region, Philippines. Findings revealed very high levels of Organizational Trust, Teacher Self-Efficacy, School Culture, and Professional Learning Communities. There were significant correlations between Organizational Trust, Teacher Self-Efficacy, School Culture, and Professional Learning Organization. Further, results showed that the best fit model was model 3 showing the direct causal relationships of Organizational Trust, Teacher Self-efficacy, and School Culture on Professional Learning Communities. Furthermore, structure modifications revealed that Professional Learning Communities were defined by their retained indicators, namely: Collective Learning and Application, and Supportive Conditions – Relationships. On the other hand, Organizational Trust was described by its domains: Affect-Based Trust, and Cognition-Based Trust while Teacher Self-Efficacy was determined by its retained indicators, namely: Classroom Management and Student Engagement. Finally, School Culture was measured by its domains: Affiliative Collegiality and Professional Collaboration. The findings of the study could be a significant baseline for faculty development programs of educational institutions.
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... Nehring and Fitsimmons (2011) and Sigurðardóttir (2010) list concepts that make up a PLC: emphasis on learning, reliance on reflection, experimentation, dialogue in practice and deep commitment to effective learning. Professional learning communities (PLCs) within schools can be seen as an influencing factor in linking teacher collaboration with school reform (Stoll & Louis, 2007;Voelkel & Chrispeels, 2017;Watson, 2014). Doğan and Adams (2018) highlight five standard features in PLC definitions across scientific literature: shared vision and purpose, reflective dialogue, collaboration, focus on learner learning and support environments. ...
The COVID-19 pandemic caused teachers and learners to be removed from their school communities, negatively impacting school culture, and limiting teacher professional development (PD). Online PD programmes emerged to meet these needs. This study investigated how schools implemented teacher PD and mechanisms for teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was necessary to understand the complex interplay between school culture and teacher PD, and Wenger's social learning theory was used to prescribe the empirical prescription. This study examined the influence of school culture on Mathematics and Science teacher development during the COVID-19 pandemic. A qualitative approach was used to compare three independent schools in the same Educational Trust in Gauteng. The empirical findings of this study revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant influence on the school culture, consequently giving rise to explicit professional learning communities (PLCs), which in turn influenced the teachers’ pedagogical repertoires for curriculum delivery during a pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of schools transforming their practices and adapting their school cultures. Results showed that school culture is not static, and individuals had to reflect collectively to develop ideas to transform learning. Schools need to learn from the pandemic, adjust their values, and use their newfound insights and beliefs to work towards a new learning culture. Future research must evaluate unfolding PLC practices, strategies, and implementations during a crisis.
... PLCs are common in North American schools, suggesting that they are already part of the existing infrastructure. Effective PLCs include self-reflection, collaborative learning, community building, having a shared vision and values (Stoll et al., 2006a(Stoll et al., , 2006bWatson, 2014), as well as goal setting, troubleshooting, use of accountability measures, and strategies that reinforce teachers' confidence (Richmond & Manokore, 2011). Darling-Hammond and colleagues' (2017) review revealed a connection between PLCs that facilitate ongoing jobembedded learning and positive academic and behavioral student outcomes. ...
Unlabelled:
The randomized trial of the Making Socially Accepting Inclusive Classrooms (MOSAIC) program included intensive coaching from research staff to support teachers' implementation of MOSAIC strategies and resulted in positive student outcomes (Mikami et al., J. Clin. Child Adolesc. Psychol. 51(6):1039-1052, 2022). However, these intensive procedures are costly (in time, money, and resources) and serve as barriers to intervention adoption under typical school conditions. In this study, we explored the extent to which MOSAIC-trained teachers could sustain practices under typical practice conditions (sustainment), the extent to which teachers who did not participate in the trial could adopt the practices under typical practice conditions (spread), and the extent to which strategy use in the follow-up year was associated with participation in MOSAIC-focused professional learning communities (PLCs). Participants were 30 elementary school teachers, including (a) 13 teachers who received intensive coaching on MOSAIC practices during the previous year (MOSAIC group), and (b) seven teachers who participated in the trial in the control condition, plus 10 new teachers interested in MOSAIC (new-to-MOSAIC group). We assessed MOSAIC strategy use over the school year via monthly observations and biweekly teacher self-report surveys. Observation data revealed high sustainment in the MOSAIC group, with teachers showing less than 20% decline in the use of most strategies between the two years of participation. New-to-MOSAIC teachers implemented some core MOSAIC strategies, although not to the extent as those in the MOSAIC group. Higher strategy use was modestly associated with PLC attendance. We discuss implications for encouraging sustainment and intervention spread after initial, intensive supports are withdrawn.
Supplementary information:
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12310-022-09555-w.
... Teacher agency is a complex notion: attention has been drawn to its definitional challenges and, moreover, the importance of recognising 'the temporal and relational dimension of the achievement of agency' (Priestley et al. 2015, 134). Furthermore, the multidimensional relationships between teachers' engagement in professional learning, and the development of students' learning are not straightforward, or easily determined (Watson 2014). Alongside such significant issues, it has long been noted that the term 'professional learning' is, in practice, often used to describe a wide range of activities, in and out of school, that may have potential to enhance educators' professional skill and vision (Timperley et al. 2007). ...
Background
Reflective teaching has long been regarded as playing an important, and potentially empowering, role in teachers’ professional learning. The study reported in this paper considered the longer-term significance of teachers’ self-reflective learning in the course of their daily emergency remote teaching during COVID-19, and how this supported teacher agency.
Purpose
This small-scale case study sought to explore, in depth, teachers’ perceptions of how their professional learning was realised through reflective practice during emergency remote teaching.
Method
Three teachers from primary, junior high, and high schools in mainland China participated in the case study during the spring and fall semesters in 2020. They considered the accommodations they made for emergency remote teaching and the corresponding implications for their professional learning and sense of agency. Data were collected via four-monthly, semi-structured interviews, resulting in a total of five interviews per teacher. These charted the progress of their emergency remote courses in the spring, and allowed for final reflections via a follow-up interview in the fall. Data were analysed thematically.
Findings
The resultant four themes and eight categories related to aspects including pedagogical strategies, home-school communication, classroom management, and teachers’ technological literacy. Within these, approaches to blending online and offline coursework, valuing sociocultural concerns in classroom interaction, and developing adaptive mindsets were among areas identified as relevant to teachers’ professional learning beyond the emergency remote teaching situation.
Conclusions
The findings highlight the multiple ways in which professional learning took place through reflective teaching in the remote teaching environment. They draw attention to the importance of situating some professional learning in everyday practice. Understandings gained during remote teaching have broader implications for educators’ professional learning and growth in pre-tertiary education.
... For Hargreaves and O'Connor (2020), this can be achieved through a more collaborative professional culture that enriches the personal and social capital of the school. These aspects demonstrate the need for sharing roles, power, and decision-making while creating opportunities for distributed leadership that destabilize the rigidity with which the traditional school is characterized (Watson, 2014). Bolam et al. (2005) stated that a fundamental condition for a school to function as a PLC is the support provided at all levels of education through leadership that makes it possible to maintain sustainability in the school's functioning regardless of change processes. ...
The aim of this paper is to identify the characteristics that leadership must have in order to make a Professional Learning Community sustainable. A review of the literature is carried out from a qualitative perspective allowing us to identify a set of emerging themes from the literature studied. Among the results, it is highlighted that in order to achieve professional learning communities with sustainable leadership, it is necessary to distribute responsibilities, reflect jointly on what is taught and why, establish external relations with other institutions and schools, and care the emotional wellbeing of members of a school community.
... Through research, analysis and planning, it is important to engage in a community where memories and experiences are shared. And such communities, as suggested by many authors, are important because they are constructed based on the past and guided by the goals for the future (Watson 2014;Spradley 2008). Therefore, constructivist leadership could be formulated as reciprocal, purposeful learning and action in the community. ...
The field of effective teaching is not only significant but also unique in relation to the demands placed before it and the issues it faces along the way. It can be said that adequate, positive leadership is the answer to the demands and a promising solution in reducing the issues and challenges of the current reform. Although researchers and practitioners have emphasized the importance of leadership in education, teacher leadership is a field that has started to be "in the spotlight" only in the last few years and is a topic that has not been sufficiently researched. For the purposes of adequate affirmation and understanding of the nature and essence of teacher leadership, as seen by the author of this paper and the leading authors in this field, it is necessary to make a brief review of the foundations of its origin, that is, different theoretical perspectives of looking at leadership in education in general. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to review and analyze two significant and at the same time quite influential sociological paradigms of leadership in education (the structural-functionalist and constructivist) which further reflect on the shaping and development of teacher leadership.
... Therefore, to obtain success, an organization must work together and act as a team (Hazri Shahreen et al., 2015). One the methods for teachers to be involved in professional development that leads to increased student learning is through the Professional Learning Community (PLC) and this concept has been widely accepted in schools (Watson, 2014). ...
... The PLC is described as an inclusive group of people collaborating internally and externally by inquiring practices, learning together, and focusing on improving student learning (Stoll et al., 2007). Regardless of the idea of inclusiveness, studies about PLCs have ignored TAs' involvement, while at the same time building PLCs has been regarded effective approach for teachers professional learning and development and school improvement (Turner et al., 2018;Watson, 2014). Research, schools, students, and staff members could benefit from taking more inclusive perspective on TAs' membership and work. ...
Teaching assistants (TAs) have a notable role in supporting individual students, groups, and classes in learning and in daily practices, both in mainstream and special education at the primary and secondary school levels. To enhance teaching assistants' learning, they should be integrated members of schools' professional learning communities. Despite this, most research about professional learning communities has concentrated on studying professional learning communities from teachers' and principals' perspectives. The purpose of this study was to identify how Finnish teaching assistants perceive their own and their schools' capacities. Teaching assistants' perceptions about personal capacities indicated that collaborative knowledge construction is regarded as a strength, including shared inquiry with teachers, and reflection of common and own practices. Perceptions about interpersonal capacities indicated that collaboration, shared values and vision, collective responsibility of student learning and shared practices with teachers are regarded as strengths. The dimensions of relationships and climate, including relationships based on trust and respect, were also reported as strengths. Within organizational capacities, structural conditions, such as participation, time allocation, professional development and in-service training and stimulating leadership have been reported as aspects that could be stronger from teaching assistants' perspectives. Methodologically, this study confirms the nature of professional learning community as a multidimensional and multi-layer construct, with interrelated dimensions and capacities.
... Der forefindes en stor maengde litteratur om agency-begrebet (bl.a. Archer, 1988;Giddens, 1984), og denne terminologi indgår ofte i de nyere uddannelsesreformer (Watson, 2014), hvor laerere betegnes som forandringsskabende, og hvor agency beskrives som noget, laererne får gennem de nye reformers tiltag, der har til hensigt at åbne op for laererens autonomi. Adjektiver såsom "empowerment" kendetegner et nyt syn på laererens professionalisme, hvor laererens dømmekraft bliver sat i centrum i modsaetning til tidligere strategier. ...
Med denne artikel ønsker vi at gøre opmærksom på, at vi i Danmark bør tage ved lære af den bagside, som test-regimet og accountability-tilgangen kan have på uddannelsessystemet, og i særdeleshed på lærerens effektuering af undervisningen i form af en snæver teach-to-the-test-tilgang, som vi ser det i en del angelsaksiske lande. Set i et handlingsforandrende perspektiv argumenterer vi for, at vi bør prioritere tid til refleksion over undervisningen. I denne artikel præsenterer vi det engelske begreb teacher agency og belyser,
hvordan det kan forstås i en uddannelsessammenhæng, ved hjælp af praksiseksempler fra en empirisk skotsk undersøgelse. Denne undersøgelse muliggør ideen om lærere som “agents of change”, dvs. som forandringsskabere. Vi kommer derefter med forslag til, hvordan agency-begrebet kan tages op i en dansk kontekst, via en dialogbaseret tilgang.
... Some require their lecturers to undertake specific educational qualifications, while others rely on more of an apprenticeship style model (García et al., 2010;Gregory & Salmon, 2013). Professional learning communities (PLCs) (Hargreaves, 2019;Watson, 2014) and peer review and support of teaching practices (PRT) (Johnston et al., 2020) have often been touted as opportunities for educators to collaborate within a safe and supportive environment that promotes improved program and student outcomes. Nonetheless, evidence suggests that a top-down approach to PLCs or PRT can fail in transforming teaching and learning as opposed to an approach where educators are empowered to be part of the culture change (Chester et al., 2019;Hargreaves, 2019). ...
The worldwide imposed lockdowns forced schools and universities to digitise conventional teaching in a very short time and to convert teaching and learning formats partially or completely to Distance Learning. The changes in everyday teaching brought by Distance Learning were felt worldwide. With 22 double blind peerreviewed articles of researchers reporting on 17 different countries, the editors of this book want to shed light on the effects of Distance Learning in different regions of the world. This will allow for a value-free comparison of how the COVID-19 pandemic has been addressed in education in different parts of the world and what impacts it has had, is having or may have in the future.
The book is fully available here: https://doi.org/10.56560/isbn.978-3-7011-0496-3
... For example, recently scholars have highlighted that relational demography (dis)similarity in a dyad was correlated to team outcomes and teacher perception of leadership with implications for the quality of relationship in the dyad (Benoliel & Berkovich, 2021). Therefore, teachers' personal characteristics and predispositions toward knowledge sharing, social learning, and interpersonal interactions may emerge as significant resources for teacher collaboration (Colbert et al., 2012;Watson, 2014). ...
Merging the variables from the 2018 TALIS, the 2018 PISA, and the 2004 GLOBE study, the present research investigates the associations between contextual variables and teacher collaboration across national boundaries, which is essential to understand teacher collaboration in a broader context. Employing multi-level linear models, this study specified the variance in teacher collaboration related to teacher characteristics, school factors, and country policy and cultural variations, respectively. The results revealed that the teacher-level factors are associated with a significant proportion of variance in the outcome. Meanwhile, school culture, leadership, student composition, and country-level policy are influential for teacher collaboration.
... Literature denotes that CoPs can hold the key to real transformation by being 'a locus of engagement in action, interpersonal relations, shared knowledge, and negotiation of enterprises' (Wenger, 1998, p.85), and had the power to initiate change in institutions by the conscious confrontation of competing values (Sachs, 2001;Watson, 2014). ...
... The PLC is defined as a method of functioning for schools that focus on school-team collaboration and encourage their teachers to undertake collective activities and reflection with the goal of continuously improving student outcomes (Roy & Hord, 2007). Work within the PLC is organized to enable the members to be involved in their own professional development and in improving schools (Beach, 2012;Byrd, 2012;Moirao et al., 2012;Riveros, Newton, & Burgess, 2012;Watson, 2014). ...
... Some require their lecturers to undertake specific educational qualifications, while others rely on more of an apprenticeship style model (García et al., 2010;Gregory & Salmon, 2013). Professional learning communities (PLCs) (Hargreaves, 2019;Watson, 2014) and peer review and support of teaching practices (PRT) (Johnston et al., 2020) have often been touted as opportunities for educators to collaborate within a safe and supportive environment that promotes improved program and student outcomes. Nonetheless, evidence suggests that a top-down approach to PLCs or PRT can fail in transforming teaching and learning as opposed to an approach where educators are empowered to be part of the culture change (Chester et al., 2019;Hargreaves, 2019). ...
At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic nearly 1.6 billion learners (94% of the world’s student population) were affected by the closure of educational institutions. The imposed lockdowns forced schools and universities to digitise conventional teaching in a very short time and to convert teaching and learning formats partially or completely to Distance Learning. The changes in everyday teaching brought by Distance Learning were felt worldwide. With 28 double blind peer-reviewed articles of researchers reporting on 17 different countries, the editors of this book want to shed light on the effects of Distance Learning in different regions of the world. This will allow for a value-free comparison of how the COVID-19 pandemic has been addressed in education in different parts of the world and what impacts – positive and/or negative – it has had, is having or may have in the future.
... Some require their lecturers to undertake specific educational qualifications, while others rely on more of an apprenticeship style model (García et al., 2010;Gregory & Salmon, 2013). Professional learning communities (PLCs) (Hargreaves, 2019;Watson, 2014) and peer review and support of teaching practices (PRT) (Johnston et al., 2020) have often been touted as opportunities for educators to collaborate within a safe and supportive environment that promotes improved program and student outcomes. Nonetheless, evidence suggests that a top-down approach to PLCs or PRT can fail in transforming teaching and learning as opposed to an approach where educators are empowered to be part of the culture change (Chester et al., 2019;Hargreaves, 2019). ...
At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic nearly 1.6 billion learners (94% of the world’s student population) were affected by the closure of educational institutions. The imposed lockdowns forced schools and universities to digitise conventional teaching in a very short time and to convert teaching and learning formats partially or completely to Distance Learning. The changes in everyday teaching brought by Distance Learning were felt worldwide. With 28 double blind peer-reviewed articles of researchers reporting on 17 different countries, the editors of this book want to shed light on the effects of Distance Learning in different regions of the world. This will allow for a value-free comparison of how the COVID-19 pandemic has been addressed in education in different parts of the world and what impacts – positive and/or negative – it has had, is having or may have in the future.
... Authentic learning comes from sense-making in relation to new knowledge, teachers applying concepts to specific contexts as a way of developing nuanced understandings (Lofthouse and Cowie, 2018). Practitioner cognition is viewed as having personal, situated and distributed dimensions within nested activity systems at classroom, organisation and community levels (Opfer and Pedder, 2011), with fundamental shifts in cognition emerging from these "practice-complexes" (Watson, 2014). This is conceptualised as reciprocal interaction between new knowledge, reflection on existing beliefs and assumptions, and experimentation with practice that aids retrieval of what has been learned and ensures its practical application (Brennan et al., 2019;Rouse, 2008). ...
Purpose
Professional learning has been highlighted as critical to improvement in educational practice for Autistic learners. Empirical evidence about what is effective for professional learning in education suggests it is a “bottom-up” process of intellectual, practical and emotional engagement and application of new knowledge to specific contexts. The purpose of this study was to gather information about postgraduate professional learning that sought to combine lived experience with reflection on practice in a critical pedagogy approach for practitioners working with Autistic learners in post-16 education.
Design/methodology/approach
Participants in the study represented all further education (FE) colleges in Wales and included experienced teachers and leaders, most of whom have a role focused on inclusion and learning support within their setting. Two phases of data collection were carried out, namely, a baseline survey ( n = 36) and follow-up interviews ( n = 15) at the end of the year of study. Interviews explored personal experiences of learning, knowledge and beliefs about practice and change in this respect and professionals’ priorities for the development of practice.
Findings
Findings present information gathered from the interviews and indicate that the course did not provide practitioners with new knowledge about autism but supported the development of more nuanced understandings of autism and more professional confidence about practice. However, familiarisation with lived experience and critical reflection on practice were described as supporting the questioning of basic assumptions and greater appreciation of the nature of difference for Autistic learners.
Originality/value
Study findings reframe what should be considered the focus of support practices for Autistic learners in FE.
... There could be a desire for teachers and administrators to improve instructional activities or to include more professional development opportunities for teachers and leaders. (Jones & Yarbrough, 2013;Pourrajab et al., 2015;Watson, 2014). Low focus then would be an inadequacy in improvement desires or opportunities as a whole. ...
https://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/joel/vol7/iss2/4
... Some require their lecturers to undertake specific educational qualifications, while others rely on more of an apprenticeship style model (García et al., 2010;Gregory & Salmon, 2013). Professional learning communities (PLCs) (Hargreaves, 2019;Watson, 2014) and peer review and support of teaching practices (PRT) (Johnston et al., 2020) have often been touted as opportunities for educators to collaborate within a safe and supportive environment that promotes improved program and student outcomes. Nonetheless, evidence suggests that a top-down approach to PLCs or PRT can fail in transforming teaching and learning as opposed to an approach where educators are empowered to be part of the culture change (Chester et al., 2019;Hargreaves, 2019). ...
With the rapid transition to remote teaching during the pandemic, higher education instructors have been confronted with unprecedented challenges, particularly the management of interpersonal relationships in online formats. To date, little research investigated instructors’ work experiences during the pandemic. This paper provides insights into a) aspects that instructors found stressful and aspects they reported as resources, b) instructors’ levels of stress and stressors, and c) the extent to which instructors perceived personal and social resources to cope with stress. In two studies, we analyzed the data of a two-wave survey with independent samples of 157 (W1, Spring 2020) and 128 (W2, Fall/Winter 2020/2021) instructors, respectively. In Study 1 (qualitative), we identified specific stressors and resources reported by instructors finding that they most frequently mentioned interpersonal aspects as stressors and resources. In Study 2 (quantitative) we compared stress levels, stressors, and available resources at both waves considering instructors’ gender and professional status. Unexpectedly, we found no gender differences in experienced stress levels. Yet, there were significant differences in perceived personal and social resources. At both times, female compared to male instructors reported a more
positive social teaching self-concept and higher institutional support. At W1 and W2, mid-level staff perceived higher levels of stress compared to lecturers. After 9 months in the pandemic, mid-level staff reported higher online self-efficacy compared to professors.
We discuss our findings in terms of their implications as the global digital transformation of teaching in higher education continues to unfold.
... 1570). Watson (2012) explains that learning communities are a complex phenomenon within the frames of which teacher leadership development and professionalism gain new scales. Carpenter (2018) states how a learning community is introduced as a significant part of "a school culture" (p. ...
Literature has extensively documented traditional conceptions of sustainable teacher professional development (PD). Recently, PD has promoted self-directed and small group opportunities that provide teachers with interactive and discussion-based social learning. For this reason, this research explores the effect of book clubs as a form of PD for teachers in Saudi Arabia. To do this, the researcher used qualitative design through narrative approach. Presenting the narratives of thirteen female teachers who joined a book club to share their experiences and exchange knowledge, this study demonstrates the value of using book clubs as an alternative learning tool for professional improvement. This research demonstrates that using a casual, inviting platform, book clubs successfully create learning communities by providing support and guidance and validating shared experiences. The research concludes with implications for using book clubs among teachers in Saudi Arabian schools, such as learning as a social act.
... lesson study) to make sure that their students achieve such outcomes. That contemporary role of educators makes them adopt the critical role as the agents of change (Watson, 2014) and makes them participate in various practitioner inquiries such as lesson and/or learning study. The authors of this book discuss that "the soul of lesson study" (2021, p. 26) is to present professional learning opportunities for teachers so that they can be empowered to make decisions regarding their own classroom practices. ...
... Si nos centramos en el marco DigCompOrg, por ser objeto del estudio, se presenta un modelo diseñado para ser utilizado por diferentes organizaciones educativas (educación primaria, secundaria y formación profesional o educación superior) que quieran realizar un diagnóstico sobre el uso que hacen de las tecnologías en el proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje. El concepto de organización digitalmente competente se relaciona con el concepto de "organizaciones de aprendizaje" y "organización basada en competencias" (Stoll y Kools, 2017;Watson, 2014) o con el concepto de "aprendizaje organizacional" (Hong et al., 2017) cuyo objetivo es optimizar el ejercicio de las organizaciones por medio del trabajo colaborativo. En todos estos conceptos subyace la idea de organización digitalmente competente que consigue mejores resultados desde diferentes ángulos. ...
The European Framework for Digitally Competent Educational Organisations (DigCompOrg) is the first pan-European model that guides educational institutions to digitize in a strategic way. The general objective of this research is to offer an overview of the scientific production that is based on this model and to identify the theoretical or practical focus of these studies. An exploratory study with a documentary analysis technique is presented, the method of which consists of a systematic review of the existing scientific literature published in relation to the DigCompOrg model from 2015 to 2020. For the search, the bibliometric databases Scopus, Web of Science and the scientific search engine Google Scholar were used. After eliminating duplicaties, a total of 231 works are analyzed, of which 28 make up the final sample after applying the eligibility criteria. The findings show that there is an annual increase in published works that refence the frameworkfrom the year of its appearance; however, few of them address it in their central approach. Its versatility in establishing a systemic self-assessment process stands out, although it could be adapted to the real educational context in which it is applied.
الأهداف: هدفت الدراسة إلى بناء برنامج قائم على مدخل مجتمعات التعلم المهنية والكشف عن فاعليته في تنمية مهارات التدريس الإبداعي والكفاءة الذاتية لدى معلمي التربية الإسلامية بالمرحلة المتوسطة. المنهجية: اعتمدت الدراسة على المنهج الوصفي التحليلي، والمنهج شبه التجريبي تصميم أحادي المجموعة (قبلي- بعدي). وتكونت عينة الدراسة من (24) معلمًا من معلمي التربية الإسلامية، تم اختيارهم بصورة عشوائية في أربعة مدارس بالمرحلة المتوسطة بمدارس الإدارة العامة لتعليم تبوك، بمنطقة تبوك التعليمية. النتائج: كان من بين أهم نتائج الدراسة الحالية وكان من بين أهم نتائج الدراسة وجود فروق ذات دلالة إحصائية بين متوسطي درجات معلمي المجموعة التجريبية في التطبيقين القبلي والبعدي لبطاقة ملاحظة مهارات التدريس الإبداعي ككل، وكل مهارة على حدة، وذلك لصالح درجات التطبيق البعدي، وفي التطبيقين القبلي والبعدي لمقياس الكفاءة الذاتية ككل، وأبعاده كل بعد على حدة، وذلك لصالح درجات التطبيق البعدي، كما أثبت فاعلية البرنامج المقترح القائم على مجتمعات التعلم المهنية في تنمية مهارات التدريس الإبداعي وتنمية الكفاءة الذاتية، كما كشفت النتائج عن وجود علاقة ارتباطية موجبة دالة إحصائيًا بين درجات المعلمين في التطبيق البعدي لبطاقة ملاحظة مهارات التدريس الإبداعي ودرجاتهم على مقياس الكفاءة الذاتية. الخلاصة: أوصت الدراسة بضرورة توظيف مجتمعات التعلم المهنية من قبل القيادات المدرسية والمشرفين التربويين، لتحسين أداء معلمي التربية الإسلامية، مع تدريب المعلمين على توظيفها كمجموعات تخصصية في التنمية المهنية الذاتية أو التشاركية بين المعلمين داخل كل مدرسة أو بين المدارس، إضافة إلى تدريب معلمي التربية الإسلامية على مهارات التدريس الإبداعي.
Teachers often find ways to mediate their curriculum making practices, even in most centralized contexts. In order to delve into this mediation process, this chapter offers a philosophical and methodological framework to investigate the role of reflexivity and networks. Following a critical realist approach, I argue that there are three generative mechanisms underlying teachers’ curriculum making practices that can help us to understand why teachers act in different ways. First, teachers’ modes of reflexivity, distinctive ways of projecting actions, based on teachers’ concerns and by means of their environment, offer strong explanations of why teachers take certain standpoints, follow particular reasoning processes, and act upon curriculum reforms in various ways. Second, relational assets (relational goods and evils) that emerge from teachers’ curriculum making relationships offer explanations as to why certain practices might be enhanced or inhibited. Finally, the national and organizational context, more particularly, schools’ formal organization, curriculum reform as a chain of organic interactions, and performativity culture, explains teacher mediation of curriculum making.
This review paper brings an outline of information gathered from content analysis of available scientific literature on Professional Learning Communities in schools. As it is not a new concept in education, we feel the need to explore nowadays understanding and practical implications, both positive and negative, of this concept in schools. With the current strong digital transformation of today's schools, comes the need for new strategies and transformation of approaches to empowering teachers towards efficient and sustainable collaborative work in their professional learning communities. The aim of this research was to find new evidence that would help neoteric researchers, education authorities and decision makers in schools to instigate the use of this concept, upgrade crucial aspects of these communities and boost their efficiency to better the educational process in schools. Research has shown various possibilities and strong potential of this concept which should be considered a valuable asset of human resource management in education.
This article addresses how employers privileging disability-specific experience and impairment-related competencies in hiring practices reframe disability from a limited ability to work to a valuable human resource. It is based on the analysis of 14 in-depth interviews with disabled and non-disabled Norwegian employers that privilege hiring people with disabilities. Applying Boltanski and Thévenot's theory of justification, it is argued that employers' narratives rely on several orders of worth to legitimate hiring strategies and decisions. Findings suggest that employers narrate productivity as something that values the industrious citizen. Further, based on values of collectivity, the employers mobilise collective identities inherent in civic ideas of disability rights promotion, whereas narratives of loyalty value dutifulness and employees who stay in their jobs. By placing value on loyalty, such narratives could portray employees with disabilities as being particularly servile, and their employment as akin to charity. The policy context emphasising labour market participation for people with disabilities and employers' central role in achieving this seems to play an important role in shaping the employers' narratives. RÉSUMÉ Repenser le handicap sur le marché du travail: témoignages d'employeurs Cet article aborde la façon dont les employeurs qui privilégient, lors de l'em-bauche, l'expérience spécifique du handicap et les compétences liées à la défi-cience redéfinissent le handicap, transformant en ressource humaine créatrice de valeur la capacité limitée d'une personne à travailler. L'article se base sur l'analyse de quatorze entretiens approfondis avec des employeurs norvégiens-ayant un handicap ou non-qui privilégient l'embauche de personnes handicapées. Il est avancé, en application de la théorie de la justification de Boltanski et Thévenot, que les récits des employeurs s'appuient sur plusieurs ordres de valeur pour légitimer les stratégies et décisions d'embauche. Pour les employeurs, la productivité valorise le citoyen travailleur. Sur la base de valeurs de collectivité, les employeurs font appel à la promotion des idées civiques et des droits des personnes handicapées, tandis que les récits de loyauté valorisent le sens du devoir et les employés qui restent à leur poste. En accordant de la valeur à la loyauté, de tels récits pourraient présenter les employés en situation de handicap comme particulièrement serviles et leur emploi comme une forme de charité. Le contexte politique mettant en valeur la participation des personnes handicapées au marché du travail semble jouer un rôle important dans l'élaboration des récits des employeurs.
The development of pedagogy in Croatia in the period between the two world wars was strongly influenced by reformist trends. Cultural pedagogy, also called theoretical or philosophical pedagogy, explores pedagogy as a scientific discipline and fundamental teleological questions of pedagogy and education. It is based, on the one hand, on conceptual pluralism, individualism in education, and balanced approach to child’s personality needs and, on the other, on community expectations, increasing the appreciation of child’s personality. Cultural pedagogy contributed considerably to the establishment of academic autonomy of pedagogy and education, to the clarification of relationships between pedagogy and education, pedagogy and philosophy, psychology and culture in general, of relationships between culture and education, and personality and education, as well as to the problem of defining educational goals and a number of other essential pedagogical questions.
A productive development of pedagogy in Croatia was crudely interrupted after the Second World War. Within the new, socialist socio-political framework and under ideological control, pedagogy was forced to forget its heritage and break ties with international developments.
After independence and renewed pluralisation of society in the 1990s what predominates is an eclectic selection of various pedagogic research from among international resources, without critical questioning of their theoretical and methodological grounds, without exploration of the meaning and purposefulness of pedagogy and education.
The following paper analyses circumstances and consequences of the disappearance of pedagogic teleology, which has reduced pedagogy in Croatia to studying educational methods.
This chapter discusses the issues and challenges of teacher professional development and education quality improvement initiatives in Indonesia. Indonesian education reform presents one exemplary case of global education reform and education transfer—its reform initiatives have been influenced by foreign educational theory, policy, and pedagogy. With the support of international donor agencies, the “best practices” of Western nations were transferred to improve the quality of education. However, evidence showed that these efforts did not lead to an improvement in teaching or student performance. The past studies on teacher development indicated there was a discrepancy between policy and practice; however, the process of its pedagogic transformation—what actually took place at the school level—continues to be a black box. This study employs a sociological approach and provides a context-specific examination of teachers’ practice embedded within the web of social relations. The advantages of such sociological analysis are discussed as well as an overview of the history of lesson study in Indonesia, a description of the research setting, and research methodology.
The aim of this study was to investigate how Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) could help to improve the teaching and learning outcomes of business education subjects in Botswana secondary schools. A qualitative methodology was adopted and data were collected online through WhatsApp chats and calls. Through analysing interviews and reviewing of documents related to PLCs in schools, we were able to code data into categories that emerged from themes and that assisted in understanding the perceptions and practices of teachers. The findings of this study indicate that through the implementation of PLCs in school there is a likelihood of improved learning outcomes amongst students due to collaborative efforts amongst teachers in lesson preparations and classroom instruction.
Drawing from the professional experience of one “zhijiao” teacher in the southwestern border of China, this study uses a narrative method to describe and analyze the growth and development of an effective teacher serving in a rural and remote school with a high concentration of ethnic minority students. Qualitative data for this single case study were generated through interviews with the selected teacher and her colleagues and students. Specifically, the study examines the teacher’s professional philosophy and beliefs, professional knowledge, and professional skills. It illustrates how these domains relate to the teacher’s effectiveness. The study also discusses possibilities for better preparation and development of teachers serving the most disadvantaged areas in China.
Cette note de synthèse vise à offrir un panorama de la littérature scientifique concernant les communautés d’apprentissage professionnelles (CAP) envisagées comme une voie prometteuse pour améliorer les écosystèmes scolaires. Nous présentons les résultats de l’analyse de 109 articles scientifiques repérés sur des bases de données dans trois directions : les conditions favorables au développement d’une organisation en CAP, l’étude du fonctionnement d’une organisation en CAP et, les effets d’une organisation en CAP. Nous concluons en discutant la question de l’émergence et de la diffusion du concept de CAP, du « défi conceptuel » qui traverse ce champ de recherche et des perspectives offertes par cette revue.
Cette communication soulèvera la question de l’« agir ensemble » pour la pédagogie universitaire à travers la présentation d’un axe d’une recherche doctorale visant à étudier les collectifs de professionnels évoluant dans les Nouveaux Cursus à l’Université (NCU) : des plans visant à initier une transformation profonde de l’offre de formation dans l’enseignement supérieur par le financement de projets d’innovations pédagogiques. Pour cela, ce projet doctoral investit le concept de communauté d’apprentissage professionnelle (CAP) fortement mobilisé dans la littérature internationale pour étudier des structures permettant aux professionnels de l’éducation d’apprendre en continu sur leurs terrains afin d’améliorer leurs pratiques et la réussite des apprenants. Le succès des CAP aujourd’hui est tel que l’on assiste à une explosion du nombre de recherches en ce domaine. Pourtant, cet élan contraste avec des travaux stipulant que le concept de CAP repose sur des fondements théoriques instables (e.g., Waston, 2014). Les raisons de ce manque de clarté conceptuelle se rattachent au développement du champ de recherche des communautés d’enseignants qui recueille un ensemble conséquent de terminologies appliquées à divers contextes éducatifs: communautés de pratiques, communautés épistémiques, communautés discursives, communautés de recherche, communautés d’intérêts, etc. Progressivement, cet ensemble de notions va se cristalliser dans le terme de CAP tant il va obtenir l’attention des praticiens et des responsables en politiques éducatives. De telle sorte qu’aujourd’hui, la clarification du concept de CAP se heurte à l’existence d’une pluralité de perspectives théoriques et à une inflation de son usage pouvant le priver de sa substance au risque qu’il ne soit rien de plus qu’un « mot valise ». Cela explique pourquoi l’agenda de recherche sur les CAP (Hairon, Goh et Kheng, 2015) souligne toujours la nécessité d’une théorisation substantielle du concept et d’une indication claire des caractéristiques spécifiques des CAP qui les distingueraient des formes de collaborations enseignantes alternatives. C’est précisément l’objectif de cette communication dans laquelle les chercheurs s’efforceront de fournir une conceptualisation claire des CAP et de leurs
caractéristiques en s’appuyant sur les connaissances construites dans le cadre d’un travail de revue systématique de la littérature (Bertrand, Pasco et Reffay, 2021) comprenant 109 articles supports. Une démarche à partir de laquelle seront envisagées des perspectives pour investir le concept de CAP dans l’enseignement supérieur. Pour ce faire, cette communication s’articulera en trois temps. Le premier sera consacré à contextualiser l’émergence du concept de CAP dans la littérature et permettra de mieux saisir les contours du phénomène étudié en l’absence d’une définition consensuelle au sein de la communauté de recherche. Un second temps sera consacré à la proposition d’une définition du concept construite à partir de l’identification de ses caractéristiques typiques. Puis, dans un troisième temps, les chercheurs présenteront un modèle théorique préliminaire des CAP reposant sur l’analyse croisée de différents modèles recensés dans la revue systématique. Enfin, la conclusion sera l’occasion de présenter les perspectives de recherche qu’offre ce travail de clarification pour étudier les formes d’« agir ensemble » en matière de pédagogie universitaire dans le cadre des NCU.
This study explores teachers’ professional development in entrepreneurship education (EE). It examines empirically the change in teachers’ EE practices among Finnish teachers in 2011–2017. Overall, the quantitative analysis reveals that entrepreneurship education practices are increasing, albeit unevenly. Three groups of teachers, EE experimenters, EE critics, and EE selectors show different profiles in their use of EE practices. Furthermore, these groups seem to represent different stages of EE professionalization. The analysis shows that teachers’ EE practices increase on the introductory stage but decrease deeply after. Moreover, the study suggests that teachers’ implementation of EE evolves along with their teaching experience. As regards implications it reveals that teachers in different stages of professional development need different types of support. The adoption of EE practices depends on the institutional and social support offered to teachers. The results of the investigation contribute to the literature of EE by introducing a new typology of teachers, also presenting empirical evidence of the teachers’ ability to absorb EE as a new approach. Furthermore, the study shows that for the adoption of EE it is not enough to emphasize the introductory stage but instead also the later stages of teacher’s professionalization need to be considered.
The concept of professional learning communities (PLCs) has received considerable attention in research as well as in school practice since the late 1990s. PLCs have been positively associated with a variety of outcomes for both teachers and students, but differences in the way the concept is operationalised, and the fact that most of the research is related to specific national contexts, make it difficult to accumulate and compare research related to PLCs. In order to give PLC research an international scope, the aim of this paper is to develop a global measure of PLCs. The paper includes an overview of the literature on PLCs, as well as an examination of existing measures. Informed by these findings, multi-level confirmatory factor analysis is applied to develop a measure of PLCs in the Teaching and Learning International Survey 2018. This measure includes three distinct dimensions and an overall measure of PLCs at school level in 42 countries/economies, and is available for researchers interested in the concept of PLCs and international perspectives. The measure is applied in an example which investigates the relationship between PLCs and teacher job satisfaction in the Nordic countries. Strengths, limitations, international comparability and possibilities for future developments are discussed.
Case studies have increasingly been used in the field of Education to help school teachersand principals engage in reflection and effective practices. This case study is particularlyrelevant to the dilemmas encountered when supporting students with disabilities in schools.The school principal in the case, Mr. Thomas Donaldson, is committed to supporting allstudents in the school. Mr. Donaldson believes that students’ attachment to school formsthrough healthy relationships built on empathy and commitment between teachers andstudents. Teachers require time, compassion, and professional learning opportunities to bestsupport students with disabilities in ways that result in positive changes for everyone. Mr.Donaldson tries to approach his teachers the same way: He seeks to know and understand thediverse needs and values of his teachers and offers them his perspectives on inclusive,meaningful learning opportunities in the hope of provoking change. The case study beginswith a description of the context in which the school is situated. The case then presents theperspectives of Mr. Donaldson and three new teachers before the start of the school year.These perspectives provide a backdrop to the realities principals face as they strive togenerate cohesive approaches infused from inclusive ideals and guided in the realities theirstudents live. Meeting the needs of his teachers and their students, Mr. Donaldson looksforward to cultivating a healthy inclusive school atmosphere. The case concludes with ananalysis of key aspects including attachment, teacher efficacy, and inclusion.
The impact of the pandemic has revealed just how important teachers are to a nation’s economic productivity and to the very social fabric and well-being of any society. It has also revealed more starkly the socio-economic and digital divides that teachers continue to address daily to support student learning. How then, to best support teachers own professional learning in complex times? This is a question that has long been asked—but now requires a new framing against the backdrop of constant technological change and disruption. This paper reports on a descriptive case study exploring and critiquing the approach to building a set of credit-bearing micro-credentials for teachers continuing professional development in the Australian context. The set of micro credentials were designed to both support teacher’s professional learning in a set of key learning fields and to enable them to build pathways to further Graduate and Master of Education Studies. The study documents the various stages of design and development drawing from the literature and provides some early findings of the affordances and challenges of establishing further micro credentials for the teaching profession.
The appointment of student governors to the governing board is mandatory in further education (FE) colleges across the UK. There is, however, confusion and lack of clarity over the role of the student governor, and little empirical research, especially involving direct observation, has been undertaken which sheds light on this. This paper examines how the role of the student governor is understood by governing boards and how it is enacted in practice. Over one calendar year, we observed and video/audio-recorded governing board meetings in eight FE colleges across the UK, two in each UK country (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales). In addition, we interviewed key actors and spoke to student governors. Our findings reveal a lack of understanding about the role of the student governor which creates a tension between student governors acting in an advisory capacity as part of the governing body, and student governors representing learner voice. We conclude with recommendations for boards aimed at facilitating meaningful engagement of the student governor in governing processes.
Corporate governance is an increasingly provocative topic, evident in ongoing debates between proponents of control versus collaborative approaches. We accommodate these contrasting approaches within a paradox framework, using agency and stewardship theories to elaborate the underlying tensions and to emphasize the value of monitoring, as well as empowerment. Building from these tensions, we examine reinforcing cycles that foster strategic persistence and organizational decline. We conclude by discussing means of managing control and collaboration, highlighting the implications for corporate governance.
Researchers posit that conditions for improving teaching and learning are strengthened when teachers collectively question ineffective teaching routines, examine new conceptions of teaching and learning, find generative means to acknowledge and respond to difference and conflict, and engage actively in supporting one another's professional growth. Yet relatively little research examines the specific interactions and dynamics by which professional community constitutes a resource for teacher learning and innovations in teaching practice. In particular, few studies go "inside teacher community" to focus closely on the teacher development opportunities and possibilities that reside within ordinary daily work. This paper draws on intensive case studies of teacher knowledge, practice, and learning among teachers of mathematics and English in two high schools to take up the problem of how classroom teaching practice comes to be known, shared, and developed among teachers through their out-of-classroom interactions.
This paper presents an ethnographic study of how safety is mastered by novices on a building site, in order to highlight the social and cultural character of learning. Adopting a situational focus, the paper explores how knowledge is acquired and transmitted, and how a culture of practice sediments and is perpetuated in the process. The paper takes the community of practices as the privileged locus of learning and transmitting practical knowledge. This study is therefore an attempt to understand in what forms and by means of what mechanisms building-site novices are socialized in the community of practices and how, within this process, the competence relative to safety and danger is learned.
In this paper we rethink and reframe organizational learning in terms of organizational becoming. We see these concepts as two mutually implicating ways of exploring and simultaneously constituting the phenomena of organization. Bearing in mind that the understanding of organization is simultaneously a question of the organization of understanding, we reflect on the complex interrelation between thinking and organizing. In order to connect the processes of learning and becoming, we consider the concept of organization as space in between order and chaos. We propose a perspective that sees learning not as something that is done to organizations, or as something that an organization does; rather, learning and organizing are seen as mutually constitutive and unstable, yet pragmatic, constructs that might enable a dynamic appreciation of organizational life. Further, we argue that the becoming that is in organizing implies a permanent non-rational movement such that organization can never be rationally defined.
What strategic actors actually do in practice has become increasingly the focus of strategy research in recent years. This paper argues that, in furthering such practice-based views of strategy, we need a more adequate re-conceptualization of agency, action and practice and how they interrelate. We draw from the work of the continental philosopher Martin Heidegger to articulate a relational theory of human agency that is better suited to explaining everyday purposive actions and practices. Specifically, we argue that the dominant 'building' mode of strategizing that configures actors (whether individual or organizational) as distinct entities deliberately engaging in purposeful strategic activities derives from a more basic 'dwelling' mode in which strategy emerges non-deliberately through everyday practical coping. Whereas, from the building perspective, strategy is predicated upon the prior conception of plans that are then orchestrated to realize desired outcome, from a dwelling perspective strategy does not require, nor does it presuppose, intention and purposeful goal-orientation: strategic 'intent' is viewed as immanent in every adaptive action. Observed consistencies in actions taken are explained not through deliberate goal-orientation but, instead, via a modus operandi: an internalized disposition to act in a manner congruent with past actions and experiences. Explaining strategy in dwelling terms enables us to understand bow it is that actions may be consistent and organizationally effective without (and even in spite of) the existence of purposeful strategic plans.
Taking Weick’s theory of sensemaking as illustrative of a socioconstructionist conception of sensemaking and learning in organization studies, I examine the methodological approaches used in this research. This analysis reveals that, although departing from the structuro-functionalist perspective of conventional cognitive theory, sensemaking research nonetheless aims to establish objective knowledge of these subjective processes. In so doing, it is faced with the interpretive paradox implied in seeking an ‘objective science of subjectivity’. Fully acknowledging that studying sensemaking is an active and subjective sensemaking process in itself implies that we re-engage in sensemaking processes. The postmodern route, on the one hand, invites us, through deconstruction, to engage against our sensemaking as a way of uncovering both the constitutive and the undecidable character of sensemaking activities. The pragmatist (or participative) route, on the other hand, suggests that, through participative action research, we fully engage in sensemaking with organization members and recognize the socially constructed aspect of all sensemaking activities. Though not without difficulties, these proposals encourage us to make sense differently of sensemaking processes in organizations.
The recent turn to ‘strategy practice’ offers a genuine opportunity for establishing an alternative perspective that is clearly distinct from the traditional strategy process view. The challenge is to clarify and articulate an alternative set of ontological and epistemological premises for founding this new approach to theorizing strategy.What has been called the ‘practice turn’ in social theory provides this alternative basis for a ‘post-processual’ approach to theorizing strategy-as-practice. This ‘practice turn’ involves a radical reformulation of the intractable problem of agency and structure that enables us to bypass the ‘micro/macro’ distinction so intimately tied to the social sciences in general and to strategy research in particular. Already, there are signs that the discourse of the strategy-as-practice research community reflects this awareness and are thus straining towards some form of ‘trans-individual’ explanation that is not restricted to the mere ‘activities’ of strategy actors nor to the traditional emphasis on macro-structures and processes. This article contributes to the clarification of some of the underlying premises of current strategy theorizing and shows how the strategy-as-practice perspective can further differentiate itself from the strategy process view. From the social practices viewpoint, everyday strategy practices are discernible patterns of actions arising from habituated tendencies and internalized dispositions rather than from deliberate, purposeful goal-setting initiatives. We term this epistemological stance ‘post-processual’. Such a post-processual world-view offers a revised understanding of strategy emergence that has profound explanatory implications for the strategy-as-practice movement.
Some action research today lacks a critical edge. This article identifies five inadequate forms of action research, and argues that action research must be capable of ‘telling unwelcome truths’ against schooling in the interests of education. It reasserts a connection between education and emancipatory ideals that allow educators to address contemporary social challenges. It suggests how educational trends in recent decades may have led to the domestication of educational action research, and concludes with three messages about quality in educational action research. It re‐thinks educational action research initiatives as creating intersubjective spaces for public discourse in public spheres.
Purpose
The aim of this introduction to the special issue is to furnish a panorama on how practice‐based studies (PBS) concerned with organizational learning have developed in recent years, and to describe the topics that such studies have debated.
Design/methodology/approach
The articles in this special issue were first presented at the standing working group on “Practice‐based Studies of Knowledge and Innovation in Workplaces” of the European Group for Organizational Studies, and will therefore provide the background to PBS and an idea of its methodology.
Findings
The practice‐ based approach may be useful for: a renewed conception of organization as a texture of interrelated practices which extend to form an action‐net sustained by a knowing‐in‐action which renews itself and transforms itself into being practiced; a renewed conception of knowledge as a situated, negotiated, emergent and embedded activity; a renewed conception of materiality as a form of distributed agency and an intimate relationship with humans; a methodology for analysis of the new forms of work as knowing‐in‐practice; and a lexicon which comprises new expressions and concepts for the renewal of organization studies.
Research limitations/implications
The special issue does not represent an extended review of the literature on PBS.
Originality/value
This paper offers an overview of an emergent field of studies.
Pluralistic organizations characterized by multiple objectives, diffuse power and knowledge-based work processes present a complex challenge both for strategy theorists and for strategy practitioners because the very nature of strategy as usually understood (an explicit and unified direction for the organization) appears to contradict the natural dynamics of these organizations. Yet pluralism is to some extent always present in organizations and perhaps increasingly so. This article explores the usefulness of three alternate and complementary theoretical frames for understanding and influencing strategy practice in pluralistic contexts: Actor-Network Theory, Conventionalist Theory and the social practice perspective. Each of these frameworks has a predominant focus on one of the fundamental attributes of pluralism: power, values and knowledge. Together, they offer a multi-faceted understanding of the complex practice of strategizing in pluralistic contexts.
This paper examines the consequences for agency that Foucault’s historiographical approach constructs. The analysis begins
by explaining the difference between ‘legislative history’ and ‘exemplary history,’ drawing parallels to similar theoretical
distinctions offered in the works of Max Weber, J.L. Austin, and Zygmunt Bauman. The analysis continues by reading Habermas’s
critique of Foucault through the tropological lenses suggested by White [Metahistory. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1973]; it argues that Habermas’s critique misrecognizes the tropes of Foucaultian genealogy. The paper draws implications
for education by articulating possibilities for praxis and agency in terms of pedagogy specifically related to the distinction
between didactics and modeling. The paper concludes by suggesting that genealogy does not ‘play by Hegel’s rules,’ but rather
exemplifies agency in ways that are not recognizable from a modernist perspective.
Keywordsagency-critical theory-didactics vs. modeling-exemplary history-Foucault-genealogy-Habermas-historiography-legislative history-postmodernism
International evidence suggests that educational reform’s progress depends on teachers’ individual and collective capacity and its link with school-wide capacity for promoting pupils’ learning. Building capacity is therefore critical. Capacity is a complex blend of motivation, skill, positive learning, organisational conditions and culture, and infrastructure of support. Put together, it gives individuals, groups, whole school communities and school systems the power to get involved in and sustain learning over time. Developing professional learning communities appears to hold considerable promise for capacity building for sustainable improvement. As such, it has become a ‘hot topic’ in many countries.
After an overview of the characteristics of professional learning communities (PLCs), this manuscript presents a review of 10 American studies and one English study on the impact of PLCs on teaching practices and student learning. Although, few studies move beyond self-reports of positive impact, a small number of empirical studies explore the impact on teaching practice and student learning. The collective results of these studies suggest that well-developed PLCs have positive impact on both teaching practice and student achievement. Implications of this research and suggestions for next steps in the efforts to document the impact of PLCs on teaching and learning are included.
Continuing to learn is universally accepted and expected by professionals and other stakeholders across all professions. However, despite changes in response to research findings about how professionals learn, many professional development practices still focus on delivering content rather than enhancing learning. In exploring reasons for the continuation of didactic practices in professional development, this article critiques the usual conceptualization of professional development through a review of recent literature across professions. An alternative conceptualization is proposed, based on philosophical assumptions congruent with evidence about professional learning from seminal educational research of the past two decades. An argument is presented for a shift in discourse and focus from delivering and evaluating professional development programs to understanding and supporting authentic professional learning.
What counts. In work, as in other areas of life, it is not always clear what standards we are being judged by or how our worth is being determined. This can be disorienting and disconcerting. Because of this, many organizations devote considerable resources to limiting and clarifying the logics used for evaluating worth. But as David Stark argues, firms would often be better off, especially in managing change, if they allowed multiple logics of worth and did not necessarily discourage uncertainty. In fact, in many cases multiple orders of worth are unavoidable, so organizations and firms should learn to harness the benefits of such "heterarchy" rather than seeking to purge it. Stark makes this argument with ethnographic case studies of three companies attempting to cope with rapid change: a machine-tool company in late and postcommunist Hungary, a new-media startup in New York during and after the collapse of the Internet bubble, and a Wall Street investment bank whose trading room was destroyed on 9/11. In each case, the friction of competing criteria of worth promoted an organizational reflexivity that made it easier for the company to change and deal with market uncertainty. Drawing on John Dewey's notion that "perplexing situations" provide opportunities for innovative inquiry, Stark argues that the dissonance of diverse principles can lead to discovery.
What counts? In work, as in other areas of life, it is not always clear what standards we are being judged by or how our worth is being determined. This can be disorienting and disconcerting. Because of this, many organizations devote considerable resources to limiting and clarifying the logics used for evaluating worth. But as David Stark argues, firms would often be better off, especially in managing change, if they allowed multiple logics of worth and did not necessarily discourage uncertainty. In fact, in many cases multiple orders of worth are unavoidable, so organizations and firms should learn to harness the benefits of such "heterarchy" rather than seeking to purge it. Stark makes this argument with ethnographic case studies of three companies attempting to cope with rapid change: a machine-tool company in late and postcommunist Hungary, a new-media startup in New York during and after the collapse of the Internet bubble, and a Wall Street investment bank whose trading room was destroyed on 9/11. In each case, the friction of competing criteria of worth promoted an organizational reflexivity that made it easier for the company to change and deal with market uncertainty. Drawing on John Dewey's notion that "perplexing situations" provide opportunities for innovative inquiry, Stark argues that the dissonance of diverse principles can lead to discovery.
We use a dialectical perspective to provide a unique framework for understanding institutional change that more fully captures its totalistic, historical, and dynamic nature, as well as fundamentally resolves a theoretical dilemma of institutional theory: the relative swing between agency and embeddedness. In this framework institutional change is understood as an outcome of the dynamic interactions between two institutional by-products: institutional contradictions and human praxis. In particular, we depict praxis - agency embedded in a totality of multiple levels of interpenetrating, incompatible institutional arrangements (centradictions)-as an essential driving force of institutional change.
In delivering ‘school improvement’ school leaders must decide between competing and conflicting demands in the context of uncertainty. Confronted with this there may be a temptation to reduce the complexity, in other words to rationalise the situation. While this may lead to short-term gains, over the longer term such decisions can prove detrimental. In responding to these kinds of situations organisational research has recently taken something of a paradox turn. Indeed, developing practices which are accommodating of paradox is increasingly being seen as a productive and powerful creative strategy for business leaders. The aim of this article was therefore to explore ‘the paradox turn’ for its relevance and utility to school leadership and to examine the implications this gives rise to for schools considered as pluralistic organisations with multiple stakeholders. This pluralism produces layers of complexity and tensions which have their origins in diverse and possibly incommensurable values, calling into question the received wisdom around entrenched concepts such as the necessity for the head teacher to ensure a ‘shared vision’ underpinned by commonly held values.
Corporate governance is an increasingly provocative topic, evident in ongoing debates between proponents of control versus collaborative approaches. We accommodate these contrasting approaches within a paradox framework, using agency theory and stewardship theories to elaborate the underlying tensions and to emphasize the value of monitoring, as well as empowerment. Building from these tensions, we examine reinforcing cycles that foster strategic persistence and organizational decline. We conclude by discussing means of managing control and collaboration, highlighting the implications for corporate governance.
Collaborative inquiry groups, such as professional learning communities and lesson study groups, are proliferating in schools across the United States. In whatever form, the potential for impacting student learning through this collaborative work is expanded or limited by the nature of teachers’ conversations. Polite, congenial conversations remain superficially focused on sharing stories of practice, whereas collegial dialogue probes more deeply into teaching and learning. Examples of talk taken from collaborative teacher inquiry groups are used to illustrate these important differences. Specific recommendations are provided, including the role that teacher leaders can play in adopting and modeling specific strategies that support the use of more substantive professional conversation.
In this interview, Basil Bernstein replies to Joseph Solomon's questions concerning the concept of pedagogy, its role in his theory of symbolic control and cultural production, reproduction and change, and its capacities to deal with different modes of construction and regulation both inside and outside the context of formal education. Furthermore, the questions probe Bernstein's key concept of boundary, its relation to code and the production of social identities. The final issues discussed raise questions about Bernstein's methodology, and changes and weaknesses in the theory.
A strongly identified workforce presents a paradox during times of radical organizational change. Though it may bind people together behind the change initiative, strong organizationwide identification often blinds and potentially blocks the view of new possibilities. Prior research on identity change has tended to either ignore the paradox or resolve it by advocating some middle ground such as hybrid organizational identities or group-level identifications. This paper presents an identity transformation model that capitalizes on the paradoxical tensions over time by unpacking the processes by which individual and organizational levels of identity interact. It operationalizes the model by suggesting linguistic markers that describe the different stages of the process and rhetorical techniques that leaders can use to guide people through the process. To illustrate the model and its application, the paper highlights moments across a 10-year period at Tech-Co, a high-technology company undergoing a significant identity transformation.
This essay introduces a new form of social ontology and sketches its bearings on the analysis of organizations. The essay begins by contrasting the two social ontological camps — individualism and societism — into which social theory has been divided since its inception. It then describes the new approach, called site ontology, according to which social life is tied to a context (site) of which it is inherently a part. Examples of such ontologies are presented, as is my own thesis that the site of social life is composed of a nexus of human practices and material arrangements. The bearing of the latter ontology on the character, origin, and perpetuation of organizations is then considered, using an academic department as an example. Contrasts are also drawn with various approaches in organizations theory, including rational organizations, neoinstitutionalism, systems theories, and selection theories. A final section considers the complex psychological structure of organizations, working off Karl Weick and Karlene Robert’s notion of collective mind in organizations.
The author suggests that we apply recent research knowledge to improve our conceptualization, measures, and methodology for studying the effects of teachers' professional development on teachers and students. She makes the case that there is a research consensus to support the use of a set of core features and a common conceptual framework in professional development impact studies. She urges us to move away from automatic biases either for or against observation, interviews, or surveys in such studies. She argues that the use of a common conceptual framework would elevate the quality of professional development studies and subsequently the general understanding of how best to shape and implement teacher learning opportunities for the maximum benefit of both teachers and students.
The purpose of this article is to bring together findings developed from the Schools and Continuing Professional Development in England – State of the Nation Study. This large-scale national study, commissioned by the Training and Development Agency for Schools, investigated the range and kinds of continuing professional development (CPD) activities in which teachers at primary and secondary schools in England participate and the kinds of support provided by schools. Teachers’ professional learning practices and perspectives were researched in relation to three main themes: the benefits, status and effectiveness of CPD; the planning and organization of CPD; and access to CPD. The research was based on a review of the UK literature related to teachers’ CPD for the period 2004–2007, qualitative research (school snapshots) at nine primary and three secondary schools, and a survey of a national representative sample of teachers. Our analysis concludes that teachers’ professional learning in England is generally ineffective and lacks school-level systems and supports. As such, the potential of teachers’ professional learning for enhancing the quality of classroom teaching and learning in schools remains largely untapped.
This article provides an overview of the background and recent developments leading to the current reshaping of teacher education in Scotland, starting with the developments emanating in the past decade from the McCrone Report and finishing with the recent Donaldson Report, Teaching Scotland’s Future. It documents the key features of the report and the impact that this will have on current teacher education provision in Scotland.
Our understanding of the kinds of knowledge demanded for the practice fields is intimately connected to a broader set of ideas linking practice, inquiry, and learning. This article aims to illustrate two mental models or frameworks, each of which carries different assumptions about the meaning of practice, knowledge, inquiry and learning.
Examines the correlation between the exploration of new possibilities and the exploitation of old certainties in organizational learning. Also discusses the difficulty in balancing resource management between gaining new information about alternatives to improve future returns (i.e., exploration) and using information currently available to improve present returns (i.e., exploitation). Two models which evaluate the formation and use of knowledge in organizations are developed. The first is a model of mutual learning in a closed system having fixed organizational membership and stability. The second is a model which considers the ways in which competitive advantage is affected by knowledge accumulation. The analysis indicates that the choice to rapidly develop exploitation over exploration might be effective in the short term, but is potentially detrimental to the firm in the long term. (SFL)
One of the core constitutional questions for national constitutional courts in the EU in the past decades has been whether to accept the claim made by the Court of Justice that EU law is the supreme law of the land, taking primacy even over conflicting national constitutional provisions. With the inclusion in the recently adopted Constitutional Treaty of a clause explicitly confirming the 'primacy of EU Law' appearances suggest that the EU is about to establish a characteristic of mature, vertically integrated, federal states such as the USA. This article argues that this view is mistaken. It develops a comprehensive jurisprudential framework for addressing constitutional conflicts, 'Constitutionalism Beyond the State' (CBC). CBS detaches the discussion of supremacy and constitutional conflict from a statist framework; provides a jurisprudential account that explains and justifies the highly differentiated, context-sensitive and dynamic set of conflict rules that national courts have in the past adopted; and provides the lacking theoretical basis for the more attractive, but undertheorised sui generis accounts of European constitutional practice that have recently gained ground in the literature. CBS provides a jurisprudentially grounded reconstructive account of why the issue of constitutional conflict is as rich and complicated in Europe as it is and why it is likely to remain so even if the Constitutional Treaty is ratified. The article then goes on to make concrete proposals addressed to national constitutional courts and the Court of Justice respectively about how, in application of the developed approach, constitutional conflicts ought to be addressed doctrinally. It includes a proposal to read the new 'constitutional identity' clause as authorising Member States as a matter of EU Law to set aside EU Law on constitutional grounds under certain circumstances.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce and illustrate the insights of the sociology of worth as advanced by sociologist Luc Boltanski and his collaborator economist/statistician Laurent Thévenot in their works, including their path‐breaking book De la justification published in 1991.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper explores the basic tenets of this “new sociology” and draws on it to render a reinterpretation of Ansari and Euske's study of cost accounting in a military depot.
Findings
The sociology of worth complements extant sociological approaches to accounting by providing a language and a conceptual tool‐box for understanding the multiple rationalities in which accounting is implicated. In addition, given its pragmatic micro level approach to accounting, it has the potential to act as a bridge between institutional theory and practice theory.
Originality/value
This paper is the first known to render an extensive discussion of Boltanski and Thévenot's work in the accounting literature and to apply insights from this work to accounting research.
Recent ethnographic studies of workplace practices indicate that the ways people actually work usually differ fundamentally from the way organizations describe that work in manuals, training programs, organizational charts, and job descriptions. Nevertheless, organizations tend to rely on the latter in their attempts to understand and improve work practice. We examine one such study. We then relate its conclusions to compatible investigations of learning and of innovation to argue that conventional descriptions of jobs mask not only the ways people work, but also significant learning and innovation generated in the informal communities-of-practice in which they work. By reassessing work, learning, and innovation in the context of actual communities and actual practices, we suggest that the connections between these three become apparent. Witha unified view of working, learning, and innovating, it should be possible to reconceive of and redesign organizations to improve all three.
This paper sets out to examine educational policy and practice in Scotland, showing how the 'comprehensive and coherent programme to promote social inclusion' - inculcating 'readiness to learn', ensuring that education equips the young for adult life, creating a demand for lifelong learning, above all through the presumption of mainstreaming - is indicative of and constitutive of a change in the way in which we are subject to governance in Scotland. This shift can be read as consistent with a move from a predominantly 'disciplinary' society as set out by Michel Foucault towards the 'control society' as elaborated by Gilles Deleuze - a society which does not operate through confinement but continuous control made possible by cybertechnology. Although it specifically draws on Scottish legislation and policy, it should be recognised that this is itself subject to emergent global education policy and so its relevance goes beyond these borders.
Praxis and agency in Foucault's historiography, Studies in Philosophy and Educa-tion
- L Fendler
Fendler, L. (2004) Praxis and agency in Foucault's historiography, Studies in Philosophy and Educa-tion, 23(5), 445–466.
In press) How (and why) to avoid making rational decisions: Embracing paradox in school leadership Reframing professional development through understanding authentic professional learning
- C Watson
- A Webster-Wright
Watson, C. (In press) How (and why) to avoid making rational decisions: Embracing paradox in school leadership, School Leadership and Management. Webster-Wright, A. (2009) Reframing professional development through understanding authentic professional learning, Review of Educational Research, 79(2), 702. Effective professional learning communities? 29 © 2012 British Educational Research Association
Professional learning communities at work: Best practices for enhancing student achievement
- R Dufour
- R Eaker
Dufour, R. & Eaker, R. (1998) Professional learning communities at work: Best practices for enhancing
student achievement (Bloomington, IN, National Educational Service).
Building community in schoolsWeb of Science® Times Cited
- T Sergiovanni
‘Pedagogy, identity and the construction of a theory of symbolic control
- B Bernstein
- J Solomon