What Happens Behind the Scenes Supervisor: Dr Lee Shu-Shing - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
NIE06 Teacher Learning - What Happens Behind the Scenes Supervisor: Dr Lee Shu-Shing Researchers: Amanda Soh Xuan Min, Chong Kai Qing (Dunman High School) 1 Overview 1 Project Rationale 2 Literature Review 3 Research Questions 4
Supervisor: Dr Lee Shu-Shing Researchers: Amanda Soh Xuan Min, Chong Kai Qing (Dunman High School)
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Community Real-life situations Co-construct knowledge
★ Professional Learning Teams ★ Reflective practice ★ Shared norms, beliefs and attitudes ★ Student voices ★ Informal conversations
responsibilities
and professional trust
stakeholders
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processes inhibit situated teacher learning?
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Context of Study: “Sentosa High School” (SHS) ➢ High-performing school and a COE T&L that leads teacher learning and sharing within zonal clusters of schools ➢ Assumption: Quality teacher learning to inform its history of excellence and teacher competency Focus of Study: Humanities Department in SHS ➢ New inquiry-based demands of Humanities subjects ○ Provide teachers with opportunities to learn, collaborate and craft innovative curricula together
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Three teachers with leadership experience: Facilitators (F)
Mr Tang (F) SH, Hist Mr Cheng (F) JH, Hist Ms Peh (F) JH, Geog
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Two teachers without leadership experience: Participants (P)
Mr Stark (P) JH, Hist Mr Choo (P) JH, Geog
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Interview protocol:
Transcriptions: Open coding → Thematic analysis
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The Professional Learning Team within timetabled time is a platform for community learning and reflection about student learning.
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The Professional Learning Team within timetabled time is a platform for community learning and reflection about student learning.
“[T]eachers who are more experienced play a guiding role… But sometimes, the young colleagues … will also have something else that we don’t know, so we can actually learn from each
Feedback is immediate... it is very practical, it really does impact us.”
Ms Peh (F) JH, Geog
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The Professional Learning Team within timetabled time is a platform for community learning and reflection about student learning.
“[When] I want to try out a new pedagogy … [I’ll] just share with the unit… I can gather feedback before I implement the strategies.”
Mr Tang (F) SH, Hist
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The Professional Learning Team within timetabled time is a platform for community learning and reflection about student learning.
“It can also be a post-exam or post-assessment review… We brainstorm to address issues that cropped up… [We] review teaching processes … to consider what is the best way to approach certain assessment techniques.”
Mr Tang (F) SH, Hist
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Excessive roles and responsibilities, compounded by perceived time constraints, are a practical barrier.
“We have to function on a day-to-day basis with a lot of deadlines… Sometimes we use the PLT to handle very urgent admin matters. When there are such pressing responsibilities, we have less time to actually reflect upon how we had conducted
lessons
potentially design more effective lesson packages within the team.”
Mr Tang (F) SH, Hist
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Excessive roles and responsibilities, compounded by perceived time constraints, are a practical barrier.
“I have about 200 students. When it comes to exam periods, … consultations can take hours every day … A lot of this work is not recorded, it’s on a personal basis because when your students ask you for certain things, you are just doing it as an additional favour.”
Mr Choo (P) JH, Geog
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Excessive roles and responsibilities, compounded by perceived time constraints, are a practical barrier.
“It’s actually quite rushed ... cannot talk about serious stuff … But once you warm up, you come to the mid of the session already, and everybody has to go to class.”
Ms Peh (F) JH, Geog
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Excessive roles and responsibilities, compounded by perceived time constraints, are a practical barrier.
“When the school starts, sometimes we are just firefighting … you have to deal with what is not that important but very, very urgent... That’s why the heavy load of discussion always happens during the school holidays.”
Ms Peh (F) JH, Geog
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The imposition of reflection tools is a double-edged sword. “Within the PLT, what we normally want to do is to use Facilitation Tools to ensure there is a structure behind our professional sharing and development processes… We actually have steps and stages to follow, and there are deliverables at the end of the day.”
Mr Tang (F) SH, Hist
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The imposition of reflection tools is a double-edged sword. “I don’t really follow strictly. There is a framework that the school encourages. So usually we’ll start off with the- I cannot even
report then I will think about it.”
Ms Peh (F) JH, Geog
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An open and informal school culture creates a conducive environment for teacher learning beyond PLT sessions.
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“The work could go beyond the formal into informal settings. It makes for ease of communication - it was very open … easy to bounce ideas off each other … very fluid.”
Mr Stark (P) JH, Hist
An open and informal school culture creates a conducive environment for teacher learning beyond PLT sessions.
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Ms Peh (F) JH, Geog
Teachers hold varied beliefs about instruction, practice and professional learning. “Some teachers are comfortable with adapting to changes along the way. Some prefer to just carry out the package they are given at the start of the year. Along the way if you tell them, ‘Can you not teach in this way? Can you adopt this idea?’, I think it might cause some discomfort … It takes some effort to convince the rest to be more flexible in adapting to changes.”
Mr Cheng (F) JH, Hist
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Teachers hold varied beliefs about instruction, practice and professional learning. “The instance of non-interference is definitely something that I've seen myself. Some teachers are very particular ... they can be very territorial … [If] you see results, and you have deliverables - why fix it if it ain't broke, right?”
Mr Stark (P) JH, Hist
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Teachers hold varied beliefs about instruction, practice and professional learning. “For certain issues, because
the experiences of the more senior teachers, you may feel that your opinions may not be as important as them … Some opinion and feedback that will be given will give you the impression that certain things will not be taken into consideration.”
Mr Choo (P) JH, Geog
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“For myself, it took me a while to realise the value of
there is a tremendous amount of personal and professional development that can be achieved… You can grow from the experience. I think when people recognise the fact that they could be a better teacher, a better person, then they will find a place for it.”
Mr Stark (P) JH, Hist
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Teachers hold varied beliefs about instruction, practice and professional learning.
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The Professional Learning Team within timetabled time is a platform for community learning and reflection about student learning.
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✓ Protected duration of one hour weekly ✗ Duration is still inadequate → Too short to cover scope
➢ Further negotiation amongst teachers to find another common time outside protected time ➢ Process supported by conducive workplace culture
Excessive roles and responsibilities, compounded by perceived time constraints, are a practical barrier.
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✗ Immediate concerns, unofficial consultations ➢ Schools to co-negotiate with teachers to set aside time and opportunities for teacher learning ✗ Perceived lack of time and space ➢ Teachers have to realise the need to continuously engage in learning in order to better benefit students ➢ Need to self-regulate to prevent overexertion
An open and informal school culture creates a conducive environment for teacher learning beyond PLT sessions.
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✓ Teacher leadership through positional roles ○ Directly facilitates and sets tone for building rapport within PLC through open but focused discussion ✓ Teachers become informal leaders within personal communities outside PLC ➢ Teacher leaders should recognise need for balance between level of autonomy and extent of leadership for thriving of teacher learning culture
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In this study, we have… ➢ Provided insights into how a school can implement structures and processes to facilitate situated teacher learning. ➢ Pointed out the challenges to situated teacher learning which exist even in high-performing schools. ➢ Included potential solutions as recommendations grounded in literature and teachers’ input. ➢ Brought the school to readers by providing rich stories, showing readers how situated teacher learning is implemented through a contextualised and rich example of a school.
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Scope of Work: Focus on One Department of Teachers ✗ Findings provided are selected and targeted → Limits generalisability of findings ✓ Rich insights about school department’s learning experiences, and factors
contexts → Further consideration can be made to adapt and apply findings to other schools. Qualitative Nature of Data: Bias of Interviewees ✗ Response bias: Underestimations / Exaggerations ✗ Social desirability bias: Still teaching in service → Inclined to report socially desirable behaviour
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