UCET Annual Conference 2011

UCET Annual Conference 2011Shifting Sands and Stable Foundations:

Insecurity and Instability in Teacher Education

UCET 2011‘Teaching Scotland’s Future’

TEACHINGSCOTLAND’S FUTURE

Professor Graham Donaldson CBUniversity of Glasgow

Remit

• To consider the best arrangements for the full continuum of teacher education in Scotland.

• The Review will consider initial teacher education, induction and professional development, and the interaction between them.


Why now?

• Commitment to review of teacher education stemming from 2001 McCrone Review

• Implications for teachers arising from curriculum reform

• Ministerial aspirations and commitment


Approach• Form team• Literature review• Call for evidence• Teacher survey• Structured visits to providers and users• Meetings with professional associations• Experience elsewhere• On-line discussions and events• Other professional examples• Individual discussions• Report to address multiple audiences


Treat as a relatively closed system?

OR

Ask more fundamental questions?


Powerful Drivers• School education is one of the most important and contested policy

areas for governments across the world.

• Evidence of relative performance internationally has become a key driver of policy.

• Human capital in the form of a highly educated population is seen as a key determinant of social justice and economic success.

• The pace and character of social, economic and technological change has profound implications for how we conceive education in the future.

• Ambitious and radical educational reform programme of Scottish Government


Underlying Review Questions

• What kind of education do/will our young people need?

• How much do teachers matter?

• What kind of teachers do we/will they need?

• What needs to happen?

• What about teacher education?


Curriculum Reform Programme

• Broad, twenty-first century education (four capacities / outcomes-based general education between 3 and 15/Senior Phase)

• Deep learning and higher standards• Target literacy and numeracy• Engaging, imaginative and purposeful pedagogy• Assess what we profess – wider achievement

ANDA new paradigm of governance and change


How much do Teachers Matter?

• Overall, the research results indicate that raising teacher quality is vital for improving student achievement, and is perhaps the policy direction most likely to lead to substantial gains in school performance.(OECD 2005)

• Students of the most effective teachers have learning gains four times greater than the learning gains of the least effective teachers (Sanders and Rivers 1996).

• Over 3 yrs, learning with a high performing teacher instead of a low performing teacher can make a 53 percentile difference (McKinsey 2007)


What kind of teachers matter for sustained success?Versatile teachers who -• have high-levels of expertise – subject, pedagogy and

theory• have secure values – personal and professional

accountability for the wellbeing of all young people• take prime responsibility for their own development • use and contribute to the collective understanding of

successful teaching and learning • see professional learning as an integral part of

educational change• engage in well-planned and well-researched innovation.


Growth Points• Cultural commitment to education• Good supply of well-qualified candidates• Strong and respected teaching profession• Clear professional standards• Structured induction• Contractual entitlements to CPD• Track record of successful reform• ITE strength in Curriculum for Excellence• Developing ICT infrastructure


YET

• Destiny – deprivation/expectation/aspiration

• Underperformance - PISA results stalling

• Uneven command of basic skills – literacy and numeracy

• Perceived lack of space for engaging teaching and learning

• Insecure base of education before qualifications

• Limited scope for recognition of wider achievement


SPECIFIC TEACHER EDUCATION

ISSUES• Cultural dissonance - train / educate

• Belief, evidence and impact

• Weak partnerships

• Monotechnic inside polytechnic?

• Perception of higher quality NQTs but concerns about aspects of students’ abilities/capacities

• ‘Quart into pint pot’ problem

• Rigour and depth – particularly CPD

• Leadership


Key Themes in Report

• School education can realise the high aspirations Scotland has for its young people through supporting and strengthening, firstly, the quality of teaching, and secondly, the quality of leadership.

• Teaching should be recognised as both complex and challenging, requiring the highest standards of professional competence and commitment.

• Leadership is based on fundamental values and habits of mind which must be acquired and fostered from entry into the teaching profession.

• The nature, pace and extent of change in the future will require professional learning to be more the engine than the disseminator of innovation


Key Themes (2)

• The imperatives which gave rise to Curriculum for Excellence still remain powerful and the future well being of Scotland is dependent in large measure on its potential being realised. That has profound and, as yet, not fully addressed implications for the teaching profession and its leadership.

• Career-long teacher education, which is currently too fragmented and often haphazard, should be at the heart of this process, with implications for its philosophy, quality, coherence, efficiency and impact.


Intended Results

Reinvigoration of professionalism and a re-conceptualisation of teacher education.

• Rigorous and broadly-based selection of students applying to enter teacher education

• Concurrent undergraduate degree courses which are both vocationally and academically challenging and which engage students with the wider university

• Efficient use of time – before, during and after initial teacher education – Early Phase

• Aligned assessment of students’ progress.


Intended Results (2)

• Practical experience set in a much more reflective and inquiring culture

• Make optimum use of ICT for professional learning.

• A coherent approach to teacher education which is underpinned by a framework of standards which signpost the ways in which professional capacity should grow progressively across a career.

• Development of leadership qualities from the start and throughout a career.


Intended Results (3)• A new concept of partnership among universities, local

authorities, schools, national agencies and other services which embraces selection, course content and assessment

• Teacher educators should be directly engaged with practice –theory/research/practice not separate

• A professional culture within which Masters-level study is the norm

• A national and local infrastructure which sets, promotes and evaluates teacher education in ways which relate both current practice and innovation to their beneficial impact on learning.


Early Phase

• establish ethical and value base for teaching

•ITE first part of career-long learning – not discrete/planned with induction/partnership

•relevance - address inclusion/ underachievement/ ASN/ behaviour management/ assessment as part of high quality teacher education

•theory matters integral not complementary/theory through practice – applied intelligence •reflection and research

•school experience – quality standards/hub schools


Career-long learning

•Professional standards:coherence/challenge/growth

•‘Standard for Active Registration’

•Rigour and depth – Masters account

•Local learning community – move away from isolated set-piece events/teacher educator

•Professional review and development – open and reflective / focus on impact on learning


• Published Jan 2011

• 50 Recommendations

• All recommendations accepted in whole or in part by Scottish Government

• Very wide and continuing stakeholder acceptance

• Endorsed in 4 major political party manifestos

• Structure and timeline for implementation established – National Partnership Group co-chaired by government, universities and local authorities

• Endorsed and taken forward in McCormac Review

TEACHINGSCOTLAND’S FUTURESo far....

Big Messages

•Coherence and alignment: shared mission/supporting structures/collaboration

•Build capacity: complexity/sustained depth and rigour/applied intelligence

•Culture of aspiration and optimism

•Confident and respected profession: demanding selection/clear standards/focus on students

•Professional accountability: personal/values/students

•Leadership of educational change driven by teachers


“He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils: for time is the greatest innovator”.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)


Documents

UCET Annual Conference 2011