Learning from experience: pitfalls & possibilities

Hazel Hagger

Katharine Burn

Trevor Mutton

Part 1: The PGCE year

How are PGCE students learning?

• as reflected in their assumptions at the start of the course

• as reflected in their accounts of practice (planning, teaching and evaluation) • as stated in claims about learning in relation to that lesson• as described in more general reflections

on their learning

How do student teachers anticipate learning to teach?

Source of their learning

Proportion who suggested this as a

source

Within the university context

79%

From observation 74%

Through doing 76%

Expectations of the university context

•Practical guidance on classroom tactics, strategies & resources

•Subject knowledge (their own responsibility?)

‘I’d rather have handy hints as to what I should be doing in school, rather than all this theory which would be great if I’m planning on going into educational theory. But some of it has been useful… a lot of it is the issues you need to know. But there is almost a sense among a lot of people that it would be very easy to turn round and say ‘I just want someone to tell me what to do and tell me to go into a classroom and do that’… I’ve found some of the professional development programme lectures quite helpful – well, not helpful but interesting.’

Expectations of learning from observation

• Almost all positive & enthusiastic• Some identified specific strategies & principles; most more generalised• Few recognised complexity

‘So, although we’ve been doing quite a bit of observation, actually I think we’ve been working at quite a basic level. Until you know what it’s like to do it, you don’t know what a teacher is achieving. You can’t see it. It’s so automatic.’

Expectations of learning through doing

• Widespread enthusiasm • Many assumed it would be automatic• Learning from ‘mistakes’• Feedback also seen as straightforward• Some saw complications and need for deliberate analysis

‘I think for the first few years at least, I’ll just be constantly analysing my teaching.’

‘You’ve got to work it out what it is that you did that made the lesson go so well or so badly’

As reflected in their accounts of practice

The complexity and diversity of their thinking about teaching & learning very early on- sheer range of factors taken into account - few signs of addressing one issue

& then moving on to another Some (but only some) refer specifically to

aims for their own learning Some indication of ‘regression’ in final

weeks

Student teachers’ references to their aims for lessons

How do they think they do learn? - claims about specific instances

Sources of their learning (actual or proposed)

Percentage attributed to each source

The student teachers’ experience

Experience

Experiment

Reflection

Monitoring (in class)

79%

Sources within the school context

Advice & feedback

Observation

Schemes of work

School development focus

Liaison with other teachers

17%

University sources Seminars

Set tasks

Reading

4%

Not really a surprise

…although many areas of professional knowledge are dependent on some understanding of relevant public codified knowledge found in books and journals, professional knowledge is constructed through experience and its nature depends on the cumulative acquisition, selection and interpretation of that experience.

(Eraut 1994:19-20)

but what did they actually mean?

How: orientations to learning general reflections + specific instances

Dimension Orientation

Intentionalitythe extent to which learning is

planned

Deliberative Reactive

Frame of referencethe value ascribed to looking

beyond their experience in order to make sense of it

Drawing on a range of sources to shape and make sense of experience

Exclusive reliance on the experience of classroom teaching

Response to feedbackdisposition towards receiving

feedback and the value attributed to it

Effective use of feedback to further learning

Tendency to be disabled by critical feedback

Aspirationthe extent of their aspirations for

their own and their pupils’ learning

Aspirational – both as learners and teachers

Satisfactionwith current level of achievement

Attitude to contextattitude to the positions in which student-teachers find themselves and the approaches they take to

the school context

Acceptance of the context and ability to capitalise on it

Tendency to regard the context as constraining

Intentionality

A pro-active or ‘deliberative’ (Eraut) approach:It was a bit of a controlled experiment, like, ‘Let’s see what issues arise if I plan it with that level of detail’.

[Liz, Science trainee]

A re-active approach:I’m not learning through a conscious effort –just through experience …which may or may not be useful for the future.

[Rob, Science trainee]

Frame of referenceRange of sources to inform and interpret experience: The analogy I use in teaching is a bit like having all these kind of bubbles in the air, and you’re constantly having influences from … you know, you’ve got the school influence here and then you’ve got the college influence here and the theoretical bit and the core studies and the subject studies bits all mixed in with that, and then you have got your own experience of teaching and your own personal experiences. So you are constantly kind of drawing on all these bubbles and kind of drawing them down, drawing on different elements. [Katherine - English trainee]

Exclusive reliance on own experienceI really do believe that, I do believe that doing is the best way of learning. [Ed, Science trainee]

Response to critical feedback

Effective use of it to further learningI think that (the feedback) made me more critical, you know it makes me look at the lesson more rather than the experience of teaching the lesson .. I think that everything she was saying was valid. [Rachel, English trainee]

Tendency to be disabled by itI've had a few bad ones that have upset me personally because I've spent a lot of time trying to make it interesting, because initially you think 'God, it's you, it's the way you're doing it, it's wrong'.

[Beth, Science trainee ]

Aspiration

(Specific) aspirations for their own and their students’ learningThat’s what I’ve learnt, that’s what I believe in, deeply believe that they have to be part of their own learning, not responsible for it perhaps, but they have to be involved in their own learning in order to learn. [Rachel, English trainee]

I really wish I could find ways of being more imaginative without confusing the children … there’s the desire to make the lesson more interesting. [Hanif, Maths trainee]

Satisfaction with current levels of achievementMyself and my teaching partner are looking to the end now, and thinking it’s nearly all over, and we’re not as focussed as we were …Last term there was a lot more of experience learning going on, whereas now we’re just going through it, going through the motions a bit more I suppose. [Stuart, Science trainee]

Attitude to context (1)

Acceptance and capacity to capitalise on it

I’m trying very much to fit in with what they (the teachers in the department) like. I think that’s how you can get the most out of that school … They would discourage people who wanted to do anything differently … So I do feel quite constrained, but I have decided that there is no point in trying to work against that. That what you do is take the framework that they give you and within that you do, you know, little bits and pieces that you hope will interest them. And the main advantage that you have going as a trainee is that you are a fresh face and you have no preconceptions about the pupils … you treat them possible better than many of the staff have treated them for a long time.

[Lindsay, Science trainee]

Attitude to context (2)

Tendency to regard context as constraining

At the moment I find myself struggling … I have got a lesson some time after half term when I have got to teach about food production and it is not in the syllabus to talk about genetically modified organisms … it is frustrating and also once I start to talk about genetically modified organisms I would want to then branch into talking about ethics in general, but no, you can’t do that and I have to learn to accept that .. I think that there probably is time but that it is difficult in the context a lot of the time really. The context of me being a trainee teacher, the context being that almost nobody else is, the context that the pupils are not expecting to be pushed in that way.. To have the issues widened for them in that way… Maybe in a school where the academic standards are generally higher, maybe there would be room for that kind of thing.

[Ed, Science trainee]

A major and priority task in teacher education, traditionally and still widely neglected, must be that of helping these highly intelligent and committed trainee teachers to think and learn about what will be involved in learning as efficiently as possible the diverse skills and understandings necessary for effective teaching

Younger et al. (2003:262)

Learning to learn?

Learning to learn from experience

Unless the practicum helps to teach prospective teachers how to take control of their own professional development and to learn how to continue learning, it is miseducative, no matter how successful the teacher might be in the short run.

Zeichner (1996: 217)

What happened next?

Part 2: The induction year and beyond

How: the sources of their learning

Sources PGCE year NQT year 2nd year of teaching

The beginning teachers’ experience

79% 82% 86%

Sources within the school context

17% 13% 5%

Sources derived from the wider context (the university in PGCE year)

4% 5% 4%

2nd year of teaching

Since not being an NQT any more I haven’t had the opportunity to go into other people’s lessons, which I have missed…so I’m much more on my own with what I’m doing.. There’s a feeling ‘Well, you’ve done this before, you should be able to do it’.

[Hannah, Science, 2nd year of teaching]

Dimensions – NQT year & beyond?

Intentionality Obviously all have more experience!but different orientations persist

It is through experience, through trying things, through experimentation, trying things out to see if they succeed. Encounter a problem, identify a problem, think of different solutions, see which one works best’.

[Matt, English teacher, NQT year]

Learning is a bit random as to whether I realise it has happened or not. Most of what I’ve learned isn’t conscious; it’s a kind of gathering awareness.

[Stewart, Science teacher, NQT year]

Dimensions – NQT year & beyond?

Frame of reference Range of sources dramatically cut – but some still seek them out & seek further within classroom

I’ve been reading journals again, I’m reading science books. Talking to friends who teach science, friends still working in science. They’ve been sending me masses of information… I’m observing other teachers and they’re observing me. Because of CASE we’ve had people coming in from King’s to look at us. That’s made us aware that we need to watch each other. As a faculty we’re really beginning to tighten up.

[Lindsay, Science teacher NQT year]

… and I think being part of the CASE experience has woken me up to what pupils say. [2nd year of teaching]

Dimensions – NQT year & beyond?

Response to critical feedback

? Differences in orientation seem to persist - but basically a lack of feedback

There’s very little input coming from staff… you don’t get watched very often. Even last year, very little observation compared with as a student. I think that’s bad. I think these should be more people in. I think people should always be coming in and out of your room, and just sitting at the back – without even asking. I think it would be good if it happened. But it doesn’t happen at all’.

[Brian, Science teacher, second year of teaching]

Dimensions – NQT year & beyond?

AspirationProved to be the most important dimension

(& may or may not be linked to career aspirations)

‘I am going to have to help other people with their own teaching and in order to do that I’ve got to understand my own teaching, so I’m thinking even harder about it: ‘Was that a good lesson?’ Or if I leave a lesson thinking ‘That was awful!’ it’s ‘Why was that awful?’

[Lindsay, Science teacher, 2nd year of teaching]

‘There’s also professional development – performance management or whatever. I set my targets – all to do with improving specific things with specific classes, and in my review I was told I needed to have something in there about my career development. I got really annoyed and said: ‘I don’t want to start shadowing to see how you do the budget or whatever. I really don’t want to do that.’ It makes you feel you’re being a damp squib, just because you want to be a teacher.’

[Liz, Science teacher, 2nd year of teaching]

Dimensions – NQT year & beyond? Attitude to context Contexts obviously diverse.

Extent to which teachers proved ‘context dependent’ = a product of the other three dimensions

Everyone in the department was ‘happy to help’ [Hannah, Science, referring to NQT year]

I’m much more on my own with what I’m doing.. There’s a feeling ‘Well, you’ve done this before, you should be able to do it’.

[Hannah, Science, 2nd year of teaching]

Implications?