Expert Teaching

Knowledge and Pedagogy to Lead the Profession

Rosie Bisset Turner

• Publisher: David Fulton Publishers
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781138157705
• eBook ISBN: 9781134123018
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book is aimed at teachers who wish to improve their professional practice and will help them to think about current practice, not only in terms of skills and competences to be developed, but also areas of knowledge to be enriched. The model of knowledge bases presented is a valuable framework for reflecting on practice and for analyzing professional development needs. The book is therefore an ideal text for teachers taking courses that may lead towards an advanced qualification in teaching or who are undertaking in-service training and action research programs. Teachers approaching 'threshold assessment' will find the book useful in reflecting on the quality of their teaching.

CHAPTER 1

What is expert teaching?

Introduction

The Prologue introduced the notion of ‘expert teaching’ and herein lies a problem. There is no agreement as yet as to what this might be. Several terms have been used to describe good or excellent teaching and teachers. There is ‘good teaching’ (Brown and McIntyre 1993); ‘effective teaching’ (Perrott 1982; Cullingford 1995; Cooper and McIntyre 1996; Kyriacou 1997); ‘creative teaching’ (Woods and Jeffrey 1996); ‘veteran teachers’ (Shulman 1987a); ‘quality teaching’ (Stones, 1992); and even ‘good enough teachers’ (Cullingford 1995). OFSTED use the term ‘outstanding’ in their criteria for both teachers and student-teachers in training, to denote the very highest levels of teaching performance. The most recent large-scale research into effective teaching, the Hay McBer Report (DfEE 2000), uses the terms: ‘competent;’ ‘effective;’ and ‘outstanding’ to describe different levels of quality in teaching. The problem with all these terms is twofold: such terms are sometimes used interchangeably, while logically there is reason to think that there might be differences between them; in addition, educators do not always agree as to how the very best teaching can be defined, or what criteria might be used to to describe it. This chapter is intended to do four things. It presents: a discussion of ways of conceptualising teaching; surveys some of the research into teaching of the last four decades; gives a brief overview of the kinds of knowledge considered necessary for teaching; and presents a new paradigm of teaching as a knowledge-based profession.

The paradigm problem

The problem of the mixture of terms to describe the best teaching perhaps lies with what Squires (1999) called ‘the paradigm problem’. He argued that, following Masterman (1972), there coexists a multiplicity of paradigms, which lay claim to being good ways of conceptualising teaching. These are: ‘teaching as a commonsense activity; teaching as an art; teaching as a craft; teaching as an applied science; teaching as a system; teaching as reflective practice; and teaching as competence,’ (Squires 1999, p. 3). These paradigms do not always manifest themselves in pure or discrete form, whether at the level of teachers’ professional work, or at the level of national trends and policies. However, they can be detected in various writings about teaching, and indeed in some of the works on effective teaching.

A paradigm operates like a set of lenses or beliefs through which our perceptions of subjects, or of an activity such as teaching, are filtered. Thus if the guiding paradigm is that of teaching as a common-sense activity (Hargreaves 1993), good teaching is something of a pragmatic activity: accepting and working with what is there. It involves a certain view of the world, and being pragmatic, places limits on the usefulness of analysis or reflection on action. The teaching as an art paradigm has a long history (e.g. Highet 1963). Its most explicit formulation is that of Eisner, who argued that teaching could be seen as an art in four senses:

it is sometimes performed with such skill and grace that it can be described as an aesthetic experience; it involves qualitative judgements based on an unfolding course of action; it is contingent and unpredictable rather than routine; and that its outcomes are often created in the process.

(Eisner 1985, pp. 175–6)

The problem with this paradigm is that in its most extreme form, it carries the implication that teachers are born, not made, and that teaching is a gift. Teaching as a craft is a particularly prevalent paradigm at the moment. It has developed from early, not very successful attempts to codify teachers’ craft knowledge, (e.g. Desforges and McNamara (1979) to the work of Tom (1984), Brown and McIntyre (1993) and Cooper and McIntyre (1996). This is not to say that teaching as a craft is the only paradigm in such research, but it is the dominant one for the aspects of teaching in which they are interested. I would argue that the craft paradigm in its focus on the particular and the concrete in teaching, concentrates only on one aspect of teacher’s knowledge.

The applied science paradigm assumes that professional work involves the application of scientific principles and evidence to practical tasks. In its milder form it includes the ‘foundation disciplines’ of education: history, philosophy, sociology and psychology. It is the paradigm which underpinned much teacher training until recently, when increasing criticism about its inadequacies in the face of classroom realities, meant that it was sidelined in favour of other paradigms. The notion that teaching, or indeed any profession, can be seen simply as an applied science has become discredited, not least because the general principles gleaned from sociology or psychology have to be applied in concrete and particular teaching situations: they may not ‘fit’ or seem applicable.

The teaching as a system paradigm has enjoyed some interest: it is one form of a general rationalistic paradigm applicable to a number of fields, which has had a widespread influence on late twentieth-century thinking. Its main contribution to education and training has been in helping people to think about teaching as a complex whole. However, it tends to be decontextualised and does not take enough account of the contingencies of teaching. Teaching is often unpredictable, occurs in a wide range of contexts, and has to be adapted for particular contexts and groups of learners. It is also purely a process model, which can be applied equally well to running a small business as to teaching, and it says nothing about the content of teaching. Although a very different paradigm, the reflective practice approach is also a process model. It is associated with the work of Schon (1983; 1987) and can be seen as a reaction against technical rationality. Schon argued that the work of professionals is often messy and problematic: neither applied science nor rationality could resolve some of the problems professionals face in their practice. These problems require a continuing process of reflection on practice. Schon’s ideas have had a widespread application, not only in teaching but in managerial work, architecture, nursing and social work. Their appeal is recognised in the amount of writing and thinking within this paradigm (e.g. Calderhead 1989). However, since it is purely a process paradigm, there are problems in applying it to teaching: it is only a part of what is involved in teaching. Other aspects must also be considered, such as substantive knowledge, skills and other processes.

The final paradigm outlined by Squires (1999) is that of teaching as competence. Its emphasis is on performance, on what the teacher can do. It does offer clear objectives for teachers and learners, but in breaking down teaching into a number of discrete competences or competencies (the terms seem to be used interchangeably), via functional analysis of all the tasks involved in teaching, it generates somewhat unwieldy jargon and bureaucracy. In teacher education, there is the present reality of hundreds of ‘standards’ against which new ‘trainees’ are to be measured and evidence found for their having achieved them (DfEE 1998a). Critics of this approach argue that as well as being unmanageable, the competence approach fails to capture adequately the reality of teaching. It atomises what should be seen as a whole entity

Squires’ (1999) analysis is very useful in providing an overview of the different ways in which teaching has been characterised, and how the different paradigms underpin much research about efficient, good, or excellent teaching. It can be seen that all of these paradigms, or ways of conceptualising teaching, are inadequate in some way, or are only a partial model of teaching. They all have their limitations. It is the purpose of this book to offer a new paradigm of teaching, one based fundamentally on the kinds of knowledge needed for teaching: knowledge being interpreted in its widest possible sense. This paradigm encompasses all the knowledge, skills, processes, and dispositions essential to teaching of high quality, and contains elements of other paradigms. It can be characterised as teaching as a knowledge-based profession, and carries with it the notion that teachers work towards a state of expertise, of mastery over all the kinds of knowledge, skills and processes needed for expert teaching. Before presenting the new paradigm, it is useful to consider some of the literature on effective teaching since it can provide a historical context and overview of the ways in which educationists have conceptualised effective, excellent or expert teaching. The purposes of reviewing this research are to establish what is already known about effective teaching as a background to discussing expert teaching, and to set the context for the new paradigm.

Effective teaching (1) 1960–1990

There is much research on effective primary teaching from these three decades (see Gipps 1992 for a useful summary). This research has been informed by shifting theoretical perspectives which can be summarised briefly as those concerned with qualities of effective teachers, teaching style, opportunity to learn, and tasks (Bennett 1987). Early attempts to characterise effective teaching tend to be descriptive rather than analytical: more a list of qualities than analysis of action or thinking (e.g. Ryan 1960; Rosenshine and Furst 1973). Flanders’ (1970) observational studies identified two contrasting teaching styles, direct and indirect, and suggested that both were needed for good teaching. Research into teaching styles developed from this early work: it began in the early 1970s and continued through that decade. Teaching styles tended to be characterised as ‘traditional’ and ‘progressive’, these terms being based on the prescriptive theory of teaching reflected in the Plowden Report (DES 1967). Other terms were also used, such as ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ (Bennett 1976); and ‘didactic’ and ‘exploratory’ (HMI 1978) which seem to be close in definition to ‘traditional’ and ‘progressive’. Bennett’s (1976) study identified three styles: informal, mixed and formal, but he found that most teachers adopted a mixed teaching style. HMI (1978) reported that three-quarters of the teachers employed mainly didactic styles. What is suggested by a review of these studies is that examples of the idealised traditional and progressive teachers used to inform the research were rare; these prescriptions of teachers were more in the nature of a caricature, and an example of the kinds of false polarities which have influenced thinking on primary teaching.

If classifying teachers into traditional and progressive was unhelpful in the search for characteristics of effective teaching, other research provided a more useful focus. The ORACLE (Observational Research and Classroom Learning Evaluation) studies (Galton et al. 1980; Galton and Simon 1980; Simon and Wilcocks 1981) used systematic classroom observation, based on a process–product paradigm, to study teacher and pupil behaviour in the classroom. The first studies (Galton et al. 1980) introduced a classification of six teaching styles. Of these, two groups of teachers were more successful than the other types: the infrequent changers who made conscious switches of strategy from class to individual teaching in order to maintain their desired pattern of teaching tactics; and the class enquirers. Children were also classified into groups in the ORACLE study. In the consistency studies when the same children were observed over a two-year period, many with different teachers, the majority of children, 80 per cent, adjusted their behaviour to fit in with the teaching style. None of the remaining 20 per cent of the sample of teachers changed their style over the two years. Although mediated by pupil behaviour, teaching style was the dominant influence. These are most significant findings in terms of investigating effective teaching. If the pattern of a child’s behaviour and work is set by the teacher’s style, then the teacher’s performance and teaching strategies in lessons become major factors in effective teaching.

However, some educationists considered that research into teaching styles failed to inform improvements in practice. The attention of other researchers was on the amount of time which pupils spend on areas of the curriculum, the amount of time which they spent involved in tasks, and pupil mediation of tasks. Within this opportunity to learn paradigm, one of the most extensive studies was the ILEA Junior School Study, published as School Matters (Mortimore et al. 1988). This study looked at effective schools, rather than effective teachers, and identified a range of factors which contributed to some schools being more effective in terms of pupils’ progress than others. However the ILEA study, like other studies, neglected the curriculum tasks on which children were engaged. The next research step was a shift in thinking to the quality of the work provided. Thus by 1984, the focus of research had shifted to the idea of ‘match’ of task to children’s abilities: an important theme in the HMI surveys of 1978 and 1983. The main concern for HMI was the mismatch between task and pupil performance: this concern was justifed in the Bennett et al. (1984) study. Their findings confirmed that teachers tend to underestimate their higher attainers and overestimate the low attaining children.

Effective teaching (2) 1990–2000

Recent research studies into effective teaching tend to generate lists of different qualities, dispositions, attributes and behaviours of effective teachers. Several are quoted in Kyriacou (1997), with some items repeated. Rather than produce a chapter of lists, I have given only two examples of the kind of criteria of effective teaching found in such studies. An early study into effective teaching by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) collected data from 11 countries, including the UK, the United States, France, Japan and Australia (OECD 1994). This study was based on the view that teaching quality should be regarded as a holistic concept, made up of competencies across five key dimensions:

• knowledge of substantive curriculum areas and content;

• pedagogic skill, including the acquisition of and ability to use a a repertoire of teaching strategies;

• reflection and the ability to be self-critical, the hallmark of teacher professionalism;

• empathy and the commitment to the acknowledgement of the dignity of others;

• managerial competence, as teachers assume a range of managerial responsibilities within and beyond the classroom.

(OECD 1994)

This list is interesting because it is the first one to mention subject knowledge as a key quality. Subject mastery was often overlooked in studies of effective teaching, perhaps because its importance is so obvious, but more importantly, because researchers were looking for generic teaching qualities applicable across all subjects, age-phases and teaching contexts. This is a serious weakness of research into effective teaching. In addition, in the attempt to itemise the characteristics of effective teaching, studies tend to produce long checklists of these characteristics. There is a danger of losing the holistic quality of teaching referred to in the OECD study. It is the interplay between these different characteristics or qualities which is the crux of teaching, as the evidence in this book will show. A further problem is that many of the lists contain qualities of effective teaching, or behaviours which promote effective teaching and learning, but there is nothing to say what knowledge, understanding, beliefs or values underpin those qualities or behaviours. These lists or accounts of effective teaching are inadequate, for they give only a superfical understanding of how such teaching works. Nonetheless, the ideas of some studies are briefly mentioned here, to illustrate recent thinking about effective teaching.

The ideas of Cullingford (1995), as already noted, are an example of the teaching as an art paradigm. He offers five characteristics or qualities of an effective teacher: integrity, learning, organisation, communication and humour, and states that all these are central to effective teaching. Cullingford stressed that teachers can ‘learn’ these qualities. Cooper and McIntyre’s (1996) study within the teaching as a craft paradigm offered a transactional theory of teaching and learning. They argued ‘that learning opportunities are felt by pupils and teachers to be heightened when teaching strategies are transactional, in that they involve the integration of pupil concerns and interests with teachers’ pedagogical goals’ (Cooper and McIntyre 1996, p. 156). This study builds on earlier work by Brown and McIntyre (1993) also within the craft tradition of teaching, in which teacher ways of thinking about their teaching, the perceived impact on pupil reference groups, and the perceptions of the pupils themselves, were informative about effective teaching.

In Kyriacou (1997) are several lists of aspects of effective teaching; most of them include similar items. One typical example is given here, from reviews of process-product studies (e.g. Anderson 1991; Cruikshank 1990 – both cited in Kyriacou 1997), which identified these ten...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Prologue
• 1 What is expert teaching?
• 2 Subject knowledge: substantive and syntactic knowledge and beliefs about subject knowledge
• 3 Curriculum knowledge and knowledge of educational ends
• 4 Models of teaching and learning and general pedagogical knowledge
• 5 Knowledge of learners: empirical and cognitive
• 6 Knowledge of educational contexts
• 7 Knowledge of self
• 8 Pedagogical content knowledge
• 9 Suggestions for development of practice
• 10 Implications
• References
• Index