Empowered Educators

How High-Performing Systems Shape Teaching Quality Around the World

Linda Darling-Hammond, Dion Burns, Carol Campbell, A. Lin Goodwin, Karen Hammerness, Ee-Ling Low, Ann McIntyre, Mistilina Sato, Ken Zeichner

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781119369578
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Amministrazione nella didattica

Discover how high-performing systems shape teaching quality around the world

Producing highly skilled and committed teachers is not the work of a single innovative school or the aggregation of heroic individuals who succeed against the odds. In high-performing countries, the opportunities for teachers to learn sophisticated practices and continue to improve are embedded systemically in education policies and practices. Empowered Educators describes how this seemingly magical work is done—how a number of forward-thinking educational systems create a coherent set of policies designed to ensure quality teaching in all communities... and how the results are manifested in practice.

Spanning three continents and five countries, Empowered Educators examines seven jurisdictions that have worked to develop comprehensive teaching policy systems: Singapore and Finland, the states of New South Wales and Victoria in Australia, the provinces of Alberta and Ontario in Canada, and the province of Shanghai in China. Renowned education expert Linda Darling-Hammond and a team of esteemed scholars offer lessons learned in a number of areas that shape the teaching force and the work of teachers, shedding unprecedented light on areas such as teacher recruitment, preparation, induction and mentoring, professional learning, career and leadership development, and more.

• Find out how quality teaching is developed and conducted across the globe
• Discover a common set of strategies for developing, supporting, and sustaining the ongoing learning and development of teachers and school leaders
• See how high-performing countries successfully recruit and train educators
• Understand why the sharing of expertise among teachers and administrators within and across schools is beneficial

A fascinating read for researchers, policymakers, administrators, teacher educators, pre-service teachers and leaders, and anyone with an interest in education, this book offers a rare glimpse into the systems that are shaping quality teaching around the world.

1
TEACHING POLICY AROUND THE WORLD

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Three teachers huddle around a laptop (Link 1-1) in the school library at Kranji Secondary School in Singapore. Rosmiliah, a senior teacher, and her two colleagues are engaged in an intense discussion of geographic information systems (GIS) and how to incorporate them into their teaching of geography. The trio constitutes just one of many teacher groups working on year-long projects to create new and innovative learning resources.

Along with each of their colleagues, these teachers will share their research findings at an annual learning festival attended by academics, teacher educators, and other practitioners, with awards given for the best projects. Rosmiliah laughs as she explains that none of the teachers was initially familiar with GIS, but by working together, they had incorporated it into a field research project with students, who found the new lessons fun and engaging. She explains:

Being a teacher, if you just keep on doing the same things every time without knowing what others are doing, or different ways to do it, you may be a bit boring—students may not find your lessons engaging. . . Teaching is alive . . . so the teacher is always learning as well.

In addition to these professional learning community groups, all teachers at Kranji take part in the school-wide “Learn and Grow” professional development workshops held fortnightly, in which the senior teachers introduce and model specific pedagogical strategies in “Skillful Teacher” workshops. In their 15 hours per week of nonteaching time, teachers plan together and may engage in lesson study or action research within their departments. Beginners receive regular mentoring from senior teachers like Rosmiliah. As teachers gain experience, they have opportunities to expand their skills and climb a career ladder that makes their expertise available to others. This includes teachers in a dozen other schools that learn together in a network, or cluster, and those who attend sessions facilitated by master teachers at the Singapore Teachers Academy.

This rich learning environment for teachers is not the work of a single innovative school or principal: Kranji is much like any other neighborhood school in Singapore. The opportunities for teachers to collaborate and engage in professional learning are embedded systemically in Singapore’s education policy.

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Although Singapore is well known internationally for its strong investment and thoughtful designs for education, it is not alone. A growing body of research has found that high-performing countries have in common a set of strategies for developing, supporting, and sustaining the ongoing learning and development of their teachers and school leaders (Barber & Mourshed, 2007; Lee, Lee, & Low, 2013; Tucker, 2011). These countries not only train individual educators well, but also they deliberately organize the sharing of expertise among teachers and administrators within and across schools so that the system as a whole becomes ever more effective. And they not only cultivate innovative practices but also they incorporate them into the system as a whole, rather than leaving them as exceptions at the margins.

This book describes how this seemingly magical work is done: how a number of high-performing education systems create a coherent set of policies designed to ensure quality teaching in all communities—and how the results of these policies are manifested in practice. Across three continents and five countries, we examined seven jurisdictions that have worked to develop comprehensive teaching policy systems: Singapore and Finland, the states of New South Wales and Victoria in Australia, the provinces of Alberta and Ontario in Canada, and the province of Shanghai in China.

Serving increasingly diverse student populations while seeking to meet more challenging learning standards geared to 21st-century expectations, each of these jurisdictions has focused intently on how to develop and support higher-quality teaching across all of its schools. This book describes how governments in these places have carefully developed, planned, and implemented what we call a teaching and learning system and the lessons that can be learned from these systems.

What Kinds of Policies Affect Teaching?

Creating such a system does not actually require magic. It requires purposeful policies in a number of areas that shape the teaching force and the work of teachers:

• Recruitment: identifying and selecting individuals with the right blend of academic abilities and personal attributes to become effective teachers
• Teacher preparation: providing candidates with deep content knowledge and understanding of pedagogy, together with the clinical learning that translates these into quality teaching
• Induction and mentoring: ensuring that early-career teachers have the opportunity to observe, plan with, and learn from experienced teachers as they enter the profession
• Professional learning: ensuring ongoing learning opportunities for teachers to continually develop and improve their practice and to share their expertise
• Teacher feedback and appraisal: creating systems for providing feedback to teachers about their practice and for furthering teachers’ ongoing development as professionals
• Career and leadership development: providing pathways for teachers that support individual growth and the development of strong educational leaders

These policy areas are mutually supportive. Recruitment strategies that select capable individuals well suited to teaching may help initial teacher education programs produce high-quality teacher graduates, even as high-quality preparation serves as a magnet for talented candidates. Induction and mentoring practices that effectively aid teachers’ transition to the classroom are known to support retention in the profession, helping teachers gain in experience and effectiveness (Darling-Hammond, 1998; Ingersoll & Strong, 2011). Opportunities for veteran teachers to offer mentoring can also enhance their career satisfaction and retention as well as their ongoing learning and growing expertise. Effective feedback can inform professional learning, highlighting areas for development that support quality teaching. As teaching becomes a public activity—with educators sharing and receiving feedback on their practice—the profession as a whole is strengthened.

Beyond these areas of teacher policy, it is important to understand how other educational policies inform and enable quality teaching and learning to take place.

• School curriculum, assess...