Internal Expert with External Influence

Diana had identified a problem with the literacy achievement of the year five boys in her school. Acting as the internal expert, she changed her approach to teaching literacy. She wanted to develop a programme using “non-traditional teaching strategies” that engaged boys in authentic learning contexts suited to their needs and interests, and hoped the new approach would result in improved achievement outcomes. While Diana had a clear idea about her expectations of the programme, she was less clear on the actual model of practice that was required to achieve this. She began developing a model based on her own expertise and that of her colleagues, and this was complemented by knowledge drawn from external experts. Diana explains the process:

I started talking with friends who perhaps think along the same wave- length [as me], and one of my friends at the time had been doing a lot of work with [educational consultant] and I‟d had a few sessions with him a year or so before in a private consultation with one of our kids. I liked

some of his thinking (and he sort of came a little bit left field) and then I looked at some of the research to do with Te Kotahitanga. A lot of that was secondary based, but I couldn‟t see why some of these theories couldn‟t work in primary . . . . Joseph Driessen, I did a little bit of reading around him and went to one of his courses at the beginning of the year. I worked with our RTLB, and sort of said, “Hey, this is where I‟m coming from” and they said, “Yeah, so-and-so has looked at a little bit of this sort of thing.” Also [Principal], who‟s at [local Intermediate school], has a boys‟ class which is different again . . . . but there were aspects, ideas that I could take from that, and that‟s been quite successful for several years. So there‟s not a lot of hard facts that I‟ve based it around. It‟s a bit of a gut feel. Hopefully I can create the hard facts.

Diana gathered ideas informally from her colleagues by “just pulling in aspects or people with ideas at the right time.” The entire process of developing the

programme was based on Diana‟s belief that “there‟s a lot of knowledge around us anyway, if you‟re open to listening to it and ask[ing] questions.” Her approach to transforming her teaching practice was a process of weaving together the knowledge she gained from both internal and external experts and trying it out in practice. Diana described it as being “kind of a gut feel and as it‟s action research you can sort of keep reviewing and looking and seeing how things are going.”

Chelsea was encouraged by her Deputy Principal and the visiting art advisor to develop an integrated approach to learning, with a clear focus on the purpose of learning. It transformed her practice to the extent that she experienced a sense of “coming home” suggesting that her teaching practice was now aligned with her teaching philosophy. The internal expert, Chelsea‟s deputy principal, and the outside expert, the art advisor, had jointly influenced her teaching practice. Some time later, Chelsea took up a leadership role in assessment and began developing school-wide assessment procedures based around portfolios. She had previously “done quite a few courses on assessment and gone up to a big

workshop many years ago in Auckland with Lester Flockton and co[mpany].” Equipped with professional knowledge gained from external experts, Chelsea was by now an expert herself and, again with her deputy principal, began working on

school-wide assessment procedures. She explained how she and her deputy principal

sort of designed the prototypes and we gave it to certain people to see if it worked. So it was a little bit hierarchical, but it suited well that we were the catalysts and we had some people who were prepared to implement it. They came back with their findings.

Chelsea‟s teaching practice and that of her colleagues was transformed through the progressive development and refinement of ideas created by blending internal expertise from her colleagues, with external expertise, ideas gained from the course on assessment. Both Chelsea and Diana were shaping transformative teaching practice by weaving together ideas gathered from both internal and external sources of expertise.

Graham described his process of learning as being influenced by courses he had attended or books he had read. He felt that “professional development is very important for teachers and also taking time to reflect.” He described his process of reflection as “looking back at what you‟re doing, why you‟re doing it, is it

working, what can I do to improve it?” Using the example of inquiry learning, Graham illustrated his learning process:

You go along to a professional development that‟s organized for you and you hear the speaker speaking and you think in your head this could have merit so we‟ll go back and we‟ll try it. It was quite good because the whole staff did it [the professional development] and so we went back and there were two or three of us that got into it [inquiry learning] and we trialed it and thought this had merit. And it was really interesting to see [that] the kids were motivated, they were in control of the learning a bit more and it was like, yeah, this is really good. Inquiry learning has a future with us. And so therefore you refine it so you have the ownership of it . . . I think when I look back, that‟s probably what‟s happened over my teaching career.

The transformative influences on Graham‟s teaching were generated by a process of personal reflection on experimental teaching practice following his attendance at a professional development course facilitated by an external expert.