Literature Review
3.6 Teacher Knowledge and professional development in the first year of teaching
The attempt to understand how novices learn to teach, whether within a school
environment with induction support or in one without, must be based on an adequate
conceptualisation of teachers’ professional knowledge and the way that knowledge is used in the process of teaching (Furlong and Maynard, 1995). It is therefore important
to understand teacher knowledge, and its relationships with professional development
both in terms of self reflection and learning in a community.
3.6.1 Conceptualisation of teacher knowledge
Borg’s (2006) work has probably been the most cited in recent years in the study of teacher knowledge. This field is characterised by an overwhelming array of concepts,
that a lot of different terms have been used to describe teacher knowledge, which Borg
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difficult to distinguish between ‘beliefs’ and ‘knowledge’ when teachers discuss their decisions in the interviews, that ‘their use of ‘knowledge’ in their decision-making
process [does] not seem to be qualitatively different from their use of “beliefs’’’. For the
purpose of this study, I have chosen to use the term ‘teacher knowledge’ to mean what Borg (2006: 35) refers to as ‘teacher cognition’, which he defines as ‘beliefs,
knowledge, theories, attitudes, images, assumptions, metaphors, conceptions,
perspectives about teaching, teachers, learning, students, subject matter, curricula,
materials, instructional activities and self’. This definition is believed to be more
inclusive. Also, it is not the aim of the present study to distinguish terms such as
‘knowledge’, ‘beliefs’ and ‘assumptions’ anyway. Using the term ‘knowledge’ is in fact a pragmatic decision when most work in the area has used the term ‘knowledge’ instead of Borg’s ‘cognition’.
As found in Borg’s (op. cit.) analysis of the concepts used in teacher knowledge research, many have understood teacher knowledge as largely tacit, that is, that their
skills and knowledge seem to be the result of the accumulation of experience, and
routines and procedures that are developed and refined over time. Schön (1987) calls
this knowledge-in-action, which is crucial for teachers because they cannot constantly
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actually more extensive than can be articulated (Loughran, 2006). Uncovering and
articulating teacher knowledge in such a way as to fully appreciate what it genuinely
comprises can therefore be challenging. Teachers may display skills and knowledge
that they do not readily recognise in practice. This is also why this kind of
practitioners’ unique knowledge based on well-tried experience often cannot be subjected to assessment (Ahlstand et al., 1996). Shulman (1987) argues that assessing
teachers by tools such as basic-skills tests and examinations on competence of the
subject matter thus trivialises teaching – its complexities ignored and demands
diminished.
Others treat teachers’ knowledge as a product, which can be packaged and taught in preservice teacher education (Freeman, 2001). For example, Ahlstrand et al. (1996), in
their study of new professionals including teachers, suggest that there are two kinds of
professional knowledge – knowledge that is gained during professional education, and
knowledge that is tacit and deeply embedded in the community’s culture that cannot
be learned at a distance. For teachers the former might includes knowledge of the
subject, methods and learners, and an example of the latter is organisational
knowledge (e.g. staffroom politics) which can only be ‘learned’ by experience.
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own existing conceptual schemata. They are then exposed to both received (e.g.
teaching theories) and experiential (e.g. field experience) knowledge in their teacher
training and fulltime teaching. By repeatedly involving in practice and reflection,
ideally with the facilitation of more experienced practitioners such as their mentors,
they work towards the goal of attaining professional competence.
While delivering teaching as a series of rules, facts and strategies is not impossible,
such an approach can be detrimental to teaching for two reasons. First, the
differentiation between formal knowledge of teaching (the knowledge created by
educational researchers) and practical knowledge of teaching (the knowledge created
by teachers) is often interpreted as suggesting a judgement about the value of each –
that formal knowledge has a higher status than practical knowledge (Loughran, 2006).
Second, it generates a stereotype that theory is taught in university, and that it is the
teachers’ (or student teachers’) job to try their best to apply such knowledge (ibid).
Loughran (2006) suggests that teaching about teaching should instead be an
understanding of the complex nature of teaching and learning, with due reference to
both theory and practice, and the value of each in creating a wisdom of informed
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emerging loose group of tools, which are ideas and knowing that teachers develop
through, but not limited to, their professional training. This set of tools changes when
and as teachers use them. What they are taught in their pre-service education, such as
ways to motivate students, are modified as they actually try them out on their specific
groups of learners, to suit the situation and their needs then.
Similarly, Golombek (1998) also argues that research in teacher education tends to
focus largely on developing an empirically grounded knowledge-base imposed on
teachers rather than on examining what teachers’ experiential knowledge is and how they use that knowledge. She therefore emphasises the relationship between
experience inside and outside the classroom and teaching. This relationship is
characterised by constructs such as practical knowledge (including knowledge of self,
the milieu of teaching, subject matter, curriculum development and instruction) and
personal practical knowledge, which is teachers’ theory about teaching contextualised in experience.
3.6.2 Domains of teachers’ knowledge
Some scholars conceptualise teachers’ knowledge by categorising it into broad areas or domains. Maynard and Furlong (1993), for example, organise knowledge into
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knowledge of pupils, knowledge of strategies, knowledge of content and knowledge
of context. They stress that although these domains are arguably equally important,
they are not experienced in the same way. For example, pupils and the context are
somehow given or fixed while content and strategies are more open to choice. Also,
teachers’ practice does not depend on knowledge drawn from discrete domains but, rather, on the complex interaction and interplay between them. Teachers must
integrate rather than compartmentalise the range of knowledge they possess as they
negotiate the complex realities of their classrooms (Sharkey, 2004). The knowledge
within each of the different domains also varies in terms of the levels of abstraction
(e.g. concrete and specific knowledge of school policies on disciplines versus
knowledge of the likelihood of certain students’ reactions developed from experience)
(Furlong and Maynard, 1995).
Shulman (1986: 4), among his long list of categories of knowledge base such as
curriculum knowledge and knowledge of learners, introduces ‘pedagogical content
knowledge’, which he believes should deserve special interest. It represents ‘the
blending of content and pedagogy into an understanding of how particular topics,
problems, or issues are organised, represented, and adapted to the diverse interests and
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understand what they teach, have the capacity to transform content knowledge, decide
on the most appropriate teaching acts, think about testing and evaluation as an
extension of instruction, and reflect on their own teaching. Each pedagogical decision
is content-specific. These lists of categories of knowledge sometimes form parts of
teacher competence frameworks, which are usually used for the purposes of
facilitating and documenting the development and assessment of a new teacher, and I
shall discuss issues related to competences later.
3.6.3 Knowledge and context
Knowledge does not exist in vacuum but is shaped by the context. In teaching, the
relationship between knowledge and context is normally understood in two ways. First,
context plays an important role in teachers’ knowledge production. Second, teachers’ knowledge of context affects their teaching and learning. Sharkey (2004) discovers
that knowing the context also has special values in, for example, curriculum
development. On the one hand, having knowledge about the context establishes a
participant’s credibility in the curriculum development process. Comments on and suggestions about a particular curriculum are only legitimate if they are made by
teachers who know the context. On the other hand, teachers use their knowledge of
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There are multiple layers of context (Sharkey, 2004). Context can be the classroom
and can as well go as far as an international professional organisation. Anyhow,
teachers live and work in two fundamentally different places: one behind the
classroom door with students and the other in professional, communal places with
others. They cross the boundaries between these two places, in which knowledge
might be understood very differently, many times a day. Teachers therefore also need
knowledge of the world outside classroom, from which imposed prescriptions (i.e.,
other people’s visions of what is right for the children) are funnelled into the school system, changing the teachers’ and students’ classroom lives (Clandinin and Connelly, 1996).
3.6.4 Knowledge, learning and communites
Learning has both individual and sociocultural features. Although knowledge appears
to reside in individual teachers’ separate work and experience, it is also socially embedded (Freeman, 2002). According to situative and sociocultural theorists,
interactions between individuals are both the means for, and the result of, learning
(Wertsch et al., 1995). The participants constantly negotiate meaning of their practice
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when there are changes in the participation in socially organised activities (Lave &
Wenger, 1991). Knowledge is shared in, and at the same time produced through the
interactions.
Teachers’ learning is thus a process of increasing participation in teaching, and through this participation, they become knowledgeable in and about teaching (Adler,
2000). This can occur in many different aspects of the practice, including their
classrooms, school communities and professional development courses (Borko, 2004),
where they are both individuals and participants of social systems. They learn and
know in relation to people such as their students and colleagues, for example when
they are counseling a pupil or having a conversation with another teacher. In and
through these social interactions, professional knowledge emerges. In sum, learning is
both a process of active individual construction and of enculturation into the practices
of a wider society (Cobb, 1994). It is generated by inquiry of the learners and
facilitated by learning communities (Sharkey, 2004).
A learning community is ‘a group of autonomous, independent individuals who are
drawn together by shared values, goals and interests, and committed to knowledge
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2007: 179). The focus is not just on individual teachers’ learning but the professional
learning within a community – the notion of collective learning (Stoll, et al., 2006). A
healthy PLC should be able to enhance teachers’ continuing professional development, defined by Kelchtermans (2004: 200) as ‘a learning process resulting from meaningful
interaction with the context (both in time and space) and eventually leading to changes
in teachers’ professional practice (actions) and in their thinking about that practice’.
Various studies have linked support during the first year indirectly to PLCs. Johnson et
al. (in Westheimer, 2008) discover that attrition rate in integrated professional cultures
where novice and veteran teachers cohabit the professional community equally is
significantly lower than schools where the professional community is either novice- or
veteran-oriented. Smethem’s (2007) study on modern languages teachers in England
suggests that where new teachers on induction have the opportunity to join a PLC, the
collaborative culture is likely to sustain their commitment, energy and intention to
remain in the profession. These studies show that induction is effective when carried
out in a supportive community, and that there is a positive relationship between being
part of a learning community and professional development. What is missing from
literature and thus the niche that I intend to fill is, firstly, the inquiry into how effective
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learning community, and what strategies teachers not in an induction employ to attain
this identity; and secondly, whether and how novices are expected to be members of
learning communities by their significant others, expressed in texts such as the
induction documents of their schools, and how such expectations affect the actual
experience of new teachers and their perceived development.