I Would Like to Introduce Myself Briefly

Presentation IPDA conference 2007 Complete

Anja Swennen

1. Introduction I would like to introduce myself briefly. First of all: I am and have been a teacher educator for the larger part of my career. For nine years I taught Dutch, as a mother tongue language and second language, in primary teacher education. From 1998 I work at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam at the Centre for Education, where I started as a teacher educator for teachers in secondary education and now I am a teacher educator for teachers in higher education. Our institute also offers several educational services to the university and as such I support educational innovations of faculties or groups of teachers within the faculty. In that respect I am an in-service educator. I am interested in my own professional group, teacher educators, and my current research is about the development of the professional identity of teacher educators. Although I acknowledge and experience the difference between pre service teacher educators and in- service teacher educators I also see similarities. In this presentation I will concentrate on the similarities between the two professions that are so often united in one person, rather than the differences. There is no profession for which it is more important to Teach as they Preach as educators of teachers and my presentation is about this aspect of our work that is so vital to who we are. The theme of this conference is ‘Empowering the Educators’. From the Dutch equivalent of the word ‘educator’ I first assumed that the word ‘educator’ was meant to indicate teachers in higher education, like in ‘teacher educator’ or ‘in-service educator’ and the notion ‘Empowering the educators’ referred to empowering you as in-service educators. However, I learned that the word refers to al kind of people who are involved in all sorts of education. For my presentation however, I will use the word educator to indicate the educators of teacher, both the pre service teacher educators and the in-service educators. I shall use the word education or educate and refer to teaching in higher education or I use the word teaching. I use both words in a broad sense, lecturing is only one aspect of the work of teachers, supervising learning and practice, support groups of learners, assess students etcetera are just a few other tasks that are important.

2. Overview of the presentation To understand what it means to be an educator and what it means to be an educator in present-day complex educational context it is good to examine our history. As far as I know

Anja Swennen, Professional Development: Teach as you Preach complete IPDA conference, Belfast, 2007 there has been little to no research into teacher educators and I am quite sure the same is true about in service educators. To become a powerful our profession needs its own history. However after I had written this short history I noticed that I had 45 minutes to speak and not one hour and as you can read the history for yourself I asked Roger to put the full PowerPoint presentation and the full text on the site. I am interested in ‘us’, the educators of teacher, and I will first talk about some of the characteristics of our profession. I also wanted to become familiar with today’s audience, with you, and I decided to perform a small informal study. I analysed the Journal of in Service Education, the Journal of the IPDA to see what your views and approaches are, to see what you preach and teach. I do not want to reveal too much of the results, but I can tell you that the research about you as a professional group and about your pedagogy is limited. I will than discuss an approach that is specifically for the education of teachers and which I call Congruent Education.

3. 1806 - 1936: from work place teacher education to teacher’s colleges To understand who the teacher educators and in-service educators are it is important to look briefly at our history. Throughout Europe, and beyond, we see different educational developments, but if we overlook the larger historical pattern the similarities are striking. There is a lot to say about the history of education, teachers and educators, but for now it is enough to see that there are three main stage, that overlap for the large part, because change in education do develop over a long period of time and differently in different countries , cities and even schools in cities.

Later than in many other European countries the education of primary teachers in The Netherlands was regulated in the primary school law in 1806. Still the most unusual way to become a primary teacher was to work in a primary school under a head teacher and learn the trade from him (primary teaching was a men’s job). Slowly but surely normal schools were set up and some teacher’s colleges. The latest, more formal way of educating primary teachers, was to become the main stream and in the law of 1920 it was decided that in 1936 the normal schools had to vanish or change into teacher’s colleges. Teacher education was no longer practice based, but subject based. The teacher educators were no longer the head of the primary school, but a teacher with a teaching diploma for secondary education. In the early days there was no in service education as we n\know it today. But there was, at least in The Netherlands, a very interesting phenomenon. With some support of the government groups of primary head teachers and teachers were formed in ‘Teacher society’. 2

Anja Swennen, Professional Development: Teach as you Preach complete IPDA conference, Belfast, 2007 The Dutch words indicate of formal group of people who come together for study and learning. These groups of teachers met on a regular bases to discuss new developments in primary teaching, to study and to exchange experiences. From 1850 on primary teachers who wanted to move on with their career studied at teacher education institute for a diploma for lower secondary education and at large institutes for secondary education to get a diploma for middle or higher secondary education.

4. From subject based teacher education to subject pedagogy based teacher education With the development of the teacher’s colleges teacher education became increasingly ‘academic’ and thereby ‘subject based’. Secondary teacher education had always been subject based in the Netherlands. Teachers in grammar school had a master diploma and primary teachers who wanted to become teachers in secondary education studied for a teaching diploma that was exclusively subject based. This was consistent with the view that a good teacher is someone who knows his or (later) her subject well. Thinking about teacher education changed after World War II and slowly but surely the teaching of pedagogy and subject pedagogy became dominant in teacher education. This was not to say that teacher education had to be useful for the practice of future teachers; it was not about teaching how to teach. Good teachers knew how to teach their subject well, but had to implement the ideas learned at the teacher education institute when they worked as teachers.

Parallel to this development the views on teaching and learning began to change. I will not go into these changes, for now it is enough that, as you will recognize, the emphasis is much more on learning and a good teacher is now someone who is able to support the learning of his or her pupils or students. In teacher education, now often school based, teacher educators support the student teachers in their learning to become teachers who support their pupils learning. This has many implications for the pedagogy of teacher education.

The history of in-service educators may even more complicated compared to that of teacher education, because in-service education often was and is ahead of developments that will take place in education. Nevertheless, I think, at least in the Dutch situation, we see the same large pattern as in teacher education. At the time that teacher education was subject based, there was limited in-service education. After World War II national and local institutes of in-service education were founded and in- service education was blooming business. These in-service educators developed courses 3

Anja Swennen, Professional Development: Teach as you Preach complete IPDA conference, Belfast, 2007 about subject, education in general, but mostly about subject pedagogy. Although teachers gathered together for such courses, the learning was highly individual. Nowadays in-service education has changed and in-service educators develop programs (if at all) that meet the needs of teachers, mostly as a group or as a team and support the learning of the teachers.

All in all our work has become more complicated, because teachers still have to be experts in their subject, know how to teach their subjects well and they have to support the learning of their pupils and students. And in-service educators have to support all that.

5. Teachers of teachers The notion ‘second order teaching’ is coined by a colleague of Helen Mitchell, Jean Murray. Murray and Male (2005) make a distinction between first order teachers or practitioners as she calls them and second order teachers, the teacher educators. It is important to understand that the knowledge of teachers is for the greater part tacit and cannot easily be made explicit. Moreover this knowledge is closely connected to practice the context of the teacher’s work as well as to their individual views of teachers about teaching and learning. As second order practitioners teacher educators induct their students into the practices and discourses of both school teaching and teacher education. When teacher educators do so they have to understand and be explicit about teaching and in particular about their own views and practice.

6. (Teacher) educators are second order teachers Based on what I have just overview we can argue that (Teacher) educators are second order teachers and as such a professional group with own their views, pedagogy and methods.

7. TASK 1 If you are second order practitioners you should be able to formulate your own view on teaching and this brings us to the first task. I could not find the precise translation for the Dutch word I had in mind, so I wrote down all the translations I could find in the dictionary. Try to formulate in one or two sentences: What is the most important idea/ notion/view/conception about good teaching that you want teachers to embrace? Keep in mind: not good education in general (like give equal opportunities to all children), but teaching. Then write down the three most important methods or approaches, if methods is to narrow that you think teachers should give form to this idea? If this is not possible formulate

Anja Swennen, Professional Development: Teach as you Preach complete IPDA conference, Belfast, 2007 your own idea and methods or approaches. Keep in mind that by ‘teaching’ I mean everything teachers do to support the learning of their pupils or students.  What do you preach?  What is the most important idea/ notion/view/conception about good teaching you want to encourage in teachers?  How do you teach?  What are the three best methods or approaches teachers can use to give form to this idea?

Anja Swennen, Professional Development: Teach as you Preach complete IPDA conference, Belfast, 2007 8. What do you preach and teach? The study I did of the IPDA Journal was based on three questions  What do you preach?  How do you teach?  What is written about in-service educators?

9. Five volumes of the Journal of In-Service Education I analysed the last five volumes of the IPDA Journal, a total of real 131 articles. Not the editorial, book reviews or research notes in the volumes. 131 are a lot, but I quite a few articles, because they did not contribute to my questions. first of all you and your colleagues write a lot about newly qualified teachers, training schools or professional development schools. As these require different methods and approaches I left them out. The same is true of educating head teachers. I also left out all the non UK articles, although some times with pain in my heart. The number of foreign articles shows how international your journal is. You also give a lot of space to authors from developing countries, which I was glad to notice. Furthermore I left out articles that were evaluations, descriptions of in-service situations and about policy. And I left out three articles that did not relate to teachers, but for instance fire workers. That tidied up quite a lot.

10. What do your preach= 4 Based on the titles four articles seem to discuss the views or general method of in-service educators. Two of them are more about teachers then educators, but two articles are about the concepts of in-service educators. They discuss various concepts of in-service education. You will find them in the pp presentation on the web site.

11. How do you teach? = 19 In this overview you find the various methods and approaches that are described in the journal. I use the word method here in a broad sense: it is your approach or your pedagogy. Sometimes, as in Cognitive apprenticeship, the border between view and approach is very thin. These approaches are the part of your work that teachers can observe. There may have been many more approaches that are mentioned in the 131 articles, but the methods I mention here were mentioned in the titles. As can be expected and based on the latest views on teaching and learning in general collaboration and communities are on the top of the list.

Anja Swennen, Professional Development: Teach as you Preach complete IPDA conference, Belfast, 2007 Interesting is also that doing research is more and more regarded as a means to develop. Two articles described Master studies as a formal way of in-service education. As you will see in the historical part, formal education either teaching diploma or a university degree were for very long the most important ways of teachers to learn their trade and to develop. And in a revised form this formal education for teachers is coming back.

12. What is written in the Journal about in-service educators? The last question was: Who are the in-service educators? Those who have counted with me, no the answer: there are no contributions that deal specifically about in-service educators.

13. Why? On the whole we can say that being a teacher educator or being an in-service educator is not a clearly defined job that one can easily identify with, not like being a doctor or a lawyer. We see them on television shawls all the time. All the professions mentioned are easier to talk to on parties and have on the whole more status. It may be appealing for different reasons to identify with teachers, teachers in higher education or with advisors and consultants. Some authors could well be full time researchers or prefer to identify with researchers.

14. What does it mean for us? I believe that it is important for educators of teachers to have a broad identity that may include parts of the several professions mentioned. Our work is strongly related to the work of teachers, and we may ourselves be teachers in higher education. Some of us will also be researchers. This makes the work of educators complex and complicated. Educator who identify with teachers, and do not acknowledge that they are second order practioners will want to teach their subject or teach about teaching. They will not develop methods or approaches that are suitable for adult and experience learners. In-service educators that identify with advisors and consultants will develop methods that belong to those groups. There is nothing wrong with that as long as one is aware of the fact that one is educating teachers and not personnel of a hospital. I would prefer the knowledge base of teachers and that of teacher educators and in-service educators to be the basis of the work of educators. For several reasons that I will explain I think that we should use all the tools and instruments we can get, including chalk, but also use ourselves as a ‘tool’ to educator teachers.

Anja Swennen, Professional Development: Teach as you Preach complete IPDA conference, Belfast, 2007 15. Congruent Education One of the means to work as a second order practioners is congruent education. Congruent education means that the view and methods of educators are consistent with the view and teaching approach they want to encourage in teachers. The notion of congruent Education was first coined by two in-service educators in The Netherlands (Kok & Coonen, ***). I have experienced that trying to be congruent in your work as educator and thinking about it can give more power to educators, but it is not a solution to problems not an all inclusive approach to the complexity of our work. Although I see the benefits of Congruent Education I also see that it has its drawbacks and problems. I will not discuss these now, but you can find them in the power point on the web site.. Sometimes people understand Congruent Education to be what I call ´playing school´. They give their student teachers the same tasks in the same way as they expect them to work with their pupils and students. How useful this can be at certain moment, for example have the teachers make the final exams of the pupils. But Congruent Education is much more then that.

16. Congruent Education First of all, and I will discuss these concepts in a minute, the educator has to be able to model good teaching, to be explicit about it and legitimize it.

17. Model Modelling means that you show how something is done. If a teacher educator teaches he or she always models teaching, but not always their own views or main approaches. If you think that teachers should support the learning of pupils then support the teaching of the teachers on the level of the teachers. Congruent education then has several levels. I do not know if you know the work of John Loughran, but he has interesting and challenging view on how to educate teachers. I chose this fragment because it shows very clearly that modelling is not just ‘showing how to teach well’ or ‘Teaching to be imitated’. It is also ´showing´ in constant dialogue with teachers how your work as teacher educator and in/service educator relates to the work of teachers. But do not underestimate the power of being able to show teachers and to let them experience, albeit on a different level, complex approaches that you saw on the list, like learning in a community, learning by collaboration, doing research as a means of development. But showing is not enough. The teacher educator I studied were very good teacher educators, but most their students told me they had never thought about their

Anja Swennen, Professional Development: Teach as you Preach complete IPDA conference, Belfast, 2007 teacher educators as models and that they had never recognized their teachers as good teachers until I asked them about this.

18. Be explicit John Loughran sees dialogue as being part of modelling, while I make it a different element of congruent education and I call it to be explicit about you teaching. Kari smith gives a very good definition. To be explicit is different then to explain in my understanding of the words. Educators who are explicit about their work know what they are doing and why they are doing it. In this respect they also differ from first order teachers whose knowledge is mostly tacit and intuitive. Only then can there be a true dialogue about teaching that is related to the work of the educator and to that of the teachers.

19. Legitimize To model complex forms of education and to be explicit is difficult enough, but I also find it important that educators can relate their own work with teachers to theory that is known by teachers or should be known by them. By doing that you can build a bridge between the formal theories in the literature and the daily practice of teachers. You can show that theory influences your work and, because you have to be explicit about it, show teachers how you learn form theory and how it influences your work and may help them to improve theirs or at least make them understand why they teach as they teach. The dialogue between educator and teachers, and hopefully among teachers, can then be

20. Task 2 Do you model consciously? Are you explicit about your own way of working with teachers´? Do you legitimize how you work with teachers?

21. General results from my research? In my former research I studied the congruent teaching of five teacher educators. I will not go into the research. For now the general finding are important± Sometimes the teacher educators said “I think of myself as a model when I teach, but not often”. Hardly ever, according to themselves, they were explicit about their own teaching. And never did they mention theory that was related to their own teaching.

Anja Swennen, Professional Development: Teach as you Preach complete IPDA conference, Belfast, 2007 22. Third order teaching In my view there should be more attention for the specific demands of the work of educators to increase their skills and knowledge and to support them to relate their work to that of teachers and to be congruent in their work with teachers and to consciously model the views and approaches you want teachers to use. I think it is also important to study the work of in-service educators, not only to know more about the effects of their work on teachers, you write about that, but also about the knowledge, skills, attitude of educators and the way they work with teachers and how this effects the educators themselves. This can be done by the same type of research you find useful for the development of the teachers: action research and, I would like to add, self- study. Self-Study can be a means to carry out small scale studies in collaboration with your colleagues and/or with teachers and to be able to publish about your own work.

Anja Swennen, Professional Development: Teach as you Preach complete IPDA conference, Belfast, 2007