Options for improving pedagogical practice in schools

1.      Introduction / Context:

Many schools do not have effective processes for teachers to improve their practice in systemic and clear ways. Many individual teachers can go years without ever having their practice observed by colleagues. Whilst educators have differing professional needs depending upon their career stage, the task of selecting an approach most suitable is the focus of this article.

2.      Main content:

Teachers are understood as the most influential ‘in-school factor’ affecting student learning outcomes, yet the classrooms of teachers within a school too often remain closed and opaque to leaders (Waters et al., 2021). There has been emerging research into ‘Middle Leadership’ (Grice, 2019) and how these leaders who are neither clearly teachers, nor principals, can improve teachers’ professional practice through their liminal role between these layers. Yet the improvement of all teachers, in a manner that can occur across a school has always been one of the core and ongoing challenges of school leadership.

The list below are suggested foci for improving teacher practice, drawn from the work of prominent leadership theorist Viviane Robinson (Robinson, 2017).  Robinson noted that ‘Leading Teacher Learning and Development’ is the most impactful among her proposed five core elements of student-centred leadership with an effect size of 0.84. She outlines these four methods for developing this type of student-centred leadership:

• Mentoring for teachers new to our profession
• Coaching existing teachers and new staff
• Lesson observation, via video or audio  
• Lesson study and review with peers

These four elements all draw from the same concepts: building human resources by developing your own knowledge as a leader and engaging with other professionals. Importantly, each of these approaches are more or less effective for different stages of teachers’ development across their careers. This fact is crucial for guiding which approach, or approaches, are most suitable depending upon the needs of your staff, and staffing profile.

Stages of teacher development and ideal interventions

·       Early Career Teachers: mentoring as most suitable; then lesson observation.  

·       Mid-career Teachers: coaching; lesson observation; and lesson study

·       Late-career Teachers: coaching; lesson observation; and lesson study

As Bressman et al. (2018) note, early career teachers are often in ‘survival mode’; whereas mid-career teachers shift from a focus on themselves to their students; whilst the late-career stage teachers explore different teaching approaches with an eye towards their broader vision for society. Each of these stages have different needs, for their own professional learning, and their views and beliefs about pedagogy. Early career teachers most benefit from mentoring, induction and support. Crucial in this process is the locating and assignment of appropriate mentors, with selecting and navigating relationships a crucial element here. Whereas coaching works best when leveraged with mid and late-career stage teachers in mind, as often new teachers do not always have the necessary resources for a coaching conversation to support them to reach new understandings without support. Beyond these two extreme ends, and their most appropriate interventions and supports, there are those that can be impactful across an entire schools’ cohorts.

System-wide alternatives

It must be noted that in strong education systems, teachers have career progression pathways, that more closely resemble a lattice than a ladder (Berry, 2020), with options to engage with policy, student management, pedagogical leadership and departmental roles. This policy configuration minimises the need for teacher promotion of excellence, as teachers can experience multiple career trajectories and return value across multiple stages of their career. However, we know that in Australia, this is not the case, and indeed that the role of ‘Middle leader’ is often something of an ad hoc role instead, with neither of the clear foci outlined in the lattice model.

Focussing on staffs professional learning and development through these processes is key, because it places emphasis on the messiest, most complex element, and therefore an element most worth doing. Many nations suffer from high rates of turnover and attrition from new teachers within the profession; in Australia these rates are as close to 40 and 50 percent of teachers leaving within their first five years (AITSL, 2016). Superior leadership, by leveraging best classroom practices, could counter some of this early teacher attrition and mitigate the lack of a more flexible career development process.

Lesson study

Lesson study is a specific process, with Japanese origins, focused on a viewing of a ‘show lesson’ that is then analysed by a group of teaching peers and refined through a long and iterative process (Wiliam, 2016). The complexities of this approach, and the nuances of its method, with the cultural expectations that come with this, are beyond the scope of this short piece of writing.  But this approach is one that requires a whole-school approach and the development of skills that many staff do not currently have. Despite this fact, the method is worthy of further exploration.

Lesson observation

Lesson observation and lesson study are of the utmost importance because as Phillip Hallinger (2015) noted: “despite 25 years of research and focus on instructional leadership, ‘the classroom doors appear to remain as impermeable as a boundary line for 2005 as in 1980”. You could be that one professional willing to create a permeable boundary around your classroom, or the professional willing to engage with another teacher’s classroom through observation. Doing so could catalyse a shift in culture and encourage others to do the same.

Selecting the method most suitable for your setting

The complexity of each of these options is significant, but by looking at research across different areas, career stage and interventions to improve teaching practice, we glean a range of possibilities. In an ideal world, each of these approaches would be occurring within a school to the highest possible level, however, in reality, selecting a preferred method and refining it seems more realistic for most settings. Each method brings its own strengths, weaknesses and emergent complexities, but as ever, that is the joy of educational leadership, complex, but also greatly significant.

3.      References

Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. (2016). What do we know about early career teacher attrition rates in Australia?. Spotlight.

Berry, B. (2020). Teaching, learning, and caring in the post-COVID era. Phi Delta Kappan, 102(1), 14-17.

Bressman, S., Winter, J. S., & Efron, S. E. (2018). Next generation mentoring: Supporting teachers beyond induction. Teaching and teacher education, 73, 162-170.

Grice, C. (2019). 007 Spies, surveillance and pedagogical middle leadership: for the good of the empire of education. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 51(2), 165-181.

Hallinger, P. (2005). Instructional leadership and the school principal: A passing fancy that refuses to fade away. Leadership and policy in schools, 4(3), 221-239.

Lipscombe, K., Grice, C., Tindall-Ford, S., & De-Nobile, J. (2020). Middle leading in Australian schools: professional standards, positions, and professional development. School Leadership & Management, 40(5), 406-424.

Robinson, V. (2017). Reduce change to increase improvement. Corwin Press.

Waters, L., Cameron, K., Nelson-Coffey, S. K., Crone, D. L., Kern, M. L., Lomas, T., ... & Williams, P. (2021). Collective wellbeing and posttraumatic growth during covid-19: How positive psychology can help families, schools, workplaces and marginalized communities. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 1-29.

Wiliam, D. (2016). Leadership for teacher learning. West Palm Beach, FL: Learning Sciences International.

4.      The Reflective practitioner

Q. Does your school have processes and/or a culture of observation and improvement of practice?

Q. After reading these options, considering your staffing profile, and the existing knowledge within your school, which seems most suitable?

 

5.      Use it now

·       Consider which staff in your school would serve best as mentors for new teachers.

·       The idea of lesson study requires a certain level of consistency within a school in regard to pedagogy and teaching approach, is this true of your setting?

·       What options are there for career progression within your setting, are they primarily teaching, or leadership based?

·       Is coaching a viable option in your setting, again, who would make ideal coaches?

·       Do lesson observations occur, where, how often, and how freely? How might this be improved?

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