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01 Professional Learning and Development Ch.5-1

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5

Professional learning
and development
Combining the functional
and attitudinal

Teachers of today and tomorrow need to do more learning on the job, or in

parallel with it – where they constantly can test out, refine, and get feedback
on the improvements they make. They need access to other colleagues in
order to learn from them. Schools are poorly designed for integrating learn-
ing and teaching on the job. The teaching profession must become a better
learning profession.
(Fullan, 2007:297)

Changing demands upon schools and teachers made by government policy inter-
ventions, conditions of service, parents and students continue to challenge ‘norma-
tive’ (fixed) views of what ‘being a professional’ means in practice. Earlier chapters
have pointed to professional identity, commitment, and the capacity for strong and
enduring emotional and intellectual energy (resilience) as being key to teachers’
positive, stable sense of professionalism and effectiveness. It is this energy that pro-
vides the fuel for teachers’ work, that enables them to use what Hargreaves and Ful-
lan (2012) term ‘decisional capital’ wisely in their teaching (see Chapter 1 for a more
detailed discussion of this) and that contributes to their sense of well-being and job
fulfilment. These are not ‘soft’ concepts. On the contrary, they are the bedrock of
teachers’ willingness and capacities to teach to their best and well. It is the lessen-
ing and loss of the energy to sustain moral purpose, a positive sense of professional
identity, commitment and resilience, that is likely to reduce teachers’ effectiveness.
applicable copyright law.

Given that teachers’ work and lives are likely to be subject to a range of compet-
ing personal, professional and organizational challenges over a career, then, they
are likely to benefit not only from supportive leaders, school cultures, colleagues,
friends and family, but also from the regular provision of and participation in high-
quality informal and formal PLD which they perceive as being timely, relevant and

beneficial to their pupils, progress and achievement (Evans, 2008; Campbell, 2003;
Kirkwood and Christie, 2006).
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In the concluding chapter of Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-

Analyses Relating to Achievement, Hattie (2009) offers six ‘signposts’ that highlight the
complexities of teachers’ work and provide a strong justification for the provision
of an on-going range of high-quality ‘fit-for-purpose’ learning and development
opportunities for teachers:

1. Teachers are among the most powerful influences on learning

2. Teachers need to be directive, influential, caring, and actively engaged in the
passion of teaching and learning
3. Teachers need to be aware of what each and every student is thinking and
knowing, to construct meaning and meaningful experiences in light of this
knowledge, and have proficient knowledge and understanding of their content
to provide meaningful and appropriate feedback such that each student moves
progressively through curriculum levels
4. Teachers need to know the learning intentions and success criteria of their les-
sons, know how well they are attaining these criteria for all students, and know
where to go next in light of the gap between students’ current knowledge and
understanding and the success criteria of: “Where are you going?”, “How are
you going?”, and “Where to next?”
5. Teachers need to move from the single idea to multiple ideas, and to relate and
then extend these ideas such that learners construct and reconstruct knowledge
and ideas. It is not the knowledge or ideas, but the learners’ construction of this
knowledge and these ideas that is critical
6. School leaders and teachers need to create school, staff room, and classroom
environments where error is welcomed as a learning opportunity, where dis-
carding incorrect knowledge and understandings is welcomed, and where par-
ticipants feel safe to learn, re-learn, and explore knowledge and understanding.
(Hattie, 2009:238–239)

If we examine these signposts more closely, we can see why understanding the
complexities of teachers’ work and lives is an important pre-condition in building
and sustaining quality teaching and learning. The first five of these ‘signposts’ to
good, effective teaching pre-suppose that teachers are not only knowledgeable and
skilful but also that they will have the cognitive and emotional energy and commit-
ment necessary to engage each one of their pupils in learning on an everyday basis.
They imply, also, that where developments have, for example, a direct (or directed)
applicable copyright law.

‘functional’ focus on upgrading subject content knowledge or adopting new assess-

ment, teaching and learning strategies for achieving success in tests and examina-
tions, attention also will focus on the ‘attitudinal’. Efficiency and compliance, in
other words, do not imply effectiveness. Nurturing teachers’ strong sense of posi-
tive stable professional identity, commitment, resilience, moral/ethical purposes,
and willingness and ability to teach to their best and well is equally important.

Combining the functional and attitudinal

To focus solely upon analysis and fulfilment of the functional demands of the
contexts in which teachers work and learn, whilst necessary, risks failing to
draw attention to what Evans (2008) refers as ‘attitudinal’ development. She
argues that:

… as a factor influencing change it is much more potent than functional

development since it reflects, to varying degrees, acceptance of and com-
mitment to the change … An ideally constituted professional development
incorporates both attitudinal and functional development, since either with-
out the other is unsatisfactory.
(Evans, 2008:33)

Evans’ connection between ‘attitudinal’ and ‘functional’ is important. Oppor-

tunities for PLD must be more than functional in their orientation if we wish
them to enable teachers to review, renew and sustain their commitment as
change agents to the broader ethical and moral purposes of teaching in contexts
of national reform. If they are not, then it is likely that the dissonances between
the demands of managerial professionalism and teachers’ notions of occupational
professionalism (see Chapter 1 for a discussion of these) will lead some to a grow-
ing sense of frustration, disempowerment, ennui and alienation, and risk a deple-
tion of commitment, capacity for resilience and sense of stable, positive identity
that underpin teachers’ capacity for effectiveness (Bottery and Wright, 2000; Day
et al., 2007).
Sachs provides a commentary on contemporary aspects of teacher professional-
ism as they relate to policy and to individuals’ PLD:

Teacher professionalism is shaped by the external environment and … d uring

periods of increased accountability and regulation, different discourses of
professionalism will circulate and gain legitimacy and impact on how profes-
sionalism is conceived and enacted … in such a fluid environment teacher
professional development will need to serve both a political purpose as well
as a capability one …
(Sachs, 2016:414)

She is right to highlight the important role that PLD opportunities can play both
in accentuating the legitimate, though largely short-term, instrumental agendas
of government and complementing these with learning which focuses upon the
applicable copyright law.

underlying values, dispositions and qualities which all teachers need if they are to
teach to their best and well in testing times.
In Figure 5.1, she provides a useful planning framework for individual teachers,
but, perhaps more importantly, also for those responsible for the leadership and
management of PLD in schools.

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Functional development

• Accountability and control by • In compliance with Government change

Account: ns063527
ADVANCED EDUCATION
government agenda
• Upgrading of skills • Modify existing practices
• Passive recipient of knowledge • Transmission of knowledge
• Teacher as technician • Teacher as craft worker

CONTROLLED PROFESSIONALISM COMPLIANT PROFESSIONALISM

Organizational or managerial Occupational or democratic

professionalism professionalism

• Procedurally driven professional renewal • Transformative practices

• Rethink and renew practices • Production of new knowledge
• Proscribed collaborative learning networks • Practitioner enquiry – teacher as
• Teacher as reflective learner researcher
• Teacher working individually towards their • Teacher working collectively towards
own improvement on-going improvement

ACTIVIST PROFESSIONALISM
COLLABORATIVE PROFESSIONALISM

Attitudinal development

FIGURE 5.1 A PLD planning framework

Source: Sachs, 2016: 421

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84 Professional learning and development

We have seen elsewhere in this book that governments worldwide are

placing persistent emphasis upon the functional aspects of teachers’ work. It is
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not surprising that school-led PLD activities also often reflect this, since princi-
pals are acutely aware that parents and politicians will judge their schools largely
on that basis, and that teacher ‘professionalism’ is thus, at least in part, defined
in relation to the extent to which they comply with this agenda. However,
this need not necessarily be so. Sachs’ framework offers other alternatives for
planning PLD. It enables school leaders and teachers to be explicit about what
values underpin and inform the range of informal and formal PLD opportuni-
ties available for teachers and acts as a means of judging whether the relative
emphases that are reflected in the choices they make reflect their own values
and views of:

• teaching as an occupational or organizational profession;

• the breadth and depth of their commitment to the attitudinal and functional;
• their disposition to trust;
• their appreciation of the importance to teacher commitment and resilience of building
and sustaining a sense in teachers of a positive, stable sense of individual and collective
identity.

It is not likely that teachers will be able to choose PLD that is located exclusively
in any one of these quadrants. However, in the realities of education today and in
the foreseeable future, without an enhanced understanding of the complexities of
teachers’ work and lives, and the ways in which the principles of professionalism
enshrined in the activities’ other three quadrants may enhance their commitment
and the quality of their work and contributions to pupils’ progress and achieve-
ments, it is likely that an undue orientation to so-called ‘functional development’
will prevail. The issue for school leaders who are now charged with being primarily
responsible for PLD is, then, to what extent they will also actively promote ‘attitu-
dinal development’.
In a synthesis of 97 studies of teachers’ PLD, Helen Timperley identified four
evidence-based understandings of teachers and teaching (Timperley, 2008). I repro-
duce these below and add a further two as a reinforcement of what policymakers
and principals often claim about the essence of teachers’ work and the influence
on student learning, but, as we have seen in previous chapters of this book, are not
always taken into account in the design, content and processes of PLD programmes
and activities:
applicable copyright law.

1. Notwithstanding the influence of factors such as socio-economic status, home

and community, student learning is strongly influenced by what and how
teachers teach.
2. Teaching is a complex activity. Teachers’ moment-by-moment decisions
about lesson content and process are shaped by multiple factors, not just

the agendas of those looking for changes in practice. Such factors include
teachers’ knowledge and their beliefs about what is important to teach, how
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students learn, and how to manage student behaviour and meet external
demands.
3. It is important to set up conditions that are responsive to the ways in which
teachers learn. A recent overview of the research identified the following as
important for encouraging learning: engaging learners’ prior conceptions about
how the world works; developing deep factual and conceptual knowledge,
organised into frameworks that facilitate retrieval and application; and promot-
ing metacognitive and self-regulatory processes that help learners define goals
and then monitor their progress towards them.
4. Professional learning is strongly shaped by the context in which the teacher
practices. This is usually the classroom, which, in turn, is strongly influenced by
the wider school culture and the community and society in which the school is
situated.Teachers’ daily experiences in their practice context shape their under-
standings, and their understandings shape their practice.
(Timperley, 2008:6)

To these understandings of PLD may now be added

5. Teaching at its best is both an intellectual and emotional activity, which

demands the engagement of the head and the heart, the personal and the pro-
fessional.
6. Teachers’ learning, development and expertise do not necessarily increase with
experience. They are not linear.

Nevertheless, a range of research internationally suggests that governments world-

wide are placing persistent emphasis upon the functional aspects of teachers’ work in
order to improve their performance in terms of productivity (Evans, 2008), with
its implicit denial, minimizing or neglect of ensuring their on-going commitment,
sense of positive, stable professional identity, care, and well-being and resilience
which are also, arguably, at the heart of teachers’ willingness and abilities to teach
to their best (O’Connor, 2008).
Many teachers who work in unstable policy environments that challenge their
sense of autonomy, arguably the core of their sense of professionalism, are likely
to struggle to seek ‘a sense of coherence, worth and belonging’ in their work
(Lumby and English, 2009:95). This is particularly so when one takes account of
the workplace (i.e. challenges provided by students, relationships with colleagues),
applicable copyright law.

the quality (or lack of quality) of leadership, and personal influences. Since it has
been widely acknowledged now that to teach to one’s best and well requires the
continuing – and sometimes substantial – personal investment of emotional as well
as intellectual energy (see Chapters 2 and 3), it follows, then, that opportunities for

PLD should address both needs. To be successful, they – and their schools – need
to be both task (functional) and person (attitudinal) centred.
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Schools as person and task-centred communities

Fielding (2012), in writing about education and schooling as human flourishing,
has provided a useful heuristic (see Table 5.1), a way of characterizing the different
orientations of schools towards education as a means of reflecting upon the school
culture which lies behind the design of PLD in schools. This provides a comple-
ment to the notion of combining the functional and the attitudinal but goes beyond
this by placing the former at the service of the latter.
In schools as person and task-centred learning communities, PLD are likely to
focus upon both the functional and attitudinal needs of individuals, with the for-
mer always having the latter at the centre of the planning, processes and evaluation.
Take, for example, the importance of teacher commitment. As we have seen in
Chapter 3, the VITAE research project in England on variations in teachers’ work,
lives and effectiveness (Day et al., 2007) found not only that the 300 participating
primary and secondary school teachers reported a qualitative association between
their sense of commitment and their capacity to do a good job with their students
but also that, over a consecutive three-year period, a statistically significant association
was found between teachers’ levels of commitment and the measured progress and attainment
of their students. In other words, the more positive their sense of commitment (all
teachers were judged to be at least competent in terms of knowledge and teaching),
the more likely their students were to benefit from their teaching. It follows that a
focus on building, revisiting and renewing teachers’ commitment, positive sense of
professional identity, and capacities for emotional resilience needs to form a core
part of all PLD planning.

Table 5.1 Education and schooling for human flourishing

Schools as Schools as Schools as high- Schools as person- Schools as agents

impersonal affective performance learn- centred learning of democratic
organizations communities ing organizations communities fellowship

The functional The personal The personal is The functional The political
marginalizes marginalizes used for the is used for the expresses/
the personal the functional sake of the sake of the supports the
functional personal personal
Mechanistic Affective com- Learning Learning Democratic
applicable copyright law.

organization munity organization community fellowship

Efficient Restorative Effective Humanly Democratic living
fulfilling/ and learning
instrumentally
successful

Source: Fielding, 2012:688.

In such person-and task-centred schools, policymakers and others from outside

the school gates are, of course, an important as well as a necessary part of the dis-
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course. However, the continuing health, well-being, commitment and effective-

ness of those inside the school will be an equal priority. These will be supported
not only through formal PLD opportunities but also through the school cultures,
the ‘way we do things around here’ (Barth, 2002), as an expression of relationships
which both act as the ‘glue’ and ‘lubricant’ of collegial cultures.
Webster-Wright (2009) has observed that the experience of continuing profes-
sional learning is still ‘poorly understood’ (p.704) and challenged the dichotomy
often made between ‘learning’ (informal, often unrecorded, rarely monitored) and
‘development’ (formally constituted, programmed activities, often monitored and
expected to result in change). Yet, even this observance, whilst helpful, does not
fully explain nor is able fully to provide the support necessary for teachers as they
pursue their core business of seeking to raise and maintain standards of teaching,
learning and achievement in a range of classrooms, each of which has its own set of
special challenges. To do this successfully over a career and in different contexts of
change requires supportive workplace cultures.
To teach to one’s best and well has been linked, also, with well-being: ‘the
higher the positive morale, the better the performance’ (Seligman, 2011:147). Seligman
identified five elements associated with well-being: (i) positive emotion (derived
from self-efficacy, optimism and job satisfaction), (ii) engagement (absorption in
the task, what Csikszentmihalyi (1990) calls ‘flow’), (iii) meaning (believing that
one is contributing to something that is important and that is bigger than oneself),
(iv) accomplishment (making a difference to the learning and achievement of stu-
dents) and (v) positive relationships (with students and colleagues). Knowledge of
their importance needs to inform the focus and forms of informal and formal PLD
which are available to staff. From this perspective

We do not see schools from an instrumental perspective but rather from a

generative one. We do not believe that schools should serve externally deter-
mined goals and purposes … [only] … Instead they should be structured such
that the central purpose is the learning of individuals who are engaged in the
process of schooling.
(Mitchell and Sackney, 2000:xiii)

Planning for PLD

In an increasing number of countries, individual teachers – and increasingly whole
applicable copyright law.

schools – are required to have co-ordinated PD plans. Yet, even today in many
schools, these are

often nothing more than a collection of teachers’ individual activities over

the course of a year, without a general design or specific focus that relates

articular activities to an overall strategy or goal … Professional development

p
… is a collective good rather than a private or individual good. Its value is
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judged by what it contributes to the individual’s capacity to improve the

quality of instruction in the school and school system.
(Elmore, 2002:9–13)

Elmore is right to be critical of a lack of coherence in the opportunities and plan-

ning of PLD when he points to the purpose of PLD as being the ‘collective good’
of the system. However, when he separates this from the individual ‘good’, he
fails to acknowledge the associations between individual motivations, well-being,
identity and commitment, and teachers’ willingness and capacities to teach to their
best and well.
Cardno (2005) identified four ‘add-on’ PLD models: i) the smorgasbord approach –
associated with free choice by teachers from a range of half- or full-day activities
outside the school, ii) the fill-the-day approach – associated with external experts
bought in as part of a full day of in-school activities, iii) the do-it-all approach – associ-
ated with a desire by the school to ensure that teachers are involved in responding
to all external initiatives, and iv) the weekly shot of PD approach – associated with
building PD time into a school’s regular schedule of meetings. As others have,
she also found these to be insufficient in meeting the development and improve-
ment needs of individual teachers and schools. Darling-Hammond and Richardson
found, similarly, that the kind of PLD that is less likely to support PD is that which

• Relies on the one-shot workshop model

• Focuses only on training teachers in new techniques and behaviours
• Is not related to teachers’ specific contexts and curriculums
• Is episodic and fragmented
• Expects teachers to make changes in isolation and without support
• Does not provide sustained teacher learning opportunities over multiple days
and weeks
(Darling-Hammond and Richardson, 2009:46)

Darling-Hammond and Richardson (2009) perhaps go too far in their condemnation of ‘one-
shot’ activities which remain the predominant pattern of learning for many teachers in many
schools. High-quality one-shot workshops and presentations, for example, can have
a significant impact on teachers’ thinking and practice, and teachers in different
career phases have generic needs (e.g. renewing vision, managing stress, attending
to well-being, preparation for new roles) that do not always relate to specific con-
applicable copyright law.

texts and curricula. Nevertheless, their synthesis provides useful indicators of the
relative effectiveness of different kinds of PLD.
Functional and attitudinal PLD opportunities in schools that are both task-and
person-centred communities, then, are more likely to be effective when they are
perceived by individual teachers as:

1. relevant to their intellectual, emotional and practical teaching needs and/or

those of the school;
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2. organized and led by those who understand and care how adult learners learn
best;
3. integral to the dynamics of their school and departmental cultures;
4. timely;
5. provided in forms and at times that are convenient;
6. enhancing their sense of well-being, self-efficacy and agency;
7. likely to contribute towards improvements in their thinking and practice and
that of their pupils;
8. enhancing their positive sense of professional identity;
9. valuing their commitment;
10. building their capacities for commitment and resilience.

In these schools, within any promotion of and planning for teacher learning and
development there will be a consideration of their readiness, willingness and
commitment to engage successfully with change, the extent to which the PLD
opportunities are relevant to immediate, short-term (functional) and longer-
term (attitudinal) needs in the prevailing external policy climate and internal
school contexts in which they work, and their impact on teachers as well as stu-
dents. Such planning needs to include active, differentiated consideration of the
‘attitudinal’,‘because teachers, like the students they teach, think and feel, are influ-
enced also by their biographies, social histories and working contexts, peer groups,
teaching preferences, identities, phase of development and broader socio-political
cultures …’ (Day and Sachs, 2004:3).
Elmore highlighted the key tensions between learning and development needs
defined by teachers and their schools and those defined by the need to meet exter-
nal demands of accountability.

There are two fundamental principles in tension here: the first suggests that
professional development should be focused on system-wide improvement,
which leads to limiting individual and school discretion; the other suggests
that educators should play a major role in determining the focus of profes-
sional development, both for themselves and for their schools. These princi-
ples can be difficult to reconcile, especially in the context of an accountability
system that emphasises measurable student performance.
(Elmore, 2002:8)
applicable copyright law.

Given the increasing devolution of responsibilities to schools themselves for the

continuing PLD of their staff, it is perhaps not surprising that school-led PLD
activities will often reflect these tensions and, in doing so, demonstrate how teacher
‘professionalism’ is defined in practice. In terms of PLD, this will be expressed
through the relative emphasis placed on the ‘functional’ and ‘attitudinal’ learning

Professional practitioner Organizational

Account: ns063527
Orientation of Individual professional

ADVANCED EDUCATION
Personal (immediate classroom (role-related
development identity (extended/long-
(self-identity) management/knowledge/ training/
activity term career related)
skills update/training) development)
Individual as
leader of
learning and
development
Individual as member Individual as Individual as
Underlying
Individual of wider community leader of member of
view of
as person of professionals and learning and school
individual
educative leaders development community

School culture/leadership/developmental phase filter

Motivational, Intellectual and moral

Content, pedagogical Content, pedagogical Leadership values,
self-efficacy, agency, purposes, commitment,
knowledge and skills, knowledge and skills, qualities,
emotional well-being, resilience, vision,
management management strategies, knowledge, skills,
confidence building, knowledge of and
strategies, trust trust relational trust
professional identity about education

SUSTAINING COMMITMENT FOR EFFECTIVENESS

FIGURE 5.2 A template for planning functional and attitudinal oriented professional learning and development

needs of teachers, and this is likely to be associated with the view of the purposes
of schools themselves held by the principal.
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Figure 5.2 is a representation of the different ‘learning for improvement’ needs

that all teachers are likely to experience to different degrees and during different
phases of their teaching lives. It may be used as a basis for individual ‘learning and
development’ profiles or a planning template for leaders of schools, faculties and
departments.
This framework may be useful to PLD leaders who are concerned to balance the
‘attitudinal’ with the ‘functional’. It enables them to frame provision not only in the
results of more formal means of needs identification (e.g. annual performance man-
agement reviews, classroom observations) but also in the results of the teacher as a
person, a member of a professional community of teachers, a classroom practitioner
and, under a system of distributed leadership, an active contributor to the dynamic
of school culture. There is a sense, also, in which this ‘fits’ with the aspirations and
ideals embedded in schools’ improvement journeys.

Evaluating the impact of PLD

Currently, much evaluation of professional development (PD) by school
leaders, practitioners and policy makers is still impressionistic, anecdotal and
focused on simple measures. Its impact is rarely evaluated against intended aims
or outcomes and there is still a focus on completing a post-event evaluation
form (a ‘happy sheet’) or discussing performance during the appraisal process.
(Earley and Porritt, 2014:112)

Goodall et al. (2005) evaluated the impact of PD in 1,000 schools in England, using
Guskey’s (2000) five-level framework: participant reaction, participant learning,
organizational support and change, participant use of new knowledge and skills,
and pupil learning outcomes. The research found that

1. teachers’ experiences of PLD varied;

2. opportunities to participate in PLD were heavily dependent upon the support
of their school;
3. the most effective kinds of PLD were perceived as being those which met both
individual and organizational needs;
4. PLD leaders (usually senior members of staff) had limited knowledge and
experience of evaluation approaches;
5. the most frequently evaluated factor was participant reaction and the least eval-
applicable copyright law.

uated was pupil-learning outcomes.

Earley and Porritt argue that if ‘impact’ criteria are an integral part of planning,
then it is more likely that PLD will become ‘a powerful tool for making a differ-
ence to children’s learning’ (Earley and Porritt, 2014:113). They also cite Guskey’s
evaluation model (Guskey, 2000, 2002) which identifies five ‘levels’ of impact

which might be evaluated and his suggestions of five questions that may be asked
in associating the planning of PLD with its evaluation:
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1. What impact do you want to have on pupils? How will you know that you
have had this impact?
2. If that is what you want to accomplish, then what practices do you need to
implement?
3. What does the organization need to do to support that, for example, what
time/resources do people need?
4. What knowledge do people have to have and what skills do they have to
develop?
5. What activities (e.g. training) do people need to gain those skills or knowledge?
(Cited in Earley and Porritt, 2014:114)

Goodall and her colleagues’ (2005) project developed a comprehensive set of mate-
rials as a ‘route map’ for schools to use in auditing their existing states of readiness.
Schools were classified as ‘Emerging’, ‘Established’ or ‘Enhancing’. Here, I repro-
duce the table (Table 5.2) concerned with evaluation of the impact.

Evaluation of the impact of CPD

Table 5.2 enables the school to assess the current position or relative maturity
of the PLD ‘programme in terms of its impact’. Goodall and her colleagues pro-
vided a number of useful suggestions related to each category as a means of further
development.

Most ticks in the ‘Emerging’ category

• Consider a simple system for filing and collating evaluation of CPD – is it pos-
sible to put the evaluation form online so that it is easy to access, fill in, store
and retrieve?
• Consider a simple system for medium-term evaluation of impact.
• Send evaluation forms back to participants after a specific length of time has
passed.
• Set up meetings with line manager/PM leader/critical friend, a specific time
after the CPD event.
• Consider instituting some form of participant evaluation of new knowledge
and skills:
applicable copyright law.

• Make clear links between before and after skills audits (beginning and end
of academic year?) NB – a simple form could be created.
• Encourage the keeping of reflective journals, learning logs, blogs, etc.
among staff – set up examples in the staffroom, post links to online blogs.
• Set up a board in the staffroom which allows staff to add sticky notes or
bubbles to a ‘what I’ve learned this year’ brainstorm.

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Table 5.2 Evaluation of the impact of professional learning and development

Evaluation Evaluation of the

Evaluation of the Evaluation of impact
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impact of CPD impact of CPD of CPD done

not done dependent on a few through a wide
Evaluation seen as means (observation, range of means
quality control scrutiny of work, Evaluation of CPD
etc.) seen as quality con-
Evaluation seen as trol, dissemination
quality control and as involving evi-
dence of impact
Level of evaluation Immediate evalua- Immediate and Immediate, interim
tion of events is interim evaluation and long-term
used are used evaluation are used
Participant reaction Participant-based All levels of evaluation
is only means of evaluation (reaction, are used
evaluation use of new knowl- All events are evalu-
edge and skills) is ated by a return
used to the immediate
Some events participant reaction
are evaluated by a (after a lapse of a set
return to the im- period of time)
mediate participant Evaluation of impact
reaction (after a clearly feeds into
lapse of a set period future planning of
of time) CPD
No or little linkage Evaluation of impact
of evaluation to of CPD feeds
future planning into planning in
(perhaps only in other areas: School
terms of ‘not using’ Improvement Plan-
a provider or course ning (SIP), etc.
again due to adverse
feedback)
Planning Evaluation of impact Evaluation of impact Evaluation of impact
not built into built into planning built into all plan-
planning of CPD of whole school ning of CPD
CPD
Reporting Report of evalua- Report of evaluation Report of evaluation
tion of CPD is of CPD sometimes XE “Evaluation”
confined to the forms part of meet- seen as part of
participant ing structures team/department/
school meeting
structure
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Emerging Established Enhancing

Source: Goodall et al., 2005.

Most ticks in the ‘Established’ category

Any of the ‘Emerging’ suggestions you feel might benefit your school plus

• Make a map of the means of evaluation you are presently using: what could
be added?
• Consider how the means of evaluation you already use can be extended to
cover the longer term.
• Consider how the results of evaluation can feed back into development plan-
ning – what would the mechanism for this be?
• Consider how the mechanisms used to evaluate the impact of whole school
CPD might be extended to include other instances of CPD for individuals
and teams.
• Consider how the means used now for dissemination (reports to teams, etc.)
might be extended to include evaluation of impact as well as content, perhaps
by delaying the report until impact can be seen?

Most ticks in the ‘Enhancing’ category

Any of the ‘Established’ suggestions you feel might benefit your school plus

• As Goodall et al. (2005:67–68) state, ‘consider how you might involve pupils
in the evaluation of the impact of CPD: through discussions, questionnaires,
online forms, etc. Decide how to use this information (Would it be available
only to the teacher involved? To the year group team?). Draw into this project
any staff with experience of questionnaire design and analysis.’

Whilst these models are attractive in terms of achieving a balance between the
‘functional’ and the ‘attitudinal’, they are limited in their usefulness. First, they seem
to assume that all PLD must be targeted directly at improving teachers’ impact
on pupils without apparently taking into account teachers’ willingness, commit-
ment, capabilities and capacities to do so and the difficulties in establishing direct
‘cause-and-effect’, ‘means-ends’ relationships (discussed in Chapter 1 of this book).
Second, they seem to assume a linear relationship between one impact and another.
Third, they seem to imply that teachers themselves are not involved in planning
their own learning.

Learning through reflection: teachers as inquirers

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With Stenhouse, I continue to believe that

… long term improvement of education through the utilization of research

and development hinges on the creation of different expectations in the sys-
tem … The different expectations will be generated only as schools come to

see themselves as research and development institutions rather than clients of

research and development agencies … It is not enough that teachers’ work
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should be studied; they need to study it for themselves.

(Stenhouse, 1975:143 and 222–223, cited in Grundy, 1994:35–36)

Teacher inquiry is not new. On the contrary, many teachers reflect upon their
work in the classroom, both during the action itself and, later, as they analyse its
effect and plan for the future. Whilst not all teachers will necessarily be lifelong
learners with a passion for continuing improvement, it can be argued that at its
most simple level, reflection is necessary if teachers are to be able to respond to the
everyday teaching and learning needs of their students and the external demands for
effectiveness. Schön (1983) coined the terms ‘reflection in action’ and ‘reflection on
action’. He was concerned then that most knowledge about teaching and learning
was generated by university researchers from outside the classroom, many of whom
had little experience of school teaching, and that this failed to acknowledge the
role of teachers as knowledge holders and knowledge creators. The former, ‘reflec-
tion in action’, highlighted the need for teachers to think on their feet in order to
respond to unanticipated questions or responses during their teaching processes.
This was later criticized by Eraut (1995), who observed that the depth of this
kind of reflection would be limited by the time available to the teacher in the busy-
ness of classroom life and the extent to which teachers would be able to formulate
new thinking and actions rather than make decisions by selecting or re-configuring
from within existing experience. ‘Reflection on action’, however, takes place out-
side the immediacy of classroom practice and so allows a more measured process of
reflection – though, again, this is likely to be limited to memory and impression at
a time when energy is likely to be depleted, unless part of a process of systematic
inquiry and informed by data.
Neither the processes of reflection nor its outcomes are entirely rational. The
capacity to reflect will be affected by workplace constraints (e.g. work overload,
limited resources), personal limitations (e.g. phase of development, knowledge
or skill level) and emotional well-being (e.g. self-confidence, esteem, response
to negative criticism). In investigating impediments to reflective practice through
analysis of the current conditions in schools, Cole (1997) has argued persuasively
that ‘the conditions under which teachers work have generated feelings and psy-
chological states that militate against reflective practice and professional growth’
(p. 7). By working conditions, she was referring to ‘external structures imposed by
schools and school systems, the profession, government and the public at large’. By
psychological states, she was referring to perceptions which interfere with ‘opti-
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mum productivity and practice’ (p. 13).

There is a limit, also, to what can be learnt from examining one’s own prac-
tice, whilst being simultaneously engaged in that practice. Reflection-in-action will
usually be unsystematic with checks against realities constrained by the limitations
of the single perspective available to teachers at the time. Even where teachers
meet in order to share and analyse practice for assessment and planning purposes, to

reflect on the action, often their reflections on action will be based upon talk about
practice rather than the practice itself.
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The nature and purposes of reflection

Distinctions between teachers as technicians and teachers as reflective practition-
ers are not always helpful. Good teachers will be technically competent and reflect
upon broader issues of purpose, process, content and outcome. It is when techni-
cal competence ceases to involve reflection that the quality of teaching is likely to
suffer. Such ‘technicians’ may identify a problem in the classroom as ‘given’ and
plan strategies to solve the problem without questioning their own goals, values,
moral purposes and accountabilities, or the broader assumptions which might, for
example, contribute to the school setting, shape of the curriculum or the attitudes
and behaviour of the students. Thus, simply to advocate reflection in, on and about
action as a means of learning provides no indication of the depth, scope, purpose or
challenges of engaging in the process. Unless a more critically reflective ‘inquiry as
stance’ (Cochran-Smith and Lytle, 2009) is adopted, analysis and understanding are
likely to be restricted to unarticulated values and assumptions. Pressures on teachers
to meet externally determined achievement standards in a relatively limited number
of (functional) areas of the curriculum are likely to reduce the potential for attitu-
dinal teacher development through ‘inquiry’.

If teachers want to go beyond functional conceptions of their role then they

must seek to maintain a broad vision about their work and not just look
inwardly at their own practices:
Teachers cannot restrict their attention to the classroom alone, leaving the
larger setting and purposes of schooling to be determined by others. They
must take active responsibility for the goals to which they are committed,
and for the social setting in which these goals may prosper. If they are not
to be mere agents of others, of the state, of the military, of the media, of the
experts and bureaucrats, they need to determine their own agency through a
critical and continual evaluation of the purposes, the consequences, and the
social context of their calling.
(Scheffler, 1968:11, cited in Zeichner and Liston, 1996:19)

Those who are responsible for policy may well view teacher inquiry as a technical
means of improving the efficiency of, for example, curriculum delivery or class-
room control rather than as a means of emancipation through knowledge. Thus it
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may be supported at the ‘technical rational’ (functional) rather than ‘critical reflec-
tive’ (functional and attitudinal) level.
In a review of teacher education in Scotland, Menter et al. (2010) identified
four ‘influential paradigms’ of teacher professionalism which do much to inform
school leaders and teachers about how they might identify the key functional and
attitudinal dimensions in order to promote individual and collaborative PLD which

extends rather than limits the growth of professional capital. I reproduce this below,
with suggestions alongside each of the four as to how these paradigms may be
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related to the purposes and practices of ‘functional’ and ‘attitudinal’ PLD:

Restricted 1. the effective teacher: associated with a standards based approach

professionalism to teaching which emphasises the measurable accomplish-
ments of students in order to prepare them for work. This
has been criticized as restricting teaching professionalism
(learning with functional purposes)
2. the reflective teacher: associated with teachers as active par-
ticipants in their own learning and improvement through
collaboration and consultation with colleagues and students
(learning through inquiry with functional and attitudinal p urposes)
3. the enquiring teacher: closely associated with the ‘reflective
teacher’ paradigm, but with an explicit emphasis on promot-
ing improvements in teaching and learning through system-
atic inquiry in partnership with colleagues, other schools and
universities (learning as a social endeavour with functional and atti-
tudinal purposes)
4. the transformational teacher: associated with the promotion,
equity and social change in and beyond the classroom (learn-
Extended ing through action research with functional and attitudinal purposes)
professionalism (Menter et al., 2010:21)

These paradigms suggest strongly that effective PLD models are those which
emphasize teacher ownership, participation and agency and a range of reflective
practices as essential to interrogating and improving teachers’ work. The review
associates these paradigms with ‘restricted’ and ‘extended’ professionality’ (Hoyle,
1975), terms used many years ago to distinguish between teachers whose perspec-
tives on their work were based on learning primarily from their own experience
and are, therefore, ultimately restricted and those whose perspectives are not only
informed by their own experience but also extended by experiences of collabora-
tion with colleagues, observations of others teaching and engagement with the
interface between theories and practice.
It may be argued that changes in the school accountability context in many
countries (for example, annual school improvement plans, individual performance
appraisals, and more transparency in classroom teaching and learning) have caused
these terms to be less applicable in this century. Nevertheless, there remain schools
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and teachers in many countries who do not yet embrace all parts of the continuum
of PLD which are represented in the review by Menter and his colleagues. Two
examples representing the extremes of these paradigms are discussed briefly here.
Action research represents what Menter and his colleagues call ‘the transformational
teacher’ who is, in their terms, an ‘extended professional’. The example of ‘evi-
dence-based’ practice represents the ‘effective teacher’ whose agenda, paradoxically,

is clearly focused on the functional and who represents the ‘restricted professional’.
Those between these two extremes will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 6.
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Action research
Action research is a form of reflective teacher inquiry in which exponents place
change through understanding explicitly at the centre of its purposes. This has been
defined as ‘the study of a social situation, involving the participants themselves as
researchers, with a view to improving the quality of action within it’ (Somekh,
1988:164). It is, then, not about only understanding practice through, for example,
‘self study’ or limiting reflection on practice to improve it without a parallel con-
cern with the social and power structures in which teaching and learning take place.
Critical theorists have referred to it as ‘reflection about action’ (Zeichner, 1993) in
order to ensure that the broader contextual and policy influences on contexts of
teaching are considered and, where necessary, challenged, where they are seen not
to serve the best interests of students. It is characterized by systematic inquiry that
is primarily qualitative, collaborative, self-reflective and critical. Successful action
research relies, however, both on the desire of teachers to engage in reflection as a
means of development, to be willing to change existing beliefs and practices where
appropriate to better teaching and learning, and the on-going support of the school
in which they work to provide appropriate support.
Participation in collaborative action research requires a quite different ‘mindset’
by those who engage in it from that required in most other research endeavours.
In summary, it requires

1. equitable relationships between participants;

2. the assistance of critical friends with an ability to engage in collaboration which
is not always comfortable;
3. an understanding of change processes as both rational and non-rational;
4. a willingness to reflect upon and move from single to double loop learning;
5. a belief that authentic settings are best researched by those practitioners expe-
riencing them direct, but that outsider viewpoints may enrich these through
challenge and support;
6. an acceptance that those affected by planned changes have the primary respon-
sibility for deciding on courses of action which seem likely to lead to improve-
ment, and for evaluating the results of strategies tried out in practice; and
7. a supportive organizational culture.
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Engeström’s (2006) model of expansive learning provides for a sequence of actions

that is not dissimilar to those in ‘practitioner research’. It requires participants to
move systematically through cycles of questioning (existing beliefs and practices)
through analysing classroom practice with the help of others, receiving and act-
ing upon feedback by implementation, and, finally, reflecting on the process and
consolidating the new practice for confirming the results of the systematic review

of effective PD, which showed that sustained, collaborative PD resulted in (i)

increased teacher repertoire of classroom strategies; (ii) increased their commitment
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to further learning; and (iii) the improved learning of their students. The model
relates well, also, to research on the processes which characterize PLCs. These are
discussed in Chapter 6 and described by Engeström (1987) as ‘shared transformative
agency’ (Engeström and Sannino, 2010:7).

Evidence-based teaching
In the current era of results-driven curricula, ‘evidence-based teaching’ has
become associated with primarily quantitative measures to accelerate students’
progress in learning to achieve pre-determined and measurable outcomes related
to achieving success in external tests and examinations. Pre- and post-testing, for
example, can now be found in most, if not all, school classrooms as teachers seek
to determine what their students have learnt and collect, process, document and
report formative assessments of students’ progress. Such reports are used not only
for quality control and assurance purposes in schools but also as evidence available
to students themselves, parents and external school inspectors. What is common
in these is that they are conducted in contexts of use, over time and by teachers
who are able to combine the ‘hard’ data with their own professional judgments.
These and other evidence-based practices that seek to establish short-term cause-
and-effect relationships are also closely associated with experimental or quasi-
experimental designs.
The notion of ‘evidence-based’ practices is seductive, particularly to schools in
which some or many students are disadvantaged in terms of literacy and numer-
acy and so ‘fall behind’ others in their performance in national tests and examina-
tions. There are an increasing number, also, of so-called ‘randomized control trials’
(RCTs) in which one group or class of students (the experimental or treatment
group) receives particular ‘interventions’ in the form of particular teaching strategies,
for example, over an agreed time period designed to result in accelerated improve-
ments in performance, whilst students in another group (the control group) judged
to have similar characteristics, continues with their normal work. It is assumed that
there will be no change in the behaviour of the control group over time. Lemon
et al. (2014) provide analyses of findings from five RCT experiments in education.
Although in the short term these appeared to show improvements in, for example,
literacy levels, over the longer term the control group’s results had become similar
to those of the experimental ‘treatment’ groups, thus decreasing the relative ben-
efits. In reality, then, it seems that contexts of learning change in unpredictable ways
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for the individual student (since learning is not continuous, incremental or linear).
This is not to reject the use of such quasi-experimental, evidence-based research
by schools and teachers, nor intended to suggest that there is no value in its use.
There may well be an argument for learning how certain kinds of interventions
may result in more efficient teaching of certain content or the use of more impact-
ful learning processes. However, its limitations should also be noted.

Six challenges of teacher inquiry

Many years ago (Day, 1999), I identified a number of challenges of engaging in

teacher inquiry. They remain true today for teachers whose working lives have
become more rather, than less, complex and demanding.

Challenge 1: engaging with the possibilities of change

Important though these forms of reflective practice are, understanding ourselves
in order to understand others, being able to be as questioning of the bias in our
own views as we are of those held by others, does not necessarily lead to change
for improvement. It is one thing to understand, for example, more about the cur-
riculum, pupil learning, one’s own teaching and the influences upon it, it is quite
another to engage in change processes which may be difficult to sustain. In order
to develop and sustain their critical thinking through reflection, teachers will need
to engage in processes of metacognition and systematic collection, description, syn-
thesis, interpretation and evaluation of data. The quality and authenticity of the
data will depend upon their abilities to engage in reflective analytical conversations
with themselves and others as well as their capacities to do so. Teachers who are
reflective inquirers need to recognize that inquiry is likely to raise issues of change
and that this will involve a confrontation of inconsistencies within and between
existing core values and practices. If teachers are to engage in critical forms of
teaching, they will need not only to be concerned with describing what they do
and informing themselves and others of the meaning of that description. They will
need also to confront their practice by asking questions such as

• Why do I do what I do?

• Does what I do reflect my educational ideals?
• How am I able to express my educational ideals whilst taking into account the
legitimate needs of policy, school and student needs?
• Are there discrepancies between what I think I do when I am teaching and
what I do?
• How is this received by the students?
• How do I find out more about this?
• How did I come to be like this?
• Do I want to continue to do this in this way?
• Do I want to reconstruct my ideals and/or practices so that I might do things
differently?
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In short, they will need to be prepared to engage with possibilities of change. Pro-
cesses of reflection may not in themselves lead to confrontation of thinking and
practices nor take account of broad institutional and social contexts necessary as
precursors to decisions about change when carried out by the teacher alone. Rela-
tively little attention has been given also (outside the action-research movement) to

what engaging in reflective processes which are both rational and non-rational will
mean for the teacher. It is clear that there are parts of ourselves that we might prefer
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to remain private. Alone these are rather easier to hide, but as part of a group much
more difficult – unless there is a tacit agreement concerning ‘boundaries’ and, thus,
a kind of collaboration by collusion.

Challenge 2: managing the self in change

Inquiry is likely to involve a confrontation of inconsistencies within and between
existing core values and habitual practices. Argyris and Schön (1974) called this a
‘theory of action’. Within this are our ‘espoused theories’ (what we intend to do
and think we do when we teach) and ‘theories in use’ (what we do). In order to
become more effective, they suggest, we need to examine discrepancies within and
between each in order to ‘narrow the gap’. Yet while change involves cognition,
it is not only a cognitive process. It involves emotion. Jersild’s (1995) seminal work
in exploring the effects of anxiety, fear, loneliness, helplessness, meaning and mean-
inglessness, and hostility in relation to understanding self is also relevant here. He
argues that these emotions are prevalent in teachers’ lives in schools and classrooms
and must, therefore, be addressed as part of teachers’ professional education. In
short, reflection is a necessary but insufficient condition for change.

Challenge 3: exploring the continuum

The third challenge is for teachers to take a broader view of the ways in which they
can learn through inquiry into their practices and the contexts which influence
these over a career. Reflective and non-reflective practitioners are not two funda-
mentally irreconcilable groups. Rather, they are teacher inquirers who are at differ-
ent points on a continuum. The continuum spans unsystematic, intuitive inquiry
to inquiry through systematic research, defined by Stenhouse (1975) as ‘systematic
inquiry, made public’, and manifested particularly through action research. It may
be that teachers will be working in different modes during different phases of their
careers, in different school contexts and for different purposes (see Day et al., 2007
for a detailed discussion). Ebbutt’s (1985) developmental classification of a range
of insider research-related activity was based upon the observed reality of teachers’
working lives and continues to provide an important frame of reference for those
engaged in inquiry. He identified the teacher as an inquirer within a continuum
of practice: (i) ‘Usual Teaching Mode’ where isolated learning predominates and
conscious, systematic reflection is sporadic; (ii) ‘Teacher Self-Monitoring’ where
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data on classroom practice are regularly if informally collected, sometimes with the
help of a critical friend colleague, and reflections are incorporated into practice;
and (iii) more rigorous ‘Teacher-Researcher’ modes of inquiry in which data from
a number of sources (e.g. students, self, observer, documents) are collected and
triangulated, analysed and used to inform decisions about change at individual and
school levels.

Challenge 4: time to think

It has been argued that the mind works at three different speeds:

1. Rapid thought – this ‘unconscious’ level of working is the most common in

the classroom, where teachers must often react instantaneously to a multitude
of demands. It involves reflection in action.
2. Deliberate thought – this involves ‘figuring matters out, weighing up the pros
and cons, constructing arguments and solving problems’ (Claxton, 1997:2).
This is similar to reflection in action.
3. Contemplative thought – this ‘is often less purposeful and clear-cut, more
playful … In this mode we are ruminating or mulling things over … What is
going on in the mind may be quite fragmentary’ (Claxton, 1997:2).

Many years later, Kahneman (2011) in a much-celebrated book, Thinking, Fast and
Slow, elaborated on the way the mind works in making wise or unwise decisions.
Although not aimed at educationalists, his work can be related to teachers’ work. In
the everyday busyness of their classrooms, on-the-spot decisions are often required.
In these contexts, there is little room for deliberate or contemplative thought.
Yet to make wise decisions, to build ‘decisional capital’, such an important part of
‘professional capital’ (Hargreaves and Fullan, 2012), requires more than teachers’
intuition and experience. Kahneman’s most important contribution was to add to
existing knowledge on ‘implicit’ knowledge (Polanyi, 1967) and reflection in and
on action (Schön, 1983) in applying it to decision-making. He identified Systems 1
and 2 thinking:

System 1 corresponds to thinking fast, and System 2 to thinking slow.

Kahneman describes System 1 in many evocative ways: it is intuitive, auto-
matic, unconscious, and effortless, it answers questions quickly through asso-
ciations and resemblances, it is non-statistical, gullible, and heuristic. System
2 in contrast … is conscious, slow, controlled, deliberate, effortful, statistical,
suspicious … System 1 is automatic and reactive, not optimizing. As a con-
sequence, when we make a judgment or choice, we do that on the basis of
incomplete and selected data assembled via a System 1-like mechanism. Even
if the decisions are optimal at this point given what we have in mind, they
might not be optimal given the information potentially available to us both
from the outside world and from memory.
(Shleifer, 2012:17)
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It is deliberative System 2 ways of thinking that are in danger of being lost in

the intensification of teachers’ working lives through the rise of ‘technopoly’
(Postman, 1992) in which contemplation is regarded as a luxury. Technopoly is
based upon

… the beliefs that the primary, if not the only goal of human labour and
thought is efficiency; that technical calculation is in all respects superior to
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human judgment; that in fact human judgement cannot be trusted, because it

is plagued by laxity, ambiguity, and unnecessary complexity; that subjectiv-
ity is an obstacle to clear thinking; that what cannot be measured either does
not exist or is of no value; and that the affairs of citizens are best guided and
conducted by ‘experts’.
(Postman, 1992, cited in Claxton, 1997:2)

Because historically teachers’ work has been regarded as ‘contact time’ with stu-
dents, they have had few built-in opportunities or expectations placed upon them,
for example, to collect data, share practice with colleagues, or collectively reflect in
depth ‘on’ and ‘about’ their teaching and its contexts. Hargreaves (1994) identified
three dimensions of time in teaching: the micro-political, relating to the distribution
of time in relation to status; the phenomenological, relating to the way the use of time
is constructed in schools; and the socio-political, relating to the claims on teachers’
‘discretionary’ time made by administrators.
Whilst time is always at a premium where conditions of service effectively
define teaching only as contact time, this is not the case universally. In Chinese
schools, for example, time is built into the working day which could be used for
deliberative thought, perhaps in recognition that making sense of complex, ill-
defined and ambiguous situations is a key determinant of quality teaching and that
providing time for reflection which is more contemplative is an essential part of
teacher development.

Challenge 5: sustaining engagement

Establishing, nurturing and developing collaborative work over time requires
‘sustained interactivity’ (Huberman, 1993b), and this requires that teachers
engage in discussions in their schools about the use of each of the three dimen-
sions of time identified by Hargreaves for their learning. Talk is the means by
which teachers deconstruct, test out and reconstruct their beliefs and ‘espoused
theories’ of education (Argyris and Schön, 1974). Most ‘co-construction’,
whether it takes place through anecdote, ideas, information and material swap-
ping, or the sharing of problems, issues and opinions will need to challenge
teachers to move beyond exchange to critique. Success in this depends upon
the level of individual trust and institutional challenges and support. In schools
which value more expansive and critical teacher learning, it is likely, for exam-
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ple, that there will be opportunities for the development of reflexive practitioner
inquiry (Cochran-Smith and Lytle, 2009; Mockler and Sachs, 2011), action
research groups (Somekh, 2006; Townsend, 2013) and network learning com-
munities (Stoll and Seashore-Louis, 2007). Critique involves both disclosure and
feedback from ‘critical friends’ whose integrity is trusted and whose considered
feedback is respected.

Challenge 6: critical friendship

Teacher inquiry of different kinds offers teachers extended opportunities to engage

in the systematic investigation of self, practice and practice contexts, either over
extended periods or through an intensive, relatively short timespan. They can be
a successful mechanism for helping teachers translate their PLD experiences into
their practice and to explore the impact on student achievement (Bell et al., 2010;
Timperley, 2008; Crippen et al., 2010). However, if reflection in, on and about
practice is to probe current realities in challenging ways, there will also need to be
practical and moral support from within and without the school in terms of that
most valuable of all commodities, time. Because it is often difficult to be dispassion-
ate in reflecting upon one’s own work, perhaps the most important aid will be the
commitment of a ‘critical friend’.
Teachers do not always learn best only through examining their own experience
of teaching. Such learning, whilst useful, is likely to be unnecessarily limiting to the
growth of expertise since it may only be the re-configuration and recycling of per-
sonal experience without external critical friendship support, even learning through
collaborative activities with colleagues is likely to be limited. In short, examining
existing practice does not necessarily result in improvement. Teachers need both
the internal support of colleagues and the external support of trusted critical friends in
building their skills in collecting evidence, for example, about student progress or
aspects of their own ‘presentation of self’ in the classroom and staffroom (Parr and
Timperley, 2010; Bell et al., 2010), and applying this to their practices and ways
of thinking.
Recently, Wennergren (2016) has provided a useful definition of critical friend-
ship which highlights its key elements and links this to the challenges of teacher
learning and development in social settings.

A characteristic of a critical friend is the unexpected combination of, on the

one hand, friendship built on trust, support and affirmation and, on the other,
criticism based on analysis, assessment, evaluation and quality … Challenging
a teaching colleague … means dealing with a situation involving relation-
ships and emotions … strong professional communities depend on teachers’
capacity to blend commitment with doubt, along with healthy disagreements
about teaching.
(Wennergren, 2016:263)

Critical friendships are based upon practical partnerships entered into voluntar-
ily, pre-suppose a relationship between equals and are rooted in a common task
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of shared concern and mutual respect and trust. The role of a critical friend is to
provide support and challenge within a trusting relationship. It is different from the
‘mentor’ relationship in which one person (the mentor) holds a superior position
by virtue of his/her experience, knowledge and skills. The critical friend is recog-
nized as having knowledge, experience and skills that are complementary.

Although, ideally, teacher inquiry enables teachers to develop the ownership of

PLD through the choice of its focus and direction of travel, there is a temptation in
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schools that are concerned with complying with the regulatory and measurement
demands of government (See Chapter 1 for a discussion of these) to use inquiry as
a vehicle to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of existing curricula for the
achievement of externally defined purposes only (Kemmis, 2006). Where this is
the case, both the early ideals of action research as a vehicle for transformation and,
where appropriate, educational critique and the development of teachers as inquir-
ers envisioned by Schön (1983), and others, will become lost.

‘Effective’ PLD
A persuasive set of evidence in support of combining the functional and attitudinal
in a range of formal PD activities is to be found in the OECD’s ‘Comparison of
Impact and Participation by Types of Development Activity’ (2007–08), in which
teachers from its member countries reported on the moderate or high impact of
the formal professional development in which they participated (OECD, 2009:75).
Figure 5.3 illustrates this. What is shown clearly is that within a relatively wide
range of PLD opportunities, those which are perceived to have the highest impact
relative to their provision are individual and collaborative research, qualification
programmes, professional development networks, mentoring and peer observation,
observation visits to other schools, and education conferences and seminars.
Five observations may be made from this:

1. All the activities may encompass both the functional and the attitudinal.
2. They involve social learning.
3. They all involve extended periods of reflection on and reflect notions of occu-
pational professionalism, the building and reinforcement of positive profes-
sional identities, efficacy and agency.
4. They all involve extended periods of reflection on action.
5. They all focus on possibilities for improvements in thinking and practices.

In their synthesis of a review of American research, Darling-Hammond and

Richardson (2009) provided a useful reminder of the kinds of effective PLD oppor-
tunities which are likely to benefit teachers. These are those which

• Deepen teachers’ knowledge of content and how to teach it to students

• Help teachers understand how students learn specific content
applicable copyright law.

• Provide opportunities for active, hands-on learning

• Enable teachers to acquire new knowledge, apply it to practice and reflect on
the results with colleagues
• Are part of a school reform effort that links curriculum, assessment and stand-
ards to professional learning

Account: ns063527
Teachers reporting moderate or high level of impact

ADVANCED EDUCATION
Teachers participating in PD

%
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Individual and Qualification Informal Reading Courses PD Mentoring Observation Education
collaborative programmes dialogue professional and network and peer visits to conferences
research to improve literature workshops observation other schools and seminars
teaching
FIGURE 5.3 Comparison of impact and participation by types of development activity (2007–2008)
Activities are ranked in descending order of the percentage of teachers reporting a moderate or high impact of the professional development they took

AN: 1544031 ; Christopher Day.; Teachers’ Worlds and Work : Understanding Complexity, Building Quality
Source: OECD, Tables 3.2 and 3.8

EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 1/10/2022 5:56 AM via EMIRATES COLLEGE FOR
Professional learning and development 107

• Are collaborative and collegial

• Are intensive and sustained over time
Copyright © 2017. Routledge. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or

(Darling-Hammond and Richardson, 2009:46)

Another study in the USA found that long-term ‘investment’ produces a very good
‘return’ and that an average of 49 hours spent on staff CPD over a year boosted
student achievement by 21 percentile points. Teachers who received 80 or more
hours of PD were significantly more likely to put the given teaching strategies into
practice than teachers who had participated for fewer hours (Darling-Hammond
et al., 2007). In contrast, more limited time (5–14 hours) showed no statistically
significant effect on student learning.
Research internationally has acknowledged, also, that leadership is a key influ-
encing factor in the efficacy, commitment and effectiveness of all teachers (Day and
Leithwood, 2007) and a key mediating factor in building and supporting teachers’
capacity for effectiveness. This has important positive or significant negative effects
upon their motivation and commitment. In the research on teachers’ commitment
and effectiveness across different phases of their careers reported in Chapter 3 (Day
et al., 2007), two broad groups of teachers were identified:

1. teachers who had sustained commitment (74%);

2. teachers whose commitment was declining (26%).

Table 5.3 provides a synthesis of the factors that influenced the 300 teachers who
participated in that research. It illustrates how, in the various phases of teach-
ers’ professional lives, for a significant proportion, pupil behaviour, unsupportive
leadership and workload contributed to a decline in commitment, and shows the
importance of the quality of leadership, relationships with peers and personal sup-
port to those whose commitment was sustained.
Other empirical research internationally also demonstrates the strong positive
(or negative) direct and indirect influence of the school principal on pupil learn-
ing and attainment (Leithwood et al., 2006; Robinson et al., 2009; Day and Gurr,
2014). It is the primary responsibility of school and system leaders to create the
conditions necessary to enable teachers, who are at the heart of the business of edu-
cating pupils, to teach to their best and to make a tangible difference to the learning
and achievement lives of the pupils they teach, especially those who are drawn from
high-need communities (James et al., 2006).

Conclusions
applicable copyright law.

Not all teachers at all times have the same boundless energy required to engage in
sustained periods of professional learning, even with colleagues’ support. Learning
needs will differ for a variety of reasons, e.g. teachers are managing a particularly
challenging group of students and this may take all their emotional, intellectual
and practical energy; they have unanticipated personal challenges; they may learn

Table 5.3 Teachers with sustained commitment and declining commitment comment on
the factors affecting them
Copyright © 2017. Routledge. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or

Group a: sustained commitment Group b: declining commitment

The combination of factors mentioned most A total of 26% teachers were in this group.
frequently by teachers as contributing to Those who were considering leaving the
their sustained commitment were teaching profession for a new career were
either looking for promotion out of the
• Leadership (76%)
classroom (e.g. to advisory roles) or, hav-
‘It’s good to know that we have strong lead-
ing suffered health problems connected
ership with a clear vision for the school’
to the stress of teaching, were seeking
• Colleagues (63%) different kinds of work
‘We have such a supportive team here. The combination of pressures identified
Everyone works together and we have a most frequently as challenging their
common goal to work towards’ sustained commitment in the comments
over three years were
• Personal support (95%)
‘It helps having a supportive family which • Workload (68%)
doesn’t get frustrated when I’m sat work- ‘It never stops, there’s always something
ing on a Sunday afternoon and they want more to do and it eats away at your life
to go to the park’ until you have no social life and no time
Teachers in this group were enthusiastic for anything but work’
about their work and confident in their
• Pupil behaviour (64%)
ability to make a positive difference in the
‘Over the years, pupils have got worse. They
learning and achievement of their pupils
have no respect for themselves or the
teachers’
‘Pupil behaviour is one of the biggest prob-
lems in schools today. They know their
rights and there’s nothing you can do’
• Leadership (58%)
‘Unless the leadership supports the staff, you’re
on your own.They need to be visible and
need to appreciate what teachers are doing’

Source: Day et al., 2007:125–126.

better alone or from a ‘one-shot’ workshop at particular times. In addition, since

learning needs are rarely singular (in that to address them almost always means
locating them in the personal, professional and workplace contexts which give rise
to and influence them), it is likely that any learning experience, whether func-
tional or attitudinal in its orientation, will have cumulative elements and result in
applicable copyright law.

incremental rather than transformational change effects on teachers and/or their

teaching practices.
It is likely, also, that where teachers cease to believe that they can make a posi-
tive difference to their students’ lives (a loss of self-efficacy, commitment and moral
purpose), their willingness to teach to their best and well and, thus, their capacity
for effectiveness will diminish. As we have seen in earlier chapters, such loss of

belief in the ability to ‘make a difference’ may be influenced by both anticipated

and unanticipated personal events, e.g. illness, the conditions of their work caused
Copyright © 2017. Routledge. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or

by policy changes which affect their sense of autonomy, and the everyday culture
of the schools in which they work. It is the latter which will have the strongest
positive or negative influence.
Key to successful planning, its translation into practice and its potential for
impact, is the school culture, and key to this is the role of the principal and senior
leadership team. The ‘staff development outcomes study’ (SDOS) in England, led
by Bubb and Earley, found that ‘school ethos was fundamental to staff development
and in those schools where it was strong, leaders fostered – and all staff felt – a sense
of both entitlement and responsibility for their own development and learning,
closely linked to benefits for the pupils. Staff turnover was low and morale was
high at these schools’ (Earley, 2010:474). The study also found ‘a positive associa-
tion between school outcomes and staff development’ (Earley, 2010:474). Whilst
school leaders’ influence on student learning and achievement is second only to
that of teachers, such influence is, however, likely to be indirect. Thus, school lead-
ers improve teaching and learning most effectively through the influence of their
strong sense of moral purpose and social justice and the combination and accu-
mulation of timely, context-specific improvement strategies on staff motivation,
commitment and resilience, and working conditions. Chapter 7 discusses in more
detail the key role played by school leaders in promoting opportunities for PLD.
How schools combine the functional and the attitudinal in their planning and provision
of PLD is likely to be an important factor in teachers’ commitment to learning. Equally
important will be the ways they learn together. Chapter 6 explores these factors in
more detail.
applicable copyright law.

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01 Professional Learning and Development Ch.5-1

Uploaded by

01 Professional Learning and Development Ch.5-1

Uploaded by

5

Teachers of today and tomorrow need to do more learning on the job, or in

In the concluding chapter of Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-

1. Teachers are among the most powerful influences on learning

‘functional’ focus on upgrading subject content knowledge or adopting new assess-

Combining the functional and attitudinal

… as a factor influencing change it is much more potent than functional

Evans’ connection between ‘attitudinal’ and ‘functional’ is important. Oppor-

Teacher professionalism is shaped by the external environment and … d­ uring

• Accountability and control by • In compliance with Government change

CONTROLLED PROFESSIONALISM COMPLIANT PROFESSIONALISM

Organizational or managerial Occupational or democratic

• Procedurally driven professional renewal • Transformative practices

FIGURE 5.1 A PLD planning framework

We have seen elsewhere in this book that governments worldwide are

• teaching as an occupational or organizational profession;

1. Notwithstanding the influence of factors such as socio-economic status, home

To these understandings of PLD may now be added

5. Teaching at its best is both an intellectual and emotional activity, which

Nevertheless, a range of research internationally suggests that governments world-

Schools as person and task-centred communities

Table 5.1 Education and schooling for human flourishing

Schools as Schools as Schools as high- Schools as person- Schools as agents

organization munity ­organization ­community ­fellowship

Source: Fielding, 2012:688.

In such person-and task-centred schools, policymakers and others from outside

course. However, the continuing health, well-being, commitment and effective-

We do not see schools from an instrumental perspective but rather from a

Planning for PLD

often nothing more than a collection of teachers’ individual activities over

­ articular activities to an overall strategy or goal … Professional development

judged by what it contributes to the individual’s capacity to improve the

Elmore is right to be critical of a lack of coherence in the opportunities and plan-

• Relies on the one-shot workshop model

1. relevant to their intellectual, emotional and practical teaching needs and/or

Given the increasing devolution of responsibilities to schools themselves for the

Professional practitioner Organizational

School culture/leadership/developmental phase filter

Motivational, Intellectual and moral

SUSTAINING COMMITMENT FOR EFFECTIVENESS

Figure 5.2 is a representation of the different ‘learning for improvement’ needs

Evaluating the impact of PLD

1. teachers’ experiences of PLD varied;

uated was pupil-learning outcomes.

Evaluation of the impact of CPD

Most ticks in the ‘Emerging’ category

Evaluation Evaluation of the

impact of CPD impact of CPD of CPD done

Emerging Established Enhancing

Source: Goodall et al., 2005.

Most ticks in the ‘Established’ category

Most ticks in the ‘Enhancing’ category

Learning through reflection: teachers as inquirers

With Stenhouse, I continue to believe that

… long term improvement of education through the utilization of research

see themselves as research and development institutions rather than clients of

should be studied; they need to study it for themselves.

mum productivity and practice’ (p. 13).

The nature and purposes of reflection

If teachers want to go beyond functional conceptions of their role then they

related to the purposes and practices of ‘functional’ and ‘attitudinal’ PLD:

Restricted 1. the effective teacher: associated with a standards based approach

1. equitable relationships between participants;

Engeström’s (2006) model of expansive learning provides for a sequence of actions

of effective PD, which showed that sustained, collaborative PD resulted in (i)

Six challenges of teacher inquiry

Many years ago (Day, 1999), I identified a number of challenges of engaging in

Challenge 1: engaging with the possibilities of change

• Why do I do what I do?

Challenge 2: managing the self in change

Challenge 3: exploring the continuum

Challenge 4: time to think

1. Rapid thought – this ‘unconscious’ level of working is the most common in

System 1 corresponds to thinking fast, and System 2 to thinking slow.

It is deliberative System 2 ways of thinking that are in danger of being lost in

human judgment; that in fact human judgement cannot be trusted, because it

Teacher professionalism is shaped by the external environment and … d uring

organization munity organization community fellowship

articular activities to an overall strategy or goal … Professional development

Restricted 1. the effective teacher: associated with a standards based approach