UCET Annual Conference 2011
Shifting Sands and Stable Foundations:
Insecurity and Instability in Teacher Education
TEACHING
SCOTLAND’S FUTURE
UCET 2011
‘Teaching Scotland’s Future’
Professor Graham Donaldson CB
University of Glasgow
Remit
TEACHING
SCOTLAND’S FUTURE
• To consider the best arrangements for the full
continuum of teacher education in Scotland.
• The Review will consider initial teacher education,
induction and professional development, and the
interaction between them.
Why now?
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SCOTLAND’S FUTURE
• Commitment to review of teacher education
stemming from 2001 McCrone Review
• Implications for teachers arising from curriculum
reform
• Ministerial aspirations and commitment
Approach
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SCOTLAND’S FUTURE
Form team
Literature review
Call for evidence
Teacher survey
Structured visits to providers and users
Meetings with professional associations
Experience elsewhere
On-line discussions and events
Other professional examples
Individual discussions
Report to address multiple audiences
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SCOTLAND’S FUTURE
Treat as a relatively closed system?
OR
Ask more fundamental questions?
Powerful Drivers
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• School education is one of the most important and
contested policy areas for governments across the
world.
• Evidence of relative performance internationally has
become a key driver of policy.
• Human capital in the form of a highly educated
population is seen as a key determinant of social
justice and economic success.
• The pace and character of social, economic and
technological change has profound implications for
how we conceive education in the future.
• Ambitious and radical educational reform
programme of Scottish Government
Underlying Review Questions
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SCOTLAND’S FUTURE
• What kind of education do/will our young people
need?
• How much do teachers matter?
• What kind of teachers do we/will they need?
• What needs to happen?
• What about teacher education?
Curriculum Reform Programme
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SCOTLAND’S FUTURE
• Broad, twenty-first century education
(four capacities / outcomes-based general
education between 3 and 15/Senior Phase)
• Deep learning and higher standards
• Target literacy and numeracy
• Engaging, imaginative and purposeful pedagogy
• Assess what we profess – wider achievement
AND
A new paradigm of governance and change
How much do Teachers Matter?
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• Overall, the research results indicate that raising
teacher quality is vital for improving student
achievement, and is perhaps the policy direction
most likely to lead to substantial gains in school
performance.(OECD 2005)
• Students of the most effective teachers have
learning gains four times greater than the learning
gains of the least effective teachers (Sanders and
Rivers 1996).
• Over 3 yrs, learning with a high performing teacher
instead of a low performing teacher can make a 53
percentile difference (McKinsey 2007)
What kind of teachers matter
for sustained success?
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SCOTLAND’S FUTURE
Versatile teachers who • have high-levels of expertise – subject, pedagogy
and theory
• have secure values – personal and professional
accountability for the wellbeing of all young people
• take prime responsibility for their own
development
• use and contribute to the collective understanding
of successful teaching and learning
• see professional learning as an integral part of
educational change
• engage in well-planned and well-researched
innovation.
Growth Points
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• Cultural commitment to education
• Good supply of well-qualified candidates
• Strong and respected teaching profession
• Clear professional standards
• Structured induction
• Contractual entitlements to CPD
• Track record of successful reform
• ITE strength in Curriculum for Excellence
• Developing ICT infrastructure
YET
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• Destiny – deprivation/expectation/aspiration
• Underperformance - PISA results stalling
• Uneven command of basic skills – literacy and
numeracy
• Perceived lack of space for engaging teaching and
learning
• Insecure base of education before qualifications
• Limited scope for recognition of wider achievement
SPECIFIC TEACHER EDUCATION
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SCOTLAND’S FUTURE
ISSUES
• Cultural dissonance - train / educate
• Belief, evidence and impact
• Weak partnerships
• Monotechnic inside polytechnic?
• Perception of higher quality NQTs but concerns
about aspects of students’ abilities/capacities
• ‘Quart into pint pot’ problem
• Rigour and depth – particularly CPD
• Leadership
Key Themes in Report
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SCOTLAND’S FUTURE
• School education can realise the high aspirations
Scotland has for its young people through supporting
and strengthening, firstly, the quality of teaching, and
secondly, the quality of leadership.
• Teaching should be recognised as both complex and
challenging, requiring the highest standards of
professional competence and commitment.
• Leadership is based on fundamental values and
habits of mind which must be acquired and fostered
from entry into the teaching profession.
• The nature, pace and extent of change in the future
will require professional learning to be more the
engine than the disseminator of innovation
Key Themes (2)
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SCOTLAND’S FUTURE
• The imperatives which gave rise to Curriculum for
Excellence still remain powerful and the future well
being of Scotland is dependent in large measure on
its potential being realised. That has profound and,
as yet, not fully addressed implications for the
teaching profession and its leadership.
• Career-long teacher education, which is currently
too fragmented and often haphazard, should be at
the heart of this process, with implications for its
philosophy, quality, coherence, efficiency and impact.
Intended Results
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Reinvigoration of professionalism and a reconceptualisation of teacher education.
• Rigorous and broadly-based selection of students
applying to enter teacher education
• Concurrent undergraduate degree courses which are
both vocationally and academically challenging and
which engage students with the wider university
• Efficient use of time – before, during and after initial
teacher education – Early Phase
• Aligned assessment of students’ progress.
Intended Results (2)
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SCOTLAND’S FUTURE
• Practical experience set in a much more reflective
and inquiring culture
• Make optimum use of ICT for professional learning.
• A coherent approach to teacher education which is
underpinned by a framework of standards which
signpost the ways in which professional capacity
should grow progressively across a career.
• Development of leadership qualities from the start
and throughout a career.
Intended Results (3)
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• A new concept of partnership among universities,
local authorities, schools, national agencies and
other services which embraces selection, course
content and assessment
• Teacher educators should be directly engaged with
practice –theory/research/practice not separate
• A professional culture within which Masters-level
study is the norm
• A national and local infrastructure which sets,
promotes and evaluates teacher education in ways
which relate both current practice and innovation to
their beneficial impact on learning.
Early Phase
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SCOTLAND’S FUTURE
• establish ethical and value base for teaching
•ITE first part of career-long learning – not discrete/planned
with induction/partnership
•relevance - address inclusion/ underachievement/ ASN/
behaviour management/ assessment as part of high quality
teacher education
•theory matters integral not complementary/theory through
practice – applied intelligence
•reflection and research
•school experience – quality standards/hub schools
Career-long learning
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SCOTLAND’S FUTURE
•Professional standards:coherence/challenge/growth
•‘Standard for Active Registration’
•Rigour and depth – Masters account
•Local learning community – move away from isolated
set-piece events/teacher educator
•Professional review and development – open and
reflective / focus on impact on learning
So far....
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• Published Jan 2011
• 50 Recommendations
• All recommendations accepted in whole or in part
by Scottish Government
• Very wide and continuing stakeholder acceptance
• Endorsed in 4 major political party manifestos
• Structure and timeline for implementation
established – National Partnership Group co-chaired
by government, universities and local authorities
• Endorsed and taken forward in McCormac Review
Big Messages
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•Coherence and alignment: shared mission/supporting
structures/collaboration
•Build capacity: complexity/sustained depth and
rigour/applied intelligence
•Culture of aspiration and optimism
•Confident and respected profession: demanding
selection/clear standards/focus on students
•Professional accountability: personal/values/students
•Leadership of educational change driven by teachers
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SCOTLAND’S FUTURE
“He that will not apply new remedies must
expect new evils: for time is the greatest
innovator”.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626)