"The end of 'sheep dip' CPD?”
by Peter Scales
(Published in IFL ‘CPD Matters’ Issue 2)
You have probably experienced 'sheep dip' CPD. At the end of an academic year or during
some downtime, you are 'asked' to attend, en masse, a CPD event probably hosted by an
outside provider who doesn't know you or anything about your work. Easily auditable:
probably a waste of time and money.
Teachers are best placed to know about their subjects and their learners’ needs within their
local contexts and, as Thompson and William (2007) make clear, teacher professional
development is the “fundamental lever for improving student learning”. The IfL CPD model
and guidelines provide a real opportunity for teachers to start reclaiming the initiative and
taking responsibility for their own learning and development and for organisations and
managers to move away from ‘sheep-dip’ approaches to CPD and towards personalised
learning. If we seriously intend to personalise learning for our students then, surely, the
same principle must apply to teachers. Wells (1987: 221) suggests:
“Every teacher needs to become his or her own theory-builder, but a builder of
theory that grows out of practice and has as its aim to improve the quality of
practice. For too long, “experts” from outside the classroom have told teachers
what to think and what to do.”
‘Best practice’?
Wells’ criticism of “experts” from outside may bring to mind examples of ‘best practice’
materials, possibly delivered at ‘sheep dip’ events, which are considered transferable to any
place of learning regardless of context. The difficulty with such materials is that they seem
to be produced in ‘context-free’ environments and, as such, may not easily translate to a
particular teaching and learning environment.
James and Biesta (2007) develop a cultural approach to understanding learning and argue
for the transformation of ‘learning cultures’ in further education. They conclude that all
places of learning are particular and located in their own contexts and, whilst there will be
similarities, are all unique. Rather than simply accepting imported ‘best practice’, “… The
cultural approach helps us to see that the improvement of learning cultures always asks for
contextualised judgement rather than for general recipes."
Paradoxes of CPD
Megginson and Whitaker (2007), writing on CPD for the Chartered Institute of Personnel and
Development (CIPD), identify several dilemmas or ‘paradoxes’ of CPD in order to explore its
complexity. I have adapted three of these to discuss the contested nature of CPD in the
lifelong learning sector.
1.
Employer or individual responsibility
Teachers in the lifelong learning sector have become accustomed to ‘having things done to
them’ and being required to comply with a stream of internal and external policy changes,
frequently said to be part of their ‘professional responsibilities’, not necessarily related to
improving learning. Teachers have a responsibility to undertake CPD but managers also have
a responsibility to create an ethos which values and encourages professional development
and trusts teachers to undertake it. There is a balance to be struck here; colleges and other
providers have strategic goals they need to meet, but if teachers are instructed to undertake
particular development activities as management diktat, there will be, at best, grudging
compliance.
2.
Values driven or pragmatic development
Colleges and learning providers exist to provide education and to encourage learning. These
values are enshrined in mission statements and marketing information. In reality, they are
frequently undermined or have to be modified in light of the latest policy shift. Learning
providers have, in recent years, been agents of achieving social or economic ends, for
example tackling social exclusion or solving unemployment, and have performed some
remarkable reorientations in their structure and practices only for them to rapidly become
unsuited to the next policy shift. In this shifting landscape, managers and teachers are often
just fire-fighting and having to adapt and compromise their values. Consequently,
professional development becomes subverted into merely training staff to meet the
demands of the latest ‘big idea’. The values of education are, in essence, quite simple – it’s
about “putting teaching and learning at the heart of what we do.” If we stay with these
values then we can really concentrate on developing as teachers and subject specialists,
indeed, as professionals, rather than having to react to government or management caprice.
3.
Journey or exploration
In the ‘journey’ metaphor, the CPD destination is known in advance but there may be
discussions and negotiations regarding the route, time and methods of transport. Many
people will want to get there in the shortest possible time; others might prefer a scenic
route even if it costs more and takes longer. In CPD terms, the journey could be towards a
particular goal, for example, gaining an assessor award or learning how to use a new piece
of technology. The journey approach, however, with pre-conceived goals and outcomes can
be restricting. You might arrive at your destination and soon realise it’s not the best place to
be and you might have missed several interesting and important diversions along the way.
Before this metaphor is stretched to breaking point, we will consider the ‘exploration’.
Going ‘exploring’ has connotations of finding things out and the final destination is not
necessarily known. Goals for explorations are wider, looser, sometimes ill-defined but you
might reach a place you didn’t know existed which yields great treasures. CPD developed by
teachers in their subject specialism, especially experiments and action research projects are
explorations. Kathryn Ecclestone (2010) proposes a ‘problem-based methodology’ for CPD
in which teachers formulate their own problems and questions and undertake ‘trial and
error’ approaches to resolving them. Such approaches might be regarded as expensive and
uncertain but they are likely to be more effective than imported solutions. They have the
added advantage of restoring, perhaps in small measure, teachers’ professionalism and
autonomy.
Conclusion
Coffield (2008) reminds us that CPD is both a responsibility for all professionals but also a
right. Personalised CPD means a move to more teacher autonomy and the recognition that
professional teachers, in their specific contexts and subject disciplines, are best placed to
recognise problems that need to be solved and to identify opportunities for improvement.
These ideas are explored in depth in ‘Continuing Professional Development in the Lifelong
Learning Sector” by Peter Scales, Jo Pickering, Lynn Senior, Kath Headley, Patsy Garner and
Helen Boulton, published by Open University Press (2010).
References
Coffield, F. (2008) Just suppose teaching and learning became the first priority… London:
Learning and Skills Network
Ecclestone, K. (2010) Transforming Formative Assessment in Lifelong Learning Maidenhead:
Open University Press
James, D. and Biesta, G. (2007) Improving Learning Cultures in Further Education London:
Routledge
Megginson, D. and Whitaker, V. (2007) Continuing Professional Development (2nd Ed.)
Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development
Thompson, M. and William, D. (2007)Tight but loose: a conceptual for scaling up school
reforms. Paper presented to the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, 9-13
April 2007
Wells, G. (1986) The Meaning Makers London: Hodder and Stoughton