Empowering Teachers and Student Teachers via Collaboration

IPDABelfast

2007

Dr Jim BeggsSt Mary’s University College Belfast

Dr Colette MurphyQueen’s University Belfast This work was supported by the AstraZeneca Science Teaching Trust

Overview

• Conference Sub-theme: Evidence-based practice and the practitioner voice

– Teacher professional development issues

– Systematic study of collaborative teaching (coteaching) between student and classroom teachers as professional development - 6 years and more than 80 schools

– Outcomes include expanded agency of teachers and student teachers and much learning by the ‘educators’

Some issues

Quite a lot of professional development is not sustainable when teachers go

back to school

Much professional development is ‘done to’ teachers rather than with

them

Student teachers can provide a valuable resource for teacher

professional development

4

Collaborative Teaching

Example: coteaching in primary science

5

Working differently with teachers in the classroom

6

Working differently with teachers in planning

7

Working differently with teacher educators

8

What does coteaching look like?What does coteaching look like?

teaching together

teacher leading: student advising

9

Our model of coteaching

share expertise

no assessment

tutors coteach as directed

co-planning

coteaching co-evaluating

careful planning of coteaching

10

Evaluation of coteaching: data collection

Individual interviews with teachers, student teachers and HEI tutors

Surveys of pupil attitudes towards science (comparison with non-project children)

Audits of teachers’ confidence & expertise (before and after)

Participant classroom observation by team members

Reflective diaries / essays kept by teachers & student teachers

Videos of coteaching and cogenerative dialogue

Focus group discussions – teachers, student teachers, children, team members

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Some benefits of coteaching

Children - enjoyed science more!!

Student teachers - better grades

Teacher confidence

0

20

40

60

80

I can manage but

depend on advice

from others

Confident with a

little guidance

Fully confident

Before coteaching (n=49)

After coteaching (n=41)

Teacher voices

Researcher: Personally what did you think you were going to gain?

Teacher: “I thought I was going to have an experienced student in my room who had more knowledge in practical science than I had …I didn’t know how to set up a circuit or how to teach it methodically … which she was great at. She knew exactly where to start and it all progressed from that. I … will use it again next year.”

Researcher: Did you feel that working with the student teacher promoted your own professional development?

  Teacher 1: It taught me to be more diplomatic when working with others. I realised how difficult it is and how it takes time to build up. I enjoyed coteaching – this is the way forward to teach … The coteaching aspect allowed me to explore different types of assessment of the children. I was able to question them in small groups. I was able to watch them all carrying out the investigations. It was a more thorough form of assessment.

Principal / headteacher voices

Researcher: What do you feel the outcomes were for your school?

Head teacher:

– For the teachers there was enhanced professionalism...

– It also raised their self esteem they were happy to be involved in the project and were telling other staff about it.

– It helped their classroom skills in working in the area of practical, investigative science.

– It stimulated interest among other staff on what was going on.

– In the hard area of science it was useful to us…where we got specific feedback on our own schemes… and that I see as in the long term would be very useful to us as we further develop our schemes.

Student teacher voices

• I think it forces the teacher and the student teacher together and then they see each other as an equal. You weren’t sitting talking to her as a teacher you were talking to her as a partner somebody who you need to work with and you need to be able to work with. Teaching practice is normally: “is it ok if I do this” but it [coteaching] was: “what do you think we should do, should we do this and then we will do that” and then tweak everybody’s ideas.

• Coteaching is good because you feel that you are allowed to interrupt, you are not in a position to patronise your teacher by adding something extra. If I wasn’t coteaching and I was just doing an average lesson in English or something and my teacher interrupted and said something and you would feel like “oh she has just said something because I’m useless” whereas when you are coteaching and somebody interrupts you and you just think “right she is just contributing to what I said as opposed to correcting me or making me feel like a student there”, it is that kind of you’re allowed to do it...

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Children’s Voices

Coteaching for all?

• Scaling up from this work:

– Needs preparation beforehand

– We used ‘matching’ after year 1 to maximise coteaching potential

– Best to involve school principals at the start

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Role for coteaching in CPD?

• Can effect sustainable change in classrooms; student teachers can be

part of INSET sessions and can follow up with teachers in classrooms

• Forging more effective power relationships between the teachers and

the taught (including children)

• Working collaboratively and cooperatively enables the teacher

educators to learn more and to facilitate better CPD

• Paves the way for collaboration between schools, with agencies, etc –

essential for UK government vision for ‘personalised learning’

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INSET on Coteaching

• As a result of this work the authors were invited to produce an online professional development unit on coteaching:

(http://www.azteachscience.co.uk/code/development/coteaching/index.html).