Teaching – a profession without practice?
We know from evidence going back a few decades that ‘the quality of a school cannot exceed the quality of its teaching and learning.’ (1) It seems so obvious to say this, but sadly leadership is not always
- instructional and impactful,
- focusing improvement on pedagogy ,
- articulating how to turn a teaching idea into the reality of a classroom.
Elmore (2) described teaching as ‘a profession without practice’ where teachers and school leaders endlessly re-invent what they do, never having established a clear set of protocols for a repertoire of teaching models . However, we can see more and more schools are being research-led and that they are building teaching and learning framework based on the findings of people like Rosenshine (3). But does this always lead to consistent practice across a school? Hattie (4) identified collective teacher efficacy as being the number one impact factor on student progress. This must be our focus.
All this tells us that effective professional development needs to be at the heart of a school’s strategic planning and a basis for personal mastery and growth. This article takes as its lead a chapter from The Power of Professional Learning Networks (5) but develops the argument further by looking at the progress of schools in the SAIL (Student Agency in Learning Network).
Performance management and the dangers of GERM