- Title
- Quality teaching rounds: strengthening the knowledge base and collaborative processes for teacher professional development
- Creator
- Bowe, Julie Maree
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2017
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- Globally, there is a growing awareness of academic achievement gaps between more and less advantaged students, both within and between countries, as well as new acceptance of the causal relationship between quality teaching and student performance. With this awareness comes the danger, at a policy level, of reducing an incredibly complex problem to the simple algorithm of fixing teachers to fix student performance. Part of the danger of such an approach is focusing on only one point of leverage in finding a solution. In this thesis, I argue that despite an energetic and better-resourced focus on the quality of teaching, a fundamental issue has received inadequate attention is the development of a shared knowledge base and language among teachers from which to begin the work of improving teaching and learning. Moreover, there is no professional social practice known to effectively improve this situation. At the heart of recent approaches to finding a balanced and defensible mechanism for developing teaching and learning is the turn towards collaborative models of professional development (PD). In particular, approaches seeking to intentionally construct a professional culture among teachers are gaining traction. This thesis focuses on investigating whether a formal model of collaborative professional development that both structures the knowledge base for teaching and provides a mechanism for building professional culture within schools, can productively impact on teachers’ pedagogical understanding and classroom practice. The thesis is grounded in an analysis of survey and interview data focusing on 27 teachers from four schools who completed a six-month engagement with a formal collaborative professional development model called ‘Quality Teaching Rounds’ (QT Rounds). Survey responses of teachers who participated in the intervention were compared with a group of non-participants from the same schools and school system, with significant differences between the two groups. The primary source of data was semi-structured interviews carried out following completion of the intervention. These interviews highlighted the importance of teacher buy-in, the substantive direction provided by the pedagogical framework used in Quality Teaching Rounds, and the ‘trustworthiness’ accorded by teachers to this new type of collaborative work. Overall, the data provide strong support for the potential to enhance the quality of classroom practice through this formal model of collaborative professional development. Quality Teaching Rounds provided teachers with both shared knowledge and a shared language system for discussing and refining teaching and learning, as well as a form of social practice that supported critical debate and generated new insights for the enhancement of their own and each other’s classroom practice. Importantly in the current reform context, these benefits of Quality Teaching Rounds were produced within a relatively short period of time. Teachers’ buy-in to the approach and their capacity for this type of intellectual work grew demonstrably under the specific conditions of this intervention. The public performance of teaching and the directed observation and discussion components that are fundamental to the conduct of Quality Teaching Rounds might appear at odds with a profession that guards privacy and autonomy. This was a particular concern given reported levels of professional vulnerability and risk as teachers commenced the intervention. However, the participants overwhelmingly identified the public and directed experiences of Quality Teaching Rounds as the two dynamics within the intervention that built their capacity and generated change. These two features stood out as key differences from many of their previous professional development experiences. Teaching in front of peers and being guided by the Quality Teaching framework in the analysis of teaching practice enabled the teachers to challenge assumptions, build deeper understanding, refine classroom practice and, importantly, describe, evaluate, and communicate the productive value of their efforts. Quality Teaching Rounds provided an important and dynamic social practice for engaging teachers in the critical work of collaboratively developing teaching and learning.
- Subject
- teacher professional development; teachers' work; teacher change; collaborative professional learning; teaching rounds; quality teaching; knowledge base for teaching
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1333541
- Identifier
- uon:27100
- Rights
- Copyright 2017 Julie Maree Bowe
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 7 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 221 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |