In partnership with the
LeMaps project, Cambridge Maths hosted the fourth in our seminar series for policy makers and educationalists. The theme of the day was the policy issues around ‘teaching as a learning profession’.
We were fortunate to have attracted a wide range of delegates including researchers, professional development designers, HMI, resources developers, and those working within initial teacher training. Four different speakers shared their views on sustainable professional development, offering an international perspective.
Dr Mary McAteer from Edgehill University began our day with a description of two initiatives – the MAST programme for primary specialists and the piece of work that ACME (Advisory Committees on Mathematics Education) is currently undertaking on mathematical pathways for teacher development. This was followed by Professor Takahashi from the IMPULS project who described the origin, format and myths around Japanese lesson study and the progression ‘from novice to expert’. After lunch Peter Nystrom, the head of the Swedish Centre for Mathematics Education, explained the structure and success of the recent ‘Boost’ initiative to offer all teachers of mathematics a one-year intensive professional development course. Geoff Wake from Nottingham University then rounded off the day by inviting the group to consider how it might be possible to support the development at scale of sustainable high quality lesson study.
The whole day was immensely thought provoking and engaging. Comparisons often shed an interesting light on one’s own situation and, in sharing understandings about the context and expectations of the Japanese model, it was hard not to feel rather envious. I have written elsewhere about the way that teachers in Japan are seen as part of the solution to raising standards and aiding the country to meet the needs of the future. Professional development, through lesson study, is not an additional extra that Japanese teachers undertake but is ‘what teachers do’ – their ‘way of being as a teacher’. All teachers in Japan are continually learning about their subject and craft, are given time to work collaboratively, work routinely with knowledgeable others (usually from universities), produce reports of their findings which are taken as recommendations, and are afforded respect as professionals. The whole system works to support teachers to grow, moving through three levels which describe increasing competence and professional skills – and it is normal to take ten years or so to achieve this.
The Swedish situation is more akin to that of the UK – a teacher shortage, professional development ‘delivered’ in chunks and less of a sense of progression. The recent initiative was an ambitious, but only one year, professional development offer which contained some of the elements of lesson study – the personal and institutional focus, a clear research base, working together, and the involvement of ‘knowledgeable others’. However the next steps were left to the teachers, with no definite progression built in – all the online modules are available for teachers to do more, but these follow the school curriculum timetable rather than being linked to any levels of increasing professionalism.
Geoff Wake’s final session of the day brought the previous discussions together and he challenged us to think about what structures and ethos would need to be in place for us to be able to use a version of the lesson study model of PD here in the UK, in a sustainable and scaled up way. He stressed the importance of ‘brokers’ within communities of practice, who could facilitate lesson study at the local level. Views varied from the idea of starting small and growing, to a call for a national strategy to think deeply and radically about what PD is needed for teachers of mathematics, across all phases. There was some pessimism about the current direction of ITE and PD in general, but the day ended on an optimistic note with lots of practical suggestions – and cake.
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You can also have a look at the tweets from the event under the hashtag #teachingaslearning.