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OBR04743

Professional learning and changing teacher attitudes: the role of

technology-based approaches and resources

Jim O’Brien and Tony van der Kuyl, The University of Edinburgh

Abstract:

This paper will explore the development of a national website for the national educational

priorities declared by Scotland's recently re-established Parliament. The national priorities and

the new Framework for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) are an attempt to provide a

coherent approach to educational development with appropriate professional assistance to

teachers. While the website is used as a vehicle for the dissemination of school quantitative data

on a national basis, a major focus of this work has been to attempt to influence teacher

Professional Learning and Development in a range of domains especially through

exemplification of best practice in teaching and learning. A range of resources (including

international examples) involving multimedia have been developed or gathered together on the

website many with associated professional learning activities. The website development builds on

a successful series of technology-based professional learning CDRoms for Scottish teachers on

professional areas such as "Dealing with Disruption" and literacy and numeracy. The

presentation will be illustrated with examples of leading edge work from the website.

Introduction

Scotland is an integral part of the United Kingdom but has long maintained its own distinctive

approach to the church, the law and particularly education and schooling (Bryce and Humes,

2003). The Scottish Parliament was re-established in 1999, as part of the developing devolved

structure of governance in Britain. This provides an opportunity to re-affirm the importance of

education and to further develop a distinctly Scottish approach. Paterson et al. (1999: 211)

indicate,

Scottishness is associated with a public system at both school and tertiary

level. It is associated with public action to expand opportunities, led by the

Scottish Parliament and paid for by taxes. It is associated with a view of

schools as part of the community (linking with parents), and with respect for

teachers.

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Teacher Professional Development in Scotland

Until recently, the experience of ‘formal’ professional learning or development, for most Scottish

teachers, involved in-service training for the curricular reforms of the 1980s and 90s often

supported by centrally produced materials (O’Brien and McGettrick, 1996). The emergence of

school development planning promoted planned in-school CPD activity usually associated with

institutional aims and targets, informed by self-evaluation approaches (SEED, HGIOS,

20002check details). Development plans now have to take into consideration local Education

Authorities (EA) or ‘district’ initiatives and policies, and the nationally agreed educational

priorities.

In-school or EA provided staff development was complemented by national provision for

appraisal (O’Brien and MacBeath, 1999), renamed “staff development and review”; by extensive

management training (O’Brien, Murphy and Draper, 2003); and by attendance at short courses

and conferences ie. a traditional INSET model which was voluntary and might fairly be described

as haphazard.

How did Scottish teachers improve their practice or enhance their professionalism? Very

few teachers undertook sustained professional development issuing in a university award or

higher degree. Few took additional qualifications unless necessary for specific posts especially

related to Special Educational Needs. Devolved funding and the re-organisation of EAs in 1996

reducing advisory teacher capacity resulted in an increasing reliance on in-school or school-based

staff development. Systems of accrediting experience did emerge in tandem with new and

professionally oriented Masters and Post Graduate Diploma/ Certificate awards. These did

increase in popularity and are instrumental in the personal and professional development of

Scottish teachers but again essentially on a elective and voluntary basis. This situation changed

with the development of competences and standards.

The Emergence of Competences and Standards

Initial teacher education (ITE) programmes in Scotland have been under-pinned by a set of

competences (SOED, 1993). The competences by which professional teachers will be developed,

encompass knowledge, understanding, critical thinking and practical skills. A strong emphasis on

partnership is evident and close working relationships between HEI lecturers and teachers in

schools are considered essential. While not without critics (Carr, 1993), the Guidelines confirm

that the overall aim of courses of ITE is to prepare students to become competent and thoughtful

practitioners, who are committed to providing high quality teaching for all pupils. Subsequent

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revisions have resulted in benchmarking (SEED, 2001a) being adopted and the structure of ITE is

again under review with a report expected in late 2004.

Despite reservations, competences and standards for experienced and expert teachers are

increasingly common in the developed world. Scotland has no equivalent of the Teacher Training

Agency (TTA) which has developed a range of standards for advanced skill teachers (ASTs),

SEN co-ordinators and headteachers in England. The approach to competences or standards in

Scotland reflects a professional consensus. In Scotland there has been a tradition of wide

consultation on proposed developments and changes in education usually through the publication

of a paper and a formal associated consultation and evaluation process. Developments progressed

by such centre-periphery models are regarded suspiciously by observers; viewing such an

approach as managed change and pseudo-consultation (Purdon, 2003). Scottish teachers are

accustomed to consultative processes and these are becoming increasingly sophisticated and

encompassing eg. the process leading to the formulation of the Standard for Headship in Scotland

(SOEID,1998; O’Brien and Draper, 2002)

The Sutherland Report (1997) on the education and training of teachers made

recommendations to improve the quality of CPD for teachers. The report highlighted the lack of

a clear agreed framework for the development of Scottish teachers throughout their career. The

government initiated a consultation exercise (SOEID, 1998) which might contain “guidance for

teachers, schools, and education authorities on the competences, standards and qualifications

required in the wide range of teaching and management roles that teachers undertake at different

stages in their careers”. SEED proposed four standards for teachers as part of a national

framework for CPD. These standards would be for initial teacher education; full registration; the

'expert' teacher and the Scottish Qualification for Headship. The consultation followed the then

usual pattern of a series of questions being included with the proposals and an invitation to

interested parties to respond by a particular date. Responses to this consultation broadly

welcomed the establishment of a framework. CPD was to be regarded as a continuum, offering

opportunities for development at every stage of teachers’ careers viz. probation, experienced class

teacher, promoted posts, specific roles and management. Summarising the consultation, in

December 1999, SEED concluded “the responses received are sufficiently encouraging for the

Department to proceed towards the development of a national framework of CPD”.

The McCrone Report (SEED, 2000b) and subsequent Agreement (SEED, 2001) are

watersheds in the new arrangements for teacher CPD. There are now 4 sets of standards:

• ITE (SOED, 1993; SEED, 2001a)

• Standard for Full Registration (Draper, O’Brien and Christie, 2004)

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• Standard for Chartered Teacher (O'Brien and Draper, 2003)

• Standard for Headship (O’Brien, Murphy and Draper, 2003).

These standards provide a framework which act as benchmarks for newly qualified teachers

leading to a guaranteed paid induction year; provide a gate-keeping function for full registration

with GTCS, without which no teacher can be employed; provide financial incentive to become an

expert teacher through the Chartered Teacher route; and provide training and preparation for

school heads or principals. Additionally McCrone stressed the importance of an entitlement of

CPD for teachers and this has heralded a plethora of new developments in EAs, universities and

other providers in relation to non-award bearing CPD and different modes of delivery. The

possibilities of work-based professional development are now increasingly being considered

(Reeves et al., 2002).

The National Priorities

The Scottish Parliament was re-established in 1999 as part of a developing devolved approach to

governance within the United Kingdom. Education is the largest devolved responsibility and it

was unsurprising that one of the first pieces of legislation set out the fundamentals of the future

Scottish approach. Of course since the 16th century religious reformation, Scotland has always

had its own separate educational system recognised for its distinctiveness. The emrgence of the

new Parliament is likely to strengthen the differences in values and educational priorities within

the UK.

The 'National Priorities In Education' were determined after extensive consultation by

government (SEED, 2000a) and approved by the Scottish Parliament. Under the Standards in

Scotland’s Schools etc. Act 2000, Scottish Ministers must ‘endeavour to secure improvement in

the quality of school education’. The priorities associated with school and educational

improvement, target setting and raising educational attainment are defined under the following

headings:

• Achievement and Attainment

• Framework for Learning

• Inclusion and Equality

• Values and Citizenship

• Learning for Life.

The Act sets out an improvement framework for education authorities through which

improvement may be achieved within their schools. Section 4 of the Act, allowed Ministers, to

define National Priorities in Education and measures of performance in respect of these priorities.

After consultation, in December 2000, five National Priorities were defined under the Education

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(National Priorities) (Scotland) Order 2000. Performance measures and quality indicators for

these Priorities were distributed to Education Authorities in April 2002. Documentation and

details of the National Priorities can be found on the website.

(http//: www.nationalpriorities.org.uk).

ICT and E-learning: CPD and the role of SITC

With initial government pump-priming funding, SITC (http//:sitc.education.ed.ac.uk) was

established in 1989 after a 5 year period of research and development in the field of interactive

technology. It is a small focused research and development unit that now seeks external funding

and contract work. While SITC maintains ICT engineering, design and video expertise, the unit

works with a range of experts and consultants from within and external to the university

depending on the nature of the research or particular product development. ICT interactive and

multi-media provision has always been to the forefront of the vision and the varying products

produced for professional development purposes over the years. Early efforts were produced on

Video Disk, this moved on to CDi , then to CDRom and WWW platforms. Many of the products

were designed at the request of the Scottish Education Department or its equivalent as attempts to

promote ICT awareness and literacy among Scottish teachers got underway. Substantial ICT

hardware funding and teacher training was provided to all Scottish schools and teachers; some of

the training through national intiatives has proved problematic (Conlon, 2004). Whereas

curriculum and professional development resources commissioned over the years have been

largely welcomed by teachers and schools especially Dealing with Disruption (O’Brien et al.,

2001; O’Brien and van der Kuyl, 2001).

A variety of content areas have been developed including Classroom Management,

Reading, Enterprise, Modern Languages, these products can be viewed at the SITC site-

http//sitc.education.ed.ac.uk.

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The learning products derived from SITC research and development work can be characterised as

technology materials which enhance the learning and teaching process, the interactive design

underpinning these products uses a rich media environment to stimulate user reflection either in

groups or singly.

This reflective engagement is supported and encouraged in a number of ways:

Scaffolded Activities with appropriate feedback

Interactive Framework papers built on the use of primary sources

Constructivist supported environments that facilitate the customisation of all assets in simple

software environments

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From 2002, the major focus of the Centre has been the building of a National online resource of

effective practice, the National Priorities website that contains over 4500 multi-media assets

relating to interesting practice.

The site includes a wide range of relevant documentation and presentations allied to the complete

performance data set for all 4000 Scottish educational establishments; a range of Activities

(Learning Objects) as well as a set of Interactive papers. The site also supports a variety of

community activities and online communications forums.

The initial development phase June, 2002 to May, 2004 had two principal tasks:

• designing the online functionality and

• generating a meaningful corpus of practice.

Previous development experience suggested this would generate a “Tipping Point” of appropriate

range and breadth of learning assets customisable by the intended audiences viz. leaders in

Scottish schools, teachers, local authority staff and teacher education colleagues in the

universities. User surveys and initial site usage verify that this “Tipping Point” has been reached.

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Major design issues included the

• generation of flexible micro data tagging which ensured the pedagogic media assets

would support a variety of user needs avoiding the inflexibility of singular “card

indexing” strategies.

• the creation of a series of development tools for non technical academic members of the

design team which gave a consistent data collection/description environment which

professional engineers could utilise automatically. (filemaker)

• the identification and balance of the corpus of effective practice, between nationally

identified ‘interesting’ practice and the need to have a ‘local ownership’ of interesting

practice.

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• the generation of National data sets of performance data and interim reporting

The current phase (Summer 2004 to Dec 2006) will see the completion of coverage of all national

priorities practice at both national and local levels. A major addition will be the development of a

series of prioritised Dissemination products with appropriately designed events these have been

identified as:

• The Nature of Effective Leadership

• Using Performance Data

• 21st Century Working Structures

• Embedding ICT in Teaching and Learning

• Impact of Development Planning

• 21st Century Learning Skills

• Capacity Building and CPD

• Learning Communities integrated approaches

• Inclusion / Disruption

The Dissemination products above have been identified by the development team in conjunction

with the Scottish Local authorities.

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Indications taken from website traffic and download levels suggest that even prior to the

major dissemination phase that the intended audiences are both browsing and customising assets

from the site at increasing rates.

ConclusionThe National Priorities have established the educational development agenda in Scotland.

National Development Officers have disseminated initial advice and guidance that schools have

welcomed. The website has been instrumental in providing schools, education authorities and

government with a quick and effective means of sharing data and information. The approach to

providing CPD activities and prompts through video and audio extracts will now be tested in

some depth. Certainly the website provides a ready mechanism for the uploading and sharing of

practice but the use to which teachers make of such materials will be of increasing interest to the

development team especially in relation to the planned dissemination products identified above.

The underpinning principle behind the approach is one of using realia as examples and

suggestions. This is essentially a ‘bottom-up’ approach promoting the notion of schools as

learning communities and providing a network approach to the provision of support materials.

There is no ‘course’, no definitive pathway through the materials but there is a range of associated

activities, all customisable in a variety of configurations. Questions remain about the capacity

building elements of this non-directive approach and the extent to which teacher attitudes are

affected and practice influenced.

Hits

Authority DataAuthority GuidancePrimary School Handbook DataPrimary School NP DataResourcesSchool GuidanceSecondary School Handbook DataSecondary School NP DataSpecial Schools School Handbook DataThemes

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