university to school: challenging assumptions in subject knowledge development
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University to school: challengingassumptions in subject knowledgedevelopmentAndrew Green aa Brunel University , UKPublished online: 20 Aug 2006.
To cite this article: Andrew Green (2006) University to school: challenging assumptions in subjectknowledge development, Changing English: Studies in Culture and Education, 13:1, 111-123, DOI:10.1080/13586840500347475
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University to school: challenging
assumptions in subject knowledge
development
Andrew Green*
Brunel University, UK
This investigation addresses the complex issue of teachers’ subject knowledge. Specifically it
focuses on the teaching of secondary school English; however, the principles it suggests apply more
widely. Drawing on the experiences of trainee English teachers undertaking full-time and flexible
PGCE courses during both their university- and school-based training, it explores the subject
knowledge models of Banks, Leach & Moon and of Grossman, Wilson & Shulman, delineating
how these can be used as a foundation on which beginning teachers can build their own personal
deliverable models of subject.
A growing body of literature exists on issues surrounding transition into higher
education (Booth, 1997; Stewart & McCormack, 1997; Ozga & Sukhnandan, 1998;
Cook & Leckey, 1999; Drew, 2001; Durkin & Main, 2002; Clerehan, 2003; Lowe &
Cook, 2003; Marland, 2003) and higher education English in particular (Ballinger,
2003; Smith, 2003, 2004; Green, 2005a, forthcoming). The imperatives driving
such academic scrutiny emerge from a growing perception that dichotomous
paradigms of English (or rather Englishes) now exist in schools and colleges—under
the auspices of the Key Stage Three National Strategy (or the Secondary Strategy as
it is set to become), the National Curriculum and Curriculum 2000—and
universities (Knights, 2004). Attached to each of these paradigms are associated
pedagogies and practices, all of which enshrine (often tacitly) their own particular
purposes, codes and personal and political agendas. Taken together, these imply a
relationship both between teachers and the material to be taught, and between
teachers and learners (McInnis & James, 1995; Knights, 2005). Such issues are of
especial importance to graduate students entering initial teacher training (ITT), who
have to manage a reverse transition of their own from university to school (Daly,
2004; Burley, 2005; Turvey, 2005).
*School of Sport and Education, Brunel University, Kingston Lance, Uxbridge, Middlesex
UB8 3PH, UK. Email: [email protected]
Changing English
Vol. 13, No. 1, April 2006, pp. 111–123
ISSN 1358-684X (print)/ISSN 1469-3585 (online)/06/010111-13
# 2006 The editors of Changing English
DOI: 10.1080/13586840500347475
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In a recent survey of Level 1 undergraduates in five English higher education
institutions (Green, 2005a), 15% of respondents identified as one of their main
reasons for studying English at university the wish to become teachers of English in
schools. A significant proportion of graduates in any given year go on to apply for
ITT in some form. Graduate Teacher Training Registry (GTTR) statistics over the
last five years demonstrate the steadily increasing number of English graduates
entering Initial Teacher Training on PGCE courses.
The report of the Holmes Group (1986) questions the extent to which university
English prepares beginning teachers effectively for their professional training courses
within the context of the American education system—a pertinent question to ask of
the British system also. This article considers some fundamental issues of subject
knowledge development that face beginning teachers as they make the academic
shift from university to school, and the processes by which they refine and redefine
their degree-level knowledge into a workable classroom model.
Data gathered includes:
1. questionnaire responses from undergraduate students of English in five
English Higher Education Institutions (two pre-1992, two post-1992 and
one Higher Education College); and
2. qualitative data gathered from two cohorts of PGCE trainees, one following a
full-time course and the other the flexible route.
Data collection was undertaken during university-based subject sessions
throughout the course of training, and the approach was based on the work of
Banks et al. (1999) and of Grossman et al. (1989). This addressed specifically the
issue of what constitutes subject knowledge, subject knowledge development and the
role of these in effective classroom practice. The enquiry also drew upon trainees’
planning and evaluation records, teaching observation notes, school placement
evaluations and written assignments. These allow the tracking of trainees’
developing perspectives as they gain both academic and practical experience
throughout the course and reflect their developing sense of how their subject
knowledge (and perceptions of what this incorporates) modifies accordingly.
Central in this process is the interrogation of innate assumptions about the ‘what’,
‘why’ and ‘how’ of study at the various phases of English education. English
graduates training as secondary English teachers must consider the fundamental
purposes and nature of English study in the school context and modify their
knowledge of the subject in its university manifestation to the requirements of the
classroom and school curricula.
This realignment can be a painful and difficult process to manage, personally and
academically. Love and detailed content knowledge of the fiction of George Gissing
or George Meredith—both absent from the National Curriculum list of pre-1914
authors for study—provides the beginning teacher with nothing directly usable in
content terms for classroom practice, although in terms of ‘contextual’ or ‘skills’
knowledge it may well be highly relevant. The same is true of many of the authors
and issues trainees will have encountered in the course of their undergraduate
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studies. Even such unquestionably usable figures as Shakespeare—the only
obligatory author for study in the National Curriculum, who must be studied at
Key Stage Three, Key Stage Four and at post-compulsory level—present the
beginning teacher with difficulties. Trainees soon become aware that what
constitutes effective working knowledge of Shakespeare within the context of their
degree level studies is substantially different from practical classroom knowledge of
use with pupils at Key Stage Three or GCSE levels. They are obliged to challenge
radically their sense of what it means to ‘know’ Shakespeare, to enter into a
reconstructive dialogue with their degree level knowledge and in the light of this to
come to an understanding of how these linked but distinct knowledges can be made
to coexist and interrelate with one another within effective teacherly practice.
This is suggested in the words of one trainee:
The transformation from graduate in English to teacher of English primarily concerns
the ability to devise appropriate teaching strategies to modify my knowledge and
understanding into accessible and motivating experience [for pupils].
This observation hinges on the recognition that the effective teacher of English (who
must also remain a student of English) is also now in the role of transmitter or
facilitator of knowledge to others. It exposes the fundamental issue that scholarship
and pedagogy must interact. Good practice at any stage of education must be based
around what Knights (2005) calls ‘the mutually constitutive relations of pedagogic
and scholarly practice’ (p. 33).
Grossman et al. (1989) note:
Given the central role subject matter plays in teaching, we must re-examine our
assumption that the subject matter knowledge required for teaching can be acquired
solely through courses taken in the appropriate university department. (p. 23)
In coming to terms with this recognition, and in managing their transition out of
university and back into school, beginning teachers have to reconsider their position
as subject ‘experts’ and to establish an understanding of their multi-faceted
relationship with their discipline, evaluating their subject knowledge on a variety of
different levels.
Reflecting early in their course of professional training upon their experience of
English at school and at university, beginning teachers were asked to comment upon
what they considered their subject knowledge strengths and their areas for
development. Their responses are illuminating. At this stage in their training,
perceptions of what constitutes subject knowledge tend to be heavily content-biased,
trainees measuring the extent of their knowledge against lists of authors from the
National Curriculum, GCSE or A-level syllabuses. As Turvey (2005) observes:
Literature—what constitutes its ‘objects of study’ and the processes of engagement in
classrooms—is … for many (but not all) PGCE students central to how they define
themselves as English teachers. (p. 6)
In a less developed way it is possible, at this stage, to trace in the responses of
trainees an outline sense that a teacher’s subject knowledge depends on more than
content alone. The desire, for example, ‘to make texts available to all pupils’, to
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ensure ‘accessibility’ and ‘entitlement’, and the frequent identification of ‘skills’,
evidences an important if undeveloped recognition that pedagogy and methods of
delivery are essential components of effective teacherly subject knowledge. Similarly,
in identifying the significance of ‘school frameworks and contexts’, trainees
demonstrate awareness of the role of curricular and institutional contexts in defining
the specific and varied forms their subject may take.
Developing their engagement with these issues, trainees need to recognise what
distinguishes university study and knowledge from its school counterparts and then
to identify areas where they can see personal difficulties or opportunities for
development. In terms of content, most trainees declare confidence in the field of
literature and literary study, while recognising that the transfer of knowledge from
university to school is far from straightforward. In relation to language study, media
studies, drama and information and communications technology (ICT), significant
caveats appear. A more general area of perceived need amongst trainees lies in
knowledge of curriculum and effective pedagogic approaches. A particular area of
focus for trainees is how to break down the study of subject, a process that can
sometimes be hampered by expertise, and the attendant difficulty in perceiving where
barriers to understanding may lie. As one trainee put it, the key issue for
development is:
how to ensure that I’m getting that common area with pupils where learning occurs,
while another identifies the need to:
break things down and not to assume students understand terms. Breaking knowledge
down and manipulating it so it is at the right level for students to learn.
Such issues are repeatedly identified as areas of need. However, it is essential that
trainees do not conceive of their ITT as merely ‘tips for teachers’. Training in
subject knowledge development must be theoretically robust, introducing trainees to
the cognitive, sociological, political and other principles that underpin effective
educational practices.
Within such initial observations lies a putative recognition that any academic
discipline functions around an essentially dichotomous, dialogic structure. As
Dewey (1903) remarks:
Every study or subject thus has two aspects: one for the scientist as a scientist; the other
for the teacher as a teacher. These two aspects are in no sense opposed or conflicting.
But neither are they immediately identical. (pp. 285–286)
The interface between these two linked but separate knowledges is the very business
of teaching and learning. The teacher and the learner are frequently in obverse
relationships with the subject they share: their knowledges and experiences of the
subject are connected but functionally differentiated. It is through effective
pedagogic practice that the two knowledges come together to enable new learning
for both teacher and student. Thus, effective teachers are not solely experts in
subject content, which can take them only so far; rather, they undergo metacognitive
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and reflexive engagement with the subject to make them professional interrogators of
(subject-linked) cognitive and pedagogic processes.
Model 1: Banks et al. (1999)
In constructing a usable school manifestation of subject, the ideas of Banks et al.
(1999) are particularly interesting. They propose a tetrapartite division of inter-
related subject knowledges.
(1) Subject knowledge
This is a declared body of content knowledge with which trainees enter their ITT.
This will have been developed from a variety of sources: from attitudes and input at
home, at school, at college and at university, as well as through personal reading and
study. It will have derived also from engagement with ICT, with a plethora of media
texts, and from their experience of the language(s) that surround them. Although
trainees’ awareness of and engagement with these different aspects of subject
knowledge will vary, this is the area of greatest confidence as they enter ITT. It is
also, as outlined above, what they most readily associate with the concept of subject
knowledge. Early in training, such knowledge is often seen by trainees as the key
indicator of their likely effectiveness as a teacher. However, later discussion with
trainees indicates that as they evaluate the uses to which their subject knowledge is
put in practice, they increasingly realise that it is only a part of the picture. Prior
knowledge of an area of learning or even a specific text does not stand on its own and
cannot be delivered whole, but requires careful, often substantial, modification.
Content is the most easily defined aspect of subject knowledge and therefore
provides a useful starting point for trainees in personalising their construction of
subject. The process begins with ‘auditing’ their content. This begins an iterative
engagement with subject knowledge, the first in a series of interventions by tutors and
school mentors to assist trainees in developing a rounded conceptualisation of subject.
(2) School knowledge
This is a very different but linked body of knowledge that beginning teachers have to
develop. It relates to curricular issues (Shulman, 1986), such as the breadth of study
required under the National Curriculum and how this translates, for example, into a
GCSE course, or understanding of the demands of the Key Stage Three National
Strategy and its non-statutory relationship with the curriculum. It also requires
trainees to engage with current modes of assessment in the subject, their role within
and impact upon the forms the subject takes, and how these are applied. Beyond
this, however, it encompasses historical perspectives of the development of the
subject and its academic roots—particularly interesting in the case of English
(Eaglestone, 2000); and the developing school ‘canon’ of literature and teenage
literature and the forces that shape these. These are global issues in the teaching of
English. Necessarily, however, beginning teachers have also to engage with a raft of
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specific school and departmental issues, policies and procedures that will impinge
directly upon the version of the subject they are preparing to teach. Trainee
evaluations make clear that the experience of multiple school placements in the
course of training can make this a problematic issue, as they have to adapt their
professional practice and knowledge to the differing nature of placement schools and
varying institutional manifestations of subject.
In this dimension of subject knowledge development, trainees are required to
undertake a detailed mapping of their experience of English against the National
Curriculum, both in terms of content and skill. In doing this, they begin the process
of refining their construction of subject for use in school. This is an essential element
of the procedure and brings trainees face to face with issues of school knowledge. In
contemplating what is ‘in’ and what is ‘out’; what is obligatory and what is
recommended; how their knowledge incorporates the four modalities of speaking,
listening, reading and writing and how these interrelate both cognitively and
functionally—in considering such issues, and more, the beginning teacher is faced
with the reality that English as ‘delivered’ in school (and at university) is a
constructed subject encoding a set of socio-political, cultural and ideological
principles. These principles, the messages they convey and the ensuing choices they
require of the teacher emerged in discussion with trainees as the course progressed.
It is clear that they have a profound impact on trainees’ developing sense of subject
construct as they consider the extent to which the hidden underpinnings of the
curriculum reflect their own personal beliefs about the subject (which Banks et al.
term the ‘personal subject construct’) and how these influence their choices in terms
of what to teach, as well as how far they might use their teaching to challenge these.
School knowledge encompasses assessment as well as curriculum. The alarming
trend over recent years for ever-increasing burdens of assessment (Barnes, 2000;
Hodgson & Spours, 2003; Bluett et al., 2004; Daly, 2004; Moore, 2004; Green,
2005a) and the high profile of league tables has led to an increasingly constrained
and instrumental definition of the study of English through secondary schooling.
This dimension of subject construct fundamentally challenges trainees’ perceptions
of their role as teacher. Evaluations and written assignments typically explore
teachers’ responsibilities as conveyers of knowledge and facilitators of learning and
seek to balance these with parental expectations and the need to ensure pupils gain
the best grades they can. This is a difficult balance to achieve. Evaluations and
observations make clear that within the training school context, trainees are
inevitably influenced—and sometimes constrained—by institutional and/or depart-
mental policy and ethos. Trainees were clear about the need professionally to
question and evaluate school practices in this respect and to establish their personal
views of good practice in this area that fits the needs of schools, parents, teachers and
pupils.
(3) Pedagogic knowledge
This is the body of skills and approaches that trainees learn for use in the
effective ‘delivery’ of the subject throughout the school. It involves developing
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understanding in the subject, strategies for gaining and sustaining the interest of
students, and for encouraging the disaffected. It includes differentiation (an area
where trainees’ evaluations and assignments demonstrate they require particular
practical support): e.g. how to help less able learners approach linguistically and
cognitively challenging texts, as well as how to extend gifted and talented students.
However, pedagogic knowledge encompasses more than this. The development of
powerful pedagogic knowledge often requires teachers to challenge, sometimes even
revise, subject content knowledge they thought was robust.
Engagement with issues of pedagogy further broadens notions of subject
knowledge and the formation of subject construct. The challenges of devising
effective means by which information may be conveyed and information processed
so that learning is facilitated, and understanding how this relates to other dimensions
of subject knowledge—these are complex and demanding tasks, incorporating what
Daly (2004) terms assurance of ‘learner readiness’. They involve acts of creative
empathy on the part of teachers, who have to put themselves in the position of their
students in order to understand their needs in seeking to access particular areas of
learning. This was recognised directly by one trainee:
It is difficult to revert back to the role of the pupil. Understanding the pupil’s needs is
crucial.
Depending upon how able trainees are to undertake this act of empathy, the
process of transforming content knowledge into practical classroom knowledge will
be more or less difficult as students’ needs are the genesis of approaching how
lessons are taught (Daly, 2004).
All of the above distinct components of teacherly subject knowledge, set alongside
teachers’ own beliefs (or personal subject construct), need to interrelate if the trainee
is to manage the move from English student to classroom practitioner.
Building teacherly knowledge
As Grossman et al. (1989) observe:
Teacher education begins long before students enter formal programs for teacher
preparation. (p. 35)
The building of a working school knowledge of subject is more complex than has so
far been suggested: other ideas also have to be brought into play. Formative
experiences (both positive and negative) have already played a part in shaping
trainees’ sense of the kind of teachers they wish to be and the methods they feel
comfortable employing. In many cases these experiences underpin the very reasons
why they enter ITT. Many come because of their own positive experiences of
education in general and of their chosen subject in particular; others enter because of
their own negative experiences and the desire to ensure that the experience of their
students should be more positive.
It is important that beginning teachers perceive the fluid nature of subject
knowledge and any construction of subject. Calderhead and Miller (1985) explore
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the relationship between teachers’ subject content knowledge and class-specific
knowledge—e.g. knowledge of the individuals within the class (Turvey, 2005), their
corporate needs and preferences and the dynamics these establish. In bringing these
knowledges to bear on each other, they suggest, the teacher creates ‘action-relevant’
knowledge. This relates to Banks et al.’s perceived overlap between subject and
pedagogic knowledge, though somewhat more specifically delineated. It also recalls
Feiman-Nemser and Buchman’s (1985) concept of ‘pedagogical thinking’, which
requires teachers to locate their subject knowledge within the individual needs of
students and their beliefs about the subject they are being taught (Turvey, 2005).
Teachers’ development of subject model, therefore, consists not solely of personal
evaluation and refinement, but must also reflect and interact with a classroomful of
other subject constructs in increasingly complex ways as students develop in
maturity and ability as subject practitioners in their own right. The issue is further
complicated for trainees by the realities of working within the corporate context of
the school and department, where personal constructs of subject must be submitted
to a further (sometimes quite draconian) process of moderation by consensus.
Trainees frequently report difficulties in trying out particular pedagogic approaches
because of resistance from mentors or other members of the departments in which
they are working; an unwillingness, for example, to look favourably on the use of
drama approaches to text or the use of groupwork and talk in the classroom.
Resourcing also frequently proves a barrier to subject knowledge development; for
example, the desire to develop skills in the use of interactive whiteboards may be
limited or even nullified by the lack of appropriate resources within a placement
department. Equally, a rigid departmental policy, such as adherence to the letter of
the Key Stage Three Strategy (or an inveterate resistance to it) may impede trainees’
personal development of subject construct. It is essential that close work is
undertaken by Initial Teacher Training tutors and mentors within schools to ensure
that trainees’ experiences and development are not limited unreasonably in this
respect.
Model 2: Grossman et al. (1989)
Grossman et al. (1989), like Banks et al. (1999), identify four categories within what
they term ‘subject matter knowledge’.
(1) Content knowledge
This they identify as the ‘stuff’ of the discipline, itself not an unproblematic concept.
Teachers often need to extend their content knowledge to bring it into line with
curriculum requirements—a connection here with the model of Banks et al.—and for
personal development to continue if they are to be innovative and inspiring teachers.
Many beginning teachers, for instance, require input during ITT on language and
‘grammar’ (Gregory, 2003; Burley, 2005) to assist their development and to boost
their self-confidence in these increasingly targeted areas of content knowledge. As
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beginning teachers develop, the ways they set about acquiring new, and developing
old, subject knowledge changes, reflecting a growing perception of school and
pedagogic requirements and the importance of these in the development of teacherly
knowledge. This will be differentiated according to purpose, so that the way a
teacher reads and learns a text or subject area for delivery at Key Stage Three will
differ in many respects from the way this is done for an A-level class.
(2) Substantive knowledge(s)
This is a paradigm or framework that offers foci of inquiry, the questions asked of a
subject and the directions exploration may take. These exist in multiple forms within
the discipline of English. Models of literary criticism, literary theory or linguistic
frameworks, for example, arise from particular inspirations and generate lines of
inquiry and modes of interrogating text or language that suit their own individual
rationales. Metacognitive engagement with the various substantive manifestations of
subject is essential for the teacher: each ‘version’ of the subject encodes its own
implied relationship between teacher and learner (Knights, 2005) as well as between
the reader and the material studied. This is an area of subject knowledge with which
trainees express difficulty engaging and developing, as it is frequently a tacit feature
of their own subject constructs. It is important, however, that ITT addresses this
issue. The role of the teacher in presenting and employing substantive formations of
subject (when a multiplicity of viewpoints is important) is frequently synthetic,
providing students with the tools to engage with the particular substantive formation
of the subject offered but offering no personal value judgement as to the relative
merit of each as a means of inquiry. These substantive modes of subject are
frequently in fruitful dialogue with each other.
The importance of such substantive frameworks within the curricular formation of
English, for example, is forcibly argued by Bluett et al. (2004). They identify in the
lack of any coherent theoretical underpinning, a significant and continuing weakness
in English Literature specifications under Curriculum 2000. Beginning teachers
need to be alert to the substantive foundations on which the school curriculum is
built and how this connects (or fails to connect) with what underpins their degree
level studies and personal constructs of subject. Further, they have to consider how
such substantive frameworks can be provided (and usefully approached) within their
own teaching to ensure students are properly able to locate their studies within
appropriate subject paradigms.
(3) Syntactic knowledge
This relates to the tools and forms of inquiry within the subject. It proved an area
where trainees were less confident as practitioners. Again, however, it is a
fundamental aspect of subject formation. It deals with canons of knowledge, the
formation of evidence and proof accepted within the discipline and the ways in
which new knowledge is brought into the discipline. This is subject not as content,
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but rather as process. Effective teachers need to consider carefully how they
introduce students to this dimension of subject. Throughout their development as
learners, trainees and their students need gradually to be introduced to the
conventions and processes by which the subject operates if they are to be effective
practitioners. Expertise in this area is vital to the teacher. Tacit knowledge of such
procedures has a certain value, but engagement with these processes needs to be
more and more explicit, and more and more detailed within practice, if trainees and
their students are to become properly autonomous. It is, of course, essential that
teachers remain abreast of developments in the syntactic structures of the subject if
they are effectively to continue the development of their own subject knowledge.
(4) Beliefs about subject matter
In many ways this is similar to Banks et al.’s conception of the personal subject
construct. It takes into account values and assumptions about the subject that
trainees have developed and the engagement they have with it. Trainees’ locus in any
given area of the subject is very important. For example, some adhere firmly to the
notion that language and ‘grammar’ should be taught discretely and the skills thus
learned applied to reading and writing; others hold strongly to the view that they
should only be taught integrally and in context—Gregory (2003) argues for a
balance of both. Some would prioritise (and see as sacrosanct) the role of ‘great
literature’ in the English curriculum, whilst others hold a wider and more utilitarian
view of text. Political, philosophical, theoretical and religious views, as well as
personal experiences of the subject at school, at university and elsewhere, will also
play an important role in shaping the nature of the subject the teacher wishes to
‘deliver’. As training progressed, trainees became increasingly aware that the view of
the subject this leads to, and the impact this has on the choices a teacher makes
about how and what to teach, will inevitably result in widely differing experiences for
both teachers and pupils—even within the confines of an established curriculum or
module for study. The extent to which students are able to engage with the subject
will inevitably depend upon the extent to which their construct and developing
personal beliefs about it coincide with those of their teachers and peers. A
considerable responsibility is thus placed on teachers to ensure that personal beliefs
and constructs of subject are non-exclusive so that personal interpretations and
values do not impinge on students’ freedom to form their own views and to develop
their own interactions with the subject.
Deliverable subject models
Beyond the models of Grossman et al. and of Banks et al., however, lies a further
process trainees must go through in realigning their knowledge of subject. Having
considered the above dimensions of subject knowledge and established how these
can fit together practically and theoretically in the classroom, trainees have to go
through a final stage of development when, having formed a perception of what can
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be taught (within the parameters of content, school, pedagogic, substantive and
syntactic knowledges) they consider the version of the subject that they are able and
happy to teach. This might be termed the personal deliverable model. This is a personal
version of the subject, combining academic, educational and pragmatic components
which together create the area of functioning subject practice within which the
teacher will operate. This will, of course, be a more or less successful subject system
and constantly needs to be re-evaluated in the light of such issues as individual and
whole-class needs or the purposes of particular teaching sessions or sequences of
sessions.
The personal deliverable model represents the interface between the teacher,
the student and the curriculum. The creation of this model, which will be
different for all trainees, and for every class that trainees teach, is the outcome of
a ‘negotiation’ of the needs of all three, undertaken by the teacher and applied to
the class. The success of work undertaken in the classroom context is dependent
upon the sensitivity and practicality with which the teacher conducts this
‘negotiation’.
The development of effective teacherly knowledge is, therefore, a complex and
interactive process. According to Grossman et al. (1989), it is:
by drawing on a number of different types of knowledge and skill teachers translate their
knowledge of subject matter into instructional representations. (p. 32)
The process of subject knowledge development must be an interventionist process
in which trainees need to be brought early to the recognition that subject knowledge,
in the school context, is much more than the books they have read, or other areas in
which they have expertise. Feiman-Nemser and Buchman (1985) observe:
In learning to teach, neither firsthand experience nor university instruction can be left to
work themselves out by themselves. (p. 29)
The ITT tutor has a crucial role to play in this field, assisting trainees in
developing complex and challenging conceptions of subject, and the ways in which
this must inform work with their students in a variety of contexts and for a range of
purposes. Successfully establishing negotiated constructs and models of subject is at
the heart of effective ITT.
Notes on contributor
Andrew Green taught English in a variety of schools in Oxfordshire and London
before becoming Head of English at Ewell Castle School, Surrey. He now lectures
in English Education at Brunel University in West London, working on both
undergraduate and post-graduate courses. His research interests include the
teaching of English post-16 and issues surrounding the transition from the study
of English post-16 to university. He is the author of the recent English Subject
Centre report Four perspectives on transition: English Literature from sixth form to
university.
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