Teacher self-study as professional development

I am currently working with a senior secondary sport focussed school on a professioanl development initiative based on self-study. I first came across the idea of teacher self-study in the early 2000's while a deputy-principal leading a school cluster professional development initiative supported by the Australian Government Quality Teacher Program funding.

However, teacher professional development has long interested me, and I developed a concept of teacher as lead learner during my MEd (Leadership) study - which I previously wrote about at this link. Additionally, for 20 years I served at state and national level as a professional association board member. The main income stream of the association was teacher professional development, largely by conference and workshop type events. The discombobulation here is that teacher professional development literature is consistent in its claims that professional development by conference attendance for most does little to change practice. Some events can be mostly a forum for education and teacher entrepeanuers. Without good vetting, conference and events can be a means to promote simplified claims and claims without empirical support, or an interpretaion of the published science – all of which can lead to “pop-science explanations”, which may be attractive as they resemble common-sense ideas about practice and so to teachers they have intuitive appeal or appeal to confirmation bias (which is why ideas like 'learning styles' continue to circulate, and perhaps why 'drill to skill' often continues to be dominant in many physical education settings).

Towards the end of my time on the state association board, I did a study on what physical education teachers read for professional development. While the sample size was modest, the study found that the respondents had:

1. Limited familiarity with current educational research

2. Limited interest in reading current educational research

 3. Mistrust or scepticism toward research due to perceived irrelevance to classroom practice

4. Trust in stories 'from the field'

[If interested, to read the study click here]

More recently, when chatting to a state teacher association board I asked where the teachers on the board got most of their professional development and for all it was via podcasts, webinars and blogs.

I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.

Rudyard Kipling (1902)

Self-study involves asking questions - inquiring - into one’s own professional experiences to improve professional practice. Self-study begins with a sense of curiosity rooted in practice that leads to a question that is emotionally and professionally meaningful.

The characteristics of self-study are:

-       the involvement of an 'experienced other' as a critical friend (Schuck & Russell, 2005);

-       the use of theory to help to gain wider perspectives on practice; and methodological rigour (LaBoskey, 2004).

-       personal assumptions, judgements and actions are challenged (White & Jarvis, 2019)

The above three characteristics can be found in MEd dissertations and MR thesis work. This is perhaps why for many of my teacher friends that have done masters study, their research topics have been profoundly influential on their thoughts and behaviours. 

Figure 1 above, I used with the teachers to help them begin to plan their inquiry project with the first step to completed the design of their self-study inquiry question. Following this type of planning phase, typically, teacher self-study methodology follows an action research cycle. 

In the work with this school, that cycle looks like: 

Term 1 Plan 

Term 2 and 3 Act: Implement and observe (gather data) 

Term 4 Reflect, evaluate and then present at an 'in-house' sharing and celebrating event

Next year, start again.

Built into the school meeting schedule is time on three occasions each term to work individually or in a 'community of practice' on the self-study projects so teachers are not having to spend additional time on this professional development outside of the span of hours of the school day 

In summary, research indicates that engaging in self-study leads to shifts that traditional PD 'events' often miss:

Benefit	Description
Professional Identity	Helps teachers align their "stated values" (what they believe) with their "enacted values" (what they actually do in class).
Agency & Ownership	Shifting from being a consumer of ideas to a producer of knowledge
Deep Reflection	Moves beyond "technical ideas" (what do I do next lesson?) to "critical reflection" (why do I teach this way and whom does it serve?).
Student-Centricity	Studies show that as teachers scrutinise their own methods, they often shift their focus from their own performance more towards student learning outcomes.

Thanks for stopping by and reading this post. If you would like to connect with me about a project to do with this blog or any of the other ideas that I have blogged about, you can contact me by the email link available here 

References

LaBoskey, V. K. (2004). The methodology of self-study and its theoretical underpinnings. In: Loughran, J.J., Hamilton, M.L., LaBoskey, V.K. & Russell, T., eds., International Handbook of Self-study of Teaching and Teacher Education Practices (Vol. 1, pp. 817–869). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Schuck, S. & Russell, T. (2005). Self-Study, Critical Friendship, and the Complexities of Teacher Education. Studying Teacher Education 1(2),107-121.

White, L., & Jarvis, J. (2019). Self-study: a developing research approach for professional learning. Link, 4(1), https://www.herts.ac.uk/link/volume-4,-issue-1/self-study-a-developing-research-approach-for-professional-learning