Given that I examine teachers’ learning via their engagement with educational neuroscience or other encounters with information about the brain, I include here an examination of some key aspects of teacher education and
development, including Initial Teacher Training (ITT) in chapter 2.9.2. As the literature of teacher and professional training and continuing development is vast, this exploration focuses on themes, frameworks and perspectives that have significance in the context of my research.
Just what teacher knowledge is, has been a subject of debate at least dating back to Aristotle. This review considers some key contributions to the framing of a definition of teacher knowledge. Ben-Peretz (2011) considers several definitions of teacher knowledge, through an analysis of nine articles
published in Teaching and Teacher Education, between 1988 and 2009. Her analysis indicates that there has been an expansion and broadening of what is meant by teacher knowledge and it seems prudent to add here Shulman’s earlier observation (1986) that it has also grown in complexity. Taking the earliest analysed article as a starting point (Grossman and Richert, 1988), in figure 2.1 below (p.75) I attempt to map the evolution of this expansion and complexity. Presented thus, it appears that much of the expansion and
complexity is created through the addition of issues of knowledge sources and knowledge development, individual knowledge and values and either a
broadening perception or an explicit identifying of the moral duties or roles of teachers. Ben-Peretz points out that all these contributors are of western origins and use a shared educational language, which indicates there is more to consider in an extended review, across a wider global and cultural
landscape. Shifts in education policy since 2009 would undoubtedly add further layers to this representation, certainly in the UK, such as accountability and the use of school-level data. I point this out since it is relevant to the working contexts of the teachers who have contributed to my data.
On a smaller scale, the workplace itself is a central factor in teacher knowledge and development. Eraut (2007) explores learning within the workplace context, in this instance through nurses, graduate engineers and trainee chartered accountants. He describes beneficial aspects of observing others at work, though amongst these are words and phrases that
demonstrate the challenges of identifying workplace learning. These include ‘embedded knowledge’, ‘implicit knowledge’, ‘’clues to the use of knowledge that must have been previously learnt’ and ‘allowing complexity to be
appreciated, even if it was not fully explained to, or fully understood by, the observer’ (p.404). Eraut makes his own reference to the difficulties, in discussing ‘cultural knowledge, which has not been codified’ (p.405).
2009
1998
Eraut also attempts to tabulate the modes of cognition employed by
professional learners, tracking how these differ with timescale. Fullan (1993) chooses to place at least equal emphasis on professional behaviour, pointing
Figure 2.1 Features/influences on teacher knowledge, adapted from Ben- Peretz 2011
Pedagogical principles/skills and knowledge to be taught (Grossman and Richert, 1988)
Transforming subject
knowledge into learning tasks (Edwards and Ogden, 1998) Professional and personal
knowledge developed in contexts (Tamir, 1991)
Teacher change: beliefs, attitudes, practice, influenced by training and/or experience (Clarke and Holdsworth, 2002)
Contexts:
Action: socio-professional, supervisory,
which may produce: challenge/support, tension/equilibrium, resonance/dissonance (Tang, 2003) Wider themes: global, multicultural, supported by learning outside of workplace (Holden and Hicks, 2007)
their way into them’ (p.13). Fullan also argues that this takes time and here there may well be contradictions between individual professional behaviour and the urgent agendas of schools and governments.
Contradictions of this nature, in Harland’s and Kinder’s explanation, are a matter of ‘value congruence’ (1997, p.77) and they quote Fullan’s observation that ‘structural changes are easier to bring about than normative ones’ (1991, p. xiii), a viewpoint Fullan later reaffirmed in stating that ‘educational change is technically simple but socially complex’ (2007, p. 84). Harland and Kinder make a further point that the outcomes of continuing professional
development (CPD) are likely to differ, depending on whether the CPD is voluntarily undertaken or an imposed requirement. Harland and Kinder construct a typology of CPD outcomes and tabulate these into a hierarchy, though they also ‘tentatively’ (p.77) propose that for CPD to be most effective all nine outcomes need to be present. Both the typology of outcomes and the hierarchy offer an additional tool for the examination of the long-term impact of CPD. Table 2.1 is based on Harland and Kinder’s original proposal, re-ordered to display what they propose are the most effective outcomes in priority order. Impact on
Practice
INSET Input
First order Value congruence, knowledge and skills Second order Motivation, affective, institutional
Third order Provisionary, information, new awareness
Table 2.1: A hierarchy of INSET inputs and outcomes, based on Harland and Kinder (1997, pp.76-77)
2.9.2 Initial Teacher Training
Although the Standards for Teachers in England (2012, revised June 2013) require that teachers must ‘be able to use and evaluate distinctive teaching approaches’ (p.8) there is no requirement that these are considered in the light of neuroscientific evidence. The Carter Review (2014), a review of initial teacher training in England, has suggested that there is a case for the formal re-introduction of child development within teacher training programmes: ‘Recommendation 1e: child and adolescent development should be included within a framework for ITT content’ (p.9). It is likely that approaches to this will draw on updated knowledge of the development of the brain, such as
Blakemore’s work on the adolescent brain (for example, Blakemore, 2018, Blakemore and Choudbury, 2006 and Führmann, Knoll and Blakemore 2015). In addition, the Carter Review also proposes that trainees need to be taught
the core skills of how to access, interpret and use research to inform classroom practice. It is important that trainees understand how to interpret educational theory and research in a critical way, so they are able to deal with contested issues’ (p.8)
Howard-Jones et al. (2009) has examined understanding of the brain amongst trainee teachers in England. They concluded that ‘in the absence of formal training, trainee teachers acquire their own ideas about brain function, many of which are potentially detrimental to their practice as teachers’ (p.2). These ideas, Howard-Jones et al. declare, are similar to the misconceptions shared by the general public. This is perhaps not surprising, given that training
on trainee’s production of evidence to demonstrate that they have met the standards for teachers.
Blakemore can be seen explaining aspects of her work on the adolescent brain, in her 2012 TedTalks presentation, The Mysterious Workings of the Adolescent Brain. This 13-minute format has potential for introducing trainee teachers to relevant aspects of brain development and has been well received when viewed by student teachers in sessions taught by me. In an equally accessible example, writing in Beyond Future Horizons (2008b), Howard- Jones suggests several ways in which neuroscience may feature in educational practices by 2025 and he also offers predictions of further possibilities beyond 2025. These include:
• contribution from cognitive neuroscience to the teaching of mathematics in the early years
• echoing Blakemore’s work, the possibility that adolescents will be better understood and approaches to their education adjusted accordingly, • drawing on his own work, a greater understanding of how reward
circuits in the brain influence motivation
• the use of neuroscience in the diagnosis of learning difficulties (and in the design of interventions, though as Mostert and Crockett pointed out as far back as 2000, there is a history of unsubstantiated interventions raising false hope, a danger of which trainee teachers should be informed)
• greater capacity for the training of certain cognitive functions and in particular working memory, a function for which Tracy Packiam-Alloway
has published books (2010, 2014) and marketed training software (Jungle Memory™, Cogmed, sold through Pearson Education Ltd) • understanding of children’s mental health being further informed by
neuroscience
• better use of neuroscientific evidence to support exercise within the curriculum
• the use of drugs that promote cognitive function (and Howard-Jones also predicts that the government will struggle to adopt a clear policy for this)
• similarly to the Carter Review, the proposal that by 2025 psychology and neuroscience will play a role in teacher training
• a clearer remit for a discipline he prefers to call neuro-educational research.
These are well-founded suggestions that might usefully play a role themselves in bringing about the ‘framework for ITT content’ (op. cit.) proposed by the Carter Review.
Beyond 2025, Howard-Jones cites possibilities of educational roles for genetic profiling and brain-computer interfacing. He has suggested elsewhere (2010) that there is a growing need for a new type of education professional,
possessing expertise in neuroscience and education. This echoes Goswami’s similar call (2006, 2009).