Developing and supporting teachers as learners
Successful implementation of curriculum change in schools requires improved teacher education. However, insufficient attention has been given to supporting teachers’ individual professional learning needs during curriculum reform. UofG research has addressed this issue and shaped the way that support for teachers’ learning is provided at local levels in Scotland and internationally.
The research
Research led by Professor Kay Livingston has sought to understand teachers as learners during curriculum reform in Scotland.
While there have been shifts in teachers’ practice to improve support for the individual learning needs of pupils, gaps remain in taking account of teachers as individual learners.
Teachers differ in their readiness to implement curriculum reforms and professional learning, and opportunities offered to large groups of teachers do not take sufficient account of this.
Working with local authority education managers and teachers in Scotland, Professor Livingston led the design and piloting of a new professional learning approach, which provides a training programme supporting structured dialogue between teachers.
Teachers are able to develop their communicative competence through peer-mentoring, which enables them to identify and address their individual learning needs in their own schools, in relation to their own pupils’ learning progression.
This structured dialogue approach has been adopted to develop new partnership models with policymakers and education stakeholders internationally.
The impact
Since 2014, the model and training initiated through the research has supported the embedding of mentoring as a means of professional learning in North Lanarkshire Council and impacted on the professional development of mentors working with primary and secondary teachers in their probationary year in all 169 schools in Aberdeenshire.
Following successful piloting, this has led to the provision of peer-mentor training in partnership with teachers in Stirling Council, Aberdeen City Council and Clackmannanshire.
From 2014 onwards, Livingston was invited by the European Commission to coordinate a series of peer-learning events held with policy representatives from 10 EU countries.
This led representatives from Hungary, Denmark and Malta to invite Livingston to work with educators to provide training to implement the peer-mentoring model through partnership.
Professor Livingston’s work on partnership models of professional development has also shaped policy changes in teacher education internationally, and contributed to the publication of policy guidelines involving more than 35 European Education Ministries.
In 2017, Livingston was invited by European Schoolnet to work with representatives from 10 EU countries to implement a partnership approach to policy development through a series of structured dialogue labs involving 826 teachers, teacher educators, researchers and policymakers.