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Legitimising learning
There are at least three ways to ease the tension for trainees who have
much to learn and yet want to be seen, as soon as possible, as effective
practitioners.
- Acknowledge the tension. We can do a lot to make sure that trainees
are regarded as professional colleagues and given appropriate teaching
responsibilities. This extends from apparently small details (such
as the way in which they are introduced to classes, or the work-spaces
allocated
to them) to the way in which their learning is sequenced. An unrelieved
diet of lesson observation for the first few weeks will breed intense
frustration.
- Make sure that any opportunity to teach is also explicitly cast
as an opportunity to learn. Such opportunities can take a variety of
forms
but they all need to include learning objective(s) for the trainee
and a specific process of evaluation. This will set trainees’ sights
higher than simply proving that they can perform as teachers. Be wary
of the argument that trainees will only survive in the ‘real
world’ if
they’ve proved that they can handle a substantial teaching timetable.
The Standards do require evidence of sustained independent teaching,
but there is no point in trainees doing so much that they have no time
or energy to learn from it.
- Promote a culture of professional learning for all staff. We can
help trainees by encouraging, and perhaps linking in with existing
professional development initiatives in school. These could stem from
individual teachers’ concerns or be driven from outside – for
example, an LEA Consultant promoting assessment for learning within
the KS3 Strategy. Initial Teacher Education partnerships often stimulate
joint research projects or individual experimentation within accredited
diploma courses. New tutors might find it useful to engage in small-scale
research with their partnership schools. This not only contributes
to our research careers, but also helps to create an enquiring climate
within local history departments. It promotes the assumption that all
teachers are engaged in learning.
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