Professional Relationship Development a Whole School Approach: Effective Strategies to Support Special Educators and General Educators
Dr Ciara Uí Chonduibh
Scoil Uí Ghramhnaigh, Ireland
Learning Objectives:
After participating in this session, attendees will be able to…
• Transfer and apply the Model of Professional Relationship and Professional Learning to their own school context and staff culture.
• Plan and prepare for structured, solution focused professional conversations between school leaders, special education teachers and general education teachers.
• Prioritize actions to support positive professional relationship among co-teachers, whilst also identifying professional learning opportunities.
Workshop Overview - Educational Importance and Approaches
The provision of Special Education Teachers (SET) in Ireland has recently undergone monumental change with government guidelines promoting a predominately co-teaching approach and no longer emphasising the withdrawal of students by SET (Department of Education, 2022). This model, although used sporadically across schools, has been met with some resistance, misunderstandings and without adequate professional development. School leaders noted tensions amongst SETs and general education teachers (MacConduibh, 2019).
This session will look at the Model of Professional Relationship and Professional Development (Uí Chonduibh, 2018) developed during a Collaborative Action Research (CAR) doctoral project. This research was conducted in a wide range of Catholic schools; Irish medium, disadvantaged, urban, rural, and special schools. CAR engaged the participants in co-teaching lessons and professional development meetings across school settings. The research identified opportunities for professional learning and shared professional responsibility between teachers and school leaders. Collaborative practices were developed and fostered in-school and across school settings which impacted on participants’ professional learning and teacher self-efficacy. Findings suggest that tensions which teachers face in professional relationships were dealt with during scaffolded reflections. Sharing of professional responsibility and professional conversations, whilst still fostering needs of teacher education during co-teaching, also added to the continuing professional learning of all staff. A central innovation of the research was an exploration of solution-focused coaching strategies for the development of professional relationships in school.
This workshop explores and examines models of co-teaching (team teaching) and how they are or might be put into action. It also focuses on how co-teaching, as a central method for in class support teaching, can benefit and develop professional relationships while also creating a platform for continuous professional development. The workshop will examine Collaborative Action Research as a tool to structure and schedule planning, implementation and review of in class intervention and support programmes. How to engage in collaborative reflective practices and professional dialogues will be addressed. The workshop explores practical ways to foster and utilise co-teaching in class to benefit both student and teacher learning. The workshop will allow for the opportunity to share and receive ideas for best practice, it will create a space to think of co-teaching and Collaborative Action Research and their impact on school effectiveness and improvement.
Combining Data From Practice With international research Evidence For Effective Teaching And Learning, Professional Development And School Improvement – Insights From The Steev-Approach
Wolfgang Beywl, Kathrin Pirani
University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, Switzerland
Evaluative Thinking and Teaching (Hattie, 2023: Teaching with Intent) provide a well-researched framework for data-based processes for the schoolwide enhancement of teaching and learning. The Steev-Approach (Simultaneous Teaching and Enquiry that is Effective and Visible) translates this framework into a feasible 5-step process which allows teachers to optimize their teaching, and thus strengthen student learning and progress. Application of the Steev-approach leads to an amplification of teacher professionalization as teachers reflect - in practice - on practice while connecting to and considering scientific evidence. Collective teacher efficacy is fostered as teachers collaborate more intensively and make educational success schoolwide visible.
The latest developments of the approach include a practice-theory hub which allows users to access both sources of expertise directly, efficiently and effectively. Basis is a ten-year collaboration process between researchers / higher education specialists of the teacher college and more than 1.000 teachers from more than 100 schools. Core products are 36 published “tried-and-tested examples” of teacher implementations of the Steev-approach in their classrooms. These project-reports are mostly product of continuing professional development / in-service training. In these short reports, the researchers have worked out which of the 357 influences on school learning currently prepared by John Hattie are activated. For a selection of 35 of these influences, a matrix shows in which examples they are used or activated. (300 connections).
This combination of experiential and research-generated evidence aims to contribute to bridging the often-lamented gap between pedagogical theory and practice. It provides suggestions for both initial teacher education and continuing professional development: How can research- and practice-generated evidence reinforce each other and deepen professional learning?
The presentation offers an introduction to the 5-steps of the Steev-approach. It is put up for discussion together with the newly added practice-theory hub. Participants are invited to examine Steev’s potential for initial teacher education, continuing professional development, school effectiveness and improvement within their own educational contexts. The benefits for student learning, teacher and school development will be explored.
Format of the innovate presentation: short presentation of the Steeve-approach and implementation process, supported by concrete examples. Supplementary materials will be made available on an interactive board (Padlet) even beyond the duration of the conference. Participants ask questions and comment on the interactive board, to prompts like "Which innovative elements are applicable to your own research/practice? "What objections/reservations/questions come up?" As many questions as possible will be answered or discussed already in the session.
An important link with the conference theme is that an example is given of an innovative partnership between universities and schools. The role of teachers and school leaders from practice in cooperation with researchers / teacher training colleges should be clarified and strengthened. The aim is to show that there are new, particularly productive, and efficient ways for universities to further develop pedagogical theories which will prove relevant to teachers' practice and be validated by them.
Professional Identity of Pedagogical Professionals in Complex Urban Surroundings
Naomi Mertens
Fontys University of Applied Sciences, Netherlands, The
The objective of this session is to have participants experience a participative research method for exploring professional identity, aimed at ‘the bigger picture’, inspired by the approaches Kelchtermans (2009), Ruijters (2015) and Vandamme (2009) take on the professional, who is driven by a greater cause.
Our practice based research takes place within a project in a neighbourhood of a town in The Netherlands (approx. 228.000 inhabitants in total; approx. 12.700 in this part of the town). The project is aimed at creating a healthy, vibrant and educative surrounding for all the children and their parents in this neighbourhood, which characterises as culturally and sociologically diverse. Children in this area often come from families that need extra financial and pedagogical support. For many pedagogical professionals in this area, work is more than earning a living: they describe it as a vocation, a way to have impact on the young lives of the children. They are ‘actively engaged’. Gallup research shows that only 23% of all professionals describe themselves as such (Gallup, 2023). But this group is also vulnerable for stress: they report ‘to take the problems home’; ‘to have troubles to let go’. Our research aims at their professional identity: how do they describe themselves in their roles? What makes it worthwhile and what attributes to staying in the job? As Bakker & Oerlemans (2015) state: “individuals who are engaged (vs. burned-out) in their work are better able to satisfy their basic psychological needs through their work activities, because there is congruence between the person and the situation.”
The importance for policy, research and practice lies the connection between people and in sharing stories about professional identity, before and while working together in a network. Also, this way of making sense of ‘what is going on’ is connecting to participative reflexive inquiry as described by Griffin & Stacey (2005). The researcher also takes part in the sessions, writing about their own professional identity and sense of belonging in the project. In order to deepen the understanding of each other’s professional identity in a diverse network of pedagogical professionals, we designed a workshop. At the conference, we would like to share this intervention with the participants.
In the session, participants will start with writing down what is important to them in their actual projects. By using guiding questions, they will then deepen their reflection and connect it to their greater sense of urgency/ deeper assumptions and values. They will then share these with others in the group. Although the participants in this workshop won’t share the same work surroundings, they will still be able to questions themselves and others about what really drives them to create impact in their work and what contributes to their work happiness.
The aim is to connect professional identity development to creating learning environments that promote equity, inclusion, belonging, diversity, social justice, global citizenship and environmental sustainability, and as such are also ‘good places to work’.
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