teacher educators

This is a review of Nurturing Professional Judgement by Benjamin Knight. Click on the title or the link below for more information.

Nurturing Professional Judgement by Ben Knight is an inspiring, thought-provoking, and useful book. It has been inspiring for me, as it has led me to explore ways of inquring into what underpins my own, and colleagues’ professional judgement. It is thought-provoking, as it poses questions about how teachers make decisions in classrooms and how judgement can be categorised and made explicit. It is useful, as it provides answers to the question, ‘How can we nurture professional judgement in new teachers?’

Professional judgement may not be identified as a specified focus in current teacher education policies in England, but as practitioners we know it lies at the heart of our own work. Ben Knight categories professional judgement into two types: judgement 1, which relates to planning and thinking about what we are going to do in our teaching; and judgement 2, which involves instant decision making in a classroom context. He explores both these forms of judgement and provides case studies and strategies for scaffolding learning about, and reflection on, teaching decisions. Helping new teachers to take appropriate risks, to experiment, to notice decisions and their effects and to learn from these, is a difficult task. This book shows why it is important to do this and gives us approaches to try.

Teacher educators, school-based mentors and staff in universities working with new teaching colleagues, as well as new teachers themselves, will find a wealth of knowledge and ideas in this easy to read, concise and engaging text.

Joy Jarvis (Professor of Educational Practice), University of Hertfordshire

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Who should be involved in deciding what school-based practice in teacher education should look like? Often it is the provider of initial teacher education – a team of teacher educators working at a central base, university or school. Including in this dialogue the school-based teacher educators who are supervising all students in their school and who work with their mentors is vital for a strong collaborative partnership to develop. Are there any resources designed to enhance the critical conversations that need to take place around school-based practice? The Teacher Educator’s Handbook – A narrative approach to professional learning contains a wealth of such resources for teacher educators. These resources are based on narratives written by teacher educators about the challenges they have experienced ‘on the ground’, collected in England and the Netherlands as part of an international research project by Miranda Timmermans and Elizabeth White. The stories capture the complexities of practice in partnerships with many stakeholders, some of whom cross boundaries between institutions where there are different priorities and a different ethos.

The detailed stories are explored in variety of ways using critical questions that you can use on your own or in professional learning conversations with other teacher educators. These resources have been used effectively with groups of teacher educators at local, national and international professional development workshops. No right or wrong solutions are provided, and interpretation may be ambiguous. This enables freedom for teacher educators to suggest some possible solutions and explore them together. A further advantage of using stories in workshops is the opportunities they provide to challenge practices, understand power relationships and consider what learning can be transferred between contexts. A story may bring participants in a workshop closer because they provide a way in to share their perspectives and to listen to the perspectives of others.

The themes covered in the stories include guiding and assessing students; working collaboratively; professionalism and well-being; and quality of provision. Each theme is complemented by a range of coaching questions to advance your practice. Further chapters provide ideas from practice about how to write your own stories about practice and how to use stories of practice collaboratively and creatively. Using a narrative approach may enhance the quality of initial teacher education by recognising and valuing the unique contributions made by teacher educators in the partnership and by supporting effective cooperation within partnerships. In a time of significant disruption to initial teacher education and major shifts in policy around the curriculum and induction of new teachers, this narrative approach can provoke a dynamic dialogue to improve and enrich practice.

The Teacher Educator’s Handbook: A narrative approach to professional learning
By Elizabeth White and Miranda Timmermans