Teacher Agency in Professional Learning ( EDPD713)
Focus and purpose of the module
a. The module aims to introduce students to the critical concept of teacher professional learning and allow students to reflectively examine teacher agency in professional learning.
b. The module aims to introduce students to creative and participatory approaches to exploring and facilitating teacher professional learning.
c. The module aims to support some foundational academic writing elements, including taking a process approach to writing, analysing assignment instructions, planning and structuring paragraphs, writing introductions and conclusions, and using the prescribed referencing style for essential in-text citations and references.
Some key questions we will consider in this module are:
Ø What is teacher professional learning?
Ø What is teacher agency?
Ø How does teacher agency in professional learning happen?
Ø Why does teacher agency in professional learning matter?
What is teacher professional learning?
The word development …. evokes images of what someone does to someone else: develop them. In education, professional development has, in fact, often been what someone does to others. The back-to-school speaker holds forth in order to motivate the teaching staff for the coming year. The specialist arrives from the capital to increase teachers’ knowledge of state standards. The university professor advances the careers of educators through courses that offer credits to move them up on the salary scale.
Such development activities as these (and even some training activities) are neither bad nor wrong. In some cases they are vital to professional and organizational growth. But they are not sufficient. If all educators needed to do was develop (i.e., grow, expand, advance, progress, mature, enlarge, or improve), perhaps development would be enough. But educators often find that more and better are not enough. They find they often need to change what they do, on a daily or sometimes hourly basis, as they respond to the needs of the learners they serve. Doing this takes learning.
….
It is clearer today than ever that educators need to learn, and that’s why professional learning has replaced professional development. Developing is not enough. Educators must be knowledgeable and wise. They must know enough in order to change. They must change in order to get different results. They must become learners, and they must be self-developing. (Easton, 2008, pp. 755-756)
Easton, L. B. (2008). From professional development to professional learning. Phi Delta Kappan, 89(10), 755-761. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172170808901014
What is teacher agency?
In the context of professional learning, teacher agency is the capacity of teachers to act purposefully and constructively to direct their professional growth and contribute to the growth of their colleagues. Rather than responding passively to learning opportunities, teachers who have agency are aware of their part in their professional growth and make learning choices to achieve their goals. (Calvert, 2016, p. 52)
Calvert, L. (2016). The power of teacher agency. The Learning Professional, 37(2), 51-56.
Key concepts that we will explore will include:
Ø teacher professional learning
Ø teacher agency
Ø memory-work
Ø social networking
Ø professional learning networks
- Teacher: Free-Queen Bongiwe Zulu
