Page 110 - The SpeakTeach method - Esther de Vrind

Chapter 5. Perspective of the teachers – professional development 5.2 Theoretical framework
Attuning to teachers’ goals
It is clear that teachers must support the goals of an innovation if they are to implement it into their teaching practice. According to Kennedy (2016a), teachers usually do support the goals of innovation but the problem is that they have to reconcile those goals with other goals arising from classroom ecology (Doyle, 2006; Janssen, Grossman & Westbroek, 2015). Classroom ecologies in which teachers work are complex demanding settings that shape their decision-making processes and actions. In order to enhance students’ learning, teachers have to realize different goals at the same time, such as teaching the curriculum content, enlisting student participation, exposing student thinking, containing student behaviour, accommodating personal needs, and managing time and resources (Doyle, 2006; Janssen et al., 2015; Kennedy, 2016b). Moreover, teachers have to react immediately to the different needs and have to make decisions very quickly in a classroom situation (Doyle, 2006). Research into human decision-making in complex situations where multiple goals need to be achieved and time and resources are limited has shown that it is not possible to determine and weigh all alternatives to attain the goals simultaneously, due to lack of knowledge, time and information capacity (Gigerenzer & Gaissmaier, 2011). For this reason, people do not strive to optimize one single goal, but they seek to improve the actual situation so that several goals can be attained to an adequate level (Pollock, 2006). Any new teaching practice needs therefore to be consistent with the other goals that teachers have to realize (e.g. Kennedy, 2016b; Janssen et al, 2013).
In conclusion, a professional development trajectory should not only do justice to the purpose of the innovation but should also fit in with the contextual and personal goals of the teachers.
Attuning to teachers’ current practice
Traditional forms of professional development aimed to improve teaching practice by providing new teaching proposals which were intended to change or replace the current teaching practices (Borko et al., 2010; Van Veen, Zwart & Meirink, 2012). In these approaches, the focus was not on current teaching practice, but on learning about the new teaching approach. Adoption of the new idea often meant abandonment of teachers’ prior teaching
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