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Files from the info zone
IfL Professional Formation Support Pack
Reflective Practice PowerPoint - Fully Detailed (thanks to Lorraine Simpson)
The Institute for Learning (IfL) describes itself as 'the professional body for teachers, trainers, tutors and student teachers in the learning and skills sector. By listening to and supporting the needs of our members, we continue to raise the status of teaching practitioners across the sector.
We celebrate the diverse nature of the sector, including: adult and community learning, emergency and public services, further education colleges, Ministry of Defence and armed services, the voluntary sector, offender education and work-based learning.
We are run
by a Council, over half of whom are elected from the membership.
Council directs the strategic policy of the Institute, which is managed
and implemented by staff.' At: http://www.ifl.ac.uk/
IfL - Promoting Professional Practice
The
Code of Professional Practice (PDF)
defines the professional behaviour which, in the public
interest, the Institute expects of its members throughout
their membership and professional career. In publishing the
Code, the Institute is able to maintain and promote its
standards of professional conduct, ensuring continued public
confidence. In retaining membership, members recognise their
ongoing obligations under the Code and agree to abide by and
be bound by it, and any other rules of membership.
The Code applies to all members of the
Institute and will be enforced to protect the interests of
learners and the wider public. The Code will be subject to
regular review to ensure that it remains relevant and
reflects advances in professional practice.
Professional Formation -
from the IflL
The Institute for Learning (IfL) has responsibility for the
registration and regulation of licensed practitioners
through awarding Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills
(QTLS) and Associate Teacher Learning and Skills (ATLS)
status.
Professional status recognises that an individual teacher
has gone beyond initial qualification, to draw together
their subject expertise with the skills and knowledge
acquired through teacher training and embedding these in
their day-to-day practice. Teachers with professional status
know that their learning continues after initial teacher
training ends. They commit to lifelong professional
development so that their skills remain up-to-date and
responsive to the changing needs of learners.
In aspiring to QTLS or ATLS status, a teacher makes a
statement about how they view their professionalism.
Who?
More at: http://www.ifl.ac.uk/cpd/qtls-atls
DUAL PROFESSIONALISM
Developing
Professionalism and Professional Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes in the Post
Compulsory Sector is an interesting and more complex subject than in other
educational contexts e.g. Schools. To understand the concept of 'dual
professionalism' should help you to understand some of the challenges and
issues your mentees are facing, and help you develop your own professional
identity as a mentor.
As
Jocelyn Robson (1998) identifies:
“ In
moving from one occupational area (in industry or commerce) to another
(education & training) most teachers retain strong allegiances to their
first occupational identity… this identity is what gives them
credibility (as well as knowledge & skill) … the technical teacher
(initially) appears to see him or herself as chiefly the secretary,
welder, fashion designer or surveyor… In making the transition from one
workplace to another the mature but novice teacher can experience stress
of various kinds, more is involved than the simple acquisition of new
skills & knowledge (in education). …existing cultural practices &
discourses may be inappropriate to the new (education) professional
context…the key to the culture … (is) the success of the fist
occupational socialisation process combined with … opportunity &
incentive to develop another identity that of the professional teacher.”
In this model of professionalism, teachers who are
already professionals in their specialist area (e.g. Accountancy, IT,
Engineering, Nursing) are being supported to develop the dual
professionalism of combining that with teaching expertise. Mentoring from a
teaching/ training professional within the same or similar area can help
this transition in a variety of ways. The subject mentor who has already
made this successful transition from subject or occupational professional to
educational & subject/ occupational professional is a crucial figure in
supporting the trainee to make the necessary links between the two to blend
them for the benefit of their students.
Robson, J.
(1998) A Profession in Crisis:status, culture and identity in the further
education college. Journal of Vocational Education and Training. 50.4
pp585-607 Download
(pdf 60k)
OTHER ITEMS
Bathmaker, Ann-Marie and Avis, James (2005) 'Becoming a
lecturer in further education in England: the construction of
professional identity and the role of communities of practice',Journal of Education for Teaching,31:1,47 - 62
Further education colleges in England offer a wide range of post-school
education and training provision. Recently they have undergone major
transformations that have resulted in considerable changes to the work
of those teaching in them. In this paper we examine how cultures of
learning and teaching in colleges are affected and how the nature of
professional identity has changed. The paper considers the formation of
professional identity amongst a group of trainee lecturers completing a
one-year full-time teacher-training course at a university in the
English Midlands. Lave and Wenger's work on apprenticeship to
communities of practice is used to examine the effect of trainees'
teaching placement on the development of professional identity. Rather
than identifying effective processes of increasing participation in
existing communities of practice, a strong sense of marginalisation and
alienation amongst trainees was observed. The paper argues that this is
detrimental both to trainees and experienced lecturers if they are to
actively engage in building new forms of professionalism for the
future. Download (pdf 150k)
Davies, Lee (2008) Towards a new professionalism in the further education sector
With closer cooperation between schools and FE colleges in 14-19
education on the horizon, Lee Davies provides an overview of recent
changes to CPD for teachers in further education
http://www.teachingexpertise.com/articles/towards-a-new-professionalism-in-the-further-education-sector-1395
Edward, Sheila; Coffield, Frank; Steer, Richard; Gregson, Maggie (2005). Coping with endless change: the impact on teaching staff in the learning and skills sector
Research funded by the ESRC Teaching and Learning Research Programme.
This paper explores the range of reactions to policy changes within the
post-16 sector from tutors and managers in our 24 learning sites, in
colleges, adult community education and workplaces. The analysis takes
account of the diversity within the group: managers and practitioners;
college-based and community-based staff; new entrants to the profession
and those with decades of experience; subject or vocational tutors and
those trained primarily to improve literacy and numeracy. The last
three to four years have seen rapid growth in college, community and
work-based provision, accompanied by changes in funding arrangements,
new targets and increased accountability requirements. In adult basic
skills education, for example, the drive to meet targets and to
maximise numbers taking national literacy and numeracy tests has
brought in many new staff, while experienced staff find that their jobs
have changed considerably. Whereas some staff are enthusiastic about
new areas of activity, others have raised concerns about the needs of
their traditional client groups. Managers are highly aware of the need
to meet targets, but tutors vary, not only in levels of awareness of
targets, but also in responses to them and in willingness to allow them
to drive their classroom practice. The paper raises wider questions
about the management of change and about the capacity of professionals
to embrace, absorb, comply with, resist and, occasionally, subvert
imposed change (author abstract)
You can choose to see | The document in HTML form | The document in Microsoft Word for Windows form |
Elliott, G. (1996) Teaching in post-compulsory education: profession, occupation or reflective practice?
This paper argues that a new conceptualisation of teaching in
post-compulsory education is required. Taking into account the radical
ideology-driven change experienced in the sector in recent times, it is
suggested that there are difficulties with traditional and reworked
models of the lecturer as a 'professional', chief amongst which is that
lecturers do not seem to think of themselves in this way. It is
suggested that any alternative conceptualisation must (i) take into
account lecturers' own conception of their working practices, (ii)
reflect the range of these practices, and (iii) reflect the
epistemological and ethical basis of teaching, in particular,
lecturers' sense of the value and worth of what they do. Such a model
may contribute to our understanding of the nature and extent of the
policy crisis in the sector, since it potentially conflicts with both
the radical conceptualisation of knowledge and understanding which
underpins the NCVQ vocational qualifications framework, and assumptions
underlying current managerialist practices.
You can choose to see | The document in HTML form | The document in Microsoft Word for Windows form |