Teachers and trainers are dual-professionals – they are required to have up-to-date industry skills and also skills in teaching and learning. The issue of professional identity, and the promotion of maintaining and building pedagogic expertise in relation to their vocational work, is therefore an extremely important one. This book argues that quality teaching and learning is very much dependent upon teachers and trainers undergoing continuing professional development (CPD), engaging actively in professional learning activities, generating professional learning communities and building their level of professionalism to meet increasing teaching standards. Unfortunately, CPD is battling a context of intensification of work, pressure of time and economic restrictions. The completion of CPD under such conditions can often become tokenistic and hitherto there has been very little research or evidence base for determining what approaches to CPD are most effective and efficient.
Challenging Professional Learning draws on a wealth of recent research and evidence on what ingredients are necessary for effective and efficient (crucial at a time of such fiscal constraints) professional learning. It also explores the wider implications of these findings and the concept of learning as a collective activity. It argues that real professionalism cannot be achieved in isolation but instead takes place in a context that has political, social and cultural influences.
The book brings together research from the Institute for Learning and practice around professional learning to link both individual and collective professional learning to organisational learning, leadership and the management of change whilst offering practical suggestions for improving these practices. It will be of great interest to teacher educators and their students at undergraduate and post-graduate levels, as well as anyone who works in higher education and with professional development.
1. What sort of Professionalism? Sue Crowley 2. Professional Identity. Trading Places: on becoming an FE professional Denis Gleeson 3. Professional Bodies and Continuing Professional Development: A Case Study Andy Boon and Toni Fazaeli 4. A professional view of professional learning: The trouble with CPD Jean Kelly and Sue Colquhoun 5. Evaluating the Impact of Professional Learning Vivienne Porritt 6. Leading and Learning in Challenging Circumstances Fiona Mackay and Paul Wakeling 7. Professional Learning and Vocational Pedagogy Sue Crowley Conclusion Maintaining the Challenge and the Learning Sue Crowley
Biography
Sue Crowley has worked within the FE and skills sector as a teacher, manager and leader for over 40 years; she was a founder member of the Institute for Learning and is its current, elected chair.
"The fact that the book is short and clearly set out means that....those who engage in and commission CPD in FE and as such could help make professional development more relevant and effective." ― David Everett, Education in Chemistry
