Association of Teacher Educators of Europe

2010

Leading Master’s Level Professional

Development Ada Adeghe

Introduction Exploration of a range of conceptualisations and

theoretical insights into leadership, including their relevance to leading Master’s level learning.

Models of educational leadership that are effective in supporting the kind of professional learning that promotes higher order thinking, interpersonal, analytical and organisational skills.

The extent to which local authority advisers who lead master’s level professional learning are engaged with leadership practices and behaviours that enable teachers to be critically reflective, inspirational, innovative, operate at a more strategic level and to take risks in the context of their schools.

Introduction ‘Leadership needs to be reformulated to

make it logically consistent with the learning process.’ – West Burnham (2000, p 72).

Intellectualism Artistry Spirituality Moral confidence Subsidiarity Emotional intelligence

 All six elements are interdependent and contribute to a holistic view of the nature of leadership.

Re-engineering mindsets 

Key research questions

What are the key features of Master’s level professional learning?

In what ways do LA advisers’ knowledge and understanding of Masters’ level work enable school teachers to be critically reflective, innovative and strategic?

How can local authority advisers be best supported to lead Master’s level professional development for school teachers?

Methodology

Collaborative inquiry practices consisting of stages of reflection and action (Bray et al, 2000).

Roots in Human Inquiry (Reason & Bradbury 2007) covering a broad spectrum of participative research practices.

Eclectic approach to inquiry, avoiding a manipulative or elitist approach to the research process (Heron and Reason, 2001; Reason and Bradbury, 2007).

Located in interpretivism - characterised by a concern for the individual. The central purpose is to understand the subjective world of human experience (Cohen et al, 2007; Silverman, 2005).

Data collection methods

Interviews with 3 LA advisers: centrality of human interaction for knowledge production, emphasising the social situatedness of research data. (Cohen et al, 2007).

1 Focus group (8 participants) with Master’s level students: participants’ agenda can predominate via interaction of group.

Methodological triangulation including face validity re: Focus groups (Kreuger, 2000)

Ethics

Research is a human activity, therefore, a moral activity.

Risk/benefit analysis for all participants considered.

Informed consent and confidentiality assured.

Power relationships considered.

Key features of Masters level work: Innovative Theory/practice links Creative Original Critical Reflective

Initial Findings

Leadership behaviours Supportive Open to challenge and new ideas Respectful Daring Extra confident Utilise expertise of group

Initial Findings

Support needs: Confidence in teaching Masters level work, specifically

academic and critical reading/ writing Confidence in using literature Inflexible administrative systems Inappropriate assessment tasks and strategies

Closer alignment between research questions and collected data

Initial Findings

Complexity of capturing what precisely Master’s level means in practice.

Need for school teachers to enhance their professional practice through becoming critical readers and self-critical writers.

Power relationships still needs further consideration.

Sample will need to be extended to fully answer research questions.

Conclusion

References Bray, J. Lee, J and Smith, L.(2000) Collaborative Inquiry in Practice:

Action, Reflection and making Meaning: New York: Sage. Cohen, L.; Manion, L and Morrison, K. (2007) Research methods in

Education. London: Routledge. Denzin, N. and Lincoln, Y. (eds.) (2000) Handbook of Qualitative

Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Heron, J. & Reason, P. (2001) ‘The Practice of Co-operative Inquiry:

Research ‘with’ rather than ‘on’ people.’ In Handbook of Action Research. London: Sage.

Reason, P & Bradbury, H. eds.(2007) The SAGE Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice. London: Sage.

West-Burnham, J. (2000) ‘Leadership for learning: re-engineering ‘mind-sets’ in Moon, B.; Butcher, J. and Bird, E. (eds.) Leading Professional Development in Education. London: OUP.