Reciprocal learning scenarios in the teaching profession

Aim of the Symposium

• Present the work of the 2AgePro project • Discuss about the current challenges of

reciprocal collaboration of teachers• Discuss about European level co-

operation in the area of intergenerational reciprocal learning in teacher profession

Background • At present ⅓of all European teachers are over

50 years old• At same time significant number of novice

teachers leave their profession during their first working years

• By 2015 over million new teachers is needed to the primary and secondary education

• Question is: – How we support novice teachers in their career – How we encourage experienced teachers to share

their expertise and to continue their professional development

Discussion I

• Do you recognize the same challenges in teaching profession in your country?

• Are there any initiatives to respond to challenges?

2AgePro project• Aim of the project is to create reciprocal collaboration

models between novice and experienced teachers in primary and secondary education

• Activities of the project • Description of the present state

– How teachers have been supported in their professions in partner countries and European and USA level

– How ICT have been used in teacher collaboration

• Developing national scenarios– Each partner developed at least one scenario together with teachers, rectors

and educational departments

• Piloting– Piloting based on the developed scenarios

• Further development – Guide on reciprocal collaboration between teachers– Recommendations for the policy makers– Continuing education course on reciprocal collaboration

2AgePro project

• Consortium– University of Oulu, Learning and Research Services,

Finland, (coordinator)– Utrecht University, IVLOS Institute, the Netherlands– Ludwig-Maximillians University, Faculty of

Psychology and Education, Germany– Umeå University, Department of Education, Sweden– Charles University, Faculty of Education, Czech

Republic• Funding: LLP Grundvig • Time scale: 11/2008 – 10/2010 • Web site: www.2agepro.eu

Presentation of 2agePro national pilots

• Dutch• German• Czech• Swedish• Finnish

Reciprocal learning in the Netherlands:

Together is more!

Frits Achterberg & Els HaakIVLOS, Utrecht University, the Netherlands

Initial plan for the Dutch pilot

1. Individual intake conversations with participants2. Starting meeting for junior & senior teachers 3. Training for group of junior teachers 4. Training for group of senior teachers 5. WORKING IN COUPLES OF 2 TEACHERS 6. Individual assignments & feedback of trainers

Numbers of Dutch pilot

• 6 pairs, 12 teachers• 2 primary schools, 3 secondary schools, 1

higher education• Teaching experience: 3 - 38 years• Age of teachers: 25 - 63 years old

Caracteristics pilot

• Couples of teachers: own choice & personally motivated• Different ages and experiences within couples• Basically open minds; acceptance of differences• Freedom of topic: each couple its own topic• New (Educational) Behavior as experiment• Responsibility delegated to couples• Specific program of reciprocal learning• No prior input of schooling or coaching• Investment in time, energy, creativity and trust

Results of pilot reciprocal learning

• Mutual trust & interdependance• Enhancing individual responsibility• Recognition of qualities and competences • Taking chances and risks; more courage• Enthusiasm, inspiration and passion for learning and for

working on a school• Acceptance and respect for different ages and experiences• Growth in knowledge, experience, ambition and self

confidence

Conclusions Dutch pilot

• Succesful collaboration depends on: fixed moments, small specific steps, mutual acceptance, support school

• Different ages need: equal time, balanced talk and the specific use of differences in experience

• Personal professional learning takes: time, motivation, support

• Learning couples form by their own choice• Seniors regain pleasure by reciprocal learning• Juniors mature quickly by reciprocal learning

Motives of teachersfor reciprocal learning

• Shared vision on education, innovation and practical solutions in classroom

• Shared ambitions• Organizing shared activities• Informal coöperation• Enhancing innovation, development and learning• Talking about and reflecting upon lessons

Problems in reciprocal learning

• Lack of facilities (time, money, materials, space)• Closed minds, resistance, jealousy, lack of vision, prejudices • Discontent• No engagement• Lack of courage• Fear of faults

Conditions for reciprocal learning

• Plan fixed moments for consultation• Small and specific steps • Acceptance of differences• Actual cooperation• Communication and transparency• Recruiting allies in school• Be open about irritations• Involvement

Conditions in forming couples

• Complementary in qualities• Respect for each others qualities: eager to learn• Trusting each other• “Sparkling” match• Inspiring each other

Conditions on school level

• Stimulation, appreciation and support head of school • Time & adjusting timetable• Recognition by environment• Goals, evaluation and adaptation• Exchange of ideas with colleagues• Acceptance mistakes

Reinforcing reciprocal learning by…

• Feedback • Mutual reflection on actions and questions• Cooperation, planning and timemanagement• Skills: ICT, communication, coaching • Focus on learning questions • Understanding each other• Dissemination of the many inspiring possibilities

German Scenario: Reciprocal Learning Model for

Intergenerational Collaboration in Germany

Anna-Maria Mekota, Kati Mäkitalo-Siegl, Joachim Kahlert & Frank Fischer

Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, Germany

What have we done?

We have: recruited schools held and analyzed pre-interviews held an introductory meeting with all teachers of each school monitored the meeting of the teachers analyzed the log diaries held and analyzed post-interviews

Who participated in the study?

4 novice teachers Mean age = 34 years Mean years of teaching practice = 1.5

6 experienced teachers Mean age = 58 years Mean years of teaching practice = 28

2 “middle“ teachers Mean age = 33 years Mean years of teaching practice = 9

What have the teachers done?

Collaboration was scaffolded by 6 different index cards Cards are core of our collaboration scripts for the sequencing of

activities (see Kollar et al., 2006) Topic/An index card

Pedagogy Parent-Teacher-Meeting Feedback Group Work Homework Assignment Demanding Students

Topics are inferred as important difficulties of novice and experienced teachers listed in the recent literature

Parent-Teacher-Meeting

General Guidelines

What conditions are necessary to have a successful parent-teacher meeting?Exchange your experiences with successful parent-teacher meetings.Please choose 2 to 5 of the below thought-provoking questions, and discuss them with your partner.Select one task to deeper work with this topic.

Thought-provoking Questions

1.For the preparation of the meeting. What do I want to achieve for the child?2.What kind of information do I present the parents?3.Do I confront parents with specific problematic situations with the child?4.With what kind of topics do I also invite the child?5.Parents are experts for their children. Teachers are also experts for the child in a school context. How can you combine this in the meeting? What are typical barriers that hinder a collaboration?

Tasks

Use role play to discuss „difficult parents“ and together try to find solutions to communication problems.Visit each other in meetings with „difficult parents“ and give each other constructive criticism.

Links About this Topic

http://www.schule-management.de/eltern/elterngespraeche/ein-schwieriges-elterngespraech-professionell-fuehren/http://eltern.bildung-rp.de/fileadmin/user_upload/eltern.bildung-rp.de/Leitfaden_LSEG.pdf

Log Diary

1) Name (Initials)

2) Date and time

3) Participating teachers

4) Which topic have you discussed?

5) Which tasks have you done, or have planned to do?

6) Have you used material (book, computer, internet)? If yes, how have you used this material?

7) Could you successfully discuss the topic at hand? If yes, what has helped you achieve the goal?

8) Which points were challenging?

9) What have you learned from you colleague?

10) What has your colleague learned from you?

11) What have you learned together?

12) What can you improve in the next meeting?

13) Is there anything else you wish to tell us?

The results

• Meetings Number of meetings: M = 2.8 In total M = 162 minutes/3 meetings (min. 70 minutes, max. 300

minutes)• Frequently (total of minutes over 160); three pairs• Middle (total of minutes 159-120); two pairs• Infrequently (total of minutes under 120); one pair

Minutes per a meeting: min. 15 minutes, max. 120 minutes

• Used of the index cards 14 times vs. 3 times own themes (one pair only their own themes)

Topics and performed tasks by the teachers• The most popular topics:

Parent-Teacher-Meeting (4 times) Demanding Students and Homework Assignment (3 times) Feedback (2 times), Pedagogy and Group Work (1 time)

• The tasks the teachers performed: visited each other’s class co-planned specific projects and field trips role played together observed the behavior of one specific student to find solutions to his/her

problems held together a parent-teacher-conference with an especially demanding class planned a concert together (two music teachers)

Novice teachers• Before the collaboration took place the novice teachers:• Expectations: profit from the “experience“ of the experienced partner:

“I lack experience. I am often too nice or not strict enough. It would be nice if I could

get feedback and if somebody tells me if I am on the right way or not. Also I could need

help in didactical issues. I can profit from experience (of the experienced teacher). It

would be nice if we could support each other.” (Novice teacher from intermediate

secondary school).

• What to offer: Novice teachers wish to offer theoretical knowledge from the university, closeness to the students and communication skills:

“I can give theoretical knowledge from the university.“ (Novice teacher from

intermediate secondary school).

• Results: seem to be interested in further developing their teacher competence they gained support and/or experience from their more experienced counterpart mostly sought advice in the form of practical and concrete issues, such as learning

to structure lessons, dealing with difficult students and exchange of actual material

Experienced teachers• Expectations of the experienced teachers:• wish to pass on their knowledge and experience to the younger teachers:

“I could give my experience as to survive in this system without loosing the enjoyment at work. I will soon retire, and I would like to pass on my experience. It would be sad if everything would be lost.“ (Experienced teacher from elementary school)

• would like to “get new ideas and knowledge“ from the younger colleagues. Specifically, the senior teachers stated that thex wish to enhance their ICT skills and receive “university knowledge” from the novice partner: “I can offer organizational skills and how to deal with difficult parents. I endlessly need to learn

ICT-skills. Also how to stucture my lessons better. I find it very refreshing to work with younger colleagues. It is fun. If we only had experienced teachers it would be boring and I would get bitter. Younger colleagues have a different way to deal with their students. They also have learned different things at the university. That is welcome.” (Experienced teacher from intermediate secondary school)

• Results: had opportunities to pass their knowledge and experiences to the novice teachers rather giving than receiving knowledge the novice teachers were bringing less their expertise into the group and therefore,

experienced teachers missed their opportunity to learn

Challenging Issues• Difficult for teachers to find time for study

In the future we should therefore keep in mind and stress the fact, that there is a need for the two parties to get together and that solving issues or problems at hand can save time in the long run.

• Motivation of the teachers The motivation in participating in 2AgePro should lie in the

intergenerational collaboration in itself and/or on teachers' intrinsic

motivation to be better in their teacher profession.

• Collaboration between generations Social and professional norms

To conclude The teachers were actively engaged in various

activities and lively employed in discussions about their issues at hand.

The teachers found this study useful for developing their teaching practice and their teacher competence and that they were successfully collaborating with their colleagues.

Collaboration script has been partly adapted to the practice after the pilot by some teachers.

A further positive aspect of using our collaboration script is that it can be introduced and implemented, without much help from an outside source. This is quite important when looking at further utilizing our cards in the future.

We have observed, that the benefit of our script is not constricted to one type of school, but can be generalized to the different school levels

• Thank you!

• Special thanks to Silvia Schulz for her assistance of collecting and analyzing the data.

• Mikko, thank you for presenting our pilot.

• Further information from Anna-Maria Mekota, email: anna-maria.mekota@psy.lmu.de

Czech Pilot

Miroslava Černochova & Miloš ProkýšekCharles University, Prague, Czech Republic

Czech pilot - basic information

• Gymnázium Karla Čapka, Dobříš• Moodle support• junior – senior teachers pairs (tradition

of mentor teachers for novice teachers in Czech schools)

• Key role of school management• Low motivation of teachers

Organization model

J S

Universityteam

School m.

ICT

Pilot plan

• 4 meetings – introductory, training, control, final

• Weekly activities– outcomes recorded in Moodle

• 1 Long-term task– Common project for further use in school

• 2 feedback questionnaires

Time table scenario conceptPreparation Registration

Periodical meeting time planCIK-CAK lesson-plan

M1 W1

Long-term tasks

Middle-term task

Admin.W2 S->J Edu.W3 J->S Edu.W4 Disc/Mng

M2 W5Middle-term

task

Admin.W6 S->J Edu.W7 J->S Edu.W8 Disc/Mng

M3 W9Middle-term

task

Admin.W10 S->J Edu.W11 J->S Edu.W12 Disc/Mng

M4 W13Middle-term

task

Admin.W14 S->J Edu.W15 J->S Edu.W16 Disc/Mng

Evaluation/End FinalizationEvaluation

MoodleShort term task outcomes

1) “Blog” of activities2) Documents and other outcomes

Feedback discussion

Feedback questioner

Pilot observation methods

• Analyses of outcomes• Online feedback discussion• Questionnaire• Interviews

Questionnaire

• How to measure level and direction of transfer?

Management Behavior Education Content Evaluation

Senior -> Junior 8 1

Junior -> Senior 1

The attendance of pupils was the main ‘theme’ of this week. The experienced teacher helped the novice teacher with this problem. Main activity was on

experienced teacher side.

Conclusions

• TEACHER MOTIVATION is the main problem– Money– Time– Professional development

• Key role of school management• Dominant position of senior teachers

Swedish Pilot

Kent LöfgrenUmeå University, Umeå, Sweden

Background

• Umeå municipality (northern Sweden)

• 110.000 inhabitants• Anchor project with regional school

authorities• Listen to the needs and wishes of the

teachers

Implementation• Early contact with regional school

authorities and early recruitment of teachers (before summer of 2009)

• One subject (physical education teachers)

• Grades 4-9 (10-15 year old pupils)• Pre-pilot individual interviews with

the teachers

Peer-group mentoring meetings

• 3 junior and 5 senior teachers from a total of 7 schools

• Pilot: November 2009 through April 2010

• Met six times (three hours each meeting)

• Mentoring and discussions; tasks

Lessons learned

• Important to inform/recruit early• Get the pilot sanctioned from the

regional school authorities• There will probably be drop-outs

Lessons learned (continued)

A great opportunity to share ideas and to discuss issues related to mentoring and coaching, where novice teachers learnt from the senior and vice versa.

Lessons learned (continued)

When asked to compare the Pilot with other, similar, initiatives for teachers in the region, the teachers (both novice and senior) replied that they had never before participated in something similar to the Swedish Pilot

Moving forward

• Adapt and adjust to local premises• Talk to regional school authorities;

involve the headmaster/-s• Listen to the needs and wishes of the

teachers

• Thank you!

Kent.Lofgren@pedag.umu.se

• 2AgePro; Swedish scenario

Finnish Pilot

Mikko Ojala, Esa Niemi, Pia Heikkinen & Antti PeltonenUniversity of Oulu, Learning and Research Services, Oulu, Finland

Common guidelines• Planning phase:

– Motivation to participate in collaboration – Importance of reciprocal collaboration– Impacts / effects of collaboration

• No pre-decided model for the implementation– Introduction of possible solutions for the

collaboration (pair-work, peer groups, traditional mentoring etc.)

– Experiences from the city of Oulu / peer-group mentoring of newly qualified teachers

• Common starting point for the collaboration– Peer-group mentoring widened with the idea of

intergenerational collaboration

Implementation of the Finnish Scenario

• Cities of Oulu and Raahe– 18 teachers– 17 schools

• Participation was voluntary • Agreed guidelines for the participation were set up by the

educational offices• Reciprocity: equal partners (novice – excperienced)• Reciprocal collaboration concentrates purely on professional

issues• The interaction is based on confidentiality, openness and

honesty.• All activities should be goal oriented and evaluated• Scope of the development: opening experience based

knowledge to the whole school, not only between participants of the programme.

Peer-Group Meetings• Peer-group meetings

– Group leader: responsible for practical arrangements, leading the discussions and contact person to the project staff

– Monthly meetings (3-5 in total) that lasted about two hours• Discussions were supported by narrative and action

methods, backgroung articles etc. • Themes of the discussions were decided by

participating teachers (in the first meeting)– Classroom management– Teaching styles– Teacher-parent communication– Workload and time-management– Pupils with special needs

Experiences• Good practices:

– Group leader is a must– Open group is a good forum to test one’s ideas and

find solutions for challenges– Different methods to ”break the ice” create a good

and trusting atmosphere– Agreement of rules

• Challenges:– Timetables– Commitment of the group members– Meeting place– Exploitation to the school community

Results and Conclusions

• Teachers need and really appreciate this kind of support

• In both cities educational departments are continuing same kind of activity also in this semester

• University´s support in launching, implementation and evaluation was appreciated by the group leaders and educational departments

Pre-work on practical issues helped the engagement of the participating teachers:

For example time and resources for the group leader was a key factor for the success of the pilots.

Discussion II

• What elements / which pilots could be implemented in your country?

• Are there some other ways of dealing with the issue of intergenerational reciprocal learning?

Findings and Recommendations

Creating the framework for intergenerational reciprocal collaboration

• There is no systematic European level continuum for the

intergenerational reciprocal collaboration for

• Teachers and schools who have a direct interest in an

intergenerational reciprocal collaboration should have

permanent opportunities to participate in such activities, in

one form or another, throughout their careers.

• Participation in intergenerational reciprocal collaboration,

when provided, should be provided with adequate resources.

• Participation should be awarded by credits and/or certification

Findings and Recommendations

Supporting the implementation of intergenerational

reciprocal collaboration

• Build expertise needed to implement the collaboration (to guide teachers

and schools through the collaboration)

• Require that headmasters support the participating teachers. Incentives

such as motivating and arranging teaching in a way that enables

participation ensure that participating teacher is engaged to the whole

process of collaboration

• Provide participating teachers with enough guidance through the

intergenerational teacher collaboration. The collaboration can be

supported for example by a team of experts or carefully designed

instructions

Findings and Recommendations

Evaluation, further development and dissemination

• Support further development, research and evaluation of the

intergenerational and reciprocal collaboration for example through the

help of local universities

• Ensure that experiences of the participating teachers are adequately

disseminated on the local, national and European levels

Discussion III

• What kind of European level collaboration is possible/ needed in intergenerational reciprocal learning in teaching profession?