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Teachers

who love teaching,

teach children

to love learning

Coaching and

peer-collaboration

as a means for

improving teaching:

action research

in an international school

in Serbia

Thesis submitted for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

at the University of Leicester

by Svetlana Belic Malinic

School of Education

University of Leicester

August 2019

Coaching and peer-collaboration as a means for improving teaching:

an action research in an international school in Serbia i

Svetlana Belic Malinic


action research in an international school in Serbia

by Svetlana Belic Malinic

ABSTRACT

My research interest emerges from my observation that teachers in the international school

in Serbia, where I worked during the research, seemed to be alienated in their classrooms

and resistant to change agents. I, therefore, wanted to find out how coaching and peer-

collaboration might affect teachers’ beliefs about their classroom practice, values they

cherish about teaching, new knowledge constructed through collaboration and emerging

attitudes towards reinvented pedagogies.

Having applied a mixed method approach, I gathered two sets of comparable data:

quantitative data, collected through the Questionnaire of Teacher Interaction (QTI), and

qualitative data, generated from the coaching sessions. Once interpreted using thematic

analysis, these sets produced teachers’ profiles as well as three themes: (1) resistance to

change and reconciliation, (2) reflection about teaching, and (3) collaborative teaching through

peer-collaboration. The findings showed how coaching and peer-collaboration situate in the

context depending on the teachers’ career age, their openness to reculturing and

preparedness to adapt to international education requirements. Finally, this study illuminates

how the changes, which coaching and peer-collaboration bring about, take distinctive yet

interdependent forms: (1) changes in the self, related to the innermost processes of the

teachers, their personality traits and core values; (2) changes in the classroom, that is in the

pedagogical practice and instructional designs with the students; (3) changes in

communication within a school, not only with the students and other teachers, but also with

the parents; (4) change in professional lives, which concern teachers’ understanding of their

immediate context, collaborative culture and learning community.

This research resulted in a process of reculturing of the school as an institution (Fullan, 1999),

which allowed the teachers to voice their most pressing concerns, examine prior knowledge

in the light of new understandings and construct new knowledge through processes of

reflection, dialogue and enquiry (McCormack et al., 2006).


an action research in an international school in Serbia ii


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I was teaching in a primary school when I was doing my doctoral thesis and my daughter was

in ‘my’ class. She was fully aware of my sleepless nights and tight deadlines but had always

embraced my workload readily: she studied with me and drew wonderful pictures in my study

books and notes to make learning easier.

Once, I went to the UK for a week for my Advance Post-graduate (APG) process, but she had

somehow understood that I went there to become ‘a doctor’ and proudly shared the news with

every student in the class. When I returned, I had the greatest welcoming party ever, with all

the students congratulating me on becoming ‘a doctor’. Yet, one little boy was standing on his

own, his eyes brimming with tears. I approached him and softly asked what was going on.

- You…you… you are a doctor now… You are not a teacher anymore?

- Nooo… I AM a teacher, but I will be a doctor…a doctor teacher.

- What does it mean?

Well, he caught me unprepared there. How to explain to a child what this means? Luckily, I

had a communication specialist – my daughter, who decided to explain it in her own words.

- It means that if there is something you don’t know, she can fix that! As simple as that!

So, here I am… fixing what students don’t know! And some teachers, too. As simple as that!

Studying for my doctorate was a wonderful journey because I had a true companion,

Professor Hilary Burgess, who I would like to thank for having the patience and the time to

guide me through. She has shown an amazing ability to strike the right balance between

providing supportive guidance and allowing me the necessary autonomy to pursue my own

research interests. It was a privilege to work with and learn from a mentor of such wisdom.

My special thanks also go to all my colleagues and students who ventured this study with me.

They have made an enormous impact on my professional development and helped me grow

not only as a head teacher but also as an educational researcher. I know that embracing

changes was not easy, but it was worth it for all of us!


an action research in an international school in Serbia iii


Last but not least, I owe this thesis to my family: my husband, Mladen, who has unselfishly shared

and endured my learning, sweat and tears, and my daughter Teodora, who let me be a ‘studying

mum’ while she was growing. She left wonderful reminders of her support in my study notes, like

the one below. I would have never made it without their immeasurable love and understanding.

Family portrait: Mummy and Daddy and I Malinic (Author: Teodora Malinic, age 6)


an action research in an international school in Serbia iv


DECLARATION

I declare that this thesis is a product of my own work, which has not, whether in the same or

a different form, been presented to this or any other university in support of an application

for any degree other than that of which I am now a candidate.


an action research in an international school in Serbia v


TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 | Introduction 1

International education: context for exploration 4

Cambridge International Education 8

Cambridge International Schools 10

Structure of the thesis 11

Reciprocal coaching model 14

Summary 15

2 | Literature review 16

Teachers’ preparedness to teach in international settings 16

School-level factors for teachers’ professional development 26

Teachers’ attitude to change 30

Collaboration, collegiality and coaching 35

The Bell Model of Reciprocal Peer Coaching 40

Summary 47

3 | Theoretical background 49

Ontological perspective 51

Epistemological perspective 52

Constructivism in the classroom 53

Summary 57

4 | Methodological issues 59

Action research 60

4 | 1 | 1 Action research limitations and assumptions 66

4 | 1 | 2 Reflection and action research 67

Ethical issues and power relations 69

Research spoiler 73

Pilot study 75

4 | 4 | 1 Pilot Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction 76

4 | 4 | 2 Pilot coaching conferences 78

4 | 4 | 3 Pilot findings 80

Summary 81


an action research in an international school in Serbia vii


8 | 2 | 1 Coaching and peer-collaboration vs career age 186

8 | 2 | 2 Coaching and peer-collaboration vs reculturing 192

8 | 2 | 3 Coaching and peer-collaboration vs international education 194

My epiphany 197

Generalisability of the study 199

Cambridge Professional Development Qualifications 200

Evaluation of the Bell Model of Reciprocal Peer Coaching 202

8 | 6 | 1 Shared yet personal 203

8 | 6 | 2 Collaborative yet individual 204

8 | 6 | 3 Structured yet flexible 205

8 | 6 | 4 Transferrable yet authentic 206

QTI and coaching: a metacognitive instrument for a constructivist classroom 207

Summary 211

9 | Appendices 213

Appendix 1: Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI) (Wubbels & Brekelmans, 2005) 213

Appendix 2: Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI) adapted for children

(Goh and Fraser, 1997), adjusted Likert scale 214

Appendix 3: The model for Interpersonal Teacher Behaviour (Source: Wubbels &

Brekelmans, 2005:9) 215

Appendix 4: QTI results before and after the coaching sessions 216

Appendix 5: Coaching sessions and coaching pairs 224

Appendix 6: An example of coding 225

Appendix 7: Global Teacher of the Year announcements 226

10 |References 228


an action research in an international school in Serbia viii


TABLE OF TABLES

Table 1: Bell teachers’ coaching schedule 42

Table 2: Pre-conference interviewing schedule (Source: Costa & Garmston, 1994:21) 43

Table 3: Post-conference interviewing schedule (Source: Costa & Garmston, 1994:22) 44

Table 4: QTI abbreviations and scales 46

Table 5: Phases of action research in this study 64

Table 6: Primary codes and themes 106

Table 7: Devised codes and themes 107

Table 8: Student and Teacher versions of QTI items 111

Table 9: The overall Cronbach’s Alpha 174

Table 10: Cronbach’s Alpha for the students’ responses before and after the coaching

sessions 174

Table 11: Cronbach’s Alpha of the eight QTI scales 175

Table 12: Descriptives and standard deviation for each QTI scale 175

Table 13: Comparing Teachers’ QTI responses with their students’ QTI responses

before and after the coaching sessions 216


an action research in an international school in Serbia ix


TABLE OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Cambridge International Education Path (Source:

https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/programmes-and-qualifications/) 8

Figure 2: Cambridge International School accreditation plaque (Source: Google images) 10

Figure 3: Teaching Stripe to whistle (Source: Bellows, 2013: January blog) 14

Figure 4: Students of the International School of Belgrade in late 1950s

(Source: https://www.isb.rs/site/page/about-isb/history/18) 18

Figure 5: A model of teacher change (Source: Guskey, 2002:383) 31

Figure 6: Argyris' Double Loop Learning diagram (Adapted from Barrett & Richter, 2010) 32

Figure 7: Fisher's Personal Transition Curve

(Source: www.businessballs.com/freepdfmaterials/fisher-transition-curve-

2012bb.pdf) 34

Figure 8: Core concepts of the Framework for Mentoring and Coaching

(Source: CUREE, 2005:5) 37

Figure 9: Four levels of coaching practice development 38

Figure 10: The Multilayered Peer Coaching Model (Source: Meng & Tajaroensuk, 2013:20) 39

Figure 11: Coaching pairs diagram 40

Figure 12: Coaching pairs spinner for Teacher 2 and Teacher 3 41

Figure 13: The model for Interpersonal Teacher Behaviour

(Source: Wubbels & Brekelmans, 2005:9) 45

Figure 14: SECI Model of knowledge creation (Adapted from Nonaka, 1994) 50

Figure 15: Vygotsky's zone of proximal development

(Adapted from http://www.education.vic.gov.au) 54

Figure 16: Action research (Adapted from NSW Department of Education and

Training, 2009:6) 60

Figure 17: Action research cycle (Source: Stringer et al., 2009:8) 62

Figure 18: Action research spiral (Source: Del Buono, 2013:29 Sep) 63

Figure 19: Qualitative and quantitative data analyses (Adapted from Guest et al., 2011:6) 99

Figure 20: The onion: a model of levels of change (Adapted from Korthagen, 2009:197) 123

Figure 21: Profiles of teacher interpersonal behaviour (Brekelmans et al., 1993) 158

Figure 22: Levels of teacher change 181


an action research in an international school in Serbia x


TABLE OF CHARTS

Chart 1: International schools by curriculum adoption (Adapted from: ISC Research, 2018) 23

Chart 2: Top 10 countries for international schools (Adapted from: ISC Research, 2018) 24

Chart 3: Comparing Teacher 2’s responses before and after coaching sessions 46

Chart 4: Comparing Teacher A’s responses with her students’ responses before and after

the pilot study 77

Chart 5: Comparing Teacher B’s responses with her students’ responses before and after

the pilot study 77

Chart 6: Coding process Adapted from Boyatzis (1998) 103

Chart 7: QTI results for Teacher Ideal (Adapted from Wubbels & Levy, 1993) 112

Chart 8: ALACT model 137

Chart 9: Supervisor interventions related to the ALACT model

(Adapted from Korthagen et al., 2001) 139

Chart 10: Comparing Teacher 1’s responses with her students’ responses before and after

the coaching conferences 160















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an action research in an international school in Serbia xi


ABBREVIATIONS

QTI Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction

DSI Designated Subgroup(s) of Interest

ZPD Zone of Proximal Development

PDQ Professional Development Qualifications

PD Professional Development

CPD Continuous Professional Development

PPA Planning, Preparation and Assessment

1 | Introduction

___________________________________________________________________________

What inspired me to think of this research was a compelling quote from Feiman-Nemser and

Buchmann’s (1985) study on teacher culture, where they argue for the value of coaching and

mentoring practice in the teacher community:

“If schools became places where teachers studied their own practice together

and were rewarded for doing so, future teachers would be inducted into a

professional community where collegiality and experimentation were norms. In

such a setting observation and conversation among persons at different career

stages would expand the alternatives available to the novice and dramatize the

limits of personal and local experience. Future teachers would get the message

that learning from teaching was part of the job of teaching.”

Feiman-Nemser & Buchmann (1985:64)

My research interest emerges from my observation that the teachers in the international

school in Serbia, where I worked while I was doing my research, seemed to be alienated in

their classrooms and resistant to the change agents, meant to help them review, renew and

extend their commitment in order to “acquire and develop critically the knowledge, skills and

emotional intelligence essential to good professional thinking, planning and practice” (Day,

1999). In order to improve their pedagogies, teachers need to understand their practice and

“[How to] develop a balance between being a colleague, school leader, friend, and researcher[?]”

Ravitch & Wirth (2007:78)


an action research in an international school in Serbia 2


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engage in conversation with peers, examining and affirming their system of beliefs through

reflective analysis of teaching practices (McCormack et al., 2006). In such a setting, teachers

can challenge professional learning through either written or verbal narrative with their

peers, which allows them to voice their most pressing concerns, examine prior knowledge in

the light of new understandings and construct new knowledge through the processes of

reflection, dialogue and enquiry (ibid.).

I therefore want to find out, by conducting action research, how coaching and peer-

collaboration might affect teachers’ beliefs about their classroom practice, values they

cherish about teaching, new knowledge constructed through collaboration and emerging

attitudes towards reinvented pedagogies. Hence, the research questions in this study are:

What are the changes that coaching and peer-collaboration might bring about in

teachers’ skills and classroom practice?

- How does it affect teachers’ attitudes, values, knowledge and beliefs?

- How have their perceptions of teaching changed?

This research is different from other research on coaching and mentoring in that it explores

teachers who come from diverse educational, social and cultural backgrounds, given the

international context of the school. This is why their authentic pedagogies resonate

differently although they are oriented towards the same learning results. Learning to teach

does occur in multiple stages of a teacher’s career (Evans, 2009; Feiman-Nemser, 2012), but

my assumption was that lack of training opportunities instructed in English in Serbia hindered

teachers’ professional development, leaving them behind in terms of being able to employ

innovative teaching practices. So, central for this research is not the quality of the training

opportunities to which teachers have access, as Opfer and Pedder (2010) argue, but the fact

that the UK professional development courses, needless to say, are geographically out of

reach, while the local ones are inaccessible given the language barrier. On the other hand,

Cambridge International Education provides online and face-to-face training courses, but

they are targeted at the subject teachers who are new to the programme (e.g. Cambridge

Primary English – Introductory Training) or who need more information about the syllabus-

specific component (e.g. Cambridge IGCSE Global Perspectives – Extension Training). These

training courses are expensive for a small school with a rather frequent turnover of part-time




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teachers and even more expensive for the teachers to pay themselves. Moreover,

experienced teachers need professional development which would respond to their specific

training needs, that is programmes which would include includes ongoing modelling,

practice, feedback and reflection over time (Joyce and Showers, 2002).

As the Academic Head of School, I was in position to guide, encourage and support teachers

towards achieving excellence in teaching, which was, admittedly, a time-consuming

endeavour as the teachers were not used to being advised on pedagogical matters. I had

assumed this duty a year before I started my thesis, which gave me a field advantage to

identify the weaknesses of the system. I believed that the school needed intervention which

I could carry out, having previously done action research, qualitative and quantitative studies

and classroom explorations that improved my own pedagogical instruction. These scientific

efforts were also a partial requirement for my master’s degree in Educational and Social

Research, at the UCL’s Institute of Education. At the time when I was considering what to

research for my doctoral thesis, I had already been in international education for more than

15 years, teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) to the local and international students,

but I was also an acclaimed teacher trainer in Serbia with a vast experience in helping other

EFL teachers acquire new knowledge and skills through innovative strategies within the

paradigm of creative teaching. My authentic background, which brought together

international education, research skills and teacher training, inspired me to think of a

professional development programme which would be sustainable and effective for school

improvements and potentially get replicated elsewhere.

When I decided to investigate the relationships in the workplace, little did I know about the

ethical dilemma which would stretch over my role in this research. It is ethically challenging

to conduct research as an insider, since the nature of the data can be very personal and

ethical decisions might be affected by the inter-collegial relations. Therefore, I admit that my

greatest challenge, and one that confronts many insiders, was to develop “a balance

between being a colleague, school leader, friend, and researcher” (Ravitch & Wirth, 2007:28).

I assumed that doing action research in the setting with which I was familiar, might hinder

my ability to deliberately pause and view these constructs from an open perspective. On the

other hand, this could be viewed as an advantage which could help me ensure a more

accurate and relevant understanding of a situation, more likely to produce effective, relevant




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action which would facilitate the occurrence of a more desired and effective outcome

(Bright, 1996).

Doing research in an international school in Serbia, where the educational market features

only three international schools, raises certain ethical issues. In the first place, it is ethically

debateable whether to provide detailed description of the school as a research context or

not, as it would be obvious which school it is without too much deliberation. It is for this

reason that I decided to use an alias for the school and call it ‘Bell International School’ (‘Bell’

for short) instead of its full name. Moreover, the teachers who participated in the research

are also given aliases to protect their identities, which had been also negotiated with the

school governors and the teachers before the research took place.

For the audience to better understand the circumstances in which this research takes place,

I present the concepts on an international education and what constitutes international

schools as a wider research context.

International education: context for exploration

Having emerged out of necessity to provide academic life to the students living in non-English

speaking countries, an international education has become a social phenomenon among the

economically empowered families, which offered international-mindedness, intercultural

competence and the trade-off between intellectual and financial investment. Unlike the

humble post-war beginnings in a few metropoles like Geneva, New York or Paris, where the

international education bloomed to cater for the needs of the UN civil servants who gathered

from all over the world (Hayden et al., 2000; Hayden et al., 2007; Hayden & Thompson, 2013a;

Hill, 2006), international education today has become a profitable business for the school

owners, who promote international education as a ticket to the prestigious universities in the

English-speaking countries. International education is therefore not only a tool for academic

progression but also a factor in student mobility, labour force policies and immigration

strategies, which characterise the globalisation processes of today.

Since international education is mediated in English, when considering relocation as a factor

in opting for an international education as an academic path, three scenarios can be drawn:




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(1) families relocating from the English-speaking countries to the non-English-speaking

countries, (2) families relocating from the non-English-speaking countries to the English-

speaking countries, and (3) families relocating from the non-English-speaking countries to the

non-English-speaking countries.

In the first scenario, when families from the English-speaking countries relocate to the non-

English-speaking countries, the students can easily respond to the academic requests as they

have the language skills to acquire new knowledge in their mother tongue. In such instances,

an international framework seamlessly builds on their previous education, technical

vocabulary and school routines. The teachers and most of the other students speak ‘their’

language i.e. English, which makes their social adaptation smooth and fast. The parents might

also play a role in the school operations, assist in the organisation of events, strongly support

the PTA and sometimes even teach ad hoc.

The second scenario challenges the students and their parents as they arrive to the English-

speaking from the countries where English is not their mother tongue or official language.

They might be struggling to blend in as they lack the language skills to fully understand the

curriculum and live up to the academic standards, which might be very stressful for the whole

family. Sometimes, parents struggle with English as well, which keeps them rather

withdrawn from the school activities. This is the very reason why a growing number of foreign

students attend international schools in the UK or USA instead of the local state schools as

their parents believe that such surroundings softens the context in which they have to adapt

with as little stress as possible, having changed their learning environment and the language

of instruction. When they come to a place which is more receptive to the cultural, religious

or linguistic barriers, where they can hear different languages or even theirs, the students

feel better about their adaptation, assimilation and immersion into a new country. In other

words, international education provides a wider social context for students to embrace new

habits of mind and blend with the new culture.

When families relocate from non-English-speaking countries to the non-English-speaking

countries, which is the third scenario, the students and their families are exposed to the

greatest adaptations to the international context. For such families, who usually relocate for

diplomatic or business assignments, an international education might be the only option




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because of the language barrier. The students might be struggling with the English language,

which could lead to their academic under-performance, or they might also feel abandoned

and asocial because of the lack of communication. On the other end of the spectrum, such

students might be ‘Global Nomads’ (Dillon and Ali, 2019:81), who change their schools as their

parents change post stations, and have acquired the skills to easily adapt, make new

friendships and assimilate with the student community. Pollock and Van Reken call such

students ‘Third Culture Kids’ (TCK) and point to the extraordinary ethos in which they grow.

“A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or

her developmental years outside the parents’ culture … [and] builds

relationships to all the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although

elements from each culture may be assimilated into [his/ her] life experience,

the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background.”

Pollock & Van Reken (2009:13)

Resent research (Dillon and Ali, 2019; Bunnell, 2016; Hayden, 2011) indicate a growing number

of local students who find international education, or rather education in English, a better

option for their cosmopolitan attitude and elitism. Such students come from economically

privileged families, which invest locally but plan globally. For them, a ‘local’ international

school is a prelude to studying abroad and a scaffold for social, cultural and linguistic change

which awaits them abroad. Moreover, international education prepares them for a different

educational paradigm, inclusive of intercultural awareness and diversity.

International teachers’ community caters for the needs of international students and their

families. Besides being a classy attribution to the children and parents, international

education has become a privilege for the teachers as well. Although a vast majority of them

come from the English-speaking countries, there is a growing number of those who dare to

leave the conformity of their non-English-speaking homeland and explore teaching

opportunities in other countries, usually motivated by adventure, new culture or financial

gain. Surprisingly, during the recruitment process, one of the prerequisites though is not a

degree or a qualified teacher status but fluency in English. This very often puts a strong

emphasis on the language skills rather than the classroom skills, content knowledge or

teaching approaches, making a short list, well…very, very short. Just like students and their




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families, international teachers find their ways to integrate their pedagogies with the

requests set by the international education. Sometimes, they work in schools which are very

selective in terms of student performance and language proficiency but sometimes they

teach while struggling to understand the education needs of their students in international

school which, usually opportunistically, accept all students who can pay the fee. The

recruitment of teachers also depends on the local legislation and work permits for foreigners,

which might affect not only the ethos of the international school but also the staff diversity.

For example, in Muslim countries, schools are segregated into schools for girls and schools

for boys – staff being employed on the same basis.

In some instances, as Hayden and Thompson (2008) observe, international alumni return to

the international school as international teachers because they “have chosen to recreate as

adults the globally nomadic lifestyle of their childhood” (ibid.:55). Age-wise, international

teachers tend to be in their thirties, with little or no experience in teaching abroad but with

great enthusiasm and open-mindedness. If they are married, or have children, the schools

offer attractive employment packages, which include housing for the whole family as well as

flight tickets, private health insurance and free of charge education for the children.

Sometimes, this is a risk both for the family and the school as the contracts oblige them to

stay together as agreed but there is also a customary or ethical rule not to leave the students

stranded in the middle of the school year or exam preparation. In international education, it

is considered a faux pas to change jobs if you have committed yourself to teaching for the

ongoing school year. Sometimes, teachers experience immersion anxiety at new jobs as they

have to unlearn and relearn the ways of teaching (Klein, 2008), which would be fitting to the

new learning environment. Some report that they were tasked with unexpected chores,

which would elsewhere be performed by auxiliary staff or vice versa, while others felt de-

skilled as new contexts required a new set of skills for communication and collaboration. Tate

(2012) argues that ‘international’ as a word is an understatement for the context in which

teachers work.

“We [the teachers] work in ‘international’ education, teach in ‘international’

schools, and talk about ‘internationalism’ and ‘international-mindedness’, and

yet do so within a schema – ‘inter-nationalism’, the relations between nations –




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which is an inadequate label for the complexity of what we are trying to do to

prepare young people for a rapidly changing and culturally diverse world.”

Tate (2012:206)

As we have seen, teachers and students have great mobility in international education but

what remains a constant in international education, regardless of the country in which the

international school is located, is the curriculum, which is set by the awarding institution.

There are quite a few options today, which emerged from the educational need in the last 70

years: International Baccalaureate (originally from Switzerland), Advanced Placement (US),

British International (UK) and Cambridge International Education (UK) being most popular

of them. As this research is done in an accredited Cambridge International School, I will here

focus on its curriculum to provide a wider context for exploration.

Cambridge International Education

Cambridge International Education (herewith referred to as ‘Cambridge’) is a four-stage spiral

curriculum based on the UK curriculum yet adapted for the international audience: Primary

(ages 5 to 11), Lower Secondary (ages 11 to 14), Upper Secondary (ages 14 to 16) and Advanced

(ages 16 to 19) (cf. Figure 1).

Figure 1: Cambridge International Education Path (Source: https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/programmes-and-qualifications/)

Primary and Lower Secondary curricula have core subjects only (English, Mathematics,

Science, ICT and Global Perspectives), while other subjects are combined with the subjects in




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the national programme to provide students with a bilingual education. In March 2019,

Cambridge announced new syllabuses for the Primary (Music, Art, Digital Literacy and PE),

which wound enrich the curriculum and add the ‘A’ for Art and ‘R’ for Writing in its STEM1

context to create a new educational paradigm – STREAM2.

Upper Secondary takes the model of the UK’s GCSE qualification: students choose six or

more subjects and sit their finals – IGCSE – in Year 11. Similarly, students choose three or more

A level subjects or a combination of AS and A level subjects, which are sat in Years 12 and 13.

These are standardised tests prepared entirely by the assessment team in Cambridge,

dispatched by post to more than 10,000 schools all around the world, taken locally and then

returned to Cambridge for grading. Cambridge qualifications are globally recognised and

appreciated by a growing number of private and state universities for their Assessment for

Learning (AfL) approach, which is a vital part of effective teaching practice. Students can now

choose their academic paths at universities in Europe, Canada, Australia, Singapore, South

Africa and more. To facilitate further recognition of Cambridge programmes in US

universities, a US Higher Education Advisory Council (HEAC) was founded, featuring

representatives from the distinguished universities.

Cambridge prides itself on programmes which are designed “to support the development of

learners who are confident, responsible, reflective, innovative and engaged – the attributes

of the Cambridge learner” (Cambridge Assessment International Education, 2019:3). By

fostering love for learning, the teachers prepare their students for the challenges of

tomorrow and encourage them “to reflect on their learning, so they can articulate where

they are in the learning process, and plan and control their learning strategies” (ibid.:5). To

support teachers in developing skills for active learning and metacognition, Cambridge

provides over 1,000 training events a year, both face-to-face and online. Moreover, in 2015,

while I was actively researching for my thesis, they also introduced Professional

Development Qualifications for teachers in order to provide them with internationally

recognised certificates and diplomas (cf. Chapter 8 | 5 on p. 200). These qualifications take

advantage of coaching and mentoring models, which are also investigated in this thesis.

1 STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics.

2 STREAM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Writing, Engineering, Art, Mathematics.




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Cambridge International Schools

For a school to become accredited by Cambridge, it must fulfil a set of criteria, which are

assessed by an inspector before being approved. First of all, it must be registered as a legal

entity, accredited by the national Ministry of Education, set up in adequate premises and

equipped with the teaching and learning resources. The teaching staff’s competences must

be justified by their CVs, diplomas and certificates of language proficiency, if English is not

their mother tongue. Cambridge understands that international schools come in all shapes

and sizes and note that their “network of schools includes some of the largest, most well-

established and best-resourced names in education today, but also the smallest, and the

newest which deliver effective

education with few resources”

(Cambridge International Education

website quote). When approved, the

school pays an annual fee to remain

accredited and displays its accreditation

plaque (cf. Figure 2) in a visible place in

the school.

Although all Cambridge International Schools have the same accreditation and implement

the same curriculum, their ethos might be different, as the nature of the group of schools

that describe themselves as international is constantly changing (van Werven, 2015). One way

classifying international schools is to consider them as a spectrum “with the ideological at

one end and the market-driven at the other” (Hayden, 2006:16). The other way of classifying

could be by its student population. There are schools which are ‘authentically international’,

that is attended by the expat students from various countries. Such schools have a rather

dynamic student and teacher turnover as the students’ families might frequently change

locations. The other type, which is emerging in large business hubs, would be ‘local

international schools’, populated mostly by the local students from affluent families. Very

often such schools offer national curriculum alongside the international to provide the

students with the language and cultural heritage of both paradigms, creating bilingual or

multilingual contexts. We can see an increase in number of such schools in Asia and Middle

East which can be justified by the advancement in economy, greater investment and

Figure 2: Cambridge International School accreditation plaque (Source: Google images)




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opportunities for student mobility at the university level. Some of the independent

international schools have created a group of schools which share the same ‘educational

brand’, such as Nord Anglia Group, Cognita or Global Educational Management Systems

(GEMS).

Appreciated as “transnational places of education created by the globalisation process”

(Hayden, 2011:212), international schools have become profitable businesses for visionary

investors while an international education itself has become a race for teaching quality, client

service and efficient support to the future generations, which require tools to reshape the

world we know today.

Structure of the thesis

To better understand the circumstances in which this research took place, I wanted to

explore in more detail how teachers’ preparedness to teach in international settings affected

their attitude to change, and how reflective practice and school-level factors could

contribute to a more collegial collaboration and exchange of experiences through reciprocal

coaching. In Chapter 2, I provide a review where I first present the evolution of international

education and the role of teachers in its development, from the first international school to

the millions of students in tens of thousands of international schools around the world.

School success factors, clear vision, support for professional learning, auditing expertise and

supporting networking, and teachers’ levels of enquiry and learning (Pedder, 2006) were

explored in more detail and extensive read about various studies on resistance to change and

how it was subdued with professional development strategies such as coaching and peer-

collaboration. I review the difference between the practices in the past and those in the

present, and how school-level factors may bring about a positive change in teachers’

preparedness to teach in an international environment. I assumed that constructing a

professional space for their interaction, support and communication might be an effective

way for them to reinvent their pedagogies while “embedding new approaches, techniques,

skills, knowledge, understanding and/or insights into personal practice” (Pachler et al.,

2003:9). I therefore created the Bell Model of Reciprocal Peer Coaching, in which I combined

qualitative and qualitative instruments to measure the impact it makes in the social context.




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Chapter 3 brings theoretical background to this research. My choice to set this study in an

interpretivist paradigm was inspired by the inherently subjective interpretation of and

intervention in the classroom. I therefore investigated how constructivism, the

epistemological framework which underpins this study, helps people construct knowledge

and share it in a social context.

Methodological issues are explored in Chapter 4, where I outline the appropriateness for

action research in a rather small community of teachers as a tool to better understand

emerging contextual problems and empowerment of teachers while seeking solutions.

Guskey (2000:46) is convinced that the idea of action research is that “educational problems

and issues are best identified and investigated where the action is: at the classroom and

school level [where] findings can be applied immediately, and problems solved more

quickly”. Special attention is given to the ethical dichotomy, which touches upon the

confidentiality, trust and power relations between me – a researcher, me – a supervisor, and

them – the researched, and them – the colleagues, showing how unfit conventional ethics is

in educational action research “because of its practice of ‘othering’ human beings as research

subjects” (Eikeland, 2006:37). I therefore explore how challenging it is to navigate ethics in

this research while setting up the distance and splitting my duality – the ‘I’ and the ‘Me’

(Mead, 1934).

The advantages and disadvantages of the mixed methods research are argued in Chapter 5.

Greene (2008:20) believes that the combination of qualitative and quantitative social enquiry

“actively invites us to participate in dialogue about multiple ways of seeing and hearing,

multiple ways of making sense of the social world, and multiple standpoints on what is

important and to be valued and cherished”. I decided to choose mixed methods as my

research approach and my research was an attempt to understand the concept better by

triangulating quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative data were yielded from the

Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (cf. Appendix 1 and 2 on pp. 213-214), which leans on the

model for Interpersonal Teacher Behaviour (cf. Appendix 3 on p. 215) and provides teachers

with the visual representation of the eight scales (cf. Appendix 4 on p. 216). The richness of

the qualitative data was captured in the interviews between the teachers during their

coaching sessions (cf. Appendix 5 on p. 224). My sample was rather small as the school in




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which I conducted the research was small. A non-probability convenience sample was not

used to seek for generalisation (Creswell, 1998), but to reach conclusions which would offer

a platform for further development of human capital at the school level.

Chapter 7 outlines the research findings – a winding way for me to interpret interviews

between the teachers and triangulate them with their profiles created from the data

collected in the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction. I used thematic analysis because it

identifies the themes in the data that capture the patterns and meanings (Braun and Clarke,

2006), which are relevant to the problematic of this action research. The complexity of their

analysis is presented in Table 6 and Table 7 (pp. 106-107) but only three most represented

themes are investigated in detail (an example of coding is given in Appendix 6 on p. 225). The

visual representation of the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction results is a powerful tool for

reflection because “they can be used to conceptualise complex and interrelated information

(as is the case with the teacher–student relationship), because they can summarise

information into (smaller) chunks that are easier to comprehend, and because they can

stimulate associations and links within the teachers’ own knowledge if they are accompanied

with powerful labels” (Rickards et al., 2005:268).

In the final chapter, Chapter 8, I set out my conclusions and my perceptions of the changes

and the changed in an attempt to provide a scientific response to the research questions. I

much better understand now why “[t]eaching and learning are complicated, labyrinthine

processes filled with dead ends, false positives, contradictions, multiple truths, and a great

deal of confusion” (Brooks & Brooks, 1999:x). My thesis was a big bite for my fledgling mixed

methods research skills, but unlike the teachers, who had undergone reculturing in terms of

their pedagogy and classroom instruction, my reculturing was a process of academic

maturing and a quest for reflective instances which would bring about my own ‘teaching

epiphany’, a moment when the brain is smothered with a striking understanding and the pain

of a new idea. After all, the aspired outcome of this research is not only to ‘teach teachers

how to whistle’ but to help them ‘learn how to whistle’ (cf. Figure 3).




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Figure 3: Teaching Stripe to whistle (Source: Bellows, 2013: January blog)

Reciprocal coaching model

Although collaborative teacher relationships have been used for professional development

in various educational contexts since the 1980s (Sinkinson, 2011), neither research on

international education nor research on Serbian education confirmed any such case, which

created a challenge for me as a school head to set up a model through which the teachers

would work collaboratively towards supporting each other while using reflective processes

and professional learning. I found a good fit for this in the reciprocal coaching model, which

has proved to be convenient for enhancing teacher collaboration in the first place (Allison &

Harbour, 2009), but also for fostering reflective practice for teachers’ self-evaluation and

critical assessment of their own pedagogy (Brockbank & McGill, 2006). Zwart et al. (2008)

used a similar approach while exploring trajectories of eight experienced teachers in four

coaching dyads during a period of one year. They were looking for a way to create “a work-

based learning environment in which pairs of teachers could work together to support each

other’s professional growth with respect to some – often troublesome – issues already

present in their day-to-day teaching practice” (ibid.:983).

Further in my thesis, I will explain how I set up a reciprocal coaching model for this research,

how the coaching pairs worked together on a reciprocal basis and how they used the

schedule to rotate a pair in order to maximise peer-collaboration, sharing of new knowledge

and exchange of pedagogical ideas towards adapting a constructivist approach to classroom

practice. I will also explain how it helped them change their philosophies of education by

shifting their mind frames in a transformational process of unlearning and relearning, which

is crucial for the motivational, contextual and professional aspects of the teachers’ decisions

to adopt change (Feiman-Nemser, 2012).




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Summary

Looking for a way to help my colleagues learn from each other and empower them to grow

professionally through self-reflection and peer-collaboration, I wanted to explore the

concept of reciprocal coaching in the context of an international school and challenge my

research skills while being “a colleague, school leader, friend, and researcher” (Ravitch &

Wirth, 2007:28). As international education is still under-researched in terms of teacher

relationships and mechanisms for professional learning, I thought it would be useful for my

reading audience to learn more about how the context of an international school, where

both teachers and students bring a diversity of learning cultures, can provide a medium for a

transformational process. In the next chapter, I will review literature on professional

development in international education, teachers’ preparedness to teach in international

settings, school-level factors which can facilitate it and how they acquire new skills of

collaboration and collegiality through a reciprocal coaching model.

2 | Literature review

____________________________________________________________________________

Teachers’ preparedness to teach in international settings

Although the UK Department for Education strongly advocates coaching, mentoring and

peer-collaboration mechanisms to enhance teacher professional development and

performance (DfE 2011), a private international school in Serbia, which I decided to call ‘Bell

International School’ for the purpose of this research, with a curriculum based on the

Cambridge International Qualifications, lacks support for teacher learning, translation of

teacher learning to student learning and dissemination of good practices. The staff are both

national and international, and come from different educational, professional and cultural

backgrounds, which is seen as an advantage given that the clientele is international. Such

‘transnational spaces of learning’ emerged around the world “in response very often to the

aspirations of global knowledge workers for their children” (Hayden, 2011:2012). Yet some of

the teachers in international schools have never been trained in the UK and have never

obtained a UK qualification to teach although they teach in English-mediated environments.

Bell is not an exception.

Let’s take a brief overview of the evolution of the international education and the role of

international teachers in Serbia and the world. Archives hold that the first international

“[Teachers] acquire and develop critically the knowledge, skills and emotional intelligence essential to good professional thinking, planning and practice with children, young people and colleagues throughout each phase of their teaching lives.”

Day (1999:4)




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school for boys was Spring Grove School in Hounslow, England in 1867, by Richard Cobden,

Thomas Huxley and Charles Dickens (Walker, 2012), whose idea today feeds the international

education. Cobden, the free trade parliamentarian, recognised international schools as

places where young boys would be educated to become trade ambassadors. The biologist,

Huxley, viewed these schools as science-centred, dedicated to logical thought, while Dickens,

a creator of so many diverse and authentic characters, believed in intercultural competences

which the boys would gain (Walker, 2012). In his article, Dickens says that

“[t]he plan is to establish in the different countries of Europe a series of

international and corresponding schools for the middle and upper classes which

will enable a boy during the course of a liberal education to acquire thoroughly

several modern languages each being learned with the others, among fellows of

all nations, in the land where it is spoken. The arrangement of classes and

method of study being precisely the same in each international school… The

subjects and methods of instruction being arranged on a common basis, the

pupils will have nothing to unlearn.”

Dickens (1864), quoted in Sylvester (2002:7-8)

Soon after, two more international schools, one in Germany, in Bad Godesburg, and one in

France, in Chatou were established on the same premise (Gardner-McTaggart, 2018) with

great expectations that the knowledge of foreign languages would “enlarge connections

between commerce, literature and science” (Ellwood, 2012:5) but they did not last long. Over

the time, new international schools sprang around the world in the places which were

diplomatic, commercial and cultural hubs but it was not until late 20th century that they

started catering for the local students as a new clientele.

In his research on the history of international mindedness, Hill (2006) recounts that one of

the international schools important for the affirmation of international education is the

International School of Geneva / Ecole Internationale de Genève (often referred to as

‘Ecolint’), which was established in 1924 to support the academic life of the families who lived

in Geneva while the parent(s) worked for the International Labour Office (est. 1919) or the

League of Nations (est. 1920) (Ecole Internationale de Genéve, 2017). These organisations

employed people from all around the world and therefore sought a place where their




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children would be well adapted to the multicultural, multireligious and multilingual social

structures. After the Second World War, the United Nations established its headquarters in

1945 in New York, which was a call for a new international school to be opened - United

Nations International School (est. 1947) (Ecole Internationale de Genéve, 2017). Similarly, The

United Nations Nursery School (est. 1951) was opened in Paris to support the parents working

in the UNESCO, while the parents working in the UN Office in Vienna educated their children

in the Vienna International School (est. 1959) (ibid.). If we set these schools in the wider

picture of globalisation in the second half of the 20th century, we have to admit they were

truly pioneering endeavours as they provided not only educational but also social platforms

for parents who were settling down in new business surroundings, new cultures and new

languages.

Figure 4: Students of the International School of Belgrade in late 1950s (Source: https://www.isb.rs/site/page/about-isb/history/18)

In 1948, in Belgrade, which was the capital of Yugoslavia at that time, the wife of the British

Ambassador, Lady Peake, opened the Foreign Colony School for the children of the foreign

diplomats, the number of which was growing in the aftermath as Yugoslavia positioned itself

politically and economically in the region. The school changed its name to the International

School of Belgrade (cf. Figure 4) in 1952 and ten years later started receiving grants from the




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United States Government which ensured overseas teachers and professional development3.

Just like many other international schools, this one was greatly supported by the parents,

especially mothers, who often taught the students using available resources. As universities

at that time did not offer any formal courses to prepare teachers to teach in international

schools, the International School of Geneva took the initiative and organised the first

gathering for the international teachers in 1950. Enthusiastic teachers and heads from

Europe, Asia and the USA made the conclusion of their deliberations:

“[International education] should give the child an understanding of his past as

a common heritage to which all men irrespective of nation, race or creed have

contributed and which all men should share; it should give him an understanding

of his present world as a world in which peoples are interdependent and in which

cooperation is a necessity. In such an education emphasis should be laid on a

basic attitude of respect for all human beings as persons, understanding of

those things which unite us and an appreciation of the positive values of those

things which may seem to divide us, with the objective of thinking free from fear

or prejudice.”

Course for Teachers Interested in International Education (1950)

in Hill (2012:251)

Using this conclusion as a framework for their educational philosophy and the seminal work

of Marie-Thérèse Maurette, “Educational Techniques for Peace. Do They Exist?”4 (1948), a

group of enthusiastic teachers from the International School of Geneva established the

International Schools Examinations Syndicate (ISES) in 1968, which is today known as the

International Baccalaureate (IB) (Ecole Internationale de Genéve, 2017). This new educational

paradigm shifted focus from traditional concepts of teaching to “intercultural

understanding, awareness of global issues, critical thinking skills, education of the whole

person, and the provision of a university entrance qualification with world-wide currency”

3 Retrieved in February 2019 from https://www.isb.rs/site/page/about-isb/history/18

4 Retrieved in February 2019 from http://alumni.ecolint.net/authors/walker.html.




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(Hill, 2012:251), offering standardised courses and assessments for students aged 16 to 19.

Almost two decades later, in 1986, the University of Cambridge responded to this challenge

and introduced the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE)5 for

students aged 14 to 16. Over the period of almost 40 years, Cambridge Assessment

International Education, now part of the University of Cambridge, strategically introduced

new competitive and interculturally enriched syllabuses both horizontally and vertically at

the primary, lower secondary, secondary and AS/A level, where intercultural awareness is

‘taught, not caught’. To ensure unbiased coursework, Cambridge organised a series of events

to train more than 600 international teachers around the world on coursework assessment

(Hayden et al., 2007), which was decidedly the turning point in preparing teachers to teach in

an international context.

The 1990s studies on international education (Fennes & Hapgood, 1997; Moore, 1999; Stoll &

Fink, 1996) argue that teachers are not well prepared to teach in international settings

because their university qualifications do not prepare them to teach in linguistically, culturally

and religiously diverse classrooms. At that time, post-graduate courses in international

education were offered at the University of Bath and Oxford Brookes in the UK, while the US

established similar courses at the Michigan State University and The College of New Jersey.

Needless to say, this was not enough to cater for the growing needs of international schools.

International teachers were few and they were described as ‘Global Nomads’ (Sears,

1998:36), who were flexible in their approach to teaching and learning, drawing on current

thinking about teaching classes of children with differing cultures, languages and educational

histories and who were knowledgeable about the languages and cultures of their students.

While some perceived this as a permanent difficulty, others accepted this experience as

enriching (ibid.).

On the other hand, the 1990s were crucial years for further affirmation of international

education. In response to the growing interest of international students, the US College

Board adapted the original Advanced Placement Program (AP) for the students studying

outside the USA, introducing in 1995 the Advanced Placement International Diploma (APID),

5 Retrieved in February 2019 from https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/programmes-and-qualifications/cambridge-

secondary-2/cambridge-igcse/qualification/.




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a globally recognised certificate. In 1992, the International Baccalaureate introduced Middle

Years Program (MYP) for students aged 11 to 16 with an international flair and heavy

emphasis on teacher assessment. They extended the programme to students aged 3 to 12 in

1997 by designing a Primary Years Program (PYP), rounding up the academic programme

from early years to the pre-university preparations. Although these programmes were

intended for the international students, a number of schools in the UK and USA offered it to

students who sought academic rigour and prestige or who simply wanted to explore

international-mindedness as a globalist feature (Hayden and Thompson, 2008).

At the International Conference on Education (ICE), which was organised in Geneva, in 1994,

ministers of education of member states agreed that the aim of education is to develop:

• a sense of universal values for a culture of peace,

• the ability to value freedom and the civic responsibility that goes with it,

• intercultural understanding which encourages the convergence of ideas and

solutions to strengthen peace,

• skills of non-violent conflict resolution,

• skills for making informed choices,

• respect for cultural heritage and protection of the environment, and

• feelings of solidarity and equity at the national and international levels.

UNESCO declaration (1995:9)

While the rest of the world was reaffirming the importance of education in intercultural

dialogue and non-violent conflict resolution, in Yugoslavia, the civil war disoriented

educational reforms and the only international school operated in politically, socially and

financially unstable circumstances. A lot of embassies withdrew their families from the war

zone and multinational companies closed their businesses, leaving the International School

of Belgrade without its clientele. The numbers were dwindling from 160 students in 1992 to

only 10 during the NATO bombing in 19996. Needless to say, desperate times call for

desperate measures so most of the international teachers left the International School of

Belgrade and the few who remained dedicated themselves fully to the school’s survival.

6 Retrieved in February 2019 from https://www.isb.rs/site/page/coming-far-from-many-nations/1816.




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The trend in teacher (un)preparedness continues in the 2000s (Gay, 2000; Ginsberg &

Wlodkowski, 2000; Powell, 2000). Teaching a multicultural class, Le Roux (2001) warns, is a

challenging endeavour for teachers, who usually select one of two approaches: they simply

proceed as they have done previously, or they undergo a radical and total reconsideration of

the education setting. Having recognised the need to educate international teachers, a

number of British, American and Canadian universities introduced new academic

programmes with a view to preparing teachers to teach overseas and supplying international

schools, whose number was growing rapidly in the last 2o years, with human capital.

However, as Sears (1998) observed, very often the international schools had scarce resources

and circumstantially employed local teachers with good knowledge of English or

opportunistically ‘trailing spouses’ (Sears, 1998:8), who accompanied their partners on an

expatriate assignment. According to research (Hardman, 2001 in Hayden, 2006), British or

American teachers who were applying for positions in international schools were usually

childless career professionals, mavericks (free and independent spirits) or senior ‘Penelopes’

(faithful to the country they had adopted as Penelope was faithful to Ulysses). Very often the

parents have a say when international teachers are recruited as their involvement with the

school tends to be stronger given the circumstances of their expatriate life. As they want to

replicate the homeland learning environment, they would rather choose native English

speakers, regardless of their teaching experience or pedagogy, over a local teacher with

teaching qualifications and a good level of English. In my professional career, I have been

scrutinised by the parents, like many local teachers, for having a Serbian name although I was

educated in the UK and speak English with a near-native fluency. Even when the local

teaching staff were employed, their financial arrangements would be usually different from

those made with the native speakers, who would receive generous perks such as private

health insurance, accommodation, flight tickets and tuition fees for their children.

These perks were quite appealing for young and enthusiastic teachers who dared to leave

their homelands and explore teaching in the Serbian aftermath. In the meantime, the

international community flourished in Serbia as the international organisation and companies

in Belgrade recruited more international staff, who settled with their families. The economy

was blooming with foreign investments and the local entrepreneurs established profitable

start-ups, which triggered their appetite to educate their children in elite international

schools. The International School of Belgrade survived the hard times but the 2000s brought




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market rivals, that is new international schools, which quietly grew in the background of the

busy life in Belgrade. These schools were small in size and conveniently located in rented

villas in the Belgrade uptown, where the expats lived in luxury and isolation. One of them is

the school where I did my research – Bell International School.

The 2010s brought an expansion of international

education around the world: Cambridge

Assessment International Education7 accredited

more than 10,000 school in 160 countries, while

International Baccalaureate8 accredited more than

5,000 schools in 153 countries. The data collected

and analysed by ISC Research over the years show

a growing number of international schools in the

world which adopted various curricula (UK, US or

IBDP) as well as a bilingual model of education, where the international curriculum merges

with the national to provide the students with both socio-cultural and educational values (cf.

Chart 1). However, as Fail observes, a curriculum is not the only criterion for the

establishment of international schools. They emerge because of “their purpose and reason

for being (ideological or market driven), their student populations (multinational or

predominantly one nationality), their faculty (multinational or not), their history (national

schools overseas)” (Fail, 2011:101). Moreover, international schools provide educational

contexts on a three-dimensional spectrum with issues of equity, distinction and market place

(Gardner-McTaggart, 2018). They usually use the slogans which emphasise their

cosmopolitan population (equity), elite surroundings (distinction) and leadership in teaching

(market place), “where the very concept of leadership is commodified as an aspect of the

luxury market. Such commodification lies at the heart of the distinction implicit in the nature

of the international schools experience” (ibid.:151).

Globalisation, mobility, immigration, authentic settings or aspiration for further education at

the prestigious universities in the English-speaking countries made the parents choose

7 Data from April 2019 retrieved from https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/why-choose-us/find-a-cambridge-school/

8 Data from April 2019 retrieved from https://www.ibo.org/about-the-ib/facts-and-figures/

Chart 1: International schools by curriculum adoption (Adapted from: ISC Research, 2018)




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international schools over local

schools for the competitive edge.

Moreover, as Hayden and Thompson

(2008:16) assert, “the growing

dominance of English as the main

‘international language’ has led

globally-mobile families of non-first

language English origin to value

English medium education for their

children”. The largest number of

international schools have sprung in

Asia and Middle East (cf. Chart 2),

where, surprisingly, almost 80 percent

of the student population are local children (ISC Research, 2018). Regardless of the

population, international education celebrates “diversity and ensures that every act, every

symbol, every exchange involving teachers, administrators, students and parents reinforces

the belief that, in the end, human diversity is an enrichment and source of strength” (Walker,

2000:202).

Cambridge and Thompson (2004:162) argue that “an international school may offer an

education that makes no claim to be international, while an international education may be

experienced by a student who has not attended a school that describes itself as

international”. Moreover, international schools have long been perceived as thriving on a

socio-cultural rather than educational factors, reconciling academic values with the pluralistic

community made of teachers, students and parents. On the other hand, Hayden et al.

(2000:113) posit that “[b]oth students and teachers appear to believe that it is possible to be

firmly rooted in one national system and culture with strong individual views and yet still be

international”. Hence, the character of the school is not created only by the accreditation

plaque, but also by the international-mindedness and the culture fostered within, which

might be quite similar or totally different from the culture in the host country.

With the introduction of the Cambridge International Qualifications, the teachers at Bell

needed to learn how to make a shift from ‘traditional’ pedagogies to student-centred and

Chart 2: Top 10 countries for international schools (Adapted from: ISC Research, 2018)




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enquiry-based approaches to teaching. The recent research into international education

favours the student-centred enquiry-based models of teaching (Twigg, 2010), yet some

teachers report reluctance in its implementation. The reasons for this are deeply rooted in

their teacher training, when they were exposed to the traditional ex-cathedra pedagogies. I

was part of such a system, and I know very well all the strengths and weaknesses of being a

‘traditional’ teacher. But I also know the enlightenment of transformative learning in which I

had to unlearn and relearn my personal theory. I remember very well the cognitive and

affective processes of self-discovery in which my frames of references re-located towards

more inclusive and less discriminating values, my pedagogical maturity challenged the

juvenile playfulness in the classroom and my emotional intelligence seasoned the reflection-

on- and in-action (Schön, 1983). The new academic programme is challenging in that it

requires the teachers to change not only the well-established classroom routines but the way

of connecting with the students, who come from culturally diverse backgrounds. For this

transformative process to happen “the learner [sic.] undergoes a conscious recognition of

the difference between their old viewpoint and the new one and makes a decision to

appropriate the newer perspective as being of more value” (Mezirow, 1978:105).

I remember when I first started teaching in a multinational and culturally-sensitive setting…

Unintended puns, mispronunciation of a name or an invaded comfort zone were everyday

challenges in the classroom. I came to understand that the parents had different

expectations and my performance was scrutinised to the point where I had to plan my

lessons inclusive of not only how the students would feel but also of how the parents would

react. Honestly, I wasn’t prepared for that. My colleagues were in the same shoes.

Deveney’s (2007) research on international teachers' preparedness to teach in a multicultural

learning environment showed that teachers who are curious, reflective, flexible, caring,

optimistic and genuinely interested in other cultures may have the potential to be effective

teachers without having undertaken training for teaching in culturally diverse classes.

Tomlinson and McTighe (2006) believe that,

“[t]eachers find it increasingly difficult to ignore the diversity of learners who

populate their classrooms. Culture, race, language, economics, gender,

experience, motivation to achieve, disability, advanced ability, personal




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interests, learning preferences, and presence or absence of an adult support

system are just some of the factors that students bring to school with them in

almost stunning variety.”

Tomlinson & McTighe (2006:1)

Ginsberg and Wlodkowski’s (2000) study shows that teachers try to deal with diversity

independently, relying on their own intuition and spontaneous decision making, which are

necessarily limited by their own experiences and beliefs. These teachers, Deveney (2007)

explains, bring into their classrooms personal life histories and certain culturally based biases,

which they overcome by becoming more pluralistic, flexible and open-minded in their

thinking. Yet, Stoll and Fink (1996) carried out a survey in which more than 75% of the

international teachers stated that the best way to improve awareness and help to develop

shared strategies for coping in culturally diverse classrooms is to discuss their teaching

problems with peers. Searching for understanding, appreciation and empathy, teachers

create collaborative and democratic communities in which they can grow professionally.

Research literature suggests that one of the most important factors which influence student

learning is actually what teachers know and what they are able to do (Hargreaves, 2008;

Lofthouse et al., 2010a; Zwart et al., 2007). Developing professionally requires strategies that

should go beyond personal and individual reflection and include an exploration of new trends

and theories in teaching (Pickering et al. 2007).

School-level factors for teachers’ professional development

Despite the importance of continuing professional development, which is intended to be of

direct or indirect benefit to the individual, group or school (Day, 1999), the teaching staff at

Bell had somehow become resistant to the change agents, which might have helped them

review, renew and extend their commitment in order to “acquire and develop critically the

knowledge, skills and emotional intelligence essential to good professional thinking,

planning and practice” (ibid.:4). Further to this, Bell did not have a developed appraisal

system, which left teachers uninformed about their strengths, weaknesses and areas of

improvement. This lack of systematic communication between the senior management and

teaching staff, as a school-level factor, hinders teachers’ professional development. There is




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a statistically significant relationship between the school-level factors, such as clear vision,

support for professional learning, auditing expertise and supporting networking, and

teachers’ levels of enquiry and learning (Pedder, 2006).

One of the school-level factors is the nature of the professional development plan devised at

the school. Based on her research, Feiman-Nemser (2001) identifies the importance of

sustained professional learning opportunities as driving agents towards the environment of

good teaching practice. In such a setting, teachers can challenge professional learning

through either written or verbal narrative with their peers, which allows them to voice their

most pressing concerns, examine prior knowledge in the light of new understandings and

construct new knowledge through the processes of reflection, dialogue and enquiry

(McCormack et al., 2006). Teachers indeed prefer professional development that is sustained

and intensive than shorter, isolated professional learning events, such as one-stop

workshops (Pedder & Opfer, 2013). In this trade-off between time and impact, the

programmes which provide a long-term support and effective impact on the teachers’

development are rarely offered and paid by the school given the budget constraints. It is also

a matter of prioritisation for the school leadership who should have such a privilege – those

who are well-performing as a reward for their devotion, professionalism or student success,

or those who are under-performing as an instrument to improve their weaknesses. On the

other hand, such ‘spray and pray’ models of professional development, in which a small

number of the teachers are provided with a learning opportunity hoping that they will return

the invested by disseminating the learnt, have proved to be ineffective in balancing the

differentiated demands of the teachers and the value of the learnt – a novice teacher’s

learning needs are surely different from those of an experienced teacher, as are primary and

secondary teachers’. In his research of the factors that foster and deter advanced teachers'

professional development, Sprott (2019) identified similar reasons – teachers appreciated

the value of sharing ideas, concerns, and questions with their colleagues, students and other

professionals as an essential pathway toward their development, but they observed a lack of

“travelling to different contexts” (ibid.:324) in which they would be able to evaluate their

own practice.

When I assumed my role at Bell, there was no professional development plan at the school

level and the school leaders could not think of a way to overcome the contextual barriers




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such as the geographical distance from the training providers or the non-English menu of the

courses available in the host country. Patton et al. (2015) argue that school administrators

need to facilitate impactful teacher professional development by shifting their way of thinking

from the concept in which professional development is viewed as the acquisition of new skills

and knowledge to the one in which teachers are helped to rethink their practice and critically

plan the course of their development. Circumstantially, these could be subject matter

coordinators, district curriculum coordinators and even the superintendent of schools (ibid.),

but in the context on international schools, they are not likely to help at all. First of all, they lack

the conceptual understanding of the Cambridge programme and the learning needs of

international teachers. On the other hand, international schools, as independent schools, are

not under the district jurisdiction, which means that they are not officially entitled to support

the professional development of international teachers. It is for this reason that some large

international schools or group of schools establish their teachers training centres or institutes,

which serve to provide training courses tailored to the individual needs. For example, the

International School of Geneva has an adjunct Ecolint Institute of Learning and Teaching, both to

provide life-long opportunities for their community of teachers and to disseminate research on

educational research.

Teachers learn in various contexts by engaging in constructive narratives with their

colleagues both outside and inside the school. By doing so, they create professional learning

communities (PLCs), which thrive through the cultivation of shared values and vision, shared

and supportive leadership, norms of trust, respect, critical enquiry and collective learning

(ibid.). Their aim is to “promote improvements in students’ learning by supporting change

through teachers’ learning that is not individual and fragmented but collaborative and

embedded in their day-to-day routine work” (ibid.:541). However, this was not the case with

the academic context of this research. Hidden behind the classroom door, each teacher

developed within their own cocoon, void of any collegial support, as if talking about pressing

issues was a taboo. Rhodes and Beneicke (2002:302) warn that in schools where

“collaboration and trust between individuals is weak or not established, approaches to

professional development and performance management, which embrace these

mechanisms, have implications for management teams in those schools”. Therefore, the Bell

management needed to “facilitate teacher learning by fostering the conditions in which such




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learning can take place along with attendant benefits for pupil learning and attainment”

(ibid.:303).

However, sometimes the school management efforts simply fail to foster such conditions.

Problems might emerge from differing ethics, possible misuse of power or excessive control

by the coach/mentor (Daloz, 1998). If coaching, mentoring and peer-collaboration are

imposed teacher support mechanisms, it is less likely that the teachers will be receptive to

professional development and more likely that they will become recluses in their own

working environment. Management needs to consider the preparedness of coach-mentors

in understanding and executing their role in supporting the learning of colleagues effectively

(ibid.). Running an accurate diagnosis of the causes of any poor performance and identifying

teacher learning needs are prerequisites for instilling a collegial drive to support the

professional growth of all teachers. Coupled with challenges in identifying causes of poor

teacher performance and challenges in effecting a trusting dialogue, the difficulties may also

stem from the prevailing learning culture within Bell. Research confirms that head teachers

who were able to improve the performance of poorly performing teachers were able to make

precise judgments about the nature of the help needed (Wragg et al., 2000).

Although it is understandable that many things can be learnt about teaching through self-

observation and critical reflection (Pachler & Field, 2001; Pickering et al., 2007), many others

cannot, such as subject-matter knowledge, pedagogical expertise, and understanding of

curriculum and materials as well as the way a school’s programme is organised and managed

(Leitch & Day, 2000). The process of reflection, as a psychological phenomenon, is necessarily

subjective, placing the responsibility to improve professional practice firmly on the individual,

who, by doing so, takes control over their own continuing professional development,

“embedding new approaches, techniques, skills, knowledge, understanding and/or insights

into personal practice” (Pachler et al., 2003:9). In effective classrooms, teachers have to

balance at least four elements: “whom they teach (students), where they teach (learning

environment), what they teach (content), and how they teach (instruction). If teachers lose

sight of any one of the elements and cease investing effort in it, the whole fabric of their

work is damaged and the quality of learning impaired” (Tomlinson & McTighe, 2006:2).

Reflection is therefore crucial for pedagogical virtuosos, as “learning happens within

teachers, not to them” (ibid., 2006:22). Yet, every teacher is unique in their classroom and




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the very concept of an effective classroom has a unique footprint in the school as a

community.

Therefore, I wanted to ‘knock at the classroom door’ and establish a channel of

communication through which I would encourage teachers to solicit advice, exchange

experiences and construct avenues for their professional growth by collaborating with their

peers.

Teachers’ attitude to change

In schools where the professional development culture already includes strong teacher

collaboration, the adoption of coaching, mentoring and peer-collaboration should present

fewer problems for staff (Rhodes & Beneicke, 2002). Yet, this is not prevalent in Bell. In order

to plant the collaborative culture in the first place, I thought that the teachers needed to

understand the multiple benefits of coaching and peer-collaboration as an alternative to the

costly professional development courses abroad. Having in mind that the Bell teaching staff

were highly qualified and experienced, I assumed that constructing a professional space for

their interaction, support and communication might be an effective way for them to ‘put

their brains together’ and share ideas. These shared experiences are a potential source of rich

insight into the self-evaluating processes, where the ultimate goal is better student

performance (Hammerness et al., 2005). In coaching, peers are self-directed partners in

learning, who build their classroom confidence while seeking appreciation, understanding

and empathy in their community. Studies on coaching promote multiple benefits of teacher

collaboration, yet there are occasions when “self-disclosure is a risk-taking venture that can

cause uncertainty, discomfort, or embarrassment at times” (Zwart et al., 2007). Taking a

professional risk was inherently part of my research design and was heavily influenced by the

positive experiences in personal transformative learning. I learnt how to embrace a change

and was hoping that I could help others understand that cognitive and affective processes

behind ‘the change’ build self-confidence in teaching practice.

Guskey (2002:382) in his seminal work on teacher change, points to the fact that “[w]hat

attracts teachers to professional development [...] is their belief that it will expand their

knowledge and skills, contribute to their growth, and enhance their effectiveness with




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students”. If a learning programme fails, then it did not take into account two crucial factors:

(1) what motivates teachers to engage in professional development, and (2) the process by

which change in teachers typically occurs (Guskey, 1986 in Guskey, 2002). Yet, a change might

appear imposing to teachers, especially when they are treated as ‘others’, the objects of

investigation, rather than as knowing subjects, willing and able to determine their own

course of action. It is this change in the teachers’ beliefs, attitude and eventually classrooms

practice that coaching and peer-collaboration are likely to inspire. Guskey’s (2002) theory on

teacher change warns that the assumption that the change in attitudes and beliefs comes

first is utopian.

Figure 5: A model of teacher change (Source: Guskey, 2002:383)

According to his model (cf. Figure 5), significant change in teachers’ attitudes and beliefs

occurs primarily after they have gained evidence of improvements in student learning, where

it shows not only in cognitive and achievement indices but also in students’ attitude,

motivation and behaviour. This is a crucial factor in attracting teachers to reinvent their

pedagogies through various forms of professional development as it helps them grow and

enhance their classroom skills. However, teachers rarely initiate the change and even when

they do, the changes they find acceptable are superficial and easily applied modifications of

what they already do (Edwards, 2011). Therefore, the change is best implemented when the

teachers and the school leaders share values and visions of school improvements

empowered by the teachers’ enthusiasm. However, to empower does not mean to impose

the process of change in order to transform “specific teachers’ practices in the classroom but

to generate principles of good practice that may or may not be taken up by the teaching

community” (Lawson, 2011b:321).

Fullan (2007:25) defines three aspects of change: (1) the possible use of new or revised

materials (instructional resources such as curriculum materials or technologies), (2) the




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possible use of new teaching approaches (i.e., new teaching strategies or activities), and

(3) the possible alteration of beliefs (e.g., pedagogical assumptions and theories underlying

particular new policies or programs). “My point is the logical one”, he stresses, “that the

change has to occur in practice along the three dimensions in order for it to have a chance of

affecting the outcome” (ibid.). In other words, teachers cannot reconsider their pedagogical

practice without reconsidering the new materials and the other way around, but changing

beliefs is more difficult to observe because they are often “not explicit, discussed, or

understood, but rather are buried at the level of unstated assumptions” (ibid.:28) yet they

ensure the lasting change.

Figure 6: Argyris' Double Loop Learning diagram (Adapted from Barrett & Richter, 2010)

Closing the gap between what teachers really want and what teachers are actually able to do

is the central learning problem. In their study on adult development, Kegan and Lahey (2009)

observed that many people, who sincerely desired to change, were unable to sustain the

changes attempted. Although externally it appeared as if they were resisting learning and

change, in reality they were experiencing a type of personal immunity to change. Similarly,

Argyris (1976) proposes double loop learning theory (cf. Figure 6) which holds that changes

in values, behaviour, leadership and helping others, are all informed by the actors’ theory of

action. He avers that “learning occurs when understanding, insight and explanations are

connected with action” (Argyris, 2003:1179). Such a notion is deeply rooted in the Schönian

model of reflective practice and encourages returning to the experience in order to mentally

test understandings of new concepts and eventually decide whether to adopt them or not.




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As we will see later in the thesis, learning how to absorb the impact of a change seemed to

be one of the prominent themes. The teachers were searching for their own models which

would ease the transitional period, lead them into the double loop and affirm their newly

acquired competencies. It’s like an ice cube, which goes through unfreezing, changing and

refreezing (Lewin, 1947).

For a change to happen and anchor into the culture, the agents of change must be fully aware

of all the challenges and manage the process by preparing the scene and creating a need for

change in the first place. According to Fisher (2005), each individual handles the process of

change differently but it starts with anxiety, runs over happiness, fear and depression

towards either ultimate hostility or gradual acceptance (cf. Figure 7).

Interestingly, teachers, who should be the agents of change, are rarely those who initiate the

change (Hairon, 2006). In Bell, the teachers clearly understood that change had to take place

but being affected by the time and workload imposed, they sought to relieve rather than

reform. This was a structural constraint because the change, which is directed from the top,

diminishes the desire and will for teachers to initiate change (ibid.). Therefore, school

administrators need to ‘unlearn and relearn’ (Klein, 2008) how to facilitate professional

development. For this to happen they also have to change their way of conceptualising

professional development as acquisition of new skills and knowledge and embrace it as

helping teachers rethink their practice (Patton et al., 2015). When school leaders encourage

teachers to change, the evidence can be found in improved classroom instruction and

student achievement, but it also requires the context which provides social learning through

coherent and focused opportunities sustained over a period of time. To evaluate a change as

a success, we have to bear in mind the “key variable that determines success in any

innovation […] is the degree of social capital in your own school. Learning is the work, and

social capital is the fuel. If social capital is weak everything is destined to failure” (Hargreaves

& Fullan, 2012:92).

Despite a paucity of teacher collaboration in the school and a perceived resistance to change,

I believed that well-planned action research was likely to bring about a change and further

affect the course of teachers’ professional development, fostering a culture of mutual

support and understanding.




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Figure 7: Fisher's Personal Transition Curve (Source: www.businessballs.com/freepdfmaterials/fisher-transition-curve-2012bb.pdf)




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Collaboration, collegiality and coaching

Central for this research was for the teachers to understand that they could improve their

pedagogies if they engaged in conversation with peers, examining and affirming their system

of beliefs through reflective analysis of teaching practices (McCormack et al., 2006). I hoped

to inspire them towards building “a professional community where collegiality and

experimentation were norms” (Feiman-Nemser & Buchmann, 1985:64). Hargreaves and

Dawe (1990) conducted similar research in which they defined and analysed the differences

between ‘collaborative culture’ and ‘contrived collegiality’ as forms of joint work and

interaction among teachers. Using the case of peer coaching, they investigated and

interpreted these differences: ‘collaborative cultures’ comprise evolutionary relationships of

openness, trust and support among teachers where they define and develop their own

purposes as a community; ‘contrived collegiality’ consists of administratively contrived

interactions among teachers, where they meet and work to implement the curricula and

instructional strategies developed by others. Collaborative cultures foster teacher and

curriculum development. Contrived collegiality enhances administrative control. Peer

coaching, Hargreaves and Dawe found, fosters implementation rather than development,

education rather than training, contrived collegiality rather than collaborative culture (ibid.).

As we will see later, this research did indeed build a professional community which evolved

from contrived collegiality towards a collaborative culture. Once the teachers felt like

embracing a change, there was no need for administrative control because their frames of

references relocated into collaborative culture. For a successful outcome of the Bell

restructuring, intensity of collaboration is an important determinant as it might cause either

stifling, if too intensive, or inhibition, if otherwise (Opfer & Pedder, 2011).

The findings of Johnson’s (2007) research on reciprocal coaching, done across three schools,

indicated that teachers were able to implement with fidelity a proscribed form of reciprocal

peer coaching, and they perceived the process as beneficial for improving their knowledge.

She also concluded that there were no clear and strong functional relationships between the

intervention and changes in teacher and student behaviour, which calls into question the

promotion of peer coaching for improving teacher knowledge and delivery of research-based

instructional practices.




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Although many teacher educators favour coaching and peer-collaboration as early

professional development tools, Huston and Weaver (2008) suggest that peer coaching is an

effective way to meet the multiple needs of experienced faculty. They view it as a formative

collegial process whereby two faculty members voluntarily work together to improve or

expand their approaches to teaching. By doing so, Huston and Weaver stress, colleagues

work together towards improving faculty morale and motivation, increasing collaborations

with other faculty members, and paying more thoughtful attention to one’s pedagogical

choices. Their peer coaching pilot project was created at Seattle University during the 2005–

2006 academic year involving ten senior faculty members. Following the pilot project, a cadre

of peer coaches provided support to a wide range of faculty members who had requested

coaching assistance.

Cowie (2010) researched a cluster of seven primary schools which were involved in a

professional development initiative. Her research was based on the premise that coaching

teachers would enhance their efficiency, which, in turn, would develop the academic

performance of students, creating a sense of achievement in the whole learning community.

She concluded that teacher performance was consistent with their decisions to accept the

change in their pedagogical instructions. Opfer and Pedder (2011:386) however, claim that

“change might occur in one area of influence but not lead to change in another”. That is, the

teachers might accept the suggestions and change their system of beliefs but not their

practice in the classroom, or the other way around.

Peer-collaboration provides a context in which two or more individuals work together “to

enhance information exchange, dissemination of good practices, and the organisation of

mutual support and learning” (Rhodes & Beneicke, 2002:14). Such collaboration may occur

between individuals or groups within individual schools or in collaboration with other

schools. There has been a lot of educational research on coaching, mentoring and peer-

collaboration as CPD models, especially in the light of the recent educational trends. The

Centre for the Use of Research and Evidence in Education (CUREE) carried out a project in 2004-

2005 which investigated how mentoring and coaching are used as a core part of CPD capacity

building in schools and as a means of improving teaching and learning. The research has

generated four kinds of resources: (1) A Framework for Mentoring and Coaching; (2) video

clips; (3) case study documents and (4) resources and activities which support the CPD. The




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objective of the study was to promote the CPD values while developing “clarity about the

nature of effective mentoring and coaching in order to secure coherence, excellence and a

positive impact on teaching and learning in the next phase of the development of a national

CPD strategy” (ibid.:1). The core concepts devised from their epistemology are: mentoring,

specialist coaching and co-coaching (cf. Figure 8).

Figure 8: Core concepts of the Framework for Mentoring and Coaching (Source: CUREE, 2005:5)

In 2008, Pedder et al. conducted a TDA-commissioned research study on CPD in schools,

Schools and Continuing Professional Development – State of the Nation, in which they

investigated the range and kinds of support that schools in England provide as well as the

range and kinds of CPD activities in which teachers were able to participate. To understand

and explain why and how teachers learn, they explored how a “teacher’s individual learning




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orientation interacts with the school-level learning orientation and how both of these

orientations together impact the activities (and features of activities) in which teachers

participate” (ibid.:389).

Lofthouse et al.’s (2010b) study comprised the findings of a two-year collaborative research

study on coaching at 13 schools, Improving Coaching: Evolution not revolution, commissioned

by the CfBT, into a practical guide for schools (Lofthouse et al., 2010a). The project had two

related aims: to observe and analyse a range of coaching practice and to develop the means

to enhance that practice. The coaching process in this study had four levels: (1) emerging

coaching practice, (2) developing coaching practice, (3) refining coaching practice and (4) co-

constructing collaborative coaching practice (cf. Figure 9). The research showed that not

only did teachers change facets of their teaching, but their self-efficacy improved, and in the

more elaborate cases, they began to see learning more from the viewpoint of students.

Figure 9: Four levels of coaching practice development (Source: Lofthouse et al., 2010a:30)

A number of educational theorists came up with different models of coaching (e.g. GROW

and FLOW models, see Brockbank & McGill, 2006). Other literature that takes more of a meta-

cognitive look at what lies behind the model, describes these models as functionalist

coaching, engagement coaching and evolutionary coaching or problem solving (ibid.).

According to Lord et al. (2008), approaches and models of coaching vary across three

different spectra: one-to-one versus group approaches, peer-to-peer support versus ‘expert–

novice’ support, and same-sector approaches versus approaches where the two parties are

from different sectors.




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Zwart et al. (2007:244) draw on reciprocal peer coaching, a model developed by Clarke and

Hollingsworth (2002), who defined peer coaching as a “configuration of activities that a dyad

of teachers can undertake in the workplace with the intention of supporting each other’s

teaching”. Reciprocal here means that the teachers take turns being the coach and coachee,

they work in partnerships, equally supporting and learning from each other. Similarly,

Hargreaves (2008) advocates the Institute of Education non-hierarchical coaching model in

which a coach facilitates a learning conversation, including: creating a learning environment,

clarifying objectives relating to work-based learning, joint planning and questioning,

collaborative teaching, risk taking and reflection, reviewing the effects of change in the

workplace and promoting self-awareness (ibid.). It is non-hierarchical both in terms of the

workplace professional hierarchy, and in terms of its view on how learning happens, that it is

socially constructed and situated.

Figure 10: The Multilayered Peer Coaching Model (Source: Meng & Tajaroensuk, 2013:20)

A study aimed at developing and evaluating the Multilayered Peer Coaching Model (MPC

Model) for the tertiary EFL teachers (Meng & Tajaroensuk, 2013) showed that using a variety

of instruments (tests, observations, teacher’s logs, researcher’s field notes and

questionnaires) can be used to develop a teacher network. The study was very

comprehensive and included five phases and 15 steps in the research procedure. As seen in

Figure 10, two peer teachers in each dyad work together to reflect on current practices,

expand, refine and build new skills, share ideas, teach each other, conduct classroom

research or solve problems in the workplace. Meng and Tajaroensuk report that the MPC

Model was appropriate and effective for the tertiary EFL teachers to have their in-service

professional development.




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A number of studies examine the effectiveness of remote or online coaching (Powell et al.,

2010; Downer et al., 2011). This practice is used particularly in the vast Australian bush (Rock

et al., 2011) or with physically challenged teachers (Israel et al., 2012), where the web-

mediated communication and virtual teacher support are the only possible way to network

with peers and grow professionally.

Showers and Joyce (1996) conducted studies in schools, where they divided teachers into

peer coaching teams. Implementing peer coaching into their training designs showed that

the level of classroom application increased to almost 90%, while the high-quality training

without any coaching reported that teachers had applied only 5% of the training input.

The Bell Model of Reciprocal Peer Coaching

Unlike these models, the model developed at Bell, the school where I conducted my research,

was not designed to merely implement a specific pedagogical element or enforce a policy

but to create a learning environment in which teachers could support each other while

merging their reassessed beliefs, values, perceptions, classroom activities and social

relationships. In other words, I was looking for practical implications of shared experiences

while establishing a culture where “collegiality and experimentation were norms” (Feiman-

Nemser & Buchmann, 1985:64). While I was developing a model, I had in mind the lack of

communication and collaboration among the teachers, which is why I decided to maximise

their learning experiences by pairing them off using a rotation schedule over the period of

one academic year, including school breaks. Six teachers were collaborating for 30 weeks,

each week with a different colleague (cf. Figure 11).

Figure 11: Coaching pairs diagram




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Using a simple mathematical formula, I calculated the maximum number of pair combinations

without any repeats, that is how many coaching pairs I can make with six teachers, which was

15.

(𝑁

𝑟) =

𝑁!

𝑟! (𝑁 − 𝑟)!=𝑁(𝑁 − 1)(𝑁 − 2)… (𝑁 − 𝑟 + 1)

𝑟!

(6

2) =

6!

2! 4!=6 × 5

2= 15

In this formula, N is the total number of teachers, which in this case is six, and r is the size of

a group, which in this case is two (i.e. a coaching pair). Then I used a simple sliding principle

to combine these 15 pairs, which can be easily replicated for any number of teachers. To

understand the principle, an example is given for each coaching session (CS) pair for

Teacher 2 and Teacher 3 (cf. Figure 12: Coaching pairs spinner), while a full schedule is

presented in Appendix 5: Coaching sessions and coaching pairs (p. 224).

Figure 12: Coaching pairs spinner for Teacher 2 and Teacher 3

The Bell teachers were paired off on a rotating principle, where each of 15 different coaching

pairs rotated every five weeks, so that each coaching pair had six coaching sessions over the

period of 30 weeks, that is 90 coaching sessions in total (cf. Table 1). For example, Teacher 2

was coaching with Teacher 3 six times, in weeks 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30.




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Table 1: Bell teachers’ coaching schedule

COACHING PAIRS Coaching session 1

Coaching session 2

Coaching session 3

Coaching session 4

Coaching session 5

Coaching session 6

PAIR’S SESSIONS

Teacher 1 and Teacher 2 week 1 week 6 week 11 week 16 week 21 week 26 6















TOTAL COACHING SESSIONS 15 15 15 15 15 15 90

The peer-coaching in this study is a three-phase process: (1) pre-conference, (2) overt lesson

observation, and (3) post-conference. Before the teachers were paired off, they were

introduced to the concept of coaching and its benefits for professional learning and

development. They were also presented with the interviewing schedule for pre- and post-

conferences (cf. Table 2 and Table 3 pp. 43-44), and instructed that they should agree on

what elements they will be observing during lessons. I decided to shift this responsibility for

lesson observation to them because I wanted to stimulate a constructive dialogue during the

pre-conference, which would seamlessly lead to the reflective processes during the post-

conference.

The pre-conference is the phase in which the peers frame the lesson, set learning objectives

and brainstorm effective strategies for pedagogical instruction to reach outcomes (Allison &

Harbour, 2009). It is also the time to think about the challenges in the delivery, teachers’

concerns and any other pressurising issues. A well-structured pre-conference (cf. Table 2) may

greatly affect the outcome of the observed lessons, as it provides both depth and richness to




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the focus of the observation. If the teachers ‘reflect-on-action’ (Schön, 1983), which is the

capacity to think before the lesson, then they are able to engage in the process of teaching

before it actually takes place in the classroom, foresee certain situations and act promptly in

the classroom (Rhodes & Beneicke, 2002).

Table 2: Pre-conference interviewing schedule (Source: Costa & Garmston, 1994:21)

Pre-conference interviewing schedule

What is the session going to be about?

As you teach, what will the students do?

What would you like students to take from the session?

What will you do to achieve your intended outcomes?

What will you do at the beginning, the middle, and the end of the session?

How long will each section of the session take?

How will you know whether or not the students are learning what you intend?

What will they do or say that indicates the session is successful?

Is there anything about the session or your teaching that you would like to address prior to the class?

The next phase is an overt lesson observation, which is passive in that there is no interaction

between the peers, but the observing teacher is taking notes and making reflections about

the observed teacher (ibid.). The notes follow a pattern agreed among the teachers, allowing

the observing teacher to focus on the teaching ‘critical incidents’ as agreed during the pre-

conference.

The post-conference is, needless to say, the most important part of the peer-coaching for it

focuses on the assessment of the observed pedagogical instruction, renders data gathered

during the observation (students’ behaviour, teacher’s reactions, learning success, etc.),

enhances reflections and bring about the change which leads to teaching improvement.

Rhodes and Beneicke (2002) list a number of items which could be raised during the post-

conference in order to invite reflective instances and provide further incentives for teaching

ideas (cf. Table 3). As we will see later in the thesis, the teachers started pairing off for

coaching sessions, yet their communication trespassed the classroom boundaries and




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continued outside the school, which was evidenced in their small talk. Coaching and peer-

collaboration became more than a professional routine.

Table 3: Post-conference interviewing schedule (Source: Costa & Garmston, 1994:22)

Post-conference interviewing schedule

How do you think the session went?

What were your students doing or saying to indicate how the session went?

What do you recall about what you were doing during the session?

How did what you observed happening with your students compare with what you planned?

How did what you actually did in class compare to what you had planned?

Did the students achieve the goals and objectives/outcomes you set for them?

Was there any part of the session that you changed?

Why did you make the change?

What were you aware of about the students that made you change?

Did all students perform as planned? If not, why do you think some students performed as planned and others did not?

What did you do to produce the results you wanted?

What new ideas or insights did you discover about your teaching?

As you plan future sessions, what ideas could be carried over and used?

What has the coaching/evaluation session done for you?

What would you have liked to see happen in the coaching process?

What could your coach do differently in future peer conferences?

To enhance the visibility of the change process and transformational learning, I decided to

mark the beginning and the end of the coaching sessions by using the Questionnaire on

Teacher Interaction (QTI) (cf. Appendix 1 and Appendix 2 on pp. 213-214) to measure how

coaching and peer-collaboration affected teachers’ attitudes, values, knowledge and beliefs

as well as to see how these perceptions changed over time. One of the reasons to use the

QTI over a self-made instrument was because of its well-established place in the academic

circles. The QTI is an instrument with an affirming evolution. The first instrument to measure

teacher self-perception in the classroom was based on Leary’s (1957) personality model of

interpersonal behaviour, which Wubbels et al. (1987) developed into the 48-item QTI using a




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Likert-type five-point scale. The QTI scores are used to map teacher behaviour on two

orthogonal dimensions, a proximity dimension (cooperation – opposition) and an influence

dimension (dominance – submission). This leads to eight different behaviour types with eight

corresponding scales: leadership, helpful/friendly, understanding, student

responsibility/freedom, uncertain, dissatisfied, admonishing, and strict (cf. Figure 13) and can

be administered to both students and teachers.

Figure 13: The model for Interpersonal Teacher Behaviour (Source: Wubbels & Brekelmans, 2005:9)

Once the quantitative data was gathered with the QTI, the teachers were presented with two

charts before the coaching sessions started and two nine months later, when the coaching




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sessions ended. They represented teachers’ self-perceptions of classroom interaction and

the perception of their students. An example of a chart is given below (cf. Chart 3) along with

the abbreviations used to label the eight scales (Table 4).

Chart 3: Comparing Teacher 2’s responses before and after coaching sessions

Table 4: QTI abbreviations and scales

Abbreviation Scales Abbreviation Scales

Lea Leadership behaviour Unc Uncertain behaviour

HFr Helping/Friendly behaviour Dis Dissatisfied behaviour

Und Understanding behaviour Adm Admonishing behaviour

SRF Student responsibility

freedom behaviour

Str Strict behaviour




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Before applying this model, I ran a pilot study with one of the colleagues (cf. Chapter 4 | 4 on

p. 75), which helped me fine tune the concept. I will explain in more detail in Chapter 5 |

Research design (p. 83) how the QTI was used to create teacher profiles and how coaching

conferences data were triangulated with them to yield findings in Chapter 7 (p. 115)

Although this instrument has been originally used to gather students’ perceptions of their

interactions with their teacher (Wubbels & Levy, 1993; Wubbels & Brekelmans, 2005), it has

also been combined with qualitative data to assess classroom environment and outcomes,

evaluate educational innovations, show differences between students’ and teachers’

perceptions of classrooms or compare actual and preferred environments (den Brok et al.,

2006b). However, this model has never been used to measure how coaching and peer-

collaboration affect teachers’ attitudes, values, knowledge and beliefs, and if it has any

implications in teachers’ classroom practice.

Summary

As a formative process of teacher’s professional development, coaching and peer-

collaboration promote self-assessment and introspection through constructive dialogues

and reflective practice. Highly personal, the process encourages a non-threatening

relationship in which the teachers learn to be conscious about their teaching, understand

what they teach and how they teach, compare the intended learning objectives with the

learning outputs, and most importantly, share their thoughts, impressions, observations,

achievements and frustrations with their coaching colleague.

The Bell Model of Reciprocal Peer Coaching relies heavily on teacher collaboration and joint

formative self-assessment as a means for achieving improvement in teaching practice and

eventually summative evaluation. What is important to understand is that the goal of

coaching and peer-collaboration is not only teacher learning but ultimately student learning

(Hammerness et al., 2005). Therefore, every failure to achieve learning objectives in the

classroom can be assumed as a learning opportunity rather than an unsuccessful lesson.

For coaching to be effective, it is very important that it is institutionally supported as the

school-level factors, such as clear vision, professional learning, auditing expertise and




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collaboration significantly influence teachers’ levels of enquiry and learning (Pedder, 2006).

According to a large number of researchers (Feiman-Nemser, 2001; Lofthouse et al., 2010a;

McCormack et al., 2006; Rhodes & Beneicke, 2002; Zwart et al., 2007), for teachers to

embrace the change, it is crucial to first gain evidence of improvements in student learning

before accepting new routes to teaching. Argyris (2003) advocates that learning occurs when

understanding, insight and explanations are connected with action rather than theory.

In a school where collaboration and trust between individuals is weak and communication

not established, approaches to professional development and performance management

have implications for management teams in those schools, as they need to devise strategies

to facilitate closer working relationships between colleagues so that trust and mutual

support can develop (Rhodes & Beneicke, 2002). Effective coaching is dependent on the

learner’s willingness to be open and honest and to put their plans into action. Yet, it is

dependent on other school-level variables, primarily the attitude of senior school

management towards the changes.

The nature of the context in which research takes place guides the choice of theoretical

framework and leads to explorations in which the phenomenon is better understood

through the ontological and epistemological perspectives in Chapter 3.

3 | Theoretical background

____________________________________________________________________________

In pursuit of knowledge, most scientists use theory to guide their own work, to locate their

studies in larger theoretical traditions or “to map the topography of the specific concepts

they will explore in detail” (Marshall & Rossman, 1999:36). While the choice of

methodologies and methods rightly serve researchers in the investigation of their

phenomena, the justification for such choice goes beyond answering the questions in the

proposed research and relates to the underlying assumptions about the reality and

understanding of the knowledge. Therefore, researchers need to establish a strong research

design in order to support an ontological interrogation, which illuminates the

epistemological and methodological possibilities that are available.

When a relationship is established between the ontological perspective (what a researcher

thinks can be investigated), the epistemological perspective (what they believe they know

about it) and the methodological approach (how to investigate it), then the phenomenon is

best explored (Grix, 2004). Consequently, Grix (ibid.) concludes, choosing the right

ontological and epistemological position therefore guides the choice of the methodological

approach and the research outcomes. Riazi (2016:42) insists that “the methodological stage

is genuinely geared to the conceptualization of the research problem, leading ultimately to

more meaningful and rigorous inferences”. Nonaka (1994) defines two spirals of knowledge,

that is two types of movement of knowledge. The ‘ontological spiral’ represents the

“[A]ll knowledge and therefore all meaningful reality as such is contingent upon human practices, being constructed in and out of interaction between human beings and their world, and developed and transmitted within an essentially social context.”

Crotty (1998:42)




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movement of knowledge between the individual and the organisational levels and the other

way around, while the ‘epistemological spiral’, that is transformation from tacit to explicit and

vice versa, shows a shift in four different types of knowledge, which he identifies as a SECI

framework: Socialisation, Externalisation, Combination and Internalisation (cf. Figure 14).

Figure 14: SECI Model of knowledge creation (Adapted from Nonaka, 1994)

When tacit knowledge is shared among individuals, we can observe its social attribute in

emotions and experiences transferred to the organisation. It can further be externalised in

the process of a dialogue among the members of the organisation so that it can become

more explicit, or the other way around, which is the process of internalisation, that is transfer

of knowledge from explicit to tacit. Combination, which is midway, involves the exchange of

individuals’ explicit knowledge by “reconfiguring existing information through the sorting,

adding, re-categorizing, and re-contextualizing” (Nonaka, 1994:19). Cheng (2019) used the

SECI framework to interpret the pedagogical content knowledge in individual, group and

school context while implementing a lesson study approach. Similarly, Hvorecky (2012)

explored how the SECI model intersects with the Bloom’s revised taxonomy (Anderson and

Krathwohl, 2001) and its levels of knowledge (remembering, understanding, applying,

analysing, evaluating and creating). He created a list of active learning activities, which he

cropped against the four dimensions of the SECI types of transfer of knowledge.

Interestingly, most of skills developed through the Bloom’s taxonomy belong to the tacit




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knowledge, which cannot be forced but rather enabled (e.g. storytelling, brainstorming or

demonstrating).

In the context of this research, the SECI framework engages the individual experiences of the

teachers, whose tacit knowledge of pedagogical instruction is socialised and externalised in

the community towards becoming more explicit. But for a change to take place, the teachers

need to transform this newly constructed knowledge through the process of combination

and internalisation in order to embrace innovation in their classroom. On the other hand, the

knowledge in this research is also transformed through the ‘ontological spiral’ from the

individual to the community and vice versa. Fidalgo-Blanco et al. (2015:4) argue that the lack

of this type of spiral in the context of educational innovation produces inter alia reduced

transferability of knowledge because the “knowledge created is applied in the context in

which it was created”. As there is no interaction between the individual and the community,

it is difficult to share the personal experiences and the spiral of knowledge is interrupted. To

avoid this, Nonaka et al. (2008) emphasise that the ontological spiral is best spun when the

interaction between tacit and explicit knowledge feeds on the iterative and dynamic

transformation of knowledge from a lower ontological level to a higher level. This, they

explain, happens because

“[k]nowledge is created by people in their interactions with each other and the

environment. Hence, to understand knowledge, we must first understand the

human beings and the interactive processes from which knowledge emerges.”

Nonaka et al. (2008:7)

To better understand the dynamic interplay between the ontological and epistemological

spirals in this research, I provide a short overview of the theoretical framework which

underpins this study.

Ontological perspective

Following the inherently interpretivist paradigm, my research rests on the notion that only

through the subjective interpretation of and intervention in reality can that reality be fully

understood. Interpretivist philosophy holds that researchers cannot avoid affecting the




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phenomena that they investigate as there may be many interpretations of reality, yet these

interpretations are in themselves a part of the scientific knowledge that they generate. Such

an ontological perspective guided me to understand the social reality as different teachers

see it and to demonstrate how their views affect the decisions which they make within that

reality. My view complies with Cohen et al.’s (2000), who advocate the use of interpretivism

arguing that situations need to be examined through the eyes of the participants, rather than

the researcher.

Epistemological perspective

The epistemological stance, which provides better understanding of how knowledge is

generated and shared in this study, stems from social constructivism. Crotty (1998:42) posits

that all knowledge is “contingent upon human practices, being constructed in and out of

interaction between human beings and their world”. Thus, knowledge is neither discovered

nor received, but constructed. Constructivism is a research paradigm that denies the

existence of an objective reality, “asserting instead that realities are social constructions of

the mind, and that there exist as many such constructions as there are individuals (although

clearly many constructions will be shared)” (Guba & Lincoln, 1989:43). Hence, our collective

efforts in the making of knowledge involve social structures, interactions and values, which

in the powerful loop of knowledge acquisition, assimilation and accommodation, render the

interpretation of our reality. According to Crotty (1998:8), “[t]ruth, or meaning, comes into

existence in and out of our engagement with the realities in our world. In this understanding

of knowledge, it is clear that different people may construct meaning in different ways, even

in relation to the same phenomenon.” Such an epistemological view is justified by the mere

nature of my study – the knowledge has been constructed and shared in a social context –

our school – which is seen in the actions teachers have taken to improve their pedagogical

instruction. The change this research has brought about is not a final conclusion but rather

an invitation to re-interpret the outcomes and construct new knowledge.

Ontology and epistemology are inextricably linked in self-study research. I believe that this

research can be seen not as abstract but as evolving in terms of my interactions with the

participating teachers. While co-constructing the knowledge about teaching, we explored

different views of reality. This had implications for the methodology of my research as I do




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not see knowledge as a fixed body of facts but as an ongoing interpretation of actions. In

other words, approaching the enquiry with action research, I hoped to exchange these

interpretations with my colleagues who participate in the research and invite further re-

interpretation as the quest for knowledge is a vital element in this form of research.

Constructivism in the classroom

Although the concept of constructivism has roots in Socrates’ dialogues with his students

(4th century BC), where he had dared them with directed questions until they realised for

themselves the weaknesses in their thinking, it is also investigated in the works of the

founders of the 20th century constructivism: Dewey, Piaget, Garcia, Ausubel, Bruner and

Vygotsky (Barrett & Long, 2012). They claim that in a constructivist classroom both teachers

and learners play an active role in making sense of the knowledge which is being constructed

while connecting this knowledge to what has been previously understood. By doing so, they

build understanding which is valued over mere acquisition of rules and procedures that may

seem unrelated to each other and to the learner (ibid.). The traditional approach to teaching,

the so called ‘transmission model’, promotes neither the interaction between prior and new

knowledge not the discourse which internalises the deep understanding. Piaget (1970) holds

that learners, who actively restructure knowledge, base their fluid intellectual configurations

on existing knowledge and formal instructional experiences. “As long as there were people

asking each other questions”, Brooks (1999) holds, “we have had constructivist classrooms.”

When constructivism started taking the place of traditional approaches to teaching, many

perceived it as “a pedagogical stance that entails a type of non-rigorous, intellectual anarchy

that lets students pursue whatever interests them” (Battista, 1999:492). Others found it to

be synonymous with Bruner’s ‘discovery learning’ and still others perceived it as a way of

teaching which focuses on using manipulatives or cooperative learning (ibid.). Vygotsky’s

(1978) work on socio-cultural theory and the roles that society plays in the development of

an individual greatly contributed to this debate more than thirty years after it had been

conceived. In the manner of an educational theorist, Vygotsky believed that there are two

levels in the learning process, where the language and culture play a crucial role in our

cognitive development. Everything we know is learnt, he explains, first through interaction

with others and then integrated into our mental structures. The adults foster children's




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cognitive development in an intentional and systematic manner by scaffolding them in

challenging activities (Wood et al., 1976), constructing through this interaction the meanings

which the children attach to objects, events and experiences. As children develop, they

gradually internalise these processes and start using them independently. However, the

potential cognitive development is limited to the ‘zone of proximal development’ (ZPD)

(cf. Figure 15), which Vygotsky defines as an area of exploration for cognitively capable

children, who require help and social interaction to fully understand the meanings and

constructs.

Figure 15: Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (Adapted from http://www.education.vic.gov.au)

What emerges out of this cognitive conflict is the knowledge building. While in the ZPD, the

students encounter and recognise discrepancies between what they already know and what

they do not know. This tension calls for reconciliation, which is achieved through the

construction of the new blocks of knowledge, which eventually drives the learning. In the

constructivist approach, Brooks and Brooks (1999:16) explain, “we look not for what

students can repeat, but for what they can generate, demonstrate, and exhibit”. The

process, as transparent as it can get, should be democratic for both sides. The students

should be stimulated in their curiosity and rewarded for the energy they bring to the

classroom, while teachers should be receptive to their students’ questions and reactive in

their responses.




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Understandably, teachers “feel comfortable in this role only if they view uncertainty and

conflict as natural and potentially growth producing for members of the learning

community” (Prawat and Floden, 1994:40). Therefore, the role of a teacher is to create the

conditions for invention rather than provide ready-made knowledge (Papert, 1980). Brooks

and Brooks (1999) argue that the constructivist vista is far more panoramic and therefore

illusive. “Teaching and learning”, they warn, “are complicated, labyrinthine processes filled

with dead ends, false positives, contradictions, multiple truths, and a great deal of confusion”

(ibid.:x). In an attempt to define the strategies for teachers to overcome imitative behaviour

and instead look for deep understanding, they list five guiding principles of constructivism

(ibid.:ix):

• using the problems of relevance to the students in instruction;

• learning is structured around primary concepts;

• valuing students’ point of view;

• adapting curriculum to address students’ suppositions;

• assisting students in learning in the context of teaching.

Researching a social constructivist classroom, Savery and Duffy (1995) came to the

conclusion that the learning process involves many interactions between the content, the

context, the activity of the learner and the goals of the learner. To actively engage students

while respecting their personal autonomy, “the teacher's role should be to challenge the

learner's thinking – not to dictate or attempt to proceduralize that thinking” (ibid.:5).

Learning is a social, cognitive and intrinsically motivational process, which emerges from a

meaningful discourse with the other people. Social constructivism inspires a cognitive

change not only through collaboration, metacognition, reflection and scaffolding but also

through subconscious dynamics, inner discourse and deep learning. More radically, McCarty

and Schwandt (2000) claim that the construction of knowledge occurs solely in the learner’s

mind, when they notice similarities and differences among the personal experiences and

gradually build up a concept relating to that experience. With this in mind, teachers who are

more receptive to the productive elements in students’ intuitive understanding may be more

successful in constructive pedagogies. However, this is not the skill that the teachers could

learn during their training. It takes much more than that. It takes a stamina to try and fail, and

then stand up and try again.




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I, therefore, find a very good fit for social constructivism in this research, as the teachers have

an opportunity to observe their peers and create the edge they need for constructivism in

their own classroom. This is far more challenging having in mind that the teachers come from

different cultural, social and educational backgrounds, which allows for a variety of

approaches and dynamics in the teacher-teacher interaction and collaboration. Moreover, I

see it as a vehicle for critical empowerment (Vygotsky, 1978), used to reflectively engage

teachers in co-construction while exchanging classroom experiences, personal concerns and

professional goals. A constructivist teacher, who is a ‘guide on the side’ rather than a ‘sage on

the stage’ to being (Morrison, 2014), provides bridging or scaffolding in order to extend their

students’ zone of proximal development. By doing so, they encourage students to develop

metacognitive skills towards the internalisation of their own experiences. In such an

environment, where multiple perspectives are represented and where questions are valid

(Brooks & Brooks, 1999), both teachers and students find themselves in the comfort zone

where they can recognise each other’s potential. It directly addresses how students learn

and how a constructivist teacher mediates student learning by blending the ‘what’ with the

‘how’ (ibid.).

Phillips (1995) doubts the ownership of the knowledge and wages how much of it is created

and how much imposed. He considered that the constructivist approach to active

participation is the ‘good’ face as it encourages engagement. The ‘bad’ face is its tendency

towards the relativism, which epistemologically positions constructivism outside its

framework. He argues that “nature exerts considerable constraint over our knowledge-

constructing activities and allows us to detect (and eject) our errors about it” (ibid.:12).

Constructivism gets ‘ugly’ when it quasi-religiously and ideologically follows its

epistemological tenets, “a ‘powerful folktale’ about the origins of human knowledge”

(ibid.:5). Such ‘sectarianism’, as he calls it, denies other pedagogically justifiable decisions

which are, by nature, less interactive and more instructional, such as lecturing, memorisation

or passive reception.

I totally go along with Phillips here as I believe and can even find evidence in my own teaching

experience, that there are certain instances where it is impossible to construct knowledge

using constructivist methodologies. For example, when teaching a foreign language in a

mixed-ability group, where mixed-ability refers to the students’ level of language proficiency,




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ranging from total beginners to the native speakers. In such a group, a teacher has to strike

the right balance between being ‘comprehensible’ to the beginners and ‘engaging’ to the

native speakers. If either of them tips over, the lesson skews into passive reception.

Cha and Ham (2012) explored what types of teachers, under what contextual conditions,

participate in constructive activities that involve intra-school collaboration among teachers.

Their systematic investigation showed that a constructivist endeavour enhances teachers’

collective efforts to deal with uncertainties that arise from their approach to teaching.

Conventional teaching, they allude, protects teachers from uncertainties that could emerge

from students’ unexpected reactions, which frequently occur in constructivist classrooms.

Interestingly, they reached the conclusion that teachers who are more active in incorporating

a constructivist approach into their instructional practice are more likely to engage in

collaborative interaction with their colleagues. Such teachers are likely to reach out to other

colleague teachers, not only to exchange practical suggestions but also to de-stress the

imposing notion of certainty, which can refrain them from exploring and experimenting.

Having in mind how constructivist teaching, teachers’ collaborative enquiry and school-level

cooperation have a significant potential to enhance the quality of instructional practice,

Abbott and Fouts (2003), in their research on constructivist teaching activity, found that it

ensures the accountability for student learning and strongly correlates with the students’

achievement. In the same vein, Cobb and Steffe (2011) argue that while reflecting on their

interactions with students, teachers formulate models of their students’ knowledge. These

conscious attempts to make sense of both their own and their students’ actions differentiate

a constructivist from a non-constructivist teacher.

Summary

Known for centuries, the constructivist perspectives focus not only on epistemological

theory but also on learning theory and classroom pedagogy. Today, more than ever before,

teachers put more emphasis on a student-centred approach, interaction with the students

and reciprocal recognition. They tend to give credence to the collegial collaboration towards

“information processing, sense-making, and problem solving, [so that] they can better

manage to go through given instructional situations of uncertainty” (Cha & Ham, 2012:645).




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A student, whose learning is aided through interactive instances and whose prior ideas,

experiences and knowledge are taken into account when constructing new knowledge, has

become an active participant in the democratised classroom.

Although criticised for its ideology, constructivism remains the framework for undeniable

critical empowerment and a methodological tool for student achievement primarily because

it develops metacognitive skills upon which the students can build their new educational

experiences. Teachers who recognise that learning is a uniquely idiosyncratic endeavour

understand that “[l]earners control their learning. This simple truth lies at the heart of the

constructivist approach to education” (Brooks & Brooks, 1999:183).

4 | Methodological issues

____________________________________________________________________________

The transcendent objective of this study is to empower teachers to examine their own

pedagogies through a classroom-based enquiry, which would hopefully guide them towards

clear understanding of how they can reform their own teaching instruction. It might be in the

context of introducing an innovative idea, reflecting on the effectiveness of their existing

practice or assessing the quality of their teaching performance. Whatever the reason is, the

objective is the same – improving (Koshy, 2005) – improving classroom practices, improving

teacher discourses and improving school structures. This means changing people: their

beliefs, perceptions, classroom activities and social relationships. Guskey (2000) is very much

supportive of teachers as agents of change and identifies them as the key to a successful

reform:

“The overwhelming majority of educators are thoughtful, inquiring individuals

who are inclined to solve problems and search for answers to pressing

questions. The inquiry/action research model of professional development

provides them with opportunities to do just that.”

Guskey (2000:26)

Methodologically, this study has a constructivist framework, in that knowledge has been

constructed by the participants in the research. Riazi (2016:37) emphasises that “it is the

“[L]et’s study what’s happening in our school and decide how to make it a better place.”

Calhoun (1994:20)




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research questions and the design technicalities that drive the researcher rather than the

ontological and epistemological conceptualizations of the research problem. In other words,

it is the ‘method’ and not the ‘methodology’ that shapes the design and the conduct of the

study”. Given the academic context in which I worked, I believed that this research would be

best investigated through action research, which I like to view as a learning process, whereby

teachers learn and create knowledge by critically reflecting upon their own actions and

experiences, forming abstract concepts, and testing the implications of these concepts in

new situations. Once they had identified the effects of the change, the next step was to

institute this change and reassess it to confirm its sustainability in the context. This, I

believed, would bring about the reform Guskey (2000) talked about and raise the level of

teachers’ performance through reflection and dialogue.

Action research

Ever since it was first used by Kurt Lewin in his 1946 paper Action Research and Minority

Problems, action research has been developed through various models (Carr & Kemmis, 1986;

Elliott, 1991; Stringer, 2004; Whitehead, 1989; Zubber-Skerritt, 1982) but all adopt a

methodical, iterative approach after problem identification: planning, acting, observing and

reflecting (cf. Figure 16). The reflection closes the cycle, informing at the same time the

planning of the next cycle.

Figure 16: Action research (Adapted from NSW Department of Education and Training, 2009:6)




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Undertaking action research in a rather small community of teachers, I could closely follow

the uncoiling of actions, emerging of contextual problems and empowerment of teachers

while seeking solutions. Action research is indeed problem-focused, context specific and

participative because it involves a change intervention which is geared to improvement and

a process based on “a continuous interaction between research, action, reflection and

evaluation” (Hart, 1996: 454). Not only do action researchers “seek to find universal laws of

human behaviour through which behaviour can be measured” (Hart & Bond, 1995:21) but

they also emphasise awareness raising, practitioner empowerment and collaborative

emancipation.

Emancipation in action research spreads over three levels, depending on the learning

environment in which it occurs: (1) individual, which is highly personalised and driven by one’s

need to improve capacities; (2) team, which is contingent on the willingness of a few teachers

to participate and exchange experiences and (3) school, which is usually a senior

management’s decision to test and implement specific pedagogical tools or educational

policy. Regardless of the environment, action research still assumes the same iterative

process. Data collected in action research are used to identify classroom/school problems,

create and implement a plan of action, analyse data, share the results and make instructional

decisions to improve student learning continuously, just like saying “let’s study what’s

happening in our school and decide how to make it a better place” (Calhoun, 1994:20).

Therefore, in its holistic manner, action research attempts to bridge the gap between theory,

practice and research, as well as between researchers and practitioners. Guskey (2000) is

convinced that the idea of action research is that

“[e]ducational problems and issues are best identified and investigated where

the action is: at the classroom and school level. By integrating research into

these settings and engaging those who work at this level in research activities,

findings can be applied immediately and problems solved more quickly”.

Guskey (2000:46)




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Stringer (1996) promotes the intrinsic values of

action research and draws on its democratic,

equitable, liberating and life enhancing

potential. His action research model is “a

simple, yet powerful framework” (ibid.:8): ‘look’

(problem definition), ‘think’ (planning) and ‘act’

(implementation) (cf. Figure 17). He tries to

decontextualise action research comparing it to

“steps we take as we investigate very ordinary

problems and issues in our everyday life”

(Stringer et al., 2009:7).

Zubber-Skerritt (1982) suggests that action research offers an approach to advancing

knowledge and a way of improving learning and teaching in higher education. For her, action

research goes by the acronym CRASP:

• Critical collaborative enquiry by

• Reflective practitioners who are

• Accountable in making the results of their enquiry public,

• Self-evaluative in their practice, and engaged in

• Participative problem-solving and continuing professional development.

Zubber-Skerritt (1982:122)

Small scale studies, like the one used for this thesis, cannot only improve practical situations,

but can also lead to the generation of theory, claims Elliott (1991). In effect, Elliott’s work

encourages the premise that teachers can be enabled to create their theory of practice

through critical reflection on their practice. Carr and Kemmis emphasise this characteristic

and define action research as

Figure 17: Action research cycle (Source: Stringer et al., 2009:8)




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“a form of self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants in social situations

in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own practices, their

understanding of these practices, and the situations in which the practices are

carried out.”

Carr & Kemmis (1986:162)

Yet, some twenty years later, Carr and Kemmis (2005:351) admitted that they had failed to

anticipate that “some forms of action research have become detached from any

emancipatory aspirations and transformed into little more than a research method”.

Since action research requires a dynamic interaction

between the researcher and the researched in a continual

set of spirals (cf. Figure 18) consisting of reflection and

action, the methods used need to be adjusted in line with

new discoveries in a series of unfolding and unpredictable

events. These adjustments may include actions such as

negotiation, seeking assistance, assessment,

investigating, making choices, working through

implications, reviewing changes and withdrawing.

Each spiral in the action research involves (1) clarifying and

diagnosing a practical situation that needs to be improved

or a practical problem that needs to be resolved; (2)

formulating action strategies to improve the situation or

resolve the problem; (3) implementing the action

strategies and evaluating their effectiveness; and (4) clarifying the situation, resulting in new

definitions of problems or areas for improvement, and so on, to the next spiral of reflection

and action (Elliott, 1988) (cf. Figure 18).

Building on Lewin’s sequence (1946) and Stringer’s (1996) ‘look, think and act’ process, action

research phases in this study can be expanded as presented in Table 5.

Figure 18: Action research spiral (Source: Del Buono, 2013:29 Sep)




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Table 5: Phases of action research in this study

1. Exploratory/diagnostic/fact finding phase Time (W = week)

• Identification of a problem

• Fact-finding to develop an overall plan

• Determine measurement tools, if appropriate

• W1 September

2. Planning/decision/action phase

• May involve modifying the original idea

• Considering alternatives

• Planning key changes in discussion with participants

• Planning strategies of intervention

• Taking action: QTI questionnaire administration and preparation of unstructured interviews and lesson observations

• W2 September

3. Evaluation/reflection phase

• Critical personal reflection on process, data and learning

• Data analysis, profile reports and teacher pairing-off

• Fact-finding (review) of the impact of the action - may be formative or summative

• Judgements regarding improvements

• Use of coaching conferences (lesson observations and unstructured interviews)

• W3 – W4 September

4. Second data-collection phase

• Repeat of phase 1 concentrating on evaluation of levels of change or achievement

• Coaching and peer-collaboration

• Repeat and reflect profile reports

• Identify lessons learnt

• W4 – W5 September

5. Evaluation, reflection, re-planning and re-implementation of action

• Repetition of cycles 2–4 as necessary • October – May

6. Final assessment of changes and utilisation of results

• Data analysis, profile reports and conclusion

• Closure, theory generation and write-up • June – August

Adapted from Parkin (2009:28-29)

As seen above, action research is a way to promote a cyclical process of improvement that

includes describing a problem, seeking knowledge from available data, collecting new data,

devising and implementing a strategy for change, evaluating the results and planning for

another cycle of improvement. This approach to educational research, according to Carr and

Kemmis (1986), has many benefits:




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(1) theories and knowledge are generated from research grounded in the

realities of educational practice;

(2) teachers become collaborators in educational research by investigating their

own problems, and

(3) teachers play a part in the research process, which makes them more likely

to facilitate change based on the knowledge they create.

Action research aims to affirm teachers as knowing subjects committed to changing

themselves and, accordingly, changing their educational work. During their developmental

phases, teachers become increasingly more self-critical, self-reflective and self-conscious of

their epic role, embracing the changes as an institutional and personal advancement, which

supports their efforts towards educational improvement. With this in view, action research

emerges as a learning process through which teachers learn by doing rather than by

theorising about learning. When learning is viewed as ‘active production’ instead of ‘passive

reproduction’ (Elliott, 1991), then it emanates human power to apply higher-order thinking

skills in the classroom (Brookhart, 2010) and establishes a dialectic process between the

‘learning’ and the ‘knowing’. It is directed towards “activating, engaging, challenging and

stretching the natural powers of the human mind” (Elliott, 1991:10).

Kemmis (2010) goes even further exploring the ‘happening-ness’ of action and practice while

arguing that the aim of action research is “to enrich our interpretive or hermeneutical

understanding and thus to prepare us to interpret the world more sensitively and to act in it

more appropriately in the present and future” (ibid.:422). He recognises that

[T]here are different kinds of understanding that might be the goal of science,

of research, or of action research. First, there is the ‘external’ truth that may

accumulate in scientific theories – the goal of theoria. Next, there is the kind of

interpretive or hermeneutical understanding that might result from education,

or from grasping the perspective of another, from reaching a historical

interpretation, or from richly appreciating a work of art. And third, there is the

kind of wisdom and self-knowledge that emerges from experience and




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reflection on experience that fosters the disposition of phronēsis – the

disposition to act wisely in uncertain practical situations.

Kemmis (2010:422)

It is the self-knowledge that brings us better understanding of ourselves, both individually

and collectively, understanding of our own actions and the consequences of our own

choices. Only by understanding ourselves can we understand the phenomena around us but

“what happens is more central in action research than our knowledge of it” (ibid.:423).

4 | 1 | 1 Action research limitations and assumptions

Insisting that researchers systematically and rigorously reveal their methodology and

themselves as the instrument of data generation, Ruby (1980) engaged in a heated debate

on subjectivity and objectivity in social research, which has been going on for more than two

centuries (Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2003). In educational action research, the higher-thinking

processes place a lot of responsibility on the teacher to develop a sense of one’s self through

systematically subjective enquiry, metacognition, analysis, integration and synthesis (York-

Barr et al., 2001). It is this emic, or, as Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1993:43) put it, “insider’s

perspective that makes visible the ways students and teachers together construct

knowledge and curriculum”.

Action research, Carr (1994:433) insists, has to “confront positivism not just as a theory of

knowledge but also as a theory embedded in social life and hence in the discourse,

organization and practice of education as well”. Following the inherently interpretivist

paradigm, my research rests on the notion that only through the subjective interpretation of

and intervention in reality can that reality be fully understood. Such an ontological

perspective helps me to understand the social reality as different teachers see it and

demonstrate how their views affect the decisions which they make within that reality. As we

are going to see later in the thesis, it was the teachers’ understanding of coaching and peer-

collaboration that drove the phases of the research and affected the change in their

perceptions about their pedagogies.




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There has been an on-going debate on the quality of teachers’ action research and the

legitimacy of action research as a form of educational enquiry. Cochran-Smith and Lytle

(1999) have raised the issue of the value of the knowledge generated from action research.

Having in mind that the purpose of action research is both to make use of existing scientific

knowledge and to generate new knowledge, the issue of its generalisability is indeed one of

the concerns. This will be more explored in Chapter 5 | 3 Validity, reliability and generalisability

(p. 91).

Action research is also criticised for lacking in quality, especially where methodological issues

are concerned. Mertler and Charles (2011) wage that it is due to the fact that action research

is still relatively underexplored when compared to more traditional forms of conducting

research, such as ethnography, and therefore more difficult to conduct. As it does not

conform to many of the requirements of conventional research, its methodology is less

structured and therefore more challenging to implement. Moreover, as the action

researchers closely monitor the practice and quite often engage in it, it is difficult for them

to remain subjective. Given the circumstances, action research has been criticised for

inevitable researcher bias in data gathering and analysis. On the other hand, Zeichner (2001)

argues that action research is a form of enquiry that should be judged by its own standards

and should not be compared with academic research because it is indeed the “process of

studying a real school or classroom situation to understand and improve the quality of

actions or instruction” (Johnson, 2005:28).

4 | 1 | 2 Reflection and action research

“[We] become reflective researchers in situations of uncertainty, instability, uniqueness, and

conflict”, Schön (1983:308) reminded us of a phenomenon which has been with the humanity

ever since, but was often given various misnomers, interpreted in a number of different ways

and attached many meanings as it has been filtered through each individual's frame of

reference. Although there are different conceptions regarding reflection, there generally is

an agreement on the importance of actively and carefully examining one's thoughts in order

to improve one's teaching.




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Yet, educational theorists warn about the importance of differentiating the terms ‘reflection’

and ‘reflective practice’ (Carr, 2006; Leitch & Day, 2000). Reflection is concerned with the

thinking process of ordering and associating ideas, linking them logically towards creating

knowledge or belief. It is predominantly viewed as a contemplative self-examination in which

the acts of cognition stem from learning ‘how’, rather than learning ‘about’. Reflective

practice is an extension of the thinking process – the ‘doing’ – and represents implementation

of the guiding gestalts in a given social context (Korthagen, 1993). Similarly, Schön (1983)

believes that reflection is an essential component for bringing understanding to the complex

nature of classrooms. Stressing how important it is to help teachers develop the flexibility

and judgment necessary to select appropriate teaching strategies, he developed a concept

of reflection by emphasising the context and time in which reflection takes place. He

distinguished between ‘reflection-on-action’, capacity to think about the lesson before, as

well as after the lesson, from ‘reflection-in-action’, defined as thinking that occurs during the

act of teaching. He advocated that the capacity to reflect on action so as to engage in a

process of continuous learning is one of the defining characteristics of professional practice.

It is reflective practice rather than theory that underpins both policy and practice in the

education of teachers (Pachler & Field, 2001; Pickering et al., 2007).

Leitch and Day’s (2000) examination of the action research literature reveals that its goals,

just like those of reflective practice, are change and improvement. However, the ways in

which the reflective enquiry processes within action research are framed and interpreted,

relate to the “underpinning epistemology of the action research model being employed –

whether, for example, the goal is for teachers to become more effective or efficient or

empowered” (ibid.:183).

Bearing in mind the various constraints in which action researchers work, this view is critical

in the sense that they not only look for ways to improve their practice within their working

context but are also critical change agents. It is reflective in that participants analyse and

develop concepts and theories about their experiences while being accountable in terms of

transparency, both to each other and to other interested practitioners. In doing so, they are

able to self-evaluate their practice, enquiring themselves and helping the researcher, who is

not an expert doing research from an external perspective, but a partner working with and




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for those affected by the problem. Once accepted as a tool for school improvement, action

research

“becomes an integral part of classroom lessons, providing scaffolding on which

to build creative and effective lessons that consciously engage the full students’

potential. It assists teachers to link student learning to real-life contexts,

interests, and experiences, and provides an approach to experimental education

that boosts students’ learning while promoting social outcomes related to

participatory democracy”

Stringer et al. (2009:9)

Ethical issues and power relations

In order to examine some of the gaps in ethical principles and practices of action research as

concerning in this study, I examined a debate about the role of an ‘outsider’, a consultant or

academic contracted for the research, and an ‘insider’, one who voluntarily initiates a change.

The latter raises ethical concerns given that a school professional is acting not only as a

researcher, but also as the change agent, the roles which are manifestly in conflict. It is,

indeed, this unique practitioner/researcher duality, or ‘liquid identities’ as Bauman (2000)

calls it, that makes action research valuable and problematic at the same time.

The ethical paradigm in my study of reciprocal coaching touches upon the confidentiality,

trust and power relations between me – a researcher, me – a supervisor, and them – the

researched, and them – the colleagues. Simmons (2007) questions the role of an ‘insider’ and

asks if they are a tinker, tailor, researcher or spy, for there is a very thin line between these

roles. She explains that emic and etic perspectives cannot be absolutes but more of a mixed

experience towards one end of the continuum. Although I wanted to approach this study

through action research, and see how pedagogical practices change through cyclical phases,

the ethical concerns that Dennis (2009:131) articulates as “the underlying principles entailed

in the decisions to intervene or not in the ongoing life of the site” were indeed the concerns

I wanted to raise in my study of teachers’ collaboration.




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I am not approaching this research setting as an independent positivist in search for

statistical inferences, but rather as a ‘fledgling’ researcher (Smith, 2007), who is concerned

with the principal ethical issue – how NOT to intervene and leave the setting unembarrassed

by the label ‘political’ (Dennis, 2009). For me, this study is a transformative endeavour, which

I wanted to observe as a researcher yet practice as one of the researched, being myself part

of the system that is assessed and evaluated. This dual role has been addressed in many

educational studies (Corbin Dwyer & Buckle, 2009; McNiff & Whitehead, 2009; Mercer, 2007;

Nolen & Putten, 2007; Zeni, 2009), all pointing to how unfit conventional ethics is in

educational action research “because of its practice of ‘othering’ human beings as research

subjects” (Eikeland, 2006:37). Floyd and Arthur (2012:171) argue that undertaking interpretive

insider research within your own institution or organisation, “where participants are

colleagues and are seen as co-researchers, where the nature of the data can be very personal

and where self-reflection is a key feature of involvement, makes these implications even

more acute”. In such a setting, an inside researcher might come across accidental ethical

dilemmas, which arise in situ and are highly influenced by the interpersonal relations among

the collaborators.

Decisions to intervene occur not fundamentally for the purpose of the research per se, but

because a researcher cares about the goals of the project itself and because they have

developed particular commitments regarding behaviour in the world in and out of the field

(Dennis, 2009). Floyd and Arthur (2012) identify external and internal ethical engagements,

which are framed in relation to the factors affecting them. While the former accounts for the

easily identifiable ethical issues, such as informed consent and anonymity, the latter relates

to the ethical and moral dilemmas that insider researchers have to deal with “once ‘in the

field’, linked to ongoing personal and professional relationships with participants, insider

knowledge, conflicting professional and researcher roles, and anonymity” (ibid.:172). In

favour of insiders is also Hannabus (2000:103), who believes that they know the environment

well and use their instinct when deciding “what can be done and how far old friendships and

favours can be pressed, just when and where to meet up for interviews, what the power

structures and the moral mazes and subtexts of the company are and so what taboos to

avoid, what shibboleths to mumble and bureaucrats to placate. They are familiar with the

organisational culture, the routines and the scripts of the workplaces”.




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Richard Winter (2003) lists a number of principles, among which are also issues of

confidentiality, visibility and accessibility to the data collected. Mercer (2007) asserts that

‘insider’ researchers face a variety of ethical dilemmas, yet two are particularly important.

The first one refers to the selection of information which is provided to the

colleagues/participants, both before and after the research. This conflicts with Winter’s

(2003:12) statement that “[t]he development of the work must remain visible and open to

suggestions from others”. So, striking the right balance between telling too little and telling

too much was going to be one of the ethical challenges in this research.

The second ethical dilemma is the use of incidental data. This is likely to be very exposing,

given that the research setting is also a place where teachers reveal their pressurising

concerns over a morning coffee or while commuting together. Needless to say, people talk,

but how much of this talk is ‘collectable’? Is a teacher who is talking informally still a

participant in the research? Zeni (1998) brings an even broader distinction to the colleagues

who are investigated: is he/she an informant (who knowingly gives information to the

researcher), a participant (who is even more involved in the reflective process) or a

collaborator (who is fully informed in planning and interpretation). This brings us to the

researcher’s subjectivity and the fine line between the biased and unbiased elements of the

investigation. Winter (2003:12) argues that “[d]escriptions of others’ work and points of view

must be negotiated with those concerned before being published”. I therefore invited my

colleagues to help me transcribe the data, especially with some inaudible words or

translation into English, and proofread the thesis. Although transparent and accessible, this

research was bound to yield some information which was going to be less convenient for

some of the participants, who might be unwilling to share their uncertainties with the others.

These ethical constructs should not be marginalised in this investigation but rather thought

over carefully and in-depth a priori.

I faced difficult decisions in my dual role. Unlike outsiders, insider researchers have to

consider to what extent they should use their inside knowledge to construct their research.

But where is the thin line that separates intervention from a transformative process in action

research? Dennis (2009:132) agrees that “qualitative researchers who work with participants

towards transformation, liberation and other changes are explicitly entering into a situation

where their participation is an intervention”. But how do I know that a piece of advice given




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during a coaching conference is not ethically challenged as intervention? Or that my personal

knowledge of the participants, relationships and workplace habits is not a critical incident

that I inadvertently use while collecting data? Drake (2010:98) emphasises that “[r]econciling

the position as a researcher and as a responsible professional practitioner pitches insider

researchers into a place that forces methodological as well as ethical consideration of

researchers’ distance”.

Knowing well the research environment, I assumed, using my instinct and familiarity with the

relations among the teachers (Hannabus, 2000), that I first had to make them feel

comfortable about the change. This kind of ‘pact’ might be ethically compromising, but it

served the purpose of letting teachers take control of the process, promoting them from ‘the

researched’, a role in which they would be passively observed and evaluated, to ‘agents of

change’, who willing contributed to the transformational process. It was for this very reason

that I had decided to announce the idea as a proposal at the staff meeting instead of

enforcing it as a principal’s decision. In a de-stressed atmosphere of the mid-year discussion

one December morning, when we exchanged our impressions on the things we had done

well and those we could have done better, I mentioned that I was reading extensively for my

doctoral thesis and that I had come across a non-invasive coaching model, which we could

use in our school. I made a diplomatic choice of words, referring to ‘changes’ as

‘improvements’, ‘research’ as ‘experiment’, ‘intervention’ as ‘transformation’ and ‘reculturing’

as ‘professional growth’. Far from being pejorative, scientific words in a closed environment

deprived of communication could have sounded too official and instructional, which is what

I wanted to avoid. Although I was aware of the caveat, I made an ethical compromise not to

ask them to sign any consent forms but made it clear that participation in the study was

voluntary and that they could withdraw at any point. I also showed them the Bell Model and

how they would collaboratively construct an authentic coaching scheme, which would help

them learn from each other and grow professionally. Although I detoured from a typical

ethical pattern in good faith, I fully understood the consequences of such decision, which I

saw as an instrument to deflate my power as a researcher, make me less condescending as a

school leader and let me seamlessly immerse into this intervention. By doing so, not only did

I want to prepare them for change, but I also had a vested interest to soften them towards

my dual role.




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Setting up this distance and splitting my duality – the ‘I’ and the ‘Me’ (Mead, 1934), has been

challenging navigation in this action research. I was sure that I would encounter many ethical

dilemmas, but I was also positive that this research would have lost some of its intrinsic

values had it been conducted by an outsider. Although the insider researcher’s moral

integrity is paramount (Simmons, 2007), it needs to be enhanced by a better understanding

of what might occur once the research is under way and after it has been completed (Floyd

& Arthur, 2012). I was therefore looking forward to collaborating with my colleagues towards

a transformative educational environment, where intervention might be perceived as a

contribution rather than an obstruction.

The role of the researcher in this study was indeed to approach the data “with an emphasis

on trustworthiness and authenticity by being balanced, fair, and conscientious in taking

account of multiple perspectives, multiple interests, and multiple realities” (Patton,

2002:575).

Research spoiler

“And the winner is…” echoed with suspense in a large conference hall in Hong Kong. I was

sitting in the first row hoping to hear my name. Being nominated by Pearson Education for

the Global Teacher of the Year Award9 is not happening every day, right? Luck? Opportunity?

Hard work? Good idea? I did not know which of these factors had brought me there, but I

knew one thing – this moment was going to affect my research.

It was an ethical dilemma in the first place because I was torn between a game winner and a

research spoiler. On the one hand, if I had withdrawn from the nominations, I would have

lost an unmatched professional recognition, affirmation of all my teaching efforts over the

last twenty years, and above all, personal satisfaction to share the joy with my family, who

supported me along the way. On the other hand, if I had stayed, this award would have

resonated among the colleagues, skewed their personal theories, affected their perception

of the research, and changed the course of the coaching conferences. These would have

been the shortcomings. What would have been the benefits? Could I balance them? Maybe

9 Global Teacher of the Year and Global School of the Year is a competition organised by the 21st Century Learning International

and awarded by Pearson.




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my colleagues would have fathomed the constructivist paradigm and active learning,

absorbed the change as beneficial, understood that ‘what I preach is what I teach’, and

eventually assumed the role of the change agents.

I wrote previously, in Chapter 2 | 3 (p. 30), about a theory on teacher change where I

speculated that change occurs in teachers’ attitudes and beliefs after they have gained

evidence of improvements in both student learning and their attitude towards learning.

Given that I had received the nomination because of an innovative pedagogical approach

based on the classroom evidence which was required by the jury (cf. Appendix 7 on p. 226), I

liked to think that this could be ‘the evidence’ they sought to inspire them towards a

transformative process. What I did not like to think is that this could be perceived as a success

formula, which they would ‘copy-paste’, self-imposing the criteria, frames of references and

pedagogical tools, which had not matured through cognitive and affective processes during

the coaching conferences.

Yet, one more thing was in favour of the nomination – collegial recognition. In a small

community of international teachers in Belgrade, where there is little collaboration among

the teaching staff because of the perceived alienation, and no collaboration at all with the

Serbian state schools because of the assumed insulation, a world prize could shed light on

the quality of education, which is the only true measure of success. In an age characterised

by the weakening of teachers’ status and esteem, in a country where educational reform

unfortunately lowered PISA10 standards of achievement, being nominated for such a

prestigious award was also a marketing tool to reinstate teacher’s dignity and regain the

long-lost confidence in the teaching practice. With all this mind, a game winner versus a

research spoiler was a tie. I decided to tip it over.

My name echoed second in the big conference hall in Hong Kong but back in Serbia I was

commended for enormous success on national television, had interviews for magazines and

was invited for conference talks to share my teaching experience – I was a celebrity teacher!

My professional journey yielded a harvest of wonderful personal impressions. However, it

yielded a different kind of harvest in the school where I was conducting my research.

10 Results available here: http://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/PISA-2012-results-snapshot-Volume-I-ENG.pdf




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When I was designing this research, a pilot study (cf. Chapter 4 | 4 on p. 75) confirmed that it

was a slow and rather daunting iterative process for a young novice teacher who I was

coaching with. As she was going over the stages of progressive transformation, gaining

confidence in her reassessed classroom practice and maturity in her cognitive and affective

processes, I came to realise that the crucial moment in her transformation – ‘the teaching

epiphany’ – was the moment when she saw for herself the difference in the students’

learning. In the actual study, the teaching epiphany happened when my perception of

professional recognition transferred to the team. In other words, the initial resistance to

change was shorter lived than expected, allowing more space for transformational learning

and more time for reflective instances, which are indeed prerequisites for self-evaluation

towards improvement. Biased or not, the analysis of the data collected after the official

announcement of the winner showed that the Global Teacher of the Year Award was also

‘local’ as the teachers in the school identified with it.

Pilot study

Having a pilot study to test the Bell Model of Reciprocal Peer Coaching proved to be a

prerequisite to produce an instrument for the measurement of opinions and orientations

which has face validity and is internally consistent and reliable (Brown & Dowling, 1998).

Having in mind that I had to carry out a pilot study with a sample which corresponds to the

sample for the actual study, I launched the research by conducting confidential coaching

sessions with one of the teachers at the primary school. The teacher was Serbian, with a

degree in English as a Foreign Language and two years of teaching experience. Having been

educated in the UK, she had an excellent command of English and educational philosophy

which supports life-long learning. Her inexperience in this case was an advantage because

she had been less exposed to traditional ways of teaching, which is typical of the Serbian

educational system. At one point of the pilot study she even admitted that during her first

year of teaching, she had been assigned a mentor, but the relationship was purely

administrative and lacked true collegial support. Novice teachers in Serbia are required to

have mentors in the first year of teaching so that they can be supervised towards obtaining

a teaching licence yet for most of them, it is purely administrative in most of the cases. She

confided with me that she tried exploring and experimenting in the classroom without

having a true parameter of success. Given the level of trust and openness to novel teaching




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strategies, it was my impression that she was very receptive to what Pam Robbins defines as

peer-coaching:

“Peer-coaching is a confidential process through which two or more

professional colleagues work together to reflect upon current practices;

expand, refine and build new skills; share ideas; conduct action research; teach

one another, or problem solve within the workplace”.

Robbins (1995:206)

Having in mind the paucity of teacher collaboration in our school, piloting peer-coaching

helped me design and refine the action research methods in order to embed lasting

improvements in professional practice of the teachers in our school.

Following the Bell Model of Reciprocal Peer Coaching, in which we used the Questionnaire on

Teacher Interaction, coaching sessions and lesson observations (cf. Chapter 2 | 5, p. 40), we

strove to blend it into our classroom routine and make most of it as a mechanism for teacher

support.

4 | 4 | 1 Pilot Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction

Two teachers, where Teacher A was my colleague and Teacher B was I, and 23 students aged

8 to 11 took part in the survey. The Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction proved to be a reliable

tool with Cronbach alpha ranging between .72 (Teacher A) to .78 (Teacher B) and a very

stable standard deviation. The teachers’ responses corresponded to their students’

responses on the eight scales of the QTI (cf. Figure 13 on p. 45).

As the charts show (cf. Chart 4 and Chart 5), the students perceived both of us as cooperative,

that is as displaying leadership, understanding and helping behaviour. Teacher A had become

more helping after the pilot research, but her students perceived her even more helpful than

she thought of herself. On the other side, Teacher B had become less helpful but more

understanding as perceived by her students. What appears unexpected is that the teachers

rated themselves stricter than their students did.




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Chart 4: Comparing Teacher A’s responses with her students’ responses before and after the pilot study

Chart 5: Comparing Teacher B’s responses with her students’ responses before and after the pilot study




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It seems to have been very thought-provoking both to the two of us and the students. For

the first time in her career, the co-coach could see the quantitative representation of her self-

impression as compared to how others see her. I found it insightful to re-affirm my

pedagogical practice and compare results in this study with the results of the QTI I did six

years ago, as part of the action research on teachers’ perceptions about their teaching, which

I ran in the school where I used to work at the time.

For students, it was an overwhelming experience to do the survey. As most of them had

never done any kind of teacher evaluation before, it was interesting to see what their

responses looked like on the paper and how they understood the Likert scale. For example,

I noticed that the statement “This teacher looks down on us” was very often scored as ‘most

of the time’ (3 on the Likert scale), which gave a strong admonishing hue. When questioned,

the students explained that the statement was literally perceived as “the teacher is taller and

therefore looks down on us”. Similarly, because of the mother tongue intrusion, the

statement “This teacher makes fun of us” was understood by the Serbian students as

“having fun with us” and most of the students gave it a 3.

4 | 4 | 2 Pilot coaching conferences

The coaching conferences in this pilot study were carried out every other week over a period

of three months. This pattern was chosen in order to allow the participants the time to reflect

both ‘in-action’ and ‘on-action’ (Schön, 1983), and implement the changes in their pedagogical

instruction. The data collected during the sessions were triangulated with the feedback in

the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction.

The data collected over this period were thematically analysed as I agree with Braun and

Clarke (2006:97) that a “rigorous thematic approach can produce an insightful analysis that

answers particular research questions”. On the other hand, this approach has proved to be

flexible enough to allow emerging themes, which came along and filtered through a large

amount of qualitative data during interpretation: (1) reflection about teaching, (2) lesson

planning and lesson observation, and (3) students’ reaction to the changed pedagogy.

Although some of the themes that emerged after legitimating the codes were congruent

with the initial ideas, they also helped me redefine the conference schedule and think more




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carefully of how to apply the QTI with the students in terms of wording (cf. Table 2 and

Table 3 on pp. 43-44 and Appendix 2 on p. 214). I therefore decided to include the eight scales

of the QTI as codes in the actual research, so that I could measure the qualitative counterpart

and manifestations of the elements measured on the QTI as well.

The coaching partner, although still an early-career teacher, showed a keen interest in

reflection as a means for professional development. During our pre-conference

conversations, she progressively developed a better understanding of how these questions

could help her improve lesson preparation. For example, when first prompted with the

question how she would know whether or not the students were learning what she intended,

she shrugged her shoulders and honestly said, “I have no idea”. She reported that this

question motivated her to think of the ways how to measure learning success. She asked the

students to evaluate her lessons by putting three types of smileys, ☺ , on a chart and

then compared their test results with the lesson smileys. This small classroom research

confirmed that the students’ test performance was much better on the items covered during

the lesson which had been evaluated as successful. Darling-Hammond (2003:7), in her

evidence-based findings for the effects of poor teacher quality on student outcomes, claims

that “well prepared capable teachers have the largest impact on student learning, and they

need to be treasured and supported”. These findings have led Darling-Hammond to identify

high-quality induction, mentoring and professional development programmes which sustain

the early-career teachers towards mastering their skills.

During lesson observations, I came to realise how difficult it was to observe unnoticed.

Students in both classrooms were quite unsettled by the presence of the other teacher,

which seemed to find roots in their belief that the guest teacher was observing their

knowledge, behaviour and attitude. This caused a lot of problems to both my colleague and

me, primarily because the climate in the classroom was far from natural. Some of the

students were reluctant to participate while others, in an attempt to show off, were louder

than usual. As a result, we started predicting students’ reactions and then validating these in

situ. For example, my colleague had noticed that every time I was in the classroom, one of

the boys would start vigorously waving his hand in the “I know, I know!” fashion whenever

she asked a question. Such behaviour upset the other students and affected the dynamic in




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the classroom. When she asked him why he was doing that, he confidently responded, “She

will be my teacher next year, so I want her to know how smart I am”.

We extensively debated whether it would be ethically inclusive to have the students

informed about the ‘project’ as well in order to relieve their stress in the classroom. Using the

Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI) before the pilot project had started might have

been a good strategic tool for announcing the observations that followed. It might have

labelled ‘the teacher sitting in the back’ as non-threatening. This approach I changed in the

research itself and noticed that the students reacted differently when they knew the guest

teacher wasn’t observing them.

The post-conference conversations took much more time than estimated. At first, my

objective was to cover all the questions and collect data in an item-like fashion, but as we

progressed further into our coaching timeframe, I came to realise that most of the questions

found their answers in a natural flow of conversation. Our semi-structured interviews

became less and less structured and more and more informal. Cohen et al. (2000:267) explain

that “the interview is not simply concerned with collecting data about life: it is part of life

itself, its human embeddedness is inescapable”.

4 | 4 | 3 Pilot findings

What I learnt from the pilot study was that the fashion in which the survey had been

distributed biased the data collection. In the pilot study, each teacher administered the

questionnaires to their students, which affected the validity of the data since the students

wanted to please their teacher and positively evaluate her performance. Having the

questionnaire administered by a teacher the students do not know, proved to be less biased

although organisationally more complex and time-consuming. Den Brok et al. (2006b) used

the questionnaires online, minimising the role of the teacher in the survey administration.

Six sessions in three months of reciprocal coaching created an environment for

interdependent relations, where two teachers could grow as autonomous individuals within

a community of practice (Wenger, 1998). Although we both had a lot of positive feelings

about coaching, similar interests and methodological orientation, what struck me as a




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surprising outcome was how power relations changed over time (Foucault, 1982). One of my

greatest concerns at the beginning of the coaching sessions was whether I should keep my

distance as a supervisor or collaborate as a teacher. I favoured the latter, but the reality

bounced back as the co-coach kept at a distance as my less experienced colleague. This was

particularly evident in the first two sessions, where she hesitated to share her impressions,

suggest different methodologies or criticise my lessons. Foucault (ibid.) holds that socially

constructed power is exercised in the capacity to get people to act in line with one’s desires,

beliefs, orders, instructions, commands, suggestions, etc. in order to impact their decisions.

However, one should differentiate between power as influence and power as control. Turner

(2005:6) explains that when power is displayed as influence, people are persuaded that the

“desired judgment, decision, belief or action is correct, right, moral, appropriate”. On the

other hand, power as control is exerted in authority or coercion over someone’s will.

What I noticed during the pilot study was how my power subdued to the point where I could

not influence the course of our pre- and post-conferences, which is practically the philosophy

behind reciprocal coaching. Developing a relationship of trust empowered us to provide

immediate critical feedback and encouraged us to learn from each other in an effort to

become better teachers. However, it was only later in the research, when I started

connecting the dots between what was happening to the teachers and what was happening

to me – a researcher and me – a supervisor, that I realised how important this process was

for setting up a metacognitive frame of mind, which emerged as an instrument for teacher

professional development (cf. Chapter 8 | 7 on p. 207). At that point of the research, I did not

realise that our conferences rested on our own capacity to self-reflect and understand the

learning process (Jones, 2007) and that our ‘adaptive metacognition’ (Lin et al., 2005:245)

guided us through our social interactions, classroom decisions and cultural norms which we

started setting up in the school.

Summary

A cyclical process of improvement makes teachers grow professionally and recognise

themselves as empowered agents of change. In action research, teachers are not only the

researched but collaborators who, jointly with the researcher, construct the reality and

reflectively bring about the change. The cycles of reflection and action were crucial to this

collaborative enquiry.




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Although the legitimacy of action research data has been widely debated, a plethora of

educational researchers strongly support the learning enquiry and reflective practice over

the scientific rigour. Bray et al. (2000) explain that there are three forms of reflection:

descriptive, evaluative and practical. In this study, descriptive reflection relates to events and

responses to the discussions experienced by the teachers during their pre- and post-

conferences. Evaluative reflection assesses teachers’ actions, thoughts, beliefs and feelings,

as related to the enquiry process, particularly seen in the Questionnaire on Teacher

Interaction. Practical reflection occurs when a researcher provides a summary of the

communications as feedback to the teachers.

Ethically, action research questions the role of an insider researcher, particularly in terms of

their decisions to intervene and affect the course of change. Therefore, central for action

research is how to reconcile the dual roles of an inside researcher, who is both the researcher

and the researched.

Observing and being observed stimulated reflection on the teaching process, collegiality,

support and morale. My coaching partner and I used our time off teaching to learn from each

other and exchange our achievements and failures. Our conversations on a continual basis

decreased the feeling of teacher isolation and elevated coaching to a scholarly activity.

Reflection in action, which is directed towards the improvement of practice, does not

necessarily have to take place within the boundaries of the classroom to have an impact. Its

didactic, psychological and sociological principles can become clear as result of

understanding how this impact brings forth the values of quality teaching. The process of

reflection, as a psychological phenomenon, is necessarily subjective and requires that

teachers, as reflective practitioners, continuously take control of their professionality and

embed “new approaches, techniques, skills, knowledge, understanding and/or insights into

personal practice” (Pachler et al., 2003:9).

5 | Research design

____________________________________________________________________________

This investigation sought to find an in-depth understanding of teachers’ beliefs about their

classroom practice in order to establish the apposite coaching model, and witness to what

extent it affected their teaching practice. This phased out into creating a metacognitive

instrument (cf. Chapter 8 | 7 on p. 207) in which teachers were able to voice their needs and

become aware of their strengths, weaknesses and areas of improvement when given

feedback, and empower them to seek further professional development opportunities

within the school.

Leitch and Day’s (2000) examination of change agents in classrooms showed that action

research, which is iterative and reflective in its nature, could be the best methodological tool

in a small-scale study as the one carried out here. Although there has been an ongoing debate

on the quality of teachers’ action research and the legitimacy of action research as a form of

educational enquiry, action research remains the “process of studying a real school or

classroom situation to understand and improve the quality of actions or instruction”

(Johnson, 2005:28).

Action research is more of a holistic approach to problem-solving, rather than a single

method for collecting and analysing data. Thus, it allows for several different research tools

to be used as the project is conducted, such as keeping a research journal, document

“A mixed methods way of thinking is an orientation toward social inquiry that actively invites us to participate in dialogue about multiple ways of seeing and hearing, multiple ways of making sense of the social world, and multiple standpoints on what is important and to be valued and cherished”.

Greene (2008:20)




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collection and analysis, participant observation recordings, questionnaire surveys, structured

and unstructured interviews, and case studies. Johnson (2005:24) has remarked that “in an

action research project you are not trying to prove anything. […] The goal is simply to

understand.”

Mixed methods research

Social research should embrace the ‘best of both worlds’, where naturalist and interpretivist

approaches should be combined because they are usually seen as different ways of studying

the same phenomenon and able to answer the same research questions (Bryman, 1988).

Mixed methods invite researchers “to participate in dialogue about multiple ways of seeing

and hearing, multiple ways of making sense of the social world, and multiple standpoints on

what is important and to be valued and cherished” (Greene, 2008:20). Webb et al. (1966:3)

first defined this kind of approach as triangulation, suggesting that if “a proposition has been

confirmed by two or more independent instruments, the uncertainty of its interpretation is

greatly reduced”. Denzin (1970:310) elaborates on this idea and adds that triangulation is an

approach in which “multiple observers, theoretical perspectives, sources of data, and

methodologies” are combined. One of the contexts in which the marriage of approaches

frequently occurs is where the researcher is investigating one or more “fairly discrete social

collectivity” (Bryman, 1988:149). Mapping out the richness and complexity of human actions

in such a collectivity gives a more detailed picture of the context in which the research occurs.

By doing so, social scientists are likely to display greater confidence in conducting their

research and gain the understanding which “goes beyond the laws or formulae which

exhaust its present formulation” (Taylor, 1980:29).

Mixed methods research is a research design with philosophical assumptions as well as

methods of enquiry (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007). The theory guides the direction of the

data collection while the method facilitates the data analysis in a single study or series of

studies. The central premise of the mixed methods approach is that the use of quantitative

and qualitative approaches, in combination, provides a better understanding of research

problems than either approach alone (ibid.). Being inclusive and pluralistic, a mixed methods

approach allows for more creativity in designing, without imposing a single-approach

constraint on the researcher. Yet, writers in mixed methods are also careful to distinguish




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‘multi-method studies’ in which multiple types of qualitative or quantitative data are collected

(ibid.) from ‘mixed methods studies’ that incorporate collecting both qualitative and

quantitative data.

Caracelli and Greene (1997) identify three typical uses of a mixed methods study: (1) testing

the agreement of findings obtained from different measuring instruments, (2) clarifying and

building on the results of one method with another method, and (3) demonstrating how the

results from one method can impact subsequent methods or inferences drawn from the

results. Collins et al. (2006) shed a different light and list four rationales for conducting mixed

methods research: participant enrichment, instrument fidelity, treatment integrity, and

significance enhancement. They hold that approaching a study in two ways helps assess the

appropriateness and/or utility of existing instruments, facilitating thickness and richness of

data, and augmenting interpretation and usefulness of findings.

One of the key principles of mixed methods design is to identify the reason(s) for mixing

quantitative and qualitative methods within the study. Bryman (2006) provides a detailed list

of reasons based on researchers’ practices, including triangulation, completeness,

explanation, instrument development, context and diversity of views, to name just a few,

which I find useful in designing my research.

I share Weber’s (1949) understanding that combining approaches would greatly enhance the

validity of this study but I was also aware that it might not yield complementary data. My

concern was that The Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI), which I wanted to use to

measure teacher self-evaluation, might fail to control the variables which were relevant to

the qualitative interpretation. On the other hand, given the insider nature of the research, I

thought I might fail to interpret the meaning of the interview and observation values which

relate to the ‘brute data’. In my study, I wanted to compare if what teachers ‘preach’ is what

they do in the classroom. From there, in search for fidelity and integrity, I hoped to either

clarify and build on, or see how it impacts on the coaching sessions.




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5 | 1 | 1 Quantitative research method: Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI)

While mixing methods, I believed that the QTI, which I used in this research for both self-

evaluation and students’ evaluation of teacher’s interaction, would be a rather reliable tool

in assessing how coaching and peer-collaboration might affect teachers’ attitudes, values,

knowledge and beliefs as well as to see how these perceptions change over time. Teachers’

responses to this survey, before and after the implementation of the coaching model,

reflected the change in their attitudes, values, knowledge and beliefs more systematically

and unidimensionally than tools used in qualitative approach. Although I was re-thinking the

use of the QTI in the actual study because the pilot results did not show much difference in

the elements on the scales, I evaluated that the other teachers in the sample had diverse

teaching experience and cultural background which, I assumed, could yield data with more

impact on the research. We will see later in the thesis that this assumption proved to be

correct and the QTI analysis confirmed striking differences ‘before and after’ the research.

This model has been used in the Netherlands to gather students’ perceptions of their

interactions with their teacher (Wubbels & Levy, 1993; Wubbels & Brekelmans, 2005) but

some more recent studies, according to den Brok et al. (2006b), employed various forms of

the QTI in over 120 studies worldwide. These studies have included associations between

classroom environment and outcomes, evaluation of educational innovations, differences

between students’ and teachers’ perceptions of classrooms, comparisons of actual and

preferred environments, etc. For example, Waldrip et al. (2008) used the QTI, both on

students and teachers, to help teachers change their teaching strategies. The classroom

teachers were then interviewed about what changes they had sought to promote in their

classrooms, and what they felt had been achieved in their classrooms. The study found that

students were able to articulate what changes the teacher had implemented, what their

reaction was to these changes and their perception of the classroom environment as a result

of these implemented strategies.

There were two designated subgroups of interest (DSI) (Hambleton & Rodgers, 2012) in my

survey: students and teachers. Given the fact that the QTI has been used widely with high

reliabilities shows that it had been carefully designed and pre-tested before being

administered in the classrooms. Having in mind our students’ cognitive and social maturity, I




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used in this study a questionnaire linguistically adapted for elementary school students by

Goh and Fraser (1997) (Appendix 2 on p. 214), while the teachers were given the standard QTI

format (Appendix 1 on p. 213). Although students did not participate in this study as a sample,

they were an auxiliary tool, high in validity and reliability, to test the legitimacy of the

teachers’ self-assessed QTI. The teachers’ perceptions might differ from students’,

prompting them to reflect on their interpersonal behaviour in the classroom. Let’s not forget

– students are indeed very just in defining what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’ about a teacher.

Moreover, the teacher’s self-perception might be biased by their contorted image of

themselves in the classroom as they might create an eminence of what is their ‘teacher ideal’,

responding to the QTI in this respect. The students’ responses then serve as a reality bounce

back, which more truly represents the ‘real teacher’.

5 | 1 | 2 Qualitative research method: coaching conferences and lesson observations

Coaching and lesson observations locate the teachers in the visible world of teaching, where

they are able to make sense out of it by interpreting the meanings which the participants

bring to it. In other words, they allow the researcher to transform practices into data in order

to understand the phenomenon. The goal of qualitative interviewing is to provide

understanding of things that cannot directly be observed, such as feelings, thoughts,

opinions, attitudes or behaviours of teachers. Since it is based on the assumption that the

perspectives of others’ are meaningful and knowable, entering into their perspective

becomes a major objective for the qualitative researcher.

The semi-structured interview method informed this research by gathering data which “rely

as much as possible on the participants’ view of the situation” (Creswell, 2012:20). The

teachers, who interviewed each other before and after the lesson observation took place,

are collaborators guided by the same principle. While collaborating, teachers collected their

responses by answering the questions in the schedule, forming a bank of data with

“verisimilitude, statements that produce for the readers the feeling that they have

experienced, or could experience, the events being described in a study” (Creswell & Miller,

2000:129). Triangulated with the lesson observations data, these ‘thick descriptions’, as

Geertz (1987) expounds, help the researchers understand the significance of an experience,

or the sequence of events, for the person or persons in question. In thick descriptions, “the




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voices, feelings, actions, and meanings of interacting individuals are heard” (Denzin, 1989:83)

as they occur “in a cultural network saturated with meanings” (Eisner, 1985:112). Thin

descriptions, by contrast, lack detail, and simply report facts (Denzin, 1989:83).

The interview process in general is one that raises many questions from an epistemological

point of view. One criticism is that it is used by researchers who “prefer to ‘manufacture’ their

data rather than to ‘find’ it in the ‘field’” (Silverman, 2007:37). This critique is based on the

premise that no data gathered in an interview can be representative of the social reality in

which interactions naturally occur. Thus, by bringing subjects together and putting questions

to them in the hope of gaining an insight into their social reality, Silverman argues that the

researcher is creating an artificial situation because subjects cannot be trusted to accurately

conceptualise their own social realities (ibid.).

The differential that exists between the interviewer/teacher, who is also the observer, and

the interviewee/teacher, who is the observed, is another area of concern. The researcher

who is observing a teacher’s pedagogical instruction in the classroom is also observing their

interaction with the students, who inadvertently become objects of research. This has

implications for the level of trust that can be established between the researcher and the

participants. Such a dual role might create problems in terms of building rapport because any

context in which a teacher researcher attempts to investigate the other teacher might

immediately become researcher-centred.

5 | 1 | 3 Triangulation

Although the logic of triangulation is based on the premise that “no single method ever

adequately solves the problem of rival explanations” (Patton, 1999:1192), researchers are

divided in their views. While some argue that triangulation is just for increasing the wider and

deep understanding of the study phenomenon, others claim that it is actually used to

increase the study accuracy (Hope & Waterman, 2003). Denzin (1970:310) sees triangulation

as an approach in which “multiple observers, theoretical perspectives sources of data and

methodologies” are combined, while Creswell and Miller (2000:126) define triangulation as

“a validity procedure where researchers look for convergence among multiple and different

sources of information to form themes or categories in a study”. When triangulating,




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researchers provide scientific evidence through a systematic process of sorting through the

data to find common strands by eliminating overlapping areas (ibid.). In this way, instead of

one single incident, the researchers are able to validate their data collecting multiple forms

of evidence.

Patton (1999) reminds us that it is a common misunderstanding to believe that different data

sources or enquiry approaches yield essentially the same result. Moreover, he continues, an

understanding of inconsistencies in findings across different kinds of data can be illuminative:

“Finding such inconsistencies ought not be viewed as weakening the credibility

of results, but rather as offering opportunities for deeper insight into the

relationship between inquiry approach and the phenomenon under study.”

Patton (1999:1193)

In this research, I worked across data sources and triangulated the information gathered in

the QTI survey with the data recorded during coaching conferences and lesson observations.

The choice I made on what sort of data to triangulate is directly related to the non-probability

convenience sample. When I planned this research, my objective was to empower teachers

in the first place to critically assess their potential and accept designs for improvement. I was

hoping that the QTI before and after the coaching sessions would help them embrace the

change with minimal stress and discomfort (cf. Figure 7 on p. 34). On the other hand, I

thought that the coaching interviews would provide an opportunity for collaboration and

dialogue, where I might find the evidence of the reforming process (Guskey, 2000).

Sample

For the purpose of this research, I used a non-probability convenience sample – a type of

sampling in which ‘‘particular settings, persons, or events are deliberately selected for the

important information they can provide that cannot be gotten as well from other choices’’

(Maxwell, 1997:235). Bryman (2004:197) explains that “the convenience sample is one that is

simply available to the researcher by the virtue of its accessibility”.




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I understand that a rather small sample is one of the limitations of this study, yet the purpose

here is not only to seek for generalisation (Creswell 1998), but rather to reach conclusions

which would offer a platform for further development of human capital at the school level.

Moreover, I believe that such a small sample squares well with the action research approach,

having in mind that a great amount of qualitative data would be collected through lesson

observations and coaching conferences over a period of one academic year. Patton

(1999:1197) justifies this choice explaining that “explicitly and thoughtfully picking cases that

are congruent with the study purpose and that will yield data on major study questions”

enhances the scientific rigour. Johnson (2007) and Cowie (2010) had similar samples in their

researches on coaching. However, a key issue in using convenience sample is reproducibility

– that is, whether under similar conditions, the findings repeat (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).

The convenience sample for this research affected the choice of approach, given that it was

guided by theoretical rather than probabilistic considerations (Punch, 2009). The qualitative

approach is more sensitive to context and its methods are less formalised. This does not

assume that the qualitative methods are less valid or reliable. It simply means that they are

more flexible and can be used in a wider range of situations and for a wider range of purposes

and research questions (ibid.). Further to this, it would be very difficult to replicate this

research, having in mind the intrinsic characteristics of the sampling and setting. Bell

International School employed 23 qualified teachers who spoke English well and were able to

deliver Cambridge International Curriculum at primary and secondary levels to students aged

6 to 18. The Cambridge Department of the School had Primary (Years 1 to 6) and Secondary

divisions (Years 7 to 13), with only one class in each Year.

A convenience sample is in a centre of debate on homogeneity problematic, where

researchers agree on one thing: if used, it must be diverse in order to maximise external

validity as a matter of methodological generalisability (Murray et al., 2013). However, in this

action research, the sample was recruited from all six teachers in Primary School, who agreed

to take part in the study with a view to improving their own practice.

The caveat of using a convenience sample lies in the fact that it does not intend to achieve

generalisable findings, which can be applied to other groups, cultures or times. The

selectivity which is employed in this sampling strategy targets a particular group in the full




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knowledge that it does not represent the wider population – it simply represents itself

(Cohen et al., 2000). However, the assumption is that there are other international schools

all over the world that face the same hindering issues in their staff’s professional

development, which might be seen as a possibility of transferability of this research.

Validity, reliability and generalisability

The dominant discourse of validity hinges upon the combination of two key quests: the quest

for generalisation and the quest for causality (McTaggart, 1998:212), but neither of these are

the key commitments in educational action research. Social researchers claim that the quality

of the action in action research is the sine qua non when assessing the impact, it has on the

social structures. Traditional ‘pure’ researchers locate it in the discourse that challenges its

claims of validity because of its action-oriented and ethical principles (Hope & Waterman,

2003). Greenwood and Levin (1998:81) try to convince the conventional research community

that credibility is not only created “through generalizing and universalizing propositions of

the universal hypothetical, universal disjunctive and generic types, whereas [action research]

believes that only knowledge generated and tested in practice is credible”.

Although a mixed methods approach is seen as a valuable methodological choice in action

research given that it provides an opportunity for a greater assortment of divergent and/or

complementary views (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007; Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009), the major

concern is with validity (Bryman, 2004). Onwuegbuzie and Johnson (2006) emphasise that

the validity issue is not about singular truths, and it certainly is not limited to quantitative

measurement. As this design is qualitative dominant, it has greater chances to fail to provide

credible conclusions and establish whether or not the evidence which the research offers can

bear the weight of the interpretation that is put on it. Internal validity is the basic minimum

without which any research would be uninterpretable while external validity tackles the issue

of generalisability (Campbell & Stanley, 1963). Campbell and Stanley (ibid.) argue that the

internal validity is sine qua non and that the question of external validity is never completely

answerable, which is why the selection of designs strong in both types of validity is what the

researcher should strive to achieve.




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Messick (1995:741) posits that validity assumes a very comprehensive role in the social

structures, integrating “considerations of content, criteria, and consequences into a

construct framework for empirically testing rational hypotheses”. The six distinguishable

aspects of construct validity that he argues for (content, substantive, structural,

generalizability, external, and consequential aspects) address validity as a unified concept,

an evolving property of any research, which “combines scientific inquiry with rational

argument to justify (or nullify) score interpretation and use” (ibid.:742). On the other hand,

some researchers have suggested that the notion of validation, such as reliability and validity,

should not even be considered a criterion for evaluating qualitative research (Guba & Lincoln,

2005). Others have given them different names to validate the soundness of qualitative

evidence. Lincoln and Guba (2000) label them as credibility (internal validity of quantitative

research), transferability (external validity of quantitative research) and confirmability

(statistical conclusion validity in quantitative research). These, they believe, are more

contextual and prevent unfair judgement because “[a]ny kind of research can be dismissed,

trashed, and trivialized if inappropriate criteria are imposed on it” (Sparkes, 2002:199).

Although Onwuegbuzie and Leech (2007:234) posit that validity and qualitative research is

an oxymoron, they explain that the “[i]nternal credibility can be defined as the truth value,

applicability, consistency, neutrality, dependability, and/or credibility of interpretations and

conclusions within the underlying setting or group”. One of the ways to improve credibility

is to avoid researcher bias, which might occur when the “researcher has personal biases or a

priori assumptions that he/she is unable to bracket” (ibid.:236). Such an attitude might be

transferred to the participants and affect their system of beliefs, or even contaminate data

collection techniques. To enhance the credibility, Onwuegbuzie and Leech advocate the use

of triangulation, which involves the use of “multiple and different methods, investigators,

sources, and theories to obtain corroborating evidence” in order to “reduces the possibility

of chance associations […] thereby allowing greater confidence in any interpretations made

(ibid.:239).

Bradbury and Reason (2001:449) address questions of quality and validity of action research,

suggesting five key issues in quality:

(1) ensuring the quality of participation and relationship in action research;

(2) reflecting on the value of the practical outcomes of work;




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(3) drawing on and integrating diverse ways of knowing and using different

methodologies appropriately and creatively in the context of our action research;

(4) evaluating the value of our work against its purpose of creating a better life and

world for us and others; and

(5) achieving systematic, systemic change over time, this means the enduring

consequence of our work, by integrating “the three manifestations of work: for

oneself (‘first-person research practice’), work for partners (‘second-person research

practice’) and work for people in the wider context (‘third-person research

practice’)”.

Having in mind that the scientific rigour is one of the main concerns regarding qualitative

research, a researcher, who is instrumental in qualitative data collection, must be tested for

credibility as well. Patton (1999:1201) urges that a skilled researcher “is able to improve the

accuracy, validity, and reliability […] through intensive training and rigorous preparation”.

This might be one of the limitations in this study given that the teachers were interviewing

each other during pre- and post-conferences without any prior experience which would

guide them to “provide clarification, to probe and prompt” for thicker descriptions (Brown

& Dowling, 1998:74).

Even more concerning for this research is the presence of a peer teacher in the classroom.

Since they cannot pass as unseen may create “a halo effect so that staff perform in an

exemplary fashion and participants are motivated to “show off”” (Patton, 1999:1202).

Equally threatening for the validity of this research is a contrary situation, in which the

presence of a peer teacher creates tension and anxiety causing the observed teacher to

underperform (ibid.), which might greatly affect the transferability of the data collected

during lesson observations but might well serve as reflective instances, which bring about a

change.

The quantitative aspect of this study seems to cause less concern. Ever since it was

introduced, QTI was validated in the USA, Europe, Australia and Asia as a tool which provides

useful information for the teacher about their learning environment. Cronbach alpha

reliabilities ranged from 0.62 to 0.88 when the individual student was used as the unit of




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analysis, and from 0.60 to 0.96 when the class was used as the unit of analysis (Waldrip et al.,

2008). It can be administered both as a self-evaluation instrument and as a tool which

measures students’ perception of the teacher’s interaction. In my research, I used it with the

students and teachers alike because I assume that the QTI results might drive the teachers

into accepting the fact that the change should take place.

Summary

Johnson et al. (2007) have introduced mixed methods research as the third methodological

paradigm, which synthesises intellectual and practical perspectives of qualitative and

quantitative research in order to collect, analyse and interpret data. The nature of its enquiry

includes the use of induction (or discovery of patterns), deduction (testing of theories and

hypotheses) and abduction (uncovering and relying on the best of a set of explanations for

understanding one’s results) (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004), while combining quantitative

and qualitative methods, approaches and concepts that have complementary strengths and

non-overlapping weaknesses. Bridging qualitative and quantitative paradigms, mixed

methods research in this study found the right fit between the Questionnaire on Teacher

Interaction and the semi-structured interviews and lesson observations used to explore to

which extent the teachers can assess their needs and how flexible they would be to bend in

order to perform better.

Collins et al. (2006) identified four rationales for conducting mixed research: (1) participant

enrichment (e.g. mixing quantitative and qualitative research to optimise the sample using

techniques that include recruiting participants, engaging in activities such as institutional

review board debriefings, ensuring that each participant selected is appropriate for

inclusion), (2) instrument fidelity (e.g. assessing the appropriateness and/or utility of existing

instruments, creating new instruments, monitoring performance of human instruments),

(3) treatment integrity (i.e. assessing fidelity of intervention), and (4) significance

enhancement (e.g. facilitating thickness and richness of data, augmenting interpretation and

usefulness of findings). I believe that the rationale for this study falls under instrument

fidelity, looking for the apposite tool to measure the change in the teachers’ performance in

the classroom.




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Although the convenience sample is rather small and selected by the virtue of its accessibility

(Bryman, 2004), it engages all six Primary teachers in the school, not in search for

generalisability but in search for self-discovery. Onwuegbuzie and Leech (2007:117) contend

that sampling in qualitative research involves “making decisions not only about which

individuals to study, but also about several study parameters, including settings, contexts,

locations, times, events, incidents, activities, experiences, and/or social processes”.

While the importance of validity in quantitative research has been long accepted, the same

issue in quantitative research has raised a lot of stir. Denzin and Lincoln (2005:19) argue that

a primary focus is for researchers to capture authentically the lived experiences of people,

which are created “in the social text written by the researcher, [who] but does so within a

framework that makes the direct link between experience and text problematic”. This study

did not search to generalise the findings but to improve the Bell’s capacities and make it a

better place to teach and learn.

6 | Data analysis

____________________________________________________________________________

Searching for a good path to attain excellence in teaching, I engaged all the primary teachers

in a reflexive journey, which was meant to empower them both individually and collectively to

reconsider their classroom approaches and, through the process of self-discovery and self-

actualisation, explore ways to re-invent themselves as creative and cooperative educators.

Having applied a mixed method methodology in my research, I gathered two sets of

comparable data: qualitative data, generated from the coaching sessions, and quantitative

data, collected through the Questionnaires of Teacher Interaction. These two sets were cross

tabulated in order to triangulate insights and confirm the data by two independent instruments

(Webb et al., 1966). Approaching a study in two ways helps assess the appropriateness and/or

utility of existing instruments, facilitating thickness and richness of data, and augmenting

interpretation and usefulness of findings (Collins et al., 2006). In the qualitative paradigm, the

research process permeates the problematic, theories, methods and methodologies, while

interpreting their dialectic through a data analysis. Moreover,

“[t]he research process, then, is not a clear cut sequence of procedures

following a neat pattern, but a messy interaction between the conceptual and

empirical world, deduction and induction occurring at the same time.”

Bechhofer (1974:73)

“[A]nalysis transforms data into findings. No formula exists for that transformation. Guidance, yes. But no recipe. Direction can and will be offered, but the final destination remains unique for each inquirer, known only when – and if – arrived at.”

Patton (2002:432)




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The plurality of perspectives in qualitative social research allows for collection of a rich, brute

rather than monolithic, set of narrative data, which calls for due interpretation in order to

identify meaningful patterns to help us understand the social phenomenon. The process of

data analysis begins during the data collection, “by skilfully facilitating the discussion and

generating data” (Rabiee, 2004:657). Krueger (2014:127) believes that the purpose should

drive the analysis and that the “analysis begins by going back to the intention of the study

and survival requires a clear fix on the purpose of the study”. Following this concept is

extremely helpful in managing the data, eliminating irrelevant information and “travelling

safely through the maze of large and complicated paths of information” (Rabiee, 2004:657).

Data analysis consists of a number of stages. It starts with examining, goes through

categorising and tabulating to reaching the final wrap-up in order to address the initial goal

of a study. In the same vein, Sarantakos (1998) identifies three general stages in qualitative

data analysis, which describe what is going on during induction, deduction and verification.

In the first stage, which Sarantakos terms ‘data reduction’, the data are coded, summarised

and categorised in order to identify important aspects of the issue under investigation and

main themes emerging from the research. It also gives guidelines to what further data to

collect and what methods of analysis to use to arrive at conclusions. Bloom (1993:94)

instructs that the data reduction should be balanced in that it should preserve the possibility

of different analyses and interpretations. He describes this goal as ‘lean transcriptions’ that

allow for ‘rich interpretations’. In some forms of qualitative research, data collection, data

reduction and data analysis are almost indistinguishable (ibid.). At this early stage, it does not

matter if the codes are ‘right’ or not (Strauss & Corbin, 1998:126), as further enquiry would

soon establish which categories are more or less useful in describing what is happening in

the data. The important function of open coding is to help the researcher move quickly to an

analytic level by ‘fracturing the data’ (ibid.:127). The second stage of qualitative data analysis,

‘data organisation’, involves a process of assembling the information around certain themes.

The third phase, ‘interpretation’, employs careful reading and re-reading of the data in an

attempt to identify patterns which lead to conclusions. Krueger (2014) provides seven

established criteria as a framework for interpreting coded data: words, context, internal

consistency, frequency and extensiveness of comments, specificity of comments, intensity

of comments and big ideas.




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Very often researchers’ preferences or mere convenience guides the choice of interpretation

procedures but, regardless of the approach, what the qualitative researchers avidly reject is

any kind of standardisation, which is found typical of quantitative tradition. The nature of

qualitative data is such that it invites researchers to analyse their narratives and identify

important categories which arise from the emic, each unique, as Patton highlighted below:

“Qualitative analysis transforms data into findings. No formula exists for that

transformation. Guidance, yes. But no recipe. Direction can and will be offered,

but the final destination remains unique for each inquirer, known only when –

and if – arrived at.”

Patton (2002:432)

When I was designing this research, I was looking for an analytic approach which would be a

clear match to the type of data which would be collected in the process. Guest et al.

(2011:36-40) briefly outlined three broad approaches to the analysis within qualitative

research: (1) exploratory analysis – a content-driven, inductive approach intended to inform

the design of a formal evaluation and relate to what emerges from the interaction between

researcher and respondent, which drives the development of codes and the identification of

themes; (2) explanatory analysis – a combination of deductive and inductive approaches; and

(3) confirmatory analysis – a deductive approach where the conceptual categories are

determined prior to reviewing the text, and codes are generated from hypotheses.

I was not quite sure when I started the analysis how it would evolve in terms of its relation

between emic and etic. I liked to think that the content would drive the analysis as I had

thought I would read and re-read the data and relate it to the QTI results. On the other hand,

as the QTI results had been generated first, before the coaching conferences took place, I

realised I had a hidden agenda – to confirm the hypothesis, which the QTI results

inadvertently imposed on my subjectivity. Deciding between inductively exploring the data

and deductively confirming the hypothesis, I was again questioning the choice of approach

to the analysis. I was neither exploring nor confirming, but rather looking for the ways to

explain the phenomenon. However, as the analysis progressed and fitted well in the

generated themes and codes, I came to realise that the QTI results should not drive my

research experience – they should be there as a means to triangulate the data and see if the

action research would bring about a change.




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Figure 19: Qualitative and quantitative data analyses (Adapted from Guest et al., 2011:6)

“[G]ood qualitative research”, Davis (2007:574) holds, “has equalled, if not exceeded,

quantitative research in status, relevance, and methodological rigor”. However, when I was

first thinking of how to design this study, I thought that I could nicely fit both qualitative and

quantitative traditions in a social context of a school but I also thought that it might challenge

me to “look for convergence among multiple and different sources of information to form

themes or categories in a study” (Creswell & Miller, 2000:126). Weaving these two sets of

data made them more valid because words added meanings to the numbers and numbers

gave precision to the words (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004). While it is generally thought

that quantitative research is difficult to reconcile with an interpretive approach, the data

gathered deemed reconciled indeed. Moreover, finding a distinction between the type of

data and the type of procedure (cf. Figure 19) brings in an additional category of analytical

procedures, which other conceptual frameworks exclude (Guest, 2005).




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Given the multiplicity of analytic approaches, which are “incredibly diverse, complex and

nuanced” (Holloway & Todres, 2003:347), finding “a clear match between the data collection

and the analytic approach” (Guest et al., 2011:36) seems to be one of the challenges for

researchers. As this study was carried out in the framework of social constructivism, where

knowledge is constructed through social interaction, and where those engaged in the

interaction offer multiple meanings to the phenomenon, the analysis of the data relies

heavily on the comparison and triangulation of these meanings. What is important to

understand is that the qualitative analysis is not merely “breaking the whole into separate

parts” (Schutt, 2011:322), but rather an iterative and reflexive process which estimates that

the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. I interpreted this whole using thematic

analysis.

Thematic Analysis

In the early stage of this study I came to realise that a great amount of data which I was going

to collect, if judged by the pilot study workload, needed a method of analysis which would

cope well with the emerging codes and new themes, and help me inductively create

conceptual categories from the coaching sessions data. Thematic analysis seemed to be this

‘clear match’ not only because it has been frequently used in qualitative studies, but because

it identifies the themes in the data that capture the patterns and meanings (Braun & Clarke,

2006), which are relevant to the problematic of this action research. Thematic analysis is

more than mere word counting – it delves into the essence of the data and plays with both

explicit and implicit meanings, providing “a rich and detailed, yet complex, account of data”

(ibid.:78), where language is viewed as a resource.

Thematic analysis works with a wide range of research questions, “from those about

people’s experiences or understandings to those about the representation and construction

of particular phenomena in particular contexts” (Braun & Clarke, 2013:121). On the other

hand, it can also be used to analyse different types of data, from secondary sources such as

media to transcripts of focus groups or interviews. Its flexibility works well with both large

and small datasets but, most importantly, it can be applied to produce either data-driven or

theory-driven analyses, as I mentioned before.




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However, the fact that thematic analysis lacks clear and concise guidelines means that this

analytic approach in the research arena is rarely acknowledged, frequently criticised and

mistaken for discourse or content analysis (ibid.:77-80). Given the flexibility in data

generation, it has also been heavily criticised for lacking rigour (Braun & Clarke, 2006). In

Tuckett’s (2005) view, thematic analysis is informed by grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin,

1998), particularly in terms of procedural elements such as concurrent data collection and

analysis, constant theory development and purposeful (theoretical) sampling. On the other

hand, Tuckett is also mindful of Charmaz’s (2000) social constructivism, which, he believes,

informs thematic analysis in that it is set within a social context through which it accepts

multiple constructions of meaning. He further explains that there is a direct connection

between social constructivism and the researcher’s operational techniques.

“Since social constructionism concerns itself with the construction of

knowledge and therefore meaning through the social involvement of agents

within a social context, and accepts multiple constructions of meaning are

possible based on different constructions from those engaged in the social

interaction […], analysis relied upon member checking, constant comparison,

atypical (negative) cases, and investigator triangulation as part of its

operational techniques.”

Tuckett (2005:76)

According to Charmaz (2017), constructivist grounded theory, which is ontologically relativist

and epistemologically subjectivist, differs from Glaser and Strauss’ (1967) theoretical

framework because it assumes a relativist epistemology, acknowledges the multiple

standpoints, roles and realities, adopts a reflexive process in exploring the relationships

between the researcher and the research participants, and situates the research in the

historical, social, and situational conditions of its production. The data collected in this study

are jointly constructed between me, as a researcher, and my colleagues, as the researched,

which creates a unique social context in which the teachers might bring in not only their

professional voices but also their personal concerns and beliefs. In such a “dynamic interplay

between the form and the content of the data […] language and culture precede data, and

informs what and how we define them as well as the meanings we ascribe to them”

(Charmaz & Belgrave, 2018:7). In other words, understanding the meaning of data and their




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categorisation are affected by the way the participants co-construct them layer by layer while

attending to the researcher and research participants’ meanings, language, and actions

(Charmaz, 2017). By doing so, we engage in a reflexive exploration seeking for the multiple

interpretations of the problematic in order to create a collective account of our reality. The

close distance between me and my colleagues can indeed feed this process but also enable

me to position the data while I position myself in relation to them (Charmaz & Belgrave,

2018). Being immersed in the data helps me, as a researcher, use the coding language which

captures the faithful experiences of the participants which are being co-constructed. This is

very challenging for a researcher who needs to think about the “thorny question of how to

resolve the tension that exists between developing a conceptual analysis of participants’

stories and still creating a sense of their presence in the final text” (Mills et al., 2006:7).

As a data-driven inductive approach, expounded by Boyatzis (1998), it represents a coding

process which involves recognising an important moment and encoding it prior to a process

of interpretation. Boyatzis explains that the explicit codes come in many shapes and sizes:

“This may be specific themes; a complex model with themes, indicators and

qualifications that are casually related, or something in between these two forms.”

Boyatzis (1998:vi)

A ‘good code’ was the one that captured the qualitative richness of the phenomenon (ibid.:1).

While refining codes, the researcher must remember that the codes should fit the data and

not the other way around. A theme is, according to Boyatzis, “a pattern in the information

that at minimum describes and organises the possible observations and at maximum

interprets aspects of the phenomenon” (ibid.:vi). He explains that a theme may be identified

at the manifest level, which is directly observable, or at the latent level, which is underlying.

According to Huberman and Miles (1994) the identification of categories, codes and themes

are based on the frequency with which a phenomenon occurs. They contend that there are

three reasons for counting themes: (1) to identify patterns more easily; (2) to verify a

hypothesis; and (3) to maintain analytic integrity.

Following Boyatzis’ inductive thematic analysis (cf. Chart 6), the coding process starts with

developing codes and the testing them in terms of their reliability. Having done that, the data




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are summarised into initial themes. As the analysis progresses, the emerging codes are

bundled into new themes. Finally, all new coded themes are corroborated and legitimised.

Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six-phase coding process

starts with a researcher’s immersion in the data,

through which they are able to identify codes. As Braun

and Clarke stress out, “coding is not simply a method of

data reduction, it is also an analytic process, so codes

capture both a semantic and conceptual reading of the

data” (ibid.:87). Once the codes are collated, a

researcher can start searching for themes, which is, as

they hold, an active process because it relies heavily on

a researcher’s ability to construct themes rather than to

discover them. In the next phase, a researcher reviews

the themes, reflecting on “whether the themes tell a

convincing and compelling story about the data” (ibid.),

which is followed by “identifying the ‘essence’ […] and

constructing a concise, punchy and informative name

for each theme” (ibid.). Finally, writing-up weaves

together the analytic narrative and data extracts into a

coherent and persuasive story about the study.

What I wanted to do with the two sets of data was to map qualitative data and compare

them with the quantitative data, or more precisely, analyse the coaching sessions and relate

the themes to the eight categories of the QTI (cf. Figure 13 on p. 45).

Coaching conference data analysis

Over the period of almost nine months (from September 2014 until May 2015, including term

breaks), the teachers paired off every week to exchange ideas, experiences and impressions

of the changes they brought into their classrooms (cf. Appendix 5 on p. 224). Their meetings,

that is, coaching conferences, illuminated their pedagogical practice and inspired them to

experiment more while adapting to these changes. The pairs swapped to allow for a fresh

Chart 6: Coding process Adapted from Boyatzis (1998)




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view and new perspective, but each teacher pair had twelve coaching conferences and six

lesson observations. In total, there were ninety lesson observations that were discussed

during the conferences, which were recorded and transcribed later, they followed the

interview schedule (cf. Table 2 and Table 3 on pp. 43-44) which helped them touch upon the

same comprehensive items every time they met.

The organisation of the coaching data started with the sorting of the transcription files,

which is Stage 1 of Boyatzis’ (1998) pattern. Each file was named after the coaching session,

1 to 6, and the aliases of the participating teachers, Teacher 1 to Teacher 6 (e.g. CS3T2T4

means Coaching Session 3, Teacher 2 and Teacher 4). Such taxonomy helped the researcher

chronologically organise the files and conveniently cross-tabulate in order to find a specific

piece of information (cf. Appendix 5 on p. 224). To facilitate the coding, all transcripts were

merged into a single Microsoft Word and imported into NVivo 10 for Windows, where they

were sorted according to the coloured nodes, which denoted the primary codes of the code

manual (cf. Appendix 6 on p. 225). Each code was written with reference to Boyatzis (1998)

and identified by:

• code label or name,

• definition of what the theme concerns, and

• description of how to know when the theme occurs.

The codes emerging from coaching conferences were theoretically driven in the beginning

of the analysis (cf. Table 6 on p. 106) and predefined using the pilot study as a reference and

sorted out into the three themes: (1) reflection about teaching, (2) lesson planning and lesson

observation, and (3) students’ reaction to the changed pedagogy. In order to confirm the eight

types of behaviour measured through the QTI (cf. Figure 13 on p. 45), I added them to the

code manual.

To test the reliability of the codes, which is Stage 2 of Boyatzis’ (1998) pattern, I used two

samples of the coaching conference interviews and shared them with a colleague who used

the same code manual to analyse the data. He suggested that some be modified in terms of

wording so that the meaning was more transparent but otherwise most of the codes

complied with my analysis.




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Stage 3 was the most exhausting part of the analysis as it involved careful reading and

summarising of the raw data. The important function of open coding is to help the researcher

move quickly to an analytic level by ‘fracturing the data’ or breaking it apart (Strauss & Corbin,

1998:127). I was struggling with the volume of data, juggling between conference transcripts

on the one hand and the conference schedules on the other. Transcripts were a researcher’s

nightmare because they were carried out in both Serbian and English, and even, more

interestingly, in a kind of lingo, where Serbian words were ‘anglicised’ and the English words

‘serbianised’. For example, the teachers used the English word ‘syllabus’ whenever they

spoke in Serbian although there is a corresponding Serbian word for it. As the Serbian

language recognises grammatical gender, the teachers used a derivative word for a female

teacher in Serbian – ‘teacherka’, which sounds very English when pronounced although it has

no meaning and is not semantically correct.

The teachers had also used puns and class anecdotes which were culturally sensitive and

linguistically difficult to translate. The second issue which hindered the data fracturing was

the fact that the teachers did not consistently use the pre- and post-conference schedule

(cf. Table 2 and Table 3 on pp. 43-44), but gradually transited from formal to informal

conversations. Although a hindrance for sorting and fracturing the data, such communication

yielded rich data for interpretation.

Having become more familiar with the raw data and having spent more time on

understanding their meaning, I proceeded to Stage 4, where I used NVivo to crop the text so

that it relates to the coloured nodes i.e. codes, where some of them were modified or

disregarded as data were checked for verification. As central to this research, most of the

codes drew on participant’s beliefs and perceptions. Although these codes emerged quite

early in the analysis, I realised that the more I organised, the more codes I generated, finding

myself in a colour-coded mosaic of tens of codes attached to teachers’ reflections, beliefs,

perceptions, and attitudes.




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Table 6: Primary codes and themes

Primary codes and themes

Reflection about teaching

1. T + teaching satisfied (teaching improved interactivity)

2. T – teaching dissatisfied (teaching did not improve interactivity)

3. CH + positive change (perception that the changed approach positively affected the students’ learning)

4. CH – negative change (perception that the changed approach negatively affected the students’ learning)

5. TSE teacher’s self-evaluation (teacher’s perception about their performance)

Lesson planning and lesson observation

6. LP + positive orientation towards lesson planning (perception that lesson planning positively affects performance in class)

7. LP – negative orientation towards lesson planning (perception that lesson planning negatively affects performance in class)

8. LO + positive evaluation of the lesson observation (perception that lesson planning worked well in class)

9. LO – negative evaluation of the lesson observation (perception that lesson planning did not work well in class)

Students’ reaction to the changed pedagogy

10. SR + positive student reaction to the changed pedagogy (perception that students reacted positively to the new approaches)

11. SR – negative student reaction to the changed pedagogy (perception that students reacted negatively to the new approaches)

Eight scales of the QTI

12. Lea Leadership behaviour

13. HFr Helping/Friendship behaviour

14. Und Understanding behaviour

15. SRF Student responsibility/freedom

16. Unc Uncertain behaviour

17. Dis Dissatisfied behaviour

18. Adm Admonishing behaviour

19. Str Strict behaviour




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Table 7: Devised codes and themes

Devised codes and themes

Reflection about teaching

1. T + teaching satisfied (teaching improved interactivity)

2. T – teaching dissatisfied (teaching did not improve interactivity)

3. TSE teacher’s self-evaluation (teacher’s perception about their performance)

4. TL teacher learning (teacher’s perception about their learning and bridging the divide between the new and old approaches)

Resistance to change and reconciliation

5. CH + positive change (perception that the changed approach positively affected the students’ learning)

6. CH – negative change (perception that the changed approach negatively affected the students’ learning)

7. RC reconciliation (developed understanding that the change has taken place)

Collaborative teaching through peer coaching

8. LP + positive orientation towards lesson planning (perception that lesson planning positively affects performance in class)

9. LP – negative orientation towards lesson planning (perception that lesson planning negatively affects performance in class)

10. LO + positive evaluation of the lesson observation (perception that lesson planning worked well in class)

11. LO – negative evaluation of the lesson observation (perception that lesson planning did not work well in class)

Eight scales of the QTI

12. Lea Leadership behaviour

13. HFr Helping/Friendship behaviour

14. Und Understanding behaviour

15. SRF Student responsibility/freedom

16. Unc Uncertain behaviour

17. Dis Dissatisfied behaviour

18. Adm Admonishing behaviour

19. Str Strict behaviour




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At one point, I had to let it all go and start all over again with a new perspective, which gave

me the momentum I needed to organise the data so that I could start interpreting. Although

a technological delight for qualitative researchers, NVivo is visually confined to the

dimensions of the screen, which often made the correlations and relationships difficult to

capture. I therefore did the ‘the old way’ – printed the transcripts, used highlighters in various

colours to code and spread the sheets all over my study room to visually relate to the data.

Needless to say, as the transcript lines were coded and coloured, the sheets turned into a

very complicated ‘treasure map’.

Stage 5 involved a process of assembling the information around certain themes and

employed careful reading and re-reading of the data in an attempt to identify patterns which

could lead to conclusions. Krueger (2014) provides seven established criteria as a framework

for interpreting coded data: words, context, internal consistency, frequency and

extensiveness of comments, specificity of comments, intensity of comments and big ideas. I

first looked at how the words fitted into contexts, if the contexts had consistency, how often

the code comments occurred, what was their impact and how they merged into the three

themes.

From an analytic point of view, distinctive for the analysis of coaching conferences were the

situations where participants repeatedly mentioned a particular theme. This repetition lead

to the need for ‘conference-to-conference’ validation so that any result that is considered to

be important should be a major element of the discussion in most of the conferences.

Boyatzis viewed this stage of the analysis – Stage 6 – as an opportunity to corroborate and

legitimate coded themes. The themes which were selected as major and represented in the

analysis of all six participating teachers underlined their key concerns: resistance to change,

reconciliation, reflection, and the impediments in bridging the divide between the ‘new’ and

the ‘old’ approaches to teaching, which I like to dub ‘teacher learning’ (cf. Table 7 on p. 107).

Other themes, which were eliminated as underrepresented, remained quite attributed to

certain teachers. For example, Teachers 1, 2 and 3 talked extensively about disciplinary issues

and how they could solve the classroom management problem with new approaches to their

pedagogical practise. However, this became a major theme on lesson planning and

observation. Similarly, as I realised from the analysis of the pilot data that the research design




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should be inclusive of the eight QTI scales in their qualitative counterpart, I was sometimes

quite undecided which code to attach to the comment – leadership or strict behaviour? I

finally made my choice by listening to the recording and capturing the intonation of the

comment. If it were said in a calm and inviting manner, I labelled it as leadership, if it were

said in threatening manner and raised voice, it went under strict behaviour.

In the interplay of codes and themes, in the process which transforms data into findings, I

agree with Patton (2002) that there is ‘no recipe’. My first decision was to follow Boyatzis’

inductive thematic analysis guides (cf. Chart 6 on p. 103), but I found myself in the loop:

applying the template of codes, connecting the codes and identifying themes. However, this

continuous return to the source of information inspired me to approach each teacher with a

more in-depth analysis, while learning along the way about their idiosyncrasies and

particularities. Each teacher, as we will see later, changed differently, either in their own self-

perception or in the perception of their students. What a wonderful uncoiling.

QTI data analysis

In two designated subgroups of interest (DSI) (Hambleton & Rodgers, 2012), one

represented by the teachers and the other by the students, there were 6 classes, with a total

of 59 students, and 6 teachers, assessed on two occasions, one before the coaching

conferences and the other one almost nine months later, in the finale of this study. Having

learnt from the pilot study that the QTI should not be administered by the surveyed teacher,

I made a schedule according to which the six teachers were assigned a non-tutored class for

the QTI distribution. Such an approach accounted for more reliable data as the students were

not under emotional pressure to answer in favour of their class teacher or afraid that the

class teacher might retaliate if they did not like the feedback they did not like. Before the QTI

distribution, the teachers were briefed what to say to the students, so that there was a

uniformity in the presentation, which reinforced the reliability and validity of the instrument.

The students were instructed that the questionnaire was completely anonymous, but they

were also invited to express their true opinion so that the questionnaire could reflect the true

image of the surveyed teacher.




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What is important to understand is that the QTI was implemented in this study as a tool which

would measure students’ perceptions about their teacher at the beginning and at the end of

the research, i.e. before and after the coaching conferences, seeking confirmation of the

perceived change in their attitudes, values, knowledge and beliefs. As a diagnostic tool, the

QTI also served the teacher to self-assess their interaction with the students before

participating in the research and after having adopted a change. What I noticed along the

way was that the QTI was a trigger for reflective practice, which invited the teachers to start

re-thinking their pedagogical praxis once they had received the QTI charts and individual

analysis. This was evident in the coaching sessions as the teachers developed a rather

personal approach to the professional dialogues, bringing in their humour and anecdotes

along with the concerns and uncertainties (cf. Chapter 7 | 1 | 2 on p. 133).

The eight different facets of teacher behaviour were assessed through 48 statements

adapted for primary students (Goh & Fraser, 1997, cf. Appendix 2 on p. 214), whereas teachers

used the standard format (cf. Appendix 1 on p. 213). Some differences in the wording of the

items is shown in Table 8. Although the differences were subtle, they helped the primary

students understand the statements better so that their responses could be unbiased. As the

pilot study had shown that most of the 6- and 7-year-old students misunderstood some of

the statements, the teachers prepared them by introducing the phrases during the lessons

beforehand. For example, the statement ‘This teacher looks down on us’ had been interpreted

as the teacher physically looking down on students, which is indeed a typical teacher-student

situation in a classroom, especially when the students are seated, and the teacher is standing

or projecting above them. This is the reason why Teacher 1 and Teacher 2 had been instructed

to introduce this phrasal verb before the survey took place.

The data were fed into the SPSS in order to yield statistical results and then triangulated

against the themes, which emerged in the coaching conferences, for a more detailed

understanding of the research impact. The items were checked for reliability, which proved

to be high at .740, yet lower than the scores reported in the other studies conducted in

various geographical and social contexts (Wubbels & Brekelmans, 2005; den Brok et al., 2004;

Fraser, 2002).




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Table 8: Student and Teacher versions of QTI items

Scale Example of items

Teacher version Student version

Leadership This teacher holds our attention. This teacher gets our attention.

Helpful/friendly This teacher can take a joke. This teacher likes to laugh.

Understanding This teacher realizes when we do not understand.

This teacher is willing to explain things again if we don't understand.

Student responsibility / freedom

We can decide some things in this teacher’s class.

This teacher allows us to choose what we want to work on.

Uncertain This teacher is not sure what to do when we fool around.

This teacher is not sure what to do when we fool around.

Dissatisfied This teacher thinks that we do not know anything.

This teacher thinks that we can't do things well.

Admonishing This teacher is sarcastic. This teacher looks down on us.

Strict We are afraid of this teacher. We are afraid of this teacher.

Following the SPSS analysis, the data were fed into an Excel sheet to yield the visual

representation, that is the eight-scale charts for every teacher individually (cf. Appendix 4 on

pp. 216-222). The data were interpreted in four sets: (1) teacher’s responses before the

coaching sessions, (2) students’ responses before the coaching sessions, (3) teacher’s

responses after the coaching sessions, and (4) students’ responses after the coaching

sessions. Each teacher received two sets of charts – one at the very beginning of the study

and the other one at the very end. By doing so, the teachers were able not only to perceive

the changes in their teaching approach, but also to visualise them. They could then compare

their charts with the chart of the ‘Teacher Ideal’ (cf. Chart 7 ), a concept which has evolved

over the years of testing teachers and students on what makes a good teacher (Wubbels &

Levy, 1993; Wubbels et al., 1997).




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Chart 7: QTI results for Teacher Ideal (Adapted from Wubbels & Levy, 1993)

The QTI helped the teachers situate themselves in the classroom while displaying

interpersonal skills used to convey dominance, submission, cooperation and opposition. In

the many studies carried out in the world, students estimate that “the best teachers are

strong classroom leaders who are friendlier and more understanding and less certain,

dissatisfied, and critical than most teachers. Their best teachers also allow them more

freedom than the norm. [...] In general, then, good teachers are both highly dominant and

highly cooperative” (Wubbels, Levy & Brekelmans, 1997:83).

Although the image of the Teacher Ideal has been legitimised through valid and reliable data,

it is important to take into account that a role of male and female teachers is culturally

sensitive in some societies, which frames the QTI differently. For example, in some Muslim

countries where the schools are segregated into schools for boys and schools for girls, or in

some cultures where the female teachers usually teach kindergarten or primary students

because of the nature of childcare. The golden ratio of the eight QTI scores would also be a

geographical variable, as the role model of a teacher and their status in society has different

representations in different countries. On the other hand, the ratings could also be affected

by the gender or age of the students. Den Brok et al. (2003) even mention ethnicity and

acculturation as factors which might affect students’ perceptions of teachers’ interpersonal

behaviour. For example, Hispanic teachers were perceived as more dominant and

cooperative than their colleagues from other ethical groups such as Asian and Asian-

American (den Brok et al., 2002; Levy et al., 1997). In some cultures, a large class size might

Lea Leadership

HFr Helping/Friendly

Und Understanding

SRF Student responsibility freedom

Unc Uncertain

Dis Dissatisfied

Adm Admonishing

Str Strict




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influence the intensity of interpersonal behaviour because a teacher is not able to

communicate directly with each child, whereas each child makes a direct observation of the

teacher’s actions and reactions.

Although most of the studies focus on the role of the teacher in assessing the eight scales of

the QTI, the role of the students in the equation is a variable which affects the score as well.

What stands out in this research is the nature of the student body, which is multi-cultural,

multi-national and multi-religious. Moreover, most of these students are usually ‘transitory’,

as they have temporary residence in Serbia and attend an international school in English

because they do not have any command of Serbian. Whether this be fortunate circumstances

or linguistic necessity, the international students, just like the international teachers, undergo

not only a process of cultural immersion but also that of academic adaptability, in which they

have to ‘unlearn and relearn’ the ways of communicating and interacting both with the

teacher and the other students in a given educational context (Cochran-Smith, 2003; Klein,

2008). Such diversity of student profiles brings an exceptional contribution to the culture of

globalisation in the international school, yet the pluralistic understanding of what kind of

teacher’s behaviour is acceptable in the interaction with the students is critical. For example,

a South Korean student would find eye contact with the teacher culturally sensitive, while

the Portuguese student would appreciate the teacher’s hugs as a typical way of expressing

encouragement. Similarly, while some students might evaluate participatory pedagogy in the

classroom as a spice to the learning process, others might find it inappropriate, being used

to passive teaching methods, where there is little interaction between a teacher and their

students. Additionally, the level of proficiency in English and subject comprehension

decidedly affect the student’s perception of the classroom interaction. In an international

setting, where linguistic competence is a success factor, students with impediments in

communication might have a skewed sense of belonging and therefore a biased perception

of teacher interaction.

Irrespective of these considerations, my colleagues at school were interested in comparing

results not only with the Teacher Ideal but also with other teachers who participated in the

survey, which was decidedly a very good start of peer-collaboration and a promising step

towards creating a more connected community of teachers. It is then no wonder why the




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teachers anxiously waited to do the repeated survey and see how their coaching sessions

affected their interpersonal behaviour over the period of almost nine months.

Summary

While looking for the ways to skilfully transform data into findings, thematic analysis seemed

to be an opportune tool in understanding the complexity of the data collected qualitatively

and quantitatively through coaching and questionnaire respectively. Having combined

deductive and inductive approaches towards building an explanatory case, I tried to reconcile

the two paradigms in order to provide an in-depth study of an authentic research setting, in

which the teachers resisted the change in the very beginning but learnt how to

collaboratively grow through peer coaching, mutual support and reflective instances.

Six teachers were paired off and observed over a period of almost nine months, during which

they changed their systems of beliefs, values and personal theories in order to improve their

pedagogies and classroom practice. The change, as Guskey (2002:382) observed, rests on the

notion that “[w]hat attracts teachers to professional development [...] is their belief that it

will expand their knowledge and skills, contribute to their growth, and enhance their

effectiveness with students”.

Although criticised for lacking rigour, thematic analysis facilitated concurrent data collection

and analysis in this research and provided the researcher with an agenda in which the data

were scrutinised into codes and themes. Following Boyatzis’ flow of work, the seamlessly

incoherent pile of words crystallised into a three-themed qualitative analysis: (1) resistance to

change and reconciliation, (2) reflection about teaching, and (3) collaborative teaching through

peer-collaboration. These were triangulated with the eight-scales of the QTI quantitative

analysis in search for the Teacher Ideal standards.

7 | Research findings

____________________________________________________________________________

Having started this research inspired by Feiman-Nemser and Buchmann’s (1985:64) assertive

statement that schools should be places where “collegiality and experimentation were

norms” and where “learning from teaching was part of the job of teaching”, I have explored

the dialectic dialogues between coaching teachers, enhancing peer-collaboration,

implementation of the constructivist approach in the classroom practice (cf. Chapter 7 | 1 | 2

on p. 133) and adaptation of the personal philosophies of education (cf. Chapter 7 | 1 | 1 on

p. 117), which advertently emerged from the action research. When teachers believe that

professional learning “will expand their knowledge and skills, contribute to their growth, and

enhance their effectiveness with students” (Guskey, 2002:382), then they are more likely to

experiment and explore new concepts looking for evidence of transformational intervention.

The complexity of mixed methods, which rewarded me with a better understanding of the

problematic concerning the changes that coaching and peer-collaboration might bring about

in teachers’ skills and classroom practice, enlightened avenues for school improvements and

placed before me, as a decision-maker, certain challenges in terms of staffing and pedagogy,

which were intrinsic for ‘our’ learning environment. I emphasise ‘our’ as I have never

perceived myself alienated from the research setting but rather an insider – “a tinker, tailor,

researcher and spy” (Simmons, 2007). While conducting the research, I was looking forward

“In concurrently gathering both forms of data at the same time, the researcher seeks to compare both forms of data to search for congruent findings.”

Creswell et al. (2003:217-218)




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to collaborating with colleagues towards a transformative educational environment, where

the intervention was perceived as contribution rather than obstruction.

Constructing a culture in which the teachers would interact, support each other and

communicate their concerns was an underlining objective in this study. An overarching need

to build the teachers’ capacities by the means of peer-collaboration brought about enhanced

teachers’ interpersonal skills to the benefits of both the staff and the students. These

capacities emerged from the iterative reflective dialogues, which illuminated paths to

experimentation, exploration and self-evaluation both inside and outside the classroom. In

the closed context of the coaching conferences, teachers learnt to open their minds slowly

and were invited to the “professional culture where risks are encouraged, mistakes

acknowledged, learning scrutinized, and secrets shared” (Miller, 2005:251). While learning

how to reflect and engage in constructive dialogues, the teachers also developed a capacity

to ‘resist resistance’ and accept new knowledge as a vehicle for becoming better at teaching

(Darling-Hammond & Baratz-Snowden, 2007), which “happens within a wild triangle of

relations – among teacher, students, subject – and the points of this triangle shift

continuously” (McDonald, 1992:118). In such a transformational process, learning how to

destress and reconcile with the changes from within (Korthagen, 2009) is a trade-off

between a teacher’s professional emancipation and their personal growth. Finally, a capacity

to apply new teaching approaches, which would respond to the pedagogical demands

created in the ‘wild triangle’, would strengthen a teacher’s understanding of the impact their

teaching makes in the learning environment and encourage them to endure in efforts to re-

invent their pedagogies so that they can “possess a rich, coherent conceptual map of the

discipline; an understanding of how knowledge is developed and validated within different

social contexts; an understanding of why the subject is important; and an understanding of

how to communicate knowledge of that subject to others” (Darling-Hammond & Baratz-

Snowden, 2007:121). As we will see later in the chapter, these capacities are contributory in

establishing rapport with the colleagues during the coaching conferences.

The QTI accompanied the comprehensive coaching conferences – these two were

instrumental in collecting the data which evidenced that change had indeed occurred.

Thematic analysis, “a messy interaction between the conceptual and empirical world,

deduction and induction occurring at the same time” (Bechhofer, 1974:73), identified




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meaningful patterns in teachers’ interactions and helped me fathom social phenomenon in

order to make further decisions as head of the school. These, as mentioned before, were

extracted into three themes: (1) resistance to change and reconciliation, (2) reflection about

teaching, and (3) collaborative teaching through peer coaching, which will be discussed in this

chapter along with the two-dimensional portraits of the teachers: (1) coaching analysis, and

(2) QTI analysis. These portraits capture the change in teachers’ beliefs, values, perceptions,

classroom activities and social relationships.

Themes

7 | 1 | 1 Resistance to change and reconciliation

Although I had introduced the idea of action research long before it took place because I

wanted to smooth the edges and prepare teachers for ‘a big change’, they were quite

reluctant to participate when the actual research took place. I assume that their resistance

sprang from an ill-rooted taboo that a change is imposed rather than inspired, and that they

are more victims of decision than agents of change. A change, Fullan (1995:230) says, requires

a “reculturing of the school as an institution, and the basic redesign of the teaching

profession”. Regardless of the benefits they openly accepted as the opportunities for

building a learning culture, the teachers feared that changes brought in with a new concept

of peer-collaboration and lesson observations would affect their daily routine, discommode

their professional authority in the school and eventually disconnect them with their integrity.

Such internalised conflict between a need for innovation and a need for tradition has been

challenged throughout the research with teachers’ personal growth and critical incidents

which brought about a ‘teaching epiphany’.

The ‘reculturing’, needless to say, is a long and time-consuming process which increases the

focus on core instructional goals by improving the capacity of teachers to work together on

these matters (Fullan, 1999) while being affected by a great number of contextual, situational

and emotional variables. These variables develop patterns in the relationships of teachers,

students, parents and other participants in school life, which further shapes their attitudes,

beliefs, perceptions and behaviours, creating thus a school ‘culture’. Once in place, school

culture becomes a social phenomenon where sets of adopted rules recede and live




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subconsciously in the minds of the participants. Yet, it is also a living thing, which

accommodates to the changes participants bring with them to the community. Although the

changes are likely to happen over time, the process itself is a complex one and goes against

the mere nature of culture, which tends to be “conservative and self-preserving” (Hastings

& Squires, 2002:79). Resistance to change is therefore a natural response to cultural forces

which have established strong synapses with our consciousness and make us deeply rooted

into ‘the familiar’. However, teachers, who should be the agents of change, are rarely those

who initiate change (Hairon, 2006; Hammerness et al., 2005; Fullan, 2014). Edwards claims

that

“[m]ost of the changes teachers find acceptable are of the superficial kind.

These modifications don’t really require them to alter much of what they

currently do. Unfortunately, because of this attitude, educators rarely examine

what is really ailing schools, preferring instead to focus on shallow, easily applied

modifications, even though it can’t be verified that these proposed changes can

successfully solve the problems. Suggestions that are usually implemented don’t

really change anything. They are akin to a physician who treats symptoms

instead of addressing the causes of disease.”

Edwards (2011:86)

The teachers, although prepared for a change to take place, verbalised their resistance in

various settings: in the classroom, in the staff room, in personal dialogues during breaks and

in discussions during staff meetings. I mentioned earlier in the thesis the ethical dilemma

which strongly underpins this study (see Chapter 4 | 2 on p. 69), where my dual role in the

setting raised a lot of concerns regarding power relations and subjectivity on interpretation

of the data collected. It was difficult to observe as a researcher yet practice as one of the

researched, while defining the fine line between ‘incidental data’, which I collected along the

way in some less formal contexts, and ‘true data’, which were yielded by the means of

qualitative and quantitative accounts and controlled settings. Admittedly, the evidence of

resistance was more perceived in the small talk among the teachers than recorded in the

coaching sessions. I reckon that the teachers, although spontaneous in their dialogues about

lessons, observations, reflections, concerns and epiphanies, still weighed their words. If I had




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not been an insider, I probably would have never been able to jot down their comments, hear

gossips or accidental disputes, which nevertheless enriched this study.

Regardless of the context, most of the teachers claimed ‘ownership’ of their pedagogies,

arguing that the change should occur in external factors, like teaching framework, learning

materials and students’ behaviour rather than internal, that is their own system of beliefs,

attitudes and perceptions. Such positioning is not new to researchers – resistance can range

from passive resignation to deliberate sabotage (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2010). Guskey (2002)

claims that significant change in teachers’ attitudes and beliefs occurs primarily after they

have gained evidence of improvements in student learning, where it shows not only in

cognitive and achievement indices but also in students’ attitude, motivation and behaviour

(cf. Figure 5 on p. 31). It involves a transformative understanding of how limited attention to

pedagogy can grow to reflective practice and associated improvements in the classroom

(Huffman & Hipp, 2003). In other words, the ‘reculturing’ happens in the context of shared

experiences, collaborative learning and collective enquiry (Hastings & Squires, 2002), where

the teachers consciously alter their views, replacing their resistance to change with their

commitment to change, embedding it deep into minds and hearts.

One of the first coaching sessions (CS1T1T2) between two coaching teachers emphasised the

prevalent feeling of resistance, evident at the beginning of the study:

Teacher 2: I am doing just fine, really. Children, too. [pause] If there is good progress,

why do I have to change anything?

Teacher 1: Maybe she [the researcher] is trying to tell you that it is not all that fine

[sceptical]?

Teacher 2: Well, then we are all not doing fine [emphasised] because we are all

participating.

Teacher 1: I do not think that we are not doing fine. Just that we can do better.

Accepting a change is an inherently psychological and a highly personalised process, which

affects not only the teachers’ knowledge, skills and pedagogy but also their wider context –

their students and parents, even families. The emotional investment that the teachers put in

these relationships reflects on their sense of success and satisfaction (Hargreaves, 1998).




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Failure to meet the expectations of people in the immediate surroundings might bring about

a sense of inferiority, insecurity, demotivation and eventually mental withdrawal.

Disappointment with oneself pours into disappointment with the job, colleagues and

students. In a study, which Van Veen et al. (2005) conducted in a Dutch secondary school in a

context of reform, the teachers replaced their initial enthusiasm with a sense of anxiety, anger,

guilt and shame as the reform unfolded. Van Veen et al. noticed that most research on teachers’

reactions to change displayed teachers’ reactions in rational terms, while “failing to articulate

the layers of emotion that seem to be involved” (ibid.:917). In a dialogue between Teacher 4

and Teacher 2 (CS1T2T4), which is charged with emotions and fear of failure, it is evident that

the teachers question their readiness to meet the expectations that change brings:

Teacher 4: This is all new for me…Last week I was coaching with Teacher 3 [sic.] and it

was not… [as if choosing the right word] what it was supposed to be. She

[the researcher] told us that we should talk about us… and the teaching…

Teacher 2: Right… I had Teacher 1 [sic.] and it seems to me that we are expected to

know what to do. Y’ know, act normally. But this all looks

staged…[disappointed]

Teacher 4: What if we do not do it well? Do you think we could redo it? I mean, I do not

want to fail. [voice trembles] I really want to learn from you all

and…[inaudible]

Teacher 2: There is no time to redo it! [authoritatively] If we fail, we fail. Be that as it

may!

In the very beginning of the study, Teacher 2, as the eldest member of the teaching staff,

perceived herself as a mentor rather than a coach. She openly verbalised her reluctance to

change yet, paradoxically, perceived herself as a lead in the transformational process.

Hargreaves’ (1998) research on teachers’ emotions in the process of change shows that the

teachers’ incapacity to respond to change affects their well-being and character not only

because of failure to adapt to the change but also because of failure to understand the need

for change. Moreover, teachers tend to be overly disapproving of changes and grow

defensive rather than enthusiastic (Edwards, 2011). The first coaching post-conference

between Teacher 2 and Teacher 5 (CS1T2T5) showed Teacher 2’s reluctant attitude and

defensive approach to adopting a change:




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Teacher 2: When we talked about this research, I thought I would be learning how to

change my classroom and my students. [critically]

Teacher 5: It is not only about changing them… [gently, carefully] It is also about

changing ourselves.

Teacher 2: I do not want to change myself! [agitatedly] I have years and years of

experience. I know what works in the classroom and what does not. I

changed when I was young, when I was learning how to be a good teacher!

Teacher 5: We all learn all our…[fades out]

Teacher 2: [interrupts] I am good! My students are good!

This dialogue illustrates not only resistance to change but also two very important threats in

the change process – age of the teacher and the measure of a teacher’s success. Teacher 2 is

a well-established, seasoned professional with a lot of practical experience in the classroom.

She believes that students learn best in a highly controlled environment, where she leads

with routines she set “when she was young and learning”. Although I am certain that what

she said was just a moment of emotional outburst, it resonates with fear to experiment and

learn further.

When Teacher 2 said, “I changed when I was young, when I was learning how to be a good

teacher!”, not only did she refuse to change but she also highlighted when teachers change

– they change when they are young. This is a controversial issue in educational research and

a great number of scientists have explored how the age of a teacher affects their

performance at work and how it further shapes their learning needs (Borko, 2004;

Hargreaves, 2005; Van Veen et al., 2005; Moor et al., 2005; Veldman et al., 2013). There is indeed

a consensus that novice and early-career teachers change most, which is true for anyone at the

beginning of their career, however, teachers’ expectations as they transit from novice to

seasoned are most affected by change in their system of beliefs, perceptions and attitudes. In

a study, which Luft (2001) conducted to explore how beginning and experienced teachers react

to an enquiry-based development programme, findings showed that beginning teachers

changed their beliefs more than their practices and experienced teachers changed their

practices more than their beliefs. This is critical in understanding Teacher 2’s decisions in the

process of change. Contrary to the young and inexperienced Teacher 4, who wanted to learn

from all the other teachers, adapt and change so that she could become a better teacher (cf.




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snippet CS1T2T4 on p. 120), Teacher 2 wanted to refrain from any such thing, advocating that

her teaching integrity rested on the well-established routines she had developed over her

formative period. In other words, she dislocated herself both from changing beliefs and

changing practices, seeing no use whatsoever in participating. Yet, she did not withdraw. She

continued with her passive participation and fed the dialogues with her incisive comments,

sceptical questions and unsolicited advice until the end of the study.

Regardless of the negativity shown early in the coaching sessions, Teacher 2 felt

accommodated well in her classroom and she measured her performance to the

performance of her students. “I am good. My students are good!”, she said and brought a

new issue into discourse – are teachers as ‘good’ as their students are ‘good’? Teacher 2

equated her professional performance with her students’ academic performance, which is

so often used as a measure of success. However, we should not neglect the fact that teachers

in an international context also need to evaluate the impact of local language or mother

tongue, culture and the pedagogies other international teachers bring to the learning

community. With this in mind, the question gets a new dimension. Darling-Hammond and

Baratz-Snowden hold that

“[e]ffective teachers engage students in active learning - debating, discussing,

researching, writing, evaluating, experimenting, and constructing models,

papers, and products in addition to listening to and reading information,

watching demonstrations, and practicing skills. They make their expectations

for high-quality work very clear, and they provide models of student work that

meets those standards. They also provide constant feedback that helps students

improve as they continuously revise their work toward these standards. They

design a well-functioning, respectful classroom that allows students to work

productively. Finally, they involve parents in the learning process and help create

strong connections between home and school, so that students have fewer

obstacles and more supports for their learning. And they do all of this while

collaborating with other teachers and administrators to create a seamless

curriculum and a supportive environment throughout the school.”

Darling-Hammond & Baratz-Snowden (2007:12-13)




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Hargreaves (1998:835) views it differently and explains that “[g]ood teachers are not just

well-oiled machines. They are emotional, passionate beings who connect with their students

and fill their work and their classes with pleasure, creativity, challenge and joy”. There has

been a lot of debate in scientific cliques (Darling-Hammond, 2003; Darling-Hammond &

Baratz-Snowden, 2007; Evans, 2009; Feiman-Nemser, 2012; Korthagen, 2004) about what it

takes to be a good teacher as it is so much more than a list of competences or attributes

labelled to a mannequin. It transcends the epistemological perspective and delves into the

pure essence of one’s being.

Figure 20: The onion: a model of levels of change (Adapted from Korthagen, 2009:197)

To better explain the levels of change which influence teachers to become ‘good’, Korthagen

(2009) introduced the so-called ‘onion model’ (cf. Figure 20). The outer layers of the onion

are observable by others – students, parents, colleagues and other members of the

community – who influence our environment and behaviour. Below that, yet still observable,

are the competences, the body of knowledge and skills which a teacher brings along. The

teacher’s beliefs are to a great extent shaped by early reminiscences of their own teachers

and remain an impediment to experimentation which shapes new beliefs (Darling-Hammond

& Baratz-Snowden, 2007; Hargreaves, 2005; Korthagen, 2009). The marriage of old and new

beliefs, and reflective self-concept constitute a teacher’s identity, an expression of

themselves in the environment through their competences and behaviour. It is this layer

which makes a teacher question themselves about who they are and what they do in the




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classroom. In other words, a teacher’s sense of professional and personal identity plays a key

role in their motivation and commitment to change (Van Veen et al., 2005). The innermost

level – mission – is deeply set in the teacher’s personal philosophy and positions one’s self in

relation to existence. It inspires and drives the mind to create meaningful connections with

the outer world and brings about change from within (Korthagen, 2009).

A teacher may have outstanding competences or flawless behaviour, yet their skewed beliefs

may disbalance the levels and call for change. When Teacher 2 said that she was a good

teacher, she believed that ‘the layers of her onion’, that is her mission, identity, beliefs,

competences and behaviour, were aligned with the environment she worked in. Had she

understood the discrepancies between her levels, she would have been able to embrace

change and work towards her ‘better’ self. Understanding the inner levels creates not only

change of a teacher’s perspective regarding their own profession, but also triggers

fundamental growth (Korthagen, 2009). In other words, for these changes to occur, teachers

should focus on changing their ‘habits of mind’ (Hollins et al., 2004:247) rather than focusing

on their behaviours and pedagogical content knowledge.

In the first month of the coaching sessions, some teachers, who were not ready to embrace

change that easily, sought consolation and understanding in the negative attitude of

colleagues. This is a psychological manoeuvre co-constructed to support the insecurities

which arise from the unknown. In the snippet below, Teacher 1 and Teacher 2 talk about ‘the

change’ (CS3T1T2):

Teacher 1: [inaudible]… with the children is draining me.

Teacher 2: Yeah… [resigned] Me, too. I wish I could make them quiet with a snap. [snaps

her fingers]

Teacher 1: When I think about the change [cynically], maybe the students should change

not me.

Teacher 2: Agree!

The need to ‘gang together’ and share pressing experiences is characteristic of a reflective

learning practice, where the actions are talked over in search for meaningful answers.

Teacher 1 and Teacher 2 might not be of the same age or experience, but their concept of a




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good teacher and good teaching rested on strict discipline and control of the class dynamics,

which brought them together (cf. Teacher 1 and Teacher 2 QTI charts on pp. 217-218). These

two teachers share not only the same concepts, but also the same beliefs and behaviour

which is evident in their classroom practice. Throughout the study, in their coaching sessions

they invested more trust, emotions, collegiality and sincerity than in the sessions they had

with the other coaching teachers. Research showed that emotional understanding plays a

key factor establishing closeness in relationship (Hargreaves, 2005; Hargreaves, 1998). If

everyday interactions and patterns of engagements do not foster mutual trust and respect,

the learning environment gets deprived of the emotional food it needs to thrive. It is

therefore important for teachers to use critical incidents in the classroom, positive and

negative emotions towards change as well as teachers’ perception of self-improvement to

help them verbalise their joint efforts to bring about a change.

The first teacher to show incentive to adopt change was Teacher 4, who had taken part in

the pilot study a few months before the action research commenced. She was indeed less

experienced than the other teachers and less confident about her own philosophy of

education, which might have affected her awareness of the importance of the study and her

active participation. In one of the first coaching sessions with Teacher 5 (CS2T4T5), she

displayed her willingness to change although she was not quite happy about it:

Teacher 4: Why did they fail to understand?

Teacher 5: It is not about understanding… it is about your patience.

Teacher 4: What do you mean? I wasn’t patient enough? But I really…

Teacher 5: [Butts in] You were not. Look, teaching fractions is actually developing their

creative thinking. You have to make them create ideas, not have them ready-

made.

Teacher 4: But I really tried to set things right. See, I have made them use these pies and

cards [resources].

Teacher 5: But you did not use them well. If you had reversed your lesson plan and used

it as an ice-breaker instead, you would have engaged them more and had

them think about it when doing it on paper [worksheets].

Teacher 4: Oooookey, will do it next time [unwillingly]. But I really thought I did it well.




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The existing literature on the relation between career and age suggest that beginning

teachers bridge the gap between university and school as a working environment with a lot

of stress (den Brok et al., 2017; Jones et al., 2005; Jones & Straker, 2006; Moor et al., 2005;).

They are scrutinised, judged, evaluated and criticised but also influenced, mentored,

supported and encouraged. The polarity of practice greatly depends on collegiality and how

teachers at different career stages “expand the alternatives available to the novice and

dramatize the limits of personal and local experience” (Feiman-Nemser & Buchmann,

1985:64). By doing so, young and inexperienced teachers, like Teacher 4, would get the

message that learning from teaching is part of the job of teaching (ibid.). Along with the

challenges in the early career come other compromises they have to make

“[w]ho they are as people, what they stand for, what wisdom and knowledge

they confidently possess to pass on to their students, whether they themselves

have sustaining and enduring relationships – these are the challenges of early

adulthood that accompany the quest of learning and teaching.

Hargreaves (2005:971)

Teacher 4 was thrown into an arena she knew very little about. Not being ‘native’ to the

international education, she could not bring in her own authentic academic experiences

relevant to her setting despite the fact that it was not long ago that she was a student herself.

The Cambridge international programme is so different from the Serbian approach, not only

in terms of syllabuses and learning objectives, but also in terms of soft skills like relationships

with students, roles in the classroom and collaboration with teachers. In other words, change

was bound to happen if she wanted to align her environment with her ‘onion layers’ (cf.

Figure 20 on p. 123). It was for this reason that she seemed more open to novel approaches

to teaching and experimentation, which she liked to share with her colleagues in search of

affirmation and appreciation alike. For example, in the next coaching session, which she had

with Teacher 3, the two teachers were talking about the adopted change and evidence of it

in the classroom (CS4T3T4). Note the positive atmosphere:

Teacher 3: I was coaching with Teacher 2 [sic.] last week. We talked about her History

project and stuff. How many sessions did you have with her already?




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Teacher 4: Three. I was working with Teacher 5 [sic.]. She showed me how to use these

flashcards. Do you need them?

Teacher 3: Yeah, but not now. What’s the recipe? [laughs]

Teacher 4: [laughs together with Teacher 3] She said to rather use them as prompts at

the beginning, not at the end. Soooo, I tried, and it was sort of better. I am

not sure if they remembered the answers or calculated them. [laughs]

A change in teachers’ attitudes and beliefs occurs under a strong influence of the classroom

practice and perceived success in student learning (Guskey, 2002), which is found both in

cognitive advancement and improved attitude, motivation and behaviour. Therefore, closing

the gap between what teachers really want and what teachers are actually able to do is

crucial for understanding the process of change in this study.

It seemed that the teachers with more experience were less tolerant to suggestions which

related to their personal pedagogies. They expressed a strong dissonance when their long-

held beliefs about their own classroom practice disagreed with the beliefs the other (less

experienced) teachers had. This became evident during the third post-conference (CS3T1T4),

when the coaches engaged in joint interpretation of the classroom activities:

Teacher 4: You were soooo strict about homework…

Teacher 1: Ha! You thought I would forgive them? [Laughs] Ugh-ugh! [No-no], not in my

classroom!

Teacher 4: But he [student] was almost crying… [sad voice] and his chin was shivering…

Maybe you could think of different ways to impose work habits, like some

stars or something? Some awards… [fades out insecurely]

Teacher 1: Pfff, stars do not work with me.

Teacher 1, as we have seen before, likes to control her classroom dynamics with a raised voice

and high tone. She is in her mid-thirties and brings into play her parenthood experience,

which is clearly articulated through her warm yet stern attitude. Mid-career teachers have

learnt how “to insulate themselves and create a little emotional distance from students and

their problems” (Hargreaves, 2005:979). Generally, they feel more confident about their

competences, but they remain open-minded and receptive to learning. Positioned between




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the beginning teachers, whose enthusiasm is the best currency in the career-age trade, and

the seasoned teachers, whose joy for teaching might get replaced with the need to mentor

and guide younger colleagues, mid-career teachers can still use the momentum and improve

their competences by changing their beliefs. Moreover, their maturity in reasoning, social

awareness of the learning community and adaptability to the students’ needs make them

true agents of change.

As the coaching conferences adopted a more and more informal tone, and the exchange of

experiences became more reciprocal, the teachers seamlessly started experimenting in the

classrooms. The incentives to experiment most notably derived from the ideas recycled after

lesson observations. Having estimated that certain pedagogical practices worked well in

their colleague’s classroom, the teachers dared to replicate them in their own classrooms.

These instances occurred in sessions four and five, which was rather late in comparison to

the pilot study timeline. Teacher 1 and Teacher 5, as two professionals with rather opposing

views to positive discipline, tried to influence each other (CS4T1T5):

Teacher 1: When you turn your back, they talk, talk, talk, talk [onomatopoeic, funny]

Teacher 5: I don’t mind the noise. You do?

Teacher 1: I’m not talking about the noise. They do not respect you if there is no control.

Teacher 5: So, you think that if I keep them quiet, they will respect me more. [cynically]

Teacher 1: Ooooh, come on. You know what I am talking about! [insulted]

Teacher 5: No, I don’t. Am I doing something wrong? [provocatively]

Teacher 1: Yeah! You let them go wild! [gets agitated] You should introduce some rules.

For example, I say, “Eyes on me, ears on me!” and they know there’s no

talking. As simple as that!

Teacher 5: [laughs] OK, OK. Don’t over-react. I’m just joking. If I become more strict,

would you become less strict? Just for my sake?

Teacher 1: But, how will I control them?

Teacher 5: Keep them busy!

After having experimented in their classrooms with some recycled teaching ideas, the

teachers started displaying enthusiasm for sharing personal experiences and concerns.

However, a tipping point which accelerated the change process happened when I received




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Pearson’s nomination for the Global Teacher of the Year. It seemed to me that, up to that

point, (some of) my colleagues had doubted my classroom decisions – being a teacher myself

– and devalued my efforts to improve the school’s ethos – being a head of school and a

researcher. This impression is highly subjective and influenced by their perceived attitude

towards my performance. I talked about its ethical underpinnings in Chapter 4 | 3 (p. 73),

where I raised the issues of bias and skewed perception of the prize in terms of teachers’

internalisation of my recognition.

My professional recognition transferred to the team and evoked moments of

transformational learning and reflective instances, which, eventually brought about a

change. However, the change – the ‘teaching epiphany’, the moment of enlightenment and

reconciliation, the instance of matured cognitive and affective processes – happened only

when the teachers gained evidence of improvements in both student learning and their

attitude towards learning. This is what Guskey predicated in his model of change:

“[C]hange is primarily an experientially based learning process for teachers.

Practices that are found to work – that is, those that teachers find useful in

helping students attain desired learning outcomes – are retained and repeated.

Those that do not work or yield no tangible evidence of success are generally

abandoned. Demonstrable results in terms of student learning outcomes are the

key to the endurance of any change in instructional practice.”

Guskey (2002:384)

The coaching sessions in the third and fourth month resonated with teachers’ mutual

appreciation, “She is so inspiring for the children!”, identification, “I did what she did”, and

finally acceptance, “I loved her creative ideas”. Moreover, contrary to the initial negative

attitude, a new prevalent feeling marked the end of the study – that of collaborative practice.

Teacher 3 and Teacher 6’s post-conference (CS5T3T6) illuminated the study:

Teacher 6: Sooo?

Teacher 3: I loved it! What is it called again? Oregano?

Teacher 6: Ori-ga-mi! [laughs] I am so happy we did it in class. I was afraid that I would

forget a folding [of the paper].




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Teacher 3: They really got into it and were folding with zest!

Teacher 6: Who would have thought that maths can be that fun, ha?

Teacher 3: Yeah! Should be a skill to master. They really loved it!

Teacher 6: Well, if it hadn’t been for Teacher 5’s [sic.] research, maybe I would have

never tried it! Would have never dared! [laughs]

Teacher 3: Your students neither! [laughs]

Having observed the process of change over a period of one academic year was an

opportunity to explore how teacher collaboration and coaching affected their professional

growth and how it solved any dissonance between espoused beliefs and classroom practice.

The gradation of the resistance to change was manifested by all teachers both during the

coaching sessions and lesson observations. These were not tabulated with clear boundaries

but were rather interlacing along the way with a wavering intensity, where the resistance to

advice was subdued and the resistance to accept that the change had happened grew

towards reconciliation. In one of the coaching post-conferences towards the end of the

research, Teacher 3 had a personal account about how she felt in the process of change

(CS5T3T6):

Teacher 3: I was unwilling, I admit… There were days when I was quite reluctant to

teach in front of you [Teacher 6] or Teacher 1 [sic.]… You made me nervous,

y’ know? [laughs] And then we had to talk about it, and I was thinking all the

time about how you would compare me with Teacher 5 [sic.] and criticise my

handwriting and everything. [pause] I mean, not that I was [inaudible] but

the whole idea of exchanging and changing and learning … it was as if I was

a student again. But then… people change, y’ know, and I think that I learnt

something from these lesson observations and our talks.

The above account was not a complete shift in attitude and beliefs, yet it promoted

reconciliation in the process of change and admittance to a new paradigm, which emits an

effort to unlearn and relearn (Klein, 2008), two crucial elements in the theory of change. In

transformation, teachers first have to detach from their deepest and most resilient beliefs,

which they formed very early in their career replicating their own experiences in schooling

(Darling-Hammond, 1995), and grow from there a new system of beliefs, where they may




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assimilate the new knowledge which they acquire at different stages in their career. Needless

to say, the change of beliefs, attitudes, values, perceptions, classroom activities and social

relationships is bound to transform teacher’s identity, ideology and philosophy of education

(Day, 2002; Day et al., 2005), as the key variables in their motivation and commitment to

change.

Having mentioned teacher identity, I cannot help thinking about my own place in this

research, being a teacher, head teacher, researcher and researched all at the same time. How

did my personal identity, professional identity, collegial relationships and headship change?

While going over the recorded interviews, I tried to relocate my perspective and observe

myself as ‘just Teacher 5’, objectively assessing my own transformation in this study – my

resistance to change, my ‘teaching epiphany’ and my reconciliation. It was unusual to hear my

own words and comments, as well as my colleagues’ accounts of my work, and situate them

in the context of the whole study while “transcribing the unsaid” (Brandenburg & Davidson,

2011). However, I very often found myself questioning my decisions in certain situations,

reconsidering pieces of advice I had given to my colleagues, reassessing my reactions to the

comments they had had about me and doubting the reasons for my own transformation in

the process of change. In other words, my own perception of the ‘self-transformation’ had

become the hidden agenda in the research, which I explored on the margins as a self-study.

In one of the first coaching sessions (CS2T2T5), I found myself influencing the course of

research by encouraging Teacher 2 to experiment in the classroom. However, looking at this

snippet now, I can confirm that it was not Teacher 5 who was advising – it was Researcher,

my alias:

Teacher 2: Where do you think we can use this game? I mean, my students are too small

to understand the rules. [sceptically, unwillingly]

Teacher 5: You can simplify them, hm? [encouragingly]

Teacher 2: But what’s the point if I simplify them? Then they won’t be learning what they

are supposed to learn.

Teacher 5: It is not all about learning… It is about socialising and putting them all

together with the other students so that they can form teams and play

together.




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Teacher 2: So, you are telling me that I have to experiment with a new game so that they

can play together??? [revolted]

Teacher 5: No, I am telling you to experiment with a new game so that you can see how

you can introduce some innovation in your teaching. This is what we are all

doing… working together to bring about a positive change and make us all

better teachers. [agitated]

Teacher 2: I am not sure I am ready for this… [hesitantly, whispering]

Although in a dual role, Teacher 5, featuring Researcher, stands out as a supportive colleague

who shares her pressing issues regarding her own experimentation, classroom practice,

students’ learning and pedagogical enlightenment. Having empowered the teachers to re-

invent their own pedagogies, the Researcher’s role was critical for advocating the

introduction of autonomy and choice in experimentation (Lawson, 2011a), which are

constructed through an interaction between personal experiences, and “the social, cultural

and institutional environment in which they function on a daily basis” (van den Berg,

2002:579). The teachers grounded their own emancipation through the continuous process

of interpretation and re-interpretation of both classroom practice and coaching dialogues

with a view to empowering their identities and teaching integrity. However, to empower

does not mean to impose the process of change in order to transform “specific teachers’

practices in the classroom but to generate principles of good practice that may or may not

be taken up by the teaching community” (Lawson, 2011b:321).

In approaching the process of change, the teachers needed to open their minds to remedying

rather than to altering, while experimenting and learning from classroom experiences.

Therefore, the process of change is more cyclical than linear and the “changes in attitudes

and beliefs are likely to spur additional changes in practice that bring further change in

student learning, and so on” (Guskey, 2002:385-386). In other words, changing deeper

sustained levels is a process which involves the transformation of values, attitudes, emotions

and perceptions which inform practice (Day, 1999).




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7 | 1 | 2 Reflection about teaching

In contemporary paradigms of education, a community of practice thrives when the models

of communication, collaboration, networking, support and integrity build on reflection and

reflective practice (Leitch & Day, 2000; Carr, 2006). There is a significant difference in

meaning here. Where the reflection involves a thinking process of ordering and associating

ideas, the reflective practice is the implementation of the guiding gestalts in a given social

context (Korthagen, 1993). Schön (1983) describes reflective practice as tacit, intuitive and

spontaneous knowing that enables skilful performance. A teacher becomes a reflective

practitioner not only when they plan before teaching and then look back at the classroom

decisions but also when they are able to reconsider their choices and explore alternative

paths to the set objectives. In other words, reflection is about thinking and acting.

The early impression of reflection was that “it emancipates us from merely impulsive and

merely routine activity. […] It converts action that is merely appetitive, blind, and impulsive

into intelligent action” (Dewey, 1933:17). More recently though, the understanding of

reflection has shifted towards the concepts of reflective teaching, which empowers teachers

to internalise their dispositions and skills to learn from their classroom experiences in order

to become better practitioners as they progress in their career (Feiman-Nemser, 2001). Schön

(1983:308) holds that we all become “reflective researchers in situations of uncertainty,

instability, uniqueness, and conflict”, but the changing paradigm might bring reasons which

are either more personal or more professional, yet pertinent to the teachers’ inspiration,

aspiration and ‘can-do’ attitude. Once in place, the reflective processes instil the belief and

attitude that knowledge about teaching, classroom practice and pedagogy is not property of

individuals but intellectual legacy of the community of practice (Leitch & Day, 2000).

However, there is an issue widely discussed in scientific cliques, which brings a tacit doubt

that despite the rhetoric, which promotes reflection as a tool to prepare teachers to

approach their profession responsibly and critically, there is admittedly a skewed image of it

in reality, where it is more attached to educational change than to Dewey’s (1933) ‘intelligent

action’. In this research, the teachers were encouraged to self-reflect and reflect together in

coaching pairs in order to bring about a change, yet their initial resistance had affected the

community of practice and set a lot of impediments in the reflective processes. In the first




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place, there was an impediment in setting a true and honest relationship through which the

teachers could grow their collaborative teaching and openly discuss their pressing issues,

concerns, dilemmas, ideas and experiments. This was expected to some extent as the

teachers had been alienated and self-sufficient in their own classrooms, so any intrusion was

a territorial encroachment. In one of the first coaching sessions, the teachers talked about

their individualistic attitude (CS1T4T6):

Teacher 6: I know so little about what you do… and how you do it…

Teacher 4: Well, this might be because we do not teach the same age group.

Teacher 6: That’s a lame excuse! [laughs, Teacher 4 laughs, too] I’d rather say that this

is because you joined us only last year.

Teacher 4: True. But we do not hang around much anyway. I wonder if this [research]

experiment would bring us any closer.

Teacher 6: I am not sure if I want to get any closer with some of the teachers. I am quite

happy with where I am and what I do.

Teacher 2, with her strong personality and influential role, shared her reflective moments

with the other teacher having more classroom experience and stable identity. However, her

reflections about teaching had a heavy negative connotation as the resistance to change very

often shaded the reflective potential in her coaching sessions. In the snippet below, we can

see her stream of reflection (CS3T2T3):

Teacher 2: When I was young, I mean not young young but in my late twenties, I thought

that I would never be able to take control of my class.

Teacher 3: You? No way! You are a control freak.

Teacher 2: Yeah, me! [laughs]

Teacher 3: So, what happened in the meantime?

Teacher 2: I got my own kids and I came to realise that discipline works only when you

instil it at the very beginning. There is no time for eeny-meeny, you know. You

have to be strong and imposing… not like some teachers, you know. All this

research and everything she [Researcher] wants to do here… This is all fine,

but I am not sure that she can change teachers. They are who they are, you

know…If Teacher 1 [sic.] changed, do you really think that she would be




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better? Or worse? Or me, for example… I do not want to change. I am happy

with who I am and how I teach. [voice raised]

As seen in the snippet, Teacher 2 recognised that the teachers “are who they are”, but her

reflection about the other teachers’ identities is also a ‘core reflection’ about her own values,

beliefs and attitudes. This study was indeed inspired by the perceived lack of collegiality,

collaboration and networking among the teachers, who, I thought, would benefit from

creating a learning community in which the coaching, mentoring and mutual support are the

norms and part of the school ethos. The role of reflection in this developmental endeavour

is crucial in that it is instrumental in both the thinking process and the recognition of the need

to adopt a reflective practice. Yet, the other impediment in creating a reflective community

of practice rose from the fact that the teachers found themselves amid a culture of ‘contrived

collegiality’ (Hargreaves & Dawe, 1990), where the interaction among teachers was purely

administrative and initiated to fulfil the professional requirements regarding instruction and

curriculum. Their efforts to establish a stronger relationship, based on openness, trust and

support through which they could define and develop their own purposes as a community –

‘collaborative culture’ (ibid.) – were intensified as the teachers grew accustomed to the semi-

structured interviews of the coaching sessions. The interview schedules (cf. Table 2 and

Table 3 on pp. 43-44) were introduced as a methodological tool to prompt a dialogue and

inspire the coaches to exchange their reflexivity, teaching ideas, learning objectives,

creativity and interaction. In the very beginning, the schedule was followed duly but was

deprived of reflective instances which could have enriched their relationship towards the

overarching concept of coaching (CS1T1T2):

Teacher 2: Sooo, let’s do this. Question number 1: What is the session going to be about?

Teacher 1: I will teach numbers. Is that enough? Do I have to say anything else?

Teacher 2: I have no idea. We’ll check with Teacher 5 [sic.] later. What will students do?

Teacher 1: What will they do as what kind of activity?

Teacher 2: I guess so.

Teacher 1: Well, I prepared Unit 3 and there is a short video, and a worksheet, and maybe

if there is some time left, we can draw.




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However, as the study wound towards the end, the dialogues were more inspired by the

reflective elements and self-examination. The following snippet shows Teacher 1 and Teacher

2 in coaching session 5, that is towards the end of the research, where they follow the same

pre-conference schedule (CS5T1T2) but the flow is strikingly different:

Teacher 2: So, do you plan to start with a game again? It was quite interesting last time

and they seemed really interested to participate.

Teacher 1: Well, you know me, I always like to bring something new. Look, I prepared

this quiz. It is very snappy, should serve just to check how well they know this.

Teacher 2: Oh, yeah, I used that as well! I think some time in October, when we were

doing the shapes. Oh, they loved it.

Teacher 1: Yeah? I wanted to ask them to make shapes with their hands as well, a sort

of kinaesthetic activity. Teacher 3 [sic.] said that she had used it and the

students loved the movement and how funny it was.

Teacher 2: That’s too much noise for me! [laughs]

The second look at the snippet CS1T1T2 gives an insight into a challenge the teachers faced

at the very beginning of the coaching sessions – learning how to reflect (Coulson & Harvey,

2013). Although the concept of reflection has strong rhetoric in the professional lives of

teachers, where they are advised to keep journals and observe the changes in their personal

pedagogies so that they can link their experiences to new contexts, in reality, they are either

too busy to contemplate or too reluctant to write. The nature of the teaching profession

entails constant reconsiderations, however, setting a sound reflective practice requires a

systematic reflection and a habit of mind within the school culture.

Unprepared for the reflective practice, the teachers first had to practise to become reflective

(Soisangwarn & Wongwanich, 2014; Korthagen & Vasalos, 2005) and only then assume the

role of a ‘reflective practitioner’ (Schön, 1983). In the same vain, Dewey (1933:12) claims that

reflective thinking grows through a number of phases in thinking: a state of doubt, hesitation

or mental difficulty in which thinking originates, followed by an act of searching or enquiring

to find material that resolves the doubt. Korthagen et al. (2001) developed the ALACT model

(cf. Chart 8) with a view to showing that a structured reflection process is cyclical and goes

through five stages: A stands for Action; L for Looking back at the action; A for Awareness of




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essential aspects; C for Creating alternative methods of

actions; and T for Trial, which is at the same time the beginning

of a new cyclical process of reflection. Moreover, these stages

of the reflection process are inherently linked to the layers of

the ‘onion model’ (cf. Figure 20 on p. 123), that is, with the

levels which influence the way the teachers function as

professionals (Korthagen & Vasalos, 2005; Korthagen et al.,

2001). Although reflection occurs at all levels (environment,

competences, beliefs, identity and mission), the level of

mission tackles the most profound traits of teachers’

personality, where they explore the mere reason for

professional commitments, the ‘why’, the inspiration, meaning

and significance of their choices for their work and their lives.

While the level of identity is concerned with self-reflection,

that is, with the way teachers see themselves in the

environment, the level of mission affects the teachers’ perception of their gestalts and touch

upon the teaching idea – the ‘core reflection’ (ibid.). In coaching session 4, Teacher 2, who has

a highly developed sense of her own competences and identity in the classroom, triggers

reflective instances with Teacher 4, who is learning how to reflect (CS4T2T4):

Teacher 4: I had a very awkward situation today… [insecure]

Teacher 2: Oh? [encourages]

Teacher 4: Yeah… Student’s [sic.] dad came over to tell me that I set too much

homework and that Student [sic.] spent more than three hours working on

it.

Teacher 2: Well did you?

Teacher 4: I did… I mean I did set some homework but I just could not see why it took

him three hours…

Teacher 2: What was that?

Teacher 4: It was a cut-out to make a house and then family members. They actually had

to colour the cut-outs. Nothing difficult, really.

Teacher 2: Is Student [sic.] detail-oriented?

Teacher 4: I can’t tell that…

Chart 8: ALACT model (Adapted from Korthagen

et al., 2001)




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Teacher 2: For example, is his handwriting neat, colouring within the lines, disciplined…?

Teacher 4: Well, now that you mention, yeah…he is…

Teacher 2: Why do you think then that it took him three hours?

Teacher 4: But the other students did not complain…

Teacher 2: Do you think this is about complaining or about asking for your

understanding? [poking, tone raised]

Teacher 4: To understand what? [naively]

Teacher 2: That there might be a problem in the family with his attitude…

Teacher 4: Oh, dear… No… I never thought of that…

Teacher 2: What would you do next?

Teacher 4: Don’t know… Maybe set homework which would not take too much time…

Teacher 2: Or try something similar to confirm that there is a problem?

Teacher 4: Ooooh… now I see.

Teacher 2: Ask yourself these questions next time you come across the problem.

In the process of learning how to reflect, having a ‘significant other’ (Jokikokko, 2009), who

is scaffolding and guiding, is important for the developmental opportunities in reflective

instances. Coaching in a pair while having a colleague who is assuming a mentoring role in

stimulating the reflective associations helps in linking useful experiences with the innermost

levels, where the core reflection happens. These ‘supervisor interventions’ (Korthagen &

Vasalos, 2005) feed the dialogue (cf. Chart 9) with thought-provoking questions about

wanting, feeling, thinking and doing, which helps the teacher to discover how to address the

issues systematically (ibid.).

In the snippet above (CS4T2T4), we could see how Teacher 2 encouraged Teacher 4 to think

about the causes rather than the consequences of the action. She asked her to look back at the

classroom situation, which would be the L of ALACT, trying to frame the Student’s

characteristics, “Is Student detail-oriented?”. She went further to concrete examples, “[I]s his

handwriting neat, colouring within the lines, disciplined…?”, which provided guidance towards

becoming aware of essential aspects, which would be the second A of ALACT model. She finally

led Teacher 4 to capturing the situation from a different point of view and provided advice for

creating alternative methods of action “[o]r try something similar to confirm that there is a

problem?” (quote from the snippet CS4T2T4), reaching the C of the ALACT model. Eventually,




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Teacher 2 provides encouragement to Teacher 4 to experiment further in the classroom and

reflectively assess her pedagogical choices “next time she [sic.] comes across the problem”

(quite from the snippet CS4T2T4). By doing so, Teacher 4 tries out alternative methodologies

and sets herself at the beginning of a new cycle – the Trial, that is the T in the ALACT model,

prompts the new action.

In the critical instances of cognitive conflicts and dissonance, where alternative solutions

emerged as results of changed perspectives in thinking, the coaches created reflective

insights into their teaching, feelings, beliefs, failures, successes and identities, which further

heightened learning and grounded teachers’ knowledge. The coaching sessions provided

opportunities to initiate reflective metacognitively rich dialogues both before and after the

lesson observation (cf. Table 2 and Table 3 on pp. 43-44). These forms of interrogation into

the teaching performance, prompted teachers to reflect-for, -in and -on-action (Boud &

Walker, 1992; Coulson & Harvey, 2013; Greenwood, 1998; Leitch & Day, 2000; Schön, 1983)

and analyse their unique teaching situations by hearing multiple perspectives from their

coaching partners.

Chart 9: Supervisor interventions related to the ALACT model (Adapted from Korthagen et al., 2001)




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‘Reflection-for-action’, which happened prior to lessons observation, provided an opportunity

“to contextualise and clarify the role of reflection and how it will be used to support intended

and unintended learning in the midst of, and after the experience [which] requires an

exploration of the many perspectives that they may encounter to challenge their beliefs,

values, and assumptions as well as cultural and other conventions of which they need to be

cognisant in order to operate effectively” (Coulson & Harvey, 2013:408). This is a very

engaging phase of the reflective practice, where teachers anticipate actions and reactions as

well as choices and decisions, while constructing learning within the accumulative levels of

reflection, that is its depth. In this stage, teachers scaffold each other, using cognitive and

metacognitive prompts to establish the early diagnostic and prepare themselves for the

lesson observations (ibid.).

‘Reflection-in-action’ happens in situ, in the classroom or any other learning environment

which involves the moment of teaching and learning. Usually triggered by an unforeseen

reaction, critical incident, surprise or comment, which derails the teacher from the well-

established routine in the classroom, it comprises reframing the problem and improvising on

the spot so that the experience is perceived differently (Loughran, 1996). Thinking about

what they are doing when they are doing it puts a teacher in a situation to reflect on the

understandings which have been implicit in their actions, feelings which led to the adoption

of this particular course of action and the way to redesign the solution to the problem

(Greenwood, 1998) while responding appropriately as the lesson progresses. These

moments of conflict of values provide a reflective practitioner with opportunities to ‘practice’

their practice:

“He [sic.] develops a repertoire of expectations, images, and techniques. He

[sic.] learns what to look out for and how to respond to what he [sic.] finds. As

long as his [sic.] practice is stable, in the sense that it brings him [sic.] the same

types of cases, he [sic.] becomes less and less subject to surprise. His [sic.]

knowing-in-practice tends to become increasingly tacit, spontaneous, and

automatic […].”

(Schön, 1983:60)




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On the other hand, ‘reflection-on-action’ is the post factum cognitive experience, which

prompts the teacher to re-evaluate their feelings and decisions while situating these

experiences in their existing frame of mind. By relating what they have learnt to what they

already know, they are mentally testing the new contexts and claim their ownership (Boud

& Walker, 1992). Halfway through the research, when the teachers adopted the practice of

reflection and spontaneously followed the schedule for the semi-structured interview, the

instances of their ‘reflections-on-action’ took greater part in their coaching conferences. In

coaching session 3, Teacher 5 and Teacher 6 talk over the role of assessment in teaching after

Teacher 5’s lesson observation (CS3T5T6):

Teacher 6: I have never used group work for assessment so it was a new thing for me.

Teacher 5: Well, I was a sort of experimenting, you know. I’ve read about it in a blog and

thought I could try it next time I use formative assessment.

Teacher 6: Are you happy with it? I mean, are you happy with the results?

Teacher 5: I am happy with how it went regardless of the results. Though I will plan

better the time next time.

Teacher 6: Yeah, the students did not really understand what they were supposed to do

so that used up a lot of time.

Teacher 5: It was new for them as much as it was new for you and me.

Teacher 6: I would also make smaller groups. Maybe three not four members.

Teacher 5: Why?

Teacher 6: So that they could collaborate more intensively.

Teacher 5: I do not think that it would affect intensity but efficiency for sure.

Teacher 6: Agree.

The retrospective analysis of the lesson, which Teacher 5 held and Teacher 6 observed, brings

together their reflections-on-action, in this case a group formative assessment. Although

they discussed mainly the technicalities regarding time management and group

organisations, what is crucial for this dialogue are the reasons for experimentation. Teacher 5

referred to the resource, the blog, which she obviously had found and wanted to use the

ideas to bring experimentation and innovation in the classroom. This sets the ‘reflection-

before-action’ within a wider context, which affirms Teacher 5’s inspiration and aspiration to

reinvent her pedagogy by bringing into play less traditional formats of assessment.




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Reflection-before-action might be seen as the Trial stage of the ALACT model (cf. Chart 8 on

p. 137), where the teachers assume the courage to change their paradigms. Whereas

reflection-on-action is a backward step into time to reconsider experiences, reflection-before-

action is “a backward step into the self and it is a journey that is its own destination”

(Tremmel, 1993:456).

In the course of this research, continuous self-reflection defined my actions towards my

colleagues and students, but the duality of my role created on many occasions the conflict

between the self-reflections of a teacher and the self-reflections of a researcher. Whereas

my reflections as a teacher were mainly related on-actions in the classrooms, on my students’

learning, on content or syllabus delivery, the reflections of the researcher were in-action

while I was exploring, reading, writing and interpreting the data. These insightful moments

of cognitive empowerment happened asynchronously, especially while listening to the

recordings and analysing the raw data but there were instances when the Researcher took

over Teacher 5 and developed reflective dialogues in this emancipated role. In coaching

session 4, the evidence of this duality emerges in the pre-conference with Teacher 4

(CS4T4T5):

Teacher 5: Are you ready? Let me see how well you are prepared for your lessons…

Teacher 4: I prepared the worksheets you asked me to prepare.

Teacher 5: I did not ask you to prepare them, I asked you to think about alternative ways

of doing the reading task. Remember?

Teacher 4: Yeah, I know, but I thought I had to change it anyway because I wanted to

see what they would look like and if the students would like something new.

Teacher 5: That’s good! [encouraging, but also patronizing] Thinking about what the

students would like is a step forward towards your teaching reflections. So,

let’s talk about that… What do you think the students would like? How much

it would take them to do it? Did you include differentiation?

These interventions can be wisely used in coaching sessions if the supervisor is “capable of

switching back and forth between the levels, in accordance with the needs of the individual

being supervised” (Korthagen & Vasalos, 2005:63) but it requires open collaboration and

preparedness to examine the deeper levels – the levels of identity and mission. This I found




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difficult to reach. The resistance to change, which hampered the very beginning of the

research, mirrored as resistance to reflect, especially when I was one of the coaches. Very

early in the coaching sessions I realised that I needed to tailor the coaching sessions to the

specific needs of the teachers, which led me to differentiate the content, process and

product (Tomlinson & McTighe, 2006), reflecting at all times if our own coaching experiences

were “engaging, relevant, and interesting” (ibid.:5).

Although I ‘reflected-for-action’ and carefully planned the coaching sessions with my

colleagues, inventing ways to best help and encourage, the content of my differentiation was

usually challenged by the lesson observations, previous coaching sessions and rapport I had

established with each of them. On the other hand, differentiation supported the teachers’

learning processes providing for the multiple options to take in information, making sense of

ideas and sharing the information learnt (Tomlinson & McTighe, 2006). Admittedly, Teachers

4 and 6, as seen in the snippets, showed open-mindedness and genuine willingness to

contribute to fostering a ‘collaborative culture’ (Hargreaves & Dawe, 1990). The process of

differentiation, through which I stimulated deeper reflection and inspired the creation of

alternative methods of action (Stover et al., 2011), produced empowered teachers, who were

experimenting in their learning contexts and reinventing their own pedagogies. In the other

team, Teachers 1 and 2, who were sceptical in their attitude, claimed strong ownership of

their educational philosophies and displayed integrity with clear boundaries, if not walls. My

differentiation with them required content enriched with supporting classroom evidence,

detailed observation notes and diplomatic tactfulness. In the process of differentiation with

the two of them, I reflected heavily in-action, adjusting the course of the coaching

conferences based on the particularities of the interventions and instructional designs.

However strong-opinionated in their communication with me as Researcher, both Teacher 1

and Teacher 2 were priceless in the coaching sessions with the other colleagues, where they

provided guidance, elicited reflections and offered encouragement when and where needed,

with a view to “facilitating self-reflection to bring about change in classroom instruction,

which has the potential to lead to increased student achievement” (Peterson et al.,

2009:501). In the coaching session with Teacher 4, Teacher 2 offered pieces of teaching

experience, which, being very illustrative, triggered reflective instances and drew inferences:




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Teacher 2: I saw your spelling sheets, but I am not sure where you were going with that.

Teacher 4: I wanted them to find associations with ‘eight’, ‘straight’ and ‘weight’ and

then ‘ate’, ‘hate’ and ‘late’.

Teacher 2: Sure, sure, I understand that. But… do you think that they could understand

it?

Teacher 4: Hhmmm… [sounds confused]

Teacher 2: What I am trying to ask you is are you sure that your students see the pattern

in, what did you say, ‘eight’, ‘straight’ and ‘weight’?

Teacher 4: Well, it is rhyming!

Teacher 2: [laughs] It does, but you are not teaching rhyming. Look at the words once

again. The spelling, not the rhyming. [pokes]

Teacher 4: Ooooh, the ‘ai’!

Teacher 2: Soooo? [encouraging]

Teacher 4: I shouldn’t have used it… It confused them.

Teacher 2: Well, maybe not at this stage, but can you think of instances when you could

use them?

Teacher 4: For differentiation and high achievers, right?

Teacher 2: There you go!

Although reflection has long been recognised as essential in a teaching career, understanding

the value of reflection as a powerful tool for professional development has been tested only

recently. The emphasis has shifted from the reflective techniques, such as keeping journals

or watching video recordings of the lessons, to the epistemological interpretation of the

quality of reflection as a thinking process. The researchers (Brockbank & McGill, 2006;

Coulson & Harvey, 2013) have perceived reflection as broad when it referred to cognitive,

personal and moral aspects of pedagogical interventions not only within a classroom, but

also within a larger cultural and social context. Others have explored its depth through the

accumulative levels of reflection (Luttenberg & Bergen, 2008), seeking to understand the

mere nature of reflection. By finding meaningful associations between the schools of

thought, researchers advocate that teachers must act in a purposeful manner, which is a

pragmatic aspect of reflection, but also consider their own well-being and that of individual

students, raising ethical issues of reflection, while taking responsibility for the general

interests, rights and duties of all those involved as well, which is inherently a moral feature




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(ibid.). The pragmatic, ethical and moral domains of reflection could be found in many instances

of the coaching sessions. For example, when Teacher 3 talks about the learning objectives and

efficient means to enhance students’ skills, she uses her empirical knowledge to relate to the

problem and reflect-before-action upon it (CS5T3T4):

Teacher 4: This is non-fiction. Is it boring for them?

Teacher 3: It is. But then I tried to find some interesting articles online to spice it up a

little bit. And there’s this short video clip on YouTube. Here I wanted them to

read, and then see, and then write. You know, the video might make them

more interested and might prompt some wonderful writing ideas.

The domain of ethical reflection, on the other hand, is strongly influenced by the teachers’

self-understanding, their inner layers of the ‘onion’ (cf. Figure 20 p. 123), which are mission

and identity. In the coaching session at the very beginning of the research, Teacher 2 was

making references to her performance and raised the issue of ethical involvement in the

research (CS1T2T6):

Teacher 6: I take this very responsibly. Let’s go through the schedule.

Teacher 2: I take it responsibly, too. However [pause]… I am not sure this is going to

help me teach any better. A change, for example, how I mark and test, is not

necessarily going to make me a better teacher just like a new hairstyle is not

going to make me a better parent.

Teacher 2’s decision to scrutinise is not as much her professional orientation as it is her

personal identity. Ethical reflections bring deeper understanding of classroom decisions in

relations to the existential knowledge acquired in personal lives of the teachers. Similarly,

the domain of moral reflection delves into personal needs and seeks to satisfy the teacher’s

well-being and the interest of those involved. In the snipped below (CS6T1T6), Teacher 6 is

reconsidering her decisions regarding the mark she had given to a student who is struggling

with English:

Teacher 6: Have you seen Student [sic.]? He showed no interest whatsoever.

Teacher 1: Have you talked to his parents about his learning problems?




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Teacher 6: I would not call them learning problems. He is intelligent, that is true, but I

really have to simplify English so that he can understand me. I mean, in the

classroom, I am responsible for him and what he does. I need to find a way to

help him.

Teacher 1: How does that affect the rest of class?

Teacher 6: They see that I am yielding. Last week I gave him a B for reading but it was

not fair. I actually do not know what is fair here.

As seen above, the sense of ‘fairness’ intervenes with the sense of social and emotional

scaffolding for a student who is underperforming not because of cognitive deficiency, but

because of the language barrier. This is a very common dilemma in international schools,

where the students may be learning in English-mediated environments without full language

proficiency. These moral reflections are highly subjective, challenging the teachers’ system

of values and leading to personal rather than professional decisions.

For reflection to bring about a change at the conscious and subconscious levels, teachers

need to show a capacity to learn through experimentation and engage in the higher order

thinking about their pedagogies, while remaining aware of their own system of values,

beliefs and attitudes. The teachers matured in their reflective processes by learning from

each other, which is an objective of coaching and peer-collaboration as a means of school

improvement. Reflective practice, which entailed making conscious and explicit interplay

between thinking and actions (Shulman, 1987), fostered a collaborative culture in which the

teachers displayed “careful consideration of any belief or practice in light of the reasons that

support it and the further consequences to which it leads” (Zeichner & Liston, 1996:9).

7 | 1 | 3 Collaborative teaching through peer coaching

In a traditional classroom, a teacher is singular – a powerful, know-it-all wizard. However, the

21st century is creating new traditions and new contexts in which the teachers become

learners, collaborators, facilitators, creators and peer coaches, who foster mutual trust,

support classroom experimentation, inspire deep reflection, disseminate good practice and

provide opportunities for differentiated coaching (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2007).

The objective of this research, which is to develop vested interest in coaching so that the




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teachers can see the benefits of action research and implement peer-collaboration, was

challenged with its own instrument – rationale to reinvent pedagogies and improve teaching.

The concept of peer coaching is not a new one, yet in the school where I work, it was never

a practice. In the context of ‘contrived collegiality’ (Hargreaves & Dawe, 1990), the teachers

communicated at the administrative level and worked together only to implement the

curricula and instructional strategies developed by others (Hargreaves & Dawe, 1990). As we

progressed through the coaching sessions, week after week, the teachers slowly relocated

their frames of references and started building a culture of peer-collaboration. The first

coaching session in which the coaching teacher discussed the observed lesson (CS1T1T3)

stands in stark contrast with the last one (CS6T1T3):

Teacher 3: I do not have much experience in observations. I mean someone to observe

me teaching…[insecure]

Teacher 1: You better get used to it. We have months ahead of us for lesson

observations and spying. [stern voice]

Teacher 3: So, you will just sit in the corner?

Teacher 1: I guess so. She [Researcher] did not say anything about it, but I guess so.

Where else to sit?

Teacher 3: I feel uncomfortable to place you in the corner. Maybe you can sit at my desk?

Teacher 1: And then I will start teaching when you lose your bearings! [tries to be funny

but Teacher 1 remains silent]

Teacher 3: I will not lose my bearings. [defensive, insulted, whispering]

[eight months later, the same teachers]

Teacher 1: Gee, that was funny! [laughs]

Teacher 3: You think so? I saw this hand singing when I was observing Teacher 4 [sic.]

and thought that my third graders would love it.

Teacher 1: Yeah, they were totally absorbed. Show me once again how you do this thing

with your hands… [enthusiastic]




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Teacher 3: [Teacher 3 sings “Bim Bum” and claps her hands and snaps her fingers in the

rhythm. Teacher 1 joins and laughs as she makes mistakes in her clapping and

snapping coordination]

Teacher 1: Maybe we can do this as a team building exercise!

The first snippet shows how classroom isolation leads to teachers’ anxiety about their

classroom performance and fear that external evaluation would reveal their worst selves. It

is indeed this feeling of insecurity that keeps teachers within their comfort zone and causes

“reluctance to explore and embrace alternative teaching approaches which may challenge

or move beyond what they already know and do” (Hargreaves & Dawe, 1990:227). Immersed

in the immediacy of their own classroom, teachers grow their individualism and refrain from

public exposure and collective criticism. Teacher 3 is rather insecure, and she openly admitted

how uncomfortable she was about being observed. Although more experienced, and

supposedly more prepared for the classroom action, Teacher 1 awkwardly tried to relieve the

situation with humour, which was heard by Teacher 1 as more patronising than encouraging.

Anxiety in the classroom, or rather ‘teaching stage fright’, is a phase in professional maturity

every teacher goes through. It might arise from negative recollections of classroom

experiences, feeling of belittlement, failure to meet own expectations or expectations of

‘significant others’ (Jokikokko, 2009), or simply fear of public speech and embarrassment.

Standing in front of the audience, regardless of how old (or little) they are, requires great

social presence, professional competence, intellectual grace and unimposing self-

confidence. In a new, 21st-century paradigm, a teacher grew from being an ‘educator’ to being

an ‘edutainer’, from being a ‘sage on the stage’ to being a ‘guide on the side’ (Morrison, 2014).

They live their ‘second lives’ under the spotlight of their students, moving from the backstage

of their homes to the frontstage of their classrooms. Their professional identity might

assume a personality different from that at home, or – the other way around – they might

bring their home identity to their classroom. Whichever their choice is, their emergent

‘teaching selves’ should be shaped by the institutional culture in which they work (Scott,

2007). However, teachers in this research lived their teaching selves in the culture of

isolation, being deprived of joint efforts to construct knowledge and a sense of togetherness.

Such isolation leads to alienation and hence to the anxiety when being observed by other

teachers.




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When Teacher 3 said she did not have much experience being observed, she raised a very

important issue for the school management: how were the teachers evaluated on their

performance if there were no lesson observations? Without going into the reasons for the

school governors’ decision regarding performance appraisal, lesson observations are not

only a tool to evaluate or judge, but also a tool to improve collegiality among teachers as they

“regularly discuss their efforts to support student learning with each other, experiment with

alternative instructional methods, and exchange feedback derived from observations of each

other’s classrooms” (Zwart et al., 2009:244). In other words, lesson observations go beyond

the mere sitting, watching and noting. It enhances social coherence and institutional culture

within a school (Joyce & Showers, 2002; Zwart et al. 2009). Licklider points out how important

observation is for a community:

“[T]eachers, observing a colleague in a peer coaching relationship, form

conceptions of how new behaviours are implemented. When teachers see

colleagues perform a skill that may be difficult or threatening to them, they are

more likely to believe they, too, can perform the new behaviour and will,

therefore persist in their efforts. “

Licklider (1995:56)

In the second part of the snippet CS6T1T3 (p. 147), we could see how the interaction among

the two teachers improved in the finale of the research. Not only did they have fun observing

each other’s lessons and engaging in reflective discussions during the coaching conferences,

but also learnt from each other. Zwart et al. (2009) point out that the teachers who are

observed more frequently try out new teaching strategies while being observed. Teacher 1,

who is more experienced than Teacher 3, opened her mind to some more engaging classroom

activities, like singing and clapping, which do not necessarily teach the subject content, but

bring joy to her Year 1 students and develop their fine motor skills.

While the prevalent feeling in the first part of two dialogues, CS1T1T3 and CS6T1T3 (p. 147) is

characterised by the fear of being judged and scrutinised, the second part resonates with

laughter and positive experiences. Teacher 3 managed to overcome her intimidations and

the ‘teaching stage fright’ through the professional and emotional support of her colleagues.

In the snippet below, she shares her impressions with Teacher 6 (CS4T3T6):




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Teacher 3: When you came to observe me for the first time, I was really nervous you

know…

Teacher 6: Why? I do not [inaudible] strict like Teacher 2 [sic.], do I?

Teacher 3: No, no, not because of that! I always thought that you were so neat and had

this wonderful handwriting and mine was so horrible. Doodles!

Teacher 6: [laughs] So, you think I was there to mark your handwriting? [poking] Come

on! Seriously?

Teacher 3: Yes… So sorry [laughs as well] I was afraid that you would not see anything I

do well, that you will see only my mistakes and my horrible letters on the

board. So, I planned to do something that did not require my handwriting. I

prepared the spelling sheets for the students to write.

Perceiving lessons observations as opportunities to judge rather than opportunities to learn

is typical for teachers who are evaluated on their teaching performance only by means of

observation rubrics. Showers and Joyce (1996) emphasise that when evaluation is the end

product of lesson observation, then teachers fear experimentation and remain within the

safety of their comfort zone. However, in a non-judgemental coaching context, when lesson

observation is planted in-between two coaching conferences, pre- and post-, it engages the

coaches in a meaningful discussion about the learning objectives, which familiarises them

with the classroom scenario, establishes a relationship among the teachers prior to the

lesson and shifts observation from evaluation to investigation. The essence of coaching is

not to offer advice following the lessons observation, Showers and Joyce (1996:16) remind,

but to “learn from one another while planning instruction, developing support materials,

watching one another work with students and thinking together about the impact of their

behaviour on their students’ learning”.

The fact that a coach is going to observe the lessons, not to judge but to learn, puts

responsibility upon the observed teacher to prepare well and show their best teaching-self

by adding new instructional strategies to their teaching repertoire (Zwart et al., 2009). Self-

reflection gives a special momentum to lesson preparation as the teacher might approach

planning thinking about the impression it could leave on the observing teacher. Such a frame

of mind might prompt creative ideas, innovative approaches and alternative teaching methods,




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just as Teacher 3, who obviously wanted to impress Teacher 6, resorted to spelling sheets to

avoid negative feedback on her handwriting.

The process of teachers’ learning is also a process of professional maturity, which embraces

the “construction of cognition […] in response to their participation in the experiences

provided by the professional development trajectory and through their participation in the

classroom” (Clarke and Hollingsworth, 2002:955). While peer-coaching, the teachers were

paired to exchange ideas, inspire experimentation and motivate each other towards

improvements with joint efforts and parity in providing feedback. Nevertheless, there are

moments in their cooperation when the more experienced teacher assumes the role of a

mentor, tipping the coaching balance thus creating power relations (Foucault, 1982), which

might cause either influence or control of one teacher over the other (Turner, 2005). If the

mentor-teacher influences the mentee-teacher, then the power creates decisions, beliefs or

actions which are correct, right, moral and appropriate; if the power is established by control,

especially through the judgement or evaluation, then the mentee-teacher is coerced to act in

line with the mentor-teacher’s instructions (ibid.), which falls outside the reciprocal coaching

paradigm. In one of the first coaching sessions with Teacher 5 (CS2T4T5), Teacher 4, who is a

novice teacher, was quite receptive to the comments about her Maths lesson plan, where

Teacher 5’s power is exercised through influence rather than control:

Teacher 5: What do you want to do with this?

Teacher 4: Aagh, I wanted to… hmm, well, let me think… [smiles nervously] Teach them

estimation, I guess.

Teacher 5: But estimation is not estimation if it was obvious.

Teacher 4: True. So this is not estimation…[discouraged]

Teacher 5: It is too transparent, see…What can you do to make it less transparent?

Teacher 4: Add one more element like distance or… a new town? [hesitantly] Aaaah

(enthusiastically), I see now. I’ll do it right away.

Asking the right questions is a good strategy to inspire higher order thinking and guide a less

experienced colleague towards new ideas for classroom repertoire. However, reciprocal

coaching goes beyond the classroom context and shapes not only the ‘teaching self’ but also

the deepest levels of self-awareness – the mission and identity – as we have seen in




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Korthagen’s (2009) ‘onion’ model (cf. Figure 20 on p. 123). Teacher’s sense of professional

and personal identity plays a key role in their motivation and commitment to changing their

‘habits of mind’ (Hollins et al., 2004:247) rather their classroom behaviours and pedagogical

content knowledge.

Teacher 5 is giving a critical perspective to Teacher 4 by igniting reflection-for-action, guiding

her towards self-discovery and new ideas. It is interesting to note that the instances of

teacher collaboration are inherently linked to the reflective practice. When teachers engaged

into pre- and post-conference dialogues, they mostly talked about themselves, their

performance and their impressions about the instruction. Rarely did they mention students’

achievements and when they did, those were marginal comments within a wider context of

their own achievement. As this was not what I expected to hear in a study of coaching as a

pedagogical tool for school improvements, I was wondering how this came to be. Listening

more carefully to their conversations, I realised that the interviewing schedules (cf. Table 2

and Table 3 on pp. 43-44), which they had to follow as guidelines for discussion, lost their

purpose as the teachers would start with the first couple of questions, which were the ‘you-

questions’ (what will you do, how will you know) and then wander into improvisations,

leaving the questions about students unanswered. The other reason for such discrepancy

might be rooted in teachers’ empowerment to finally talk about themselves, their own

success, their own problems and their own cures, as their communication was usually with

the parents about their children. Regardless of this observation, the teachers provided

plentiful material for interpretation, especially in terms of their growing enthusiasm to visit

each other’s classroom and learn from authentic critical incidents.

In these snippets and throughout the research, Teacher 4 was subordinate in coaching

sessions, hesitating to impose, provide arguments for her own decisions or criticise her

colleagues. Although she participated with Teacher 5 in the pilot before the actual study took

place, and hence had a strategic advantage over the other teacher, she hardly ever used it to

exercise her pedagogical strength. Her relations with Teachers 1 and 2, who portrayed

themselves as experienced and strict, showed the greatest disparity. The snippet below

captures the moment of their collaboration during the post-conference where Teacher 4

provided her feedback on Teacher 1’s lesson observation (CS3T1T4):




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Teacher 1: So, let’s go through the schedule. How do you think that session went?

Teacher 4: It was OK.

Teacher 1: OK? Just OK? We are supposed to talk it over? Give me some more.

Teacher 4: No, really, it was OK. You did what you said you would do and the children

were great, too.

Teacher 1: Aaaagh, come on! You are telling me what I want to hear! Was there anything

you did not like. Come on, I can take it.

Teacher 4: [pauses then starts carefully] Well, maybe the reading.

Teacher 1: What was wrong about the reading?

Teacher 4: Yeah, you know, I would have done it with more drama, you know, the voice,

and the “Grrrr” [imitates the monster]

Teacher 1: “Grrr”? You think I should do the “Grrr”? Like Teacher 3 [sic]?

Teacher 4: Well, yes, you are teaching small kids and they need that sort of acting and

fun…

When Teacher 1 compared herself to Teacher 3, who ‘grrrs’ in her classroom, which is

decisively a less traditional approach to teaching literacy, she tackled the issue of teacher

rivalry. Should she ‘grrr’ like Teacher 3 or should she not? If she ‘grrred’, would she lose her

‘strict’ identity? Or would she become a better teacher? Better than Teacher 3? When guided

well, rivalry can enhance teacher collaboration, foster healthy competition and raise the

pedagogical standards in the given educational setting. On the other hand, rat race, jealousy,

clans and gossips can create a negative climate in a community aiming to grow educational

values and norms. Such a caveat occurs then a coaching strategy is implemented in the school

as the teachers have a greater number of opportunities to see their peers in the classroom,

compare their pedagogies with their own and think of ways to replicate and improve upon

the same teaching repertoire in their own classroom. Although coaching is perceived as a

non-judgemental, non-threatening and non-hierarchical approach to teacher collaboration

(Hargreaves, 2008), there is always an ounce of evaluation and comparison, which leads to a

change in the teachers’ perceptions, beliefs, identities and self-expectations. In the snippet

below, Teacher 3 and Teacher are 6 engaged in a pre-conference conversation (CS1T3T6),

which reflected their sceptical views about Teacher 4’s classroom activities and its replication

in their own:




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Teacher 3: Last time I talked to Teacher 4 [sic.] and I was quite surprised by her

understanding of my spelling [worksheets]. Don’t you do it like this? [shows

the worksheets to Teacher 6] She said she had started using a new strategy

and that mine was old-fashioned and obsolete… [insecure].

Teacher 6: [Looking at the worksheets] Well, yes… I a kind of do it like this… spelling

words and… [word inaudible] What did she tell you?

Teacher 3: She was using jigsaws and things. I don’t think that it makes a difference

anyway. I mean, my way or her way… [insecure] as long as the students are

learning, right?

Teacher 6: Yeah, I agree. Totally. I would not change that if it were working.

The dialogues during the coaching sessions might also bring about a sense of embarrassment

as the teacher might feel scrutinised for details. As we could see in the snippet above

(CS3T1T4), Teacher 1 does not feel comfortable about ‘grrring’ just like Teacher 3 does not

feel good about her handwriting (snippet CS4T3T6 on p. 149) or the spelling sheets. They both

related themselves to their colleagues, who seem to have superior skills in the classroom.

Throughout the research, the teachers compared each other, and their intrinsic features

emerged from the coaching dialogues: strict like Teacher 2, neat like Teacher 6, modest like

Teacher 4 or sceptical like Teacher 1. Teacher 5, in her dual role as teacher-researcher, noted a

gradual change in her perceived image among her colleagues. In the very beginning, when the

resistance to change was deeply rooted in the community, Teacher 5 was perceived as “a

know-it-all” or “too much talk, too little work”. As the resistance subdued and gave way to

more collaboration and eventually reconciliation, Teacher 5 became more “creative” and

“innovative” in the eyes of her peers. Towards the end of the study, Teacher 5’s collegial

relationship with Teacher 2 was less patronising, the impression of which she shared with

Teacher 1 in the post-conference (CS6T1T2):

Teacher 2: Oh, dear, I am addicted to experimenting now. [laughs]

Teacher 1: Yeah, it was gooooood! [excited]

Teacher 2: Y’ know, Teacher 5 [sic.] and I were talking about this in October, when we

were preparing the UN Day and played that game with the cards and bottles.

Teacher 1: Yeah, yeah, I remember. It took me a while to teach them the rules.




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Teacher 2: Me, too! I told her that, but she said I should experiment to see what I can do,

not them… And she was right! Actually, I was playing, too!

Although the relationship between Teacher 2 and Teacher 5 was tense over the course of this

study, elements of tension were present in the relationships of the other teachers as well.

Their initial dialogues were deprived of emotional attachment and natural flow of

conversation, which obscured the process of learning and collaboration. As the teachers

spent more time together, they grew to understand each other’s pedagogies, started

building their rapport and eventually set norms for collaboration and support. A similar

pattern was found in the study by Dieker and Murawski (2003), who observed that

collaborative relationships initially undergo three stages – forming, storming and norming –

where teachers between learning to know each other (forming) and learning with each other

(norming), have to learn also how to cope with each other (storming). Each of these stages

provides opportunities for learning either through observation or conversation. Borko

emphases that learning happens in a great number of contexts, each with its own challenge:

“[f]or teachers, learning occurs in many different aspects of practice, including

their classrooms, their school communities, and professional development

courses or workshops. It can occur in a brief hallway conversation with a

colleague, or after school when counseling a troubled child. To understand

teacher learning, we must study it within these multiple contexts, taking into

account both the individual teacher-learners and the social systems in which

they are participants. “

Borko (2004:4)

Young people who choose teaching as their career path usually bring reminiscences of their

role models in education, the teachers they loved, and they wanted to become. However,

the role models change as the learning environments change: different curricula, innovative

learning materials, new teaching paradigms and advanced technologies. They all shape the

relationships with the students and new roles the teachers assume – mentors, edutainers,

scaffolders, facilitators, communicators, evaluators, life-long learners... In the 21st-century

classroom, which is student-centred and constructivist, teachers are prompted to learn and

adapt both professionally and personally. Maybe the reminiscences of ‘old’ teachers, who




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were teaching us in the primary school, capture individualistic, autocratic and self-sufficient

educators who responded to the times they lived in (Darling-Hammond, 1995), but the

modern teachers need to respond to the modern times. For teachers to feel satisfied with

their work, they need to find evidence of success in their classroom (Guskey, 2002;

Hargreaves, 1998). Through the coaching dialogues and lesson observation the teachers in

this research could discover how their newly acquired pedagogical repertoire positively

affected their students, which made them content and ready to accept new responsibilities

and raise their expectations to a higher level.

QTI findings

The Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction, which has proved to be a reliable instrument for

quantitative data analyses (Wubbels & Levy, 1993; Wubbels & Brekelmans, 2005), was used

to evaluate the classroom dynamics before and after the coaching sessions took place. I

thought that it would be interesting to observe both the students’ perceptions of the

teachers and the teachers’ perceptions of themselves. The former was important for the

research analysis as a large sample, while the latter served as a ‘mirror’ in which the teachers

could take a look and find a numerical representation of their pedagogical practice. The visual

representation of the questionnaire results is a powerful tool for reflection because “they

can be used to conceptualise complex and interrelated information (as is the case with the

teacher–student relationship), because they can summarise information into (smaller)

chunks that are easier to comprehend, and because they can stimulate associations and links

within the teachers’ own knowledge if they are accompanied with powerful labels” (Rickards

et al., 2005:268).

On the other hand, they were set at the very beginning and the very end of the study not

only to attest to the change but to provide a clear picture of how change resistance,

reflection and cooperation merged to improve the pedagogical instruction. The teacher

behaviour was mapped on two orthogonal dimensions, a proximity dimension (cooperation

– opposition) and an influence dimension (dominance – submission), across eight scales:

leadership, helpful/friendly, understanding, student responsibility/freedom, uncertain,

dissatisfied, admonishing, and strict. The data collected was analysed as two separate sets:

(1) teacher’s and students’ responses before the coaching sessions, and (2) teacher’s and




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students’ responses after the coaching sessions (cf. Appendix 4 on p. 216) and the profile

charts were shared with the teachers so that they could visualise the data analysis.

7 | 2 | 1 Teacher profiles

Teachers’ interpersonal skills affect classroom dynamics and their interaction with students.

Classroom management depends to a great extent on their capacity and effectiveness to

maintain an adequate level of interaction while supporting the cognitive and affective

processes in the classroom. Moreover, teachers’ profiles demonstrate how they differ in the

degree to which they interact with the students, the degree to which they differentiate their

teaching methods and the degree to which they provide clear instructions (Brekelmans et

al., 1993; den Brok, 2001; den Brok et al., 2004; van Tartwijk et al., 1998; Wubbels et al., 2006a).

In the same vein, the differences in their classroom attitude directly affect the degree to

which they motivate their students and stimulate achievement (Wubbels et al., 2006b).

Different teacher profiles have different expectations and job satisfaction rates as well as

burn-out points and attrition probability (Ben-Chaim & Zoller, 2001). As teachers grow

professionally and establish their own teaching philosophies, their profiles change because

of intrinsic factors such as better understanding of the school ethos, parenthood or

emotional maturity, or extrinsic factors such as the advance of technology or changes to

subject content. The profiles are also affected by the type of school, its population, location,

subject taught or commonly accepted culture of teacher-student communication. In several

studies from around the world (USA, Netherlands, Australia, Turkey, Indonesia), the types of

profiles are indeed different but also represented in significantly different percentages

depending geographically and culturally on the population (den Brok et al., 2006a; Wubbels

& Levy, 1993).

Interestingly, students’ average perceptions in this research were interpreted differently

from the teachers’. For example, the students’ viewed teachers’ classroom behaviour as

leadership whereas the teachers labelled themselves as strict. A similar relationship was

found in the scales admonishing and dissatisfied, where teachers rarely saw themselves

displaying such behaviour, yet students recognised these patterns in their interaction with

the teachers. Similar conclusions have also been drawn in the studies in the Netherlands,




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USA, Turkey and Australia (den Brok et al., 2006b; Wubbels & Levy, 1993), where the

teachers’ self-perceptions were higher on both dimensions than students’ perceptions.

A number of researchers on the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (Brekelmans et al.,

1993; Wubbels et al., 2006a) discovered a pattern between the QTI scores and interpersonal

teaching styles. A typology of teacher interpersonal behaviour can be categorized into eight

profiles: directive, authoritative, tolerant-authoritative, tolerant, uncertain-tolerant,

uncertain-aggressive, repressive and drudging (Brekelmans, Levy & Rodriguez, 1993), as

displayed in Figure 21.

Figure 21: Profiles of teacher interpersonal behaviour (Brekelmans et al., 1993)

When observed on the two orthogonal dimensions, a proximity dimension (cooperation –

opposition) and an influence dimension (dominance – submission), the Teacher Ideal shows

patterns in which the students evaluate their teacher relatively highly on the proximity

dimension, whereas the least cooperative teachers are those who are repressive or

uncertain-aggressive. However, repressive teachers, according to the research, realised

highest cognitive achievement with the students, while the uncertain-aggressive teachers

achieved least (Brekelmans et al., 1993). Brekelmans et al. (2005) established in their study

on teacher types that beginning teachers tend to have tolerant and tolerant-uncertain

profiles but with more experience and more confidence become authoritative and tolerant-

authoritative in profile. Senior teachers tend to relocate their interactive efforts and become

Directive Authoritative Tolerant-Authoritative Tolerant

Uncertain-Tolerant Uncertain-Aggressive Repressive Drudging




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more repressive. Brekelmans et al. give a good account of tolerant-authoritative teachers,

who maintain a structure which supports student responsibility and freedom.

“They use a variety of methods, to which students respond well. They frequently

organize their lessons around small group work. While the class environment

resembles that of the Authoritative teacher, the Tolerant-Authoritative teacher

develops closer relationships with students. They enjoy the class and are highly

involved in most lessons. Both students and teacher can occasionally be seen

laughing, and there is very little need to enforce the rules. The teacher ignores

minor disruptions, choosing instead to concentrate on the lesson. Students

work to reach their own and the teacher’s instructional goals with little or no

complaints.”

Brekelmans et al. (1993:50)

While various studies using the QTI showed the correlation between the scales and student

outcomes, student motivation, engagement, wellbeing or attitude (den Brok et al., 2005; den

Brok, 2001; Lapointe et al., 2005; Van Petegem et al., 2008), this exploration sought to find

how the QTI depicted the change in teacher classroom practice, which emerged from peer-

collaboration and intensive situated learning. The analyses of the teacher profiles showed

that the change had indeed taken place, as seen in the different scale scores before and after

coaching sessions.

7 | 2 | 2 Teacher 1’s profile

Analysed on the coordinates of influence and proximity (cf. Figure 13 on p. 45), Teacher 1

seemed too far from the Teacher Ideal as she perceived herself as highly dominant but also

quite cooperative (cf. Chart 10). She insisted on being strict and this feature remained strong

both in the QTI results before and after the coaching conferences, which is known as an

inhibitory factor in the process of change. Strict teachers tend to be focused on discipline

more than on the impact of teaching, which might detach them from a constructivist

approach to pedagogical practice. Such behaviour is typical of beginning teachers who tend

to assume a more dominant spectre of communication. As they grow professionally and

develop their personal theories about teaching, they gradually feel more confident and




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display less dominance. Paradoxically, their cooperative behaviour decreases as they seek

more respect from their students by displaying less understanding (Wubbels, Levy &

Brekelmans, 1997).

On the other hand, her students evaluated her strictness as strong leadership behaviour,

tipping over the balance from opposition to cooperation. I believe that she self-imposed

strictness as a key feature due to her lack of ability to recognise the models of friendly and

understanding behaviour which she, as seen from the coaching analysis, displayed so often

in the classroom. Wubbels et al. (1990) perceived this pattern as one of keeping a tight rein

on students and insisting on rules and procedures which the students follow.

Chart 10: Comparing Teacher 1’s responses with her students’ responses before and after the coaching conferences






freedom behaviour





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Even more striking was that the behaviour opposite her strictness – student

responsibility/freedom – was perceived equally strong among her students, who thought

that she respected their integrity and gave them the space to work independently.

Moreover, this feature was scored higher after the coaching sessions during which she also

grew more helpful and understanding. On the other hand, her being friendlier with the

students affected her own perception of leadership behaviour, which was scored

significantly lower after the coaching sessions.

Young and charismatic, Teacher 1 was hardly ever perceived as uncertain, dissatisfied and

admonishing. It is interesting to note that the statement “This teacher makes fun of us”,

which was coded as admonishing, had scores higher than other statements in the group. The

choice of wording ‘fun of’ intrudes with the Serbian meaning ‘fun with’, which is why the

students gave her thumbs up and the best score.

Comparing Teacher 1’s chart with the chart of Teacher Ideal, it could be concluded that her

students saw her closer to the Ideal than she did herself. I strongly believe that her

inexperience misled her into believing that she was strict in the classroom with her students

while other observers did not perceive this to be the case.


Teacher 2 was perceived as directive by her students before the coaching sessions took place,

but the score afterwards shows a striking difference (cf. Chart 11). Indeed, her attitude at the

beginning of the school year seemed to have been based on strict rules and silence in the

classroom. She firmly believed that if the classroom was a quiet place, then both the teacher

and the students would benefit from the work habits, concentration and mutual respect.

As seen in the qualitative analysis, Teacher 2 was very opinionated and imposed herself as a

mentor rather than a coach to the other coaching teachers. In other words, the dominance

she promoted so openly as her teaching feature was also her personal trait, which made her

very influential among her colleagues. Teacher 2’s resistance to change inhibited the

transformational process which this investigation sought to find and made her defensive

rather than enthusiastic (Edwards, 2011), a reaction which stems from her failure to

understand the need for change (Hargreaves, 1998). However, although this change was not




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perceived to a great extent by Teacher 2 herself (cf. Chart 11), her students recognised a leap

in both dominance and cooperation, describing her as tolerant-authoritative at the end of

the study, a type which approximates most closely to the Teacher Ideal image (Wubbels et

al., 1993).







freedom behaviour


As the charts show, Teacher 2’s initial restrictive communication in the classroom affected to a

great extent her students’ perception of her interaction. Wubbels et al. (1993) found a link

between teacher types and student outcomes, where the directive teachers realise high

achievement, while the tolerant-authoritative teachers positively affect student motivation. The

students who find motivation in good academic performance evaluate their teachers as strict

but cooperative (Brekelmans et al., 1993). If we look closer at Teacher 2’s charts, we can see that




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the most obvious difference in scores before and after the coaching sessions occurred on the

scales for helpful/friendly and understanding, which supports the fact that Teacher 2 blended

some of the pedagogical elements she had learnt from her colleagues during the coaching

sessions to soften her approach, which brought about better interaction with her students.

Teacher 2 did not perceive herself as admonishing, dissatisfied or uncertain, yet her students

recognised these behaviours in the classroom. For example, Teacher 2’s score for

admonishing was unchanged at 0.3, while the students saw her less admonishing before the

coaching sessions (0.9) than after (1.2). This is an observable difference, which might affect

the positive rapport with the students if they find that the teacher is sarcastic, impatient or

too quick to correct the students if they break the rule (cf. Admonishing statements in

Appendix 1 on p. 213). Nevertheless, these scores are still low in comparison to repressive or

uncertain-aggressive teachers, who create an atmosphere of boredom, tension and

demotivation (Brekelmans et al., 1993).

The scales in which both Teacher 2 and her students had similar perception were

helpful/friendly and student responsibility and freedom, which are decidedly a factor in

democratisation of teaching and learning in the classroom. Teacher 2 obviously knows how

to balance student participation in decision-making and allows an adequate measure of

humour so that the students feel pleasant when learning. Teachers who support critical

thinking through the process of democratisation encourage students to think for themselves

and enable them to make independent decisions, which is a feature of the makers of

tomorrow.


A striking difference in Teacher 3’s self-perception and the perception of her students in the

dominance section made little change before and after the coaching sessions (cf. Chart 12).

Teacher 3’s high expectations of classroom discipline were evidently undermined by her

cooperative attitude and readiness to help the students understand the content better. This

could also be noticed in her indecisiveness regarding positive discipline, which students

interpreted as weak leadership rather than strong strictness. The fact that the students

perceived it this way could be attributed to her willingness to let the students make their




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own decisions in the classroom regarding the pace of the learning process and the choice of

activity. Wubbels et al. (2006a) describe such teachers as tolerant and supportive of student

participation, which makes them feel appreciated and understood.







freedom behaviour


Unlike Teacher 2, who perceived herself as strict but was also perceived so by her students,

Teacher 3’s self-perception as strict might show her aspirations to be accepted as classroom-

dominant by exerting strictness. If we find the students’ perceptions of the teacher more

statistically reliable, then being dominant in cooperation sections makes Teacher 3 a tolerant

type. Tolerant teachers are achievement- and task-oriented, dedicated to the students’

achievement and receptive to their needs. Students recognise these efforts and appreciate

teachers' personal involvement as well as their ability to match the subject matter with their




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learning styles (Wubbels et al., 2006a). The students understand the classroom rules, yet the

classroom is not quiet, and the teacher might need to remind the students from time to time.

Such a teacher establishes close relationships with their students, earning their respect and

appreciation but also feeding their motivation by fostering a love for learning.

On the other hand, Teacher 3 did not see herself as dissatisfied as her students did.

Paradoxically, the scores given both by Teacher 3 and her students before the coaching

session showed the same level of dissatisfaction at 0.7, while the scores after the coaching

session display a discrepancy in perception. It seems that the teacher grew more satisfied

with her interaction, scoring only 0.2 on the scale, but her classroom behaviour was not

perceived as such by her students, who saw her as more dissatisfied at 1.0. At a closer look,

the students’ responses for statement 38 This teacher thinks that we know nothing show

higher scores than the other statements in the dissatisfied behaviour group. This makes a

direct contradiction with the tolerant type of teacher attributes, who should be supportive

of her students, yet it might also indicate that the teacher was indeed achievement-oriented

and therefore frequently criticised her students in order to motivate them to perform better.

The choice of her words might have made the students construct the impression of

underperformance.

Teacher 3’s self-perception and the perception of her students in the dominance sector show

how sometimes the teachers create misconceptions of their classroom behaviour. Wubbels

et al. (2006b) explain that teachers’ self-perception changes in their career as they acquire

new skills and grow more familiar with the classroom processes and behavioural repertoire.

Although less experienced than most of the teachers in this study, Teacher 3 had shown a

high level of consciousness of the change process. At one point in her coaching sessions she

confided with the coaching partner that “… people change, y’ know, and I think that I learnt

something from these lesson observations and our talks” (cf. snippet CS5T3T6 on p. 130).


Teacher 4 was the youngest and least experienced of all the teachers, which might be the

reason why she had shown certain insecurities and concerns typical for early-career teachers.

A closer look at the coaching sessions revealed her lack of confidence in making classroom




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decisions, yet, the QTI scores evidenced a tolerant and stable teacher, who changed very

little over the period of the nine months of the coaching sessions (cf. Chart 13).







freedom behaviour


Teacher 4’s self-perception and the perception of her students are strikingly similar both at

the beginning and the at the end of the study. Described as a leader, who is helpful, friendly

and understanding, Teacher 4 obviously interacted well with her students despite the

beginning teacher’s troubles, which normally arise in the classroom. Although the students

saw her stricter than she saw herself, they also believed that she gave them freedom to

choose classroom activities and influence her pedagogical decisions. Such behaviour was

also noticed during the coaching sessions, where she mentioned that her students’ opinion

meant a lot to her and guided her lesson planning.




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Reflection-for-action, that is rethinking classroom situations prior to the lesson, is an

opportunity to contextualise intended and unintended learning, which requires an

exploration of the many perspectives, challenging beliefs, values and assumptions (Coulson

& Harvey, 2013). Being open-minded and ready to experiment, Teacher 4 provided an

innovative pedagogical repertoire for her students, giving them options to choose what they

would like to do, yet the activities were not randomly picked but rather strategically selected

to support the lesson objectives. Mastery of this pedagogical tool usually comes later in

career when teachers have acquired greater subject content knowledge and are able to pull

the elements across the curriculum in order to make meaningful classroom decisions and

operate efficiently.

Although Teacher 4 embraced the complexity of the teaching task in good faith and juggled

the multiple agendas with enthusiasm, which is characteristic of early-career teachers, her

transformational process was not perceived either by her nor by her students. However, the

coaching sessions showed a strong momentum of her early ‘teaching epiphany’ (p. 75), which

resonated throughout the whole research. This discrepancy is intriguing and would require

an in-depth investigation of Teacher 4’s lessons, pedagogical repertoire, interaction with the

students and deeper understanding of her educational philosophy.


Teacher 5 is myself, but I will continue referring to myself as Teacher 5 as this is how I have

chosen to present the profiles of the other respondents to ensure their anonymity. The

multiple roles Teacher 5 played in this research brought about a lot of ethical concerns but

also concerns of objectivity in the analysis of the data collected throughout the investigation.

The advantage of self-reflection, which allows for better understanding of certain

pedagogical decisions, might also be interpreted as a bias in analysing the scores with fidelity.

As seen below (cf. Chart 14), Teacher 5 perceived herself as a very tolerant yet authoritative

teacher, who is friendly and understanding, but so did her students, at least before the

coaching sessions affected her interaction with them. Teacher 5’s leadership behaviour was

scored very high. Although the students knew that she was the Head of School and therefore




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in a position to demonstrate leadership behaviour as such, the statements in the QTI did not

interfere with her leadership position in the school but in the classroom. For example, the

statements for the leadership scale like We learn a lot from this teacher, This teacher gets our

attention or This teacher explains things clearly (cf. Appendix 2 on p. 214) relate to a good

command of the subject content, classroom management and active learning rather than

managerial attributes.







freedom behaviour


Indeed, classroom explorations show that the central moment for leadership behaviour is

when the teacher is introducing new subject content and therefore is lecturing the whole

class (den Brok, 2001; van Tartwijk et al., 1998), while group or independent work allows for

more student responsibility and freedom. However, these two classroom behaviours are




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interdependent. As Wubbels and Brekelmans (2005:15) explain, to “give students

appropriate freedom and responsibility during group and independent work, it appeared to

be important for a teacher to be a strong leader in central lesson segments”. On the other

hand, giving responsibility to students might be caused by the teacher’s uncertainty, which

can lead to students’ disorderly behaviour, noise and disrespect. Therefore, the mastery of

managing students’ behaviour during group or independent work requires that teachers do

not show uncertainty or demonstrate weakness (Wubbels et al., 2006a) as these are

negatively related to cognitive outcomes.

Few studies looked at the correlation between teacher interaction and academic

achievement (den Brok, 2001; Wubbels et al., 2006b) and showed that when the students

perceive their teacher as affectionate and cooperating, their motivation to learn is stronger,

bringing about higher affective outcomes. In other words, the students who develop positive

perceptions about their teacher’s approach, attitude or pedagogy, find motivation to learn

actively, engage intellectually and participate enthusiastically. On the other hand, cognitive

outcomes are higher if teachers demonstrate strict leadership and helping/friendly behaviour

(ibid.). Wubbels and Levy (1993) stated that student perceptions of teacher behaviour

account for 70% of the variability in student achievement and 55% for attitude outcomes.

The coaching sessions did not bring a lot of differences in Teacher 5’s self-perception. She

remained equally leading and understanding but gave less freedom and responsibility to her

students towards the end of the study. This change was also perceived by her students,

whose score decreased significantly from 2.9 to 2.1. On the other hand, the scale on the

opposite side of the model, that for the strict behaviour, increased significantly from 2.0 to

2.7, which characterised the change along the Influence orthogonal axes. The inferences,

which emerged during the coaching conferences and lesson observations, show that Teacher

5 did give freedom to the students to guide the elements of the lesson and subsequently

advised her colleagues to provide more freedom to the students. In the coaching session

with Teacher 4 (cf. snippet CS2T4T5 on p. 125), she explained that the students should be

more engaged through active learning and that the teachers had to “make them create ideas,

not have them ready-made” meaning that they should provide the appropriate flexibility

within their teaching to allow their students to be more creative. Moreover, she advocated

student decision-making as an interaction tool because “[t]hinking about what the students




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would like is a step forward towards […] teaching reflections” (cf. snippet CS4T4T5 on

p. 142). So, what made Teacher 5 change her attitude from giving freedom and responsibility

to her students to becoming strict towards the end of the study?

The change was obviously subliminal as it was not perceived by the teacher herself but by

her students. As the strict and student responsibility/freedom behaviours lie on the opposite

ends of the Influence axis, where the strict behaviour belongs to Dominance and student

responsibility/freedom behaviour to Submission (cf. Figure 13 on p. 45), it is easy to mistake

one form of behaviour for another. For example, This teacher gives us a lot of free time in class

is a statement for student responsibility/freedom behaviour, while This teacher is strict when

marking our work is for strict behaviour. If we set these two statements in the context of the

end of the school year, when the students prepare for their final exams, it could be

interpreted that Teacher 5 had redesigned her teaching approach in order to enhance

student performance, letting them have less free time so that they could study more. Having

reframed the context in which the students were surveyed, the subjectivity of the students’

responses could be questioned. Moreover, when interpreting the data, we have to take into

account one more variable – the time of academic year in which the survey takes place.

Although there have been a large number of studies on different aspects of the QTI

implementation (geographical, cultural, affective, cognitive, moral, subject, age etc.), none

of these have tackled how time affects the reliability of the data. It would be interesting to

investigate how different teacher behaviours adjust to the school workload and how the

students perceive them in different contexts throughout the school year.

Having taken these perspectives into account, the questions which emerge are whether the

change in Teacher 5’s interaction happened or not, and whether an interim questionnaire

would detect a transformation. To triangulate the data better, the observing teachers might

also provide their perceptions of the observed teacher, which would require certain

adjustments to the questionnaire structure and statements.


Teacher 6 is a well-established educator with years of teaching practice, who understands

how to balance her students’ affective and cognitive outcomes. She strategises her decisions




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in the classroom and is able to fine-tune her approach in order to meet learning objectives.

During the coaching sessions, she proved to be a ‘silent partner’ in the research, who

supported experimentation and dared to try out new strategies with her students. She

thought that she had changed quite a lot, which is evident in her self-perception (cf. Chart 15)

but her students’ impressions were different. Moreover, her students believed that she

changed very little as the scores before and after the coaching sessions show an insignificant

average difference of 0.1.







freedom behaviour


What stands out at first glance is Teacher 6’s self-perception of strict behaviour. Whereas the

other scales show a well-balanced tolerant-authoritative teacher, the scale for the strict

behaviour characterises repressive teachers, who put too much emphasis on high cognitive




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outcomes, discipline in class and competition among students. In such a hard-working and

pressing atmosphere, there is very little interaction, very few questions and hardly any

empathy. Students are apprehensive and fearful because their initiative is neither

encouraged nor approved (Brekelmans et al., 1993). This is where Teacher 6 comes across as

strikingly different, being very cooperative, helpful and friendly, as represented in her

students’ charts both before and after the coaching sessions as well as in the qualitative

analysis of the dialogues.

Understanding the reasons for such a paradox requires another look at the context in which

Teacher 6 worked. First of all, she was teaching Year 6 students, who were preparing for the

final exams and therefore had to work studiously on revisions, consolidation and mock tests.

Teachers who carry the burden of ‘good student performance’, inherently give too much

attention to test-like activities, timed tasks and constructive criticism of the students’ work in

order to prepare them better for examinations. Moreover, such teachers spend most of their

PPA11 time on assessment, homework assignments and marking. This leaves very little, if any,

time for planning creative and innovative activities, which would spice up their lessons. In an

atmosphere of unrelenting learning, a teacher might be too self-critical about their own

performance and too sceptical about their students’ performance. Teacher 6 might have

emitted her professional pressure by scoring herself high on the statements This teacher’s tests

are hard, This teacher’s standards are high and This teacher is severe when marking our papers.

Being supportive by nature, Teacher 6 also scored herself high on the scales for helpful/friendly

and understanding behaviours, which is complementary to her perceived high standards. In

order words, Teacher 6 believes that she demands a lot, but also offers scaffolding along the

way. Teachers who reach this point in their pedagogies create good rapport with their

students, are well respected by parents and serve as role models to their colleagues.

The other reason for Teacher 6’s self-image of being a strict yet cooperative teacher might

also be her reputation in the community. Being a teacher who is more experienced than the

others, she was very often referred to for advice or opinion, which was well documented in

the qualitative analysis of the coaching sessions. Although she was not inclined to bring

11 PPA time is time for planning, preparation and assessment (Source: www.teachers.org.uk/files/PPA_207sq%20(3996).pdf)




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innovation to the classroom, she lent herself to daring experimentation so that she could

remain supportive and respected in the community of younger and less experienced

colleagues. Years of experience and having assumed the role of mentor to the other teachers

might have skewed Teacher 6’s self-perception, where she equated her social authority in

the community with her pedagogical authority in the classroom. Although there is a common

understanding that teachers change their pedagogies and educational philosophies over

their professional career for various reasons, studies have shown that beginning teachers

change their beliefs more than their practices and experienced teachers change their

practices more than their beliefs (Luft, 2001). With this in mind, the practice of strictness in

relation to behaviour might have been on the surface of Teacher 6’s ‘onion’, that is in her

perceived classroom practice, but her students obviously did not observe it as worth a higher

score. Moreover, the statements We have to be quiet in this teacher's class and This teacher is

strict when marking our work scored poorer than the other statements on the scale. In other

words, Teacher 6’s students were more generous to her cooperative behaviours than to the

dominant ones.

Paradoxically for such a well-established person, Teacher 6 scored herself higher than all the

other teachers on the dissatisfied behaviour scale. Although 0.8 is still low for the scales, it is

higher than the average in the study and certainly not expected to be seen in Teacher 6’s

charts. However, if we take into consideration that teaching experience merges those

wonderful moments of teaching epiphanies and indescribable feelings of success with the

day to day routine of continual hard work, it came as no surprise that such an experienced

teacher as Teacher 6 accumulated dissatisfaction. The coaching session analysis did not

detect any such feeling nor did the lesson observations identify any elements of dissatisfied

behaviour, yet the QTI drew it out. A closer look at the statements tell us that she scored high

on This teacher thinks we can’t do things well and This teacher thinks we don’t know anything,

which, when interpreted in the context of the above-mentioned self-criticism, might

insinuate her dissatisfaction with self-expectations rather than dissatisfaction with her

interaction with the students. These are treacherous waters as the failure to meet self-

expectations might bring about a sense of inferiority, insecurity, demotivation and eventually

mental withdrawal (Hargreaves, 1998). Teacher 6 still finds joy in her classroom and

experiments with new types of activities, which was quite evident in the coaching sessions




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recordings. The study, in which she participated, made her less dissatisfied and consequently

less self-reprimanding, showing a 0.5 score in the QTI after the coaching sessions.

7 | 2 | 8 Statistical findings

Each questionnaire for students had 48 items – six statements for each of the eight QTI scales

(cf. Appendix 2 on p. 214), which were measured on the Likert scale from 0 to 4. Scale scores

for each class were combined into a class mean so that the profile charts could be easily

constructed. On the other hand, each teacher’s self-evaluation was presented as a teacher’s

self-perception chart and compared against the teacher ideal and the students’ perceptions.

Reliability was computed for each scale before and after the coaching sessions as well as for

the overall aggregated data. Although the previous research on the QTI, which was

conducted in various countries and various contexts, reported Cronbach’s Alpha of more

than 0.80, the reliability coefficient in this study was lower at .740 (cf. Table 9) yet still high

enough to confirm the instrument as reliable. The coefficient was higher for the data set

collected before the coaching sessions than after the coaching sessions (cf. Table 10).

Table 9: The overall Cronbach’s Alpha

Cronbach's Alpha Cronbach's Alpha

Based on Standardized Items

N of Items

.740 .735 48

Table 10: Cronbach’s Alpha for the students’ responses before and after the coaching sessions

Cronbach's Alpha

Cronbach's Alpha Based on

Standardized Items N of Items

Before the coaching sessions .756 .729 48

After the coaching sessions .698 .706 48

This might be affected by the teachers’ enthusiasm at the beginning of the school year, when

the survey took place. Moreover, I believe that the teachers who administered the survey

took more effort and time to assist the students in understanding the questionnaire items




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and Likert scale points. At the end of the school year, when the coaching sessions were over,

the teachers were more relaxed about the QTI and, in good faith, administered the survey

with less attention paid to the students’ full comprehension of the questionnaire items. The

analysis of the eight scales showed that the Cronbach’s Alpha remained within the moderate

reliability range between 0.622 for Admonishing to 0.790 for Leadership (cf. Table 11).

Table 11: Cronbach’s Alpha of the eight QTI scales

Cronbach's Alpha

Cronbach's Alpha Based

on Standardized

Items N of Items

Leadership .790 .789 6

Helpful/friendly .649 .657 6

Understanding .694 .688 6

Student responsibility / freedom .659 .661 6

Uncertain .642 .641 6

Dissatisfied .624 .627 6

Admonishing .622 .629 6

Strict .703 .706 6

In Table 12 below, the data were aggregated to serve the purpose of analysing the mean,

median, mode and standard deviation of each QTI scale. The data descriptives show

inconsistency in three out of eight scales (Uncertain, Dissatisfied and Admonishing), where

the median was 1, while the mode was 0. The standard deviation ranges from 0.80 for

Admonishing to 1.07 for Strict, which is satisfactory.

Table 12: Descriptives and standard deviation for each QTI scale

Lea HFr Und SRF Unc Dis Adm Str

N Valid 714 714 714 714 714 714 714 714

Missing 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Mean 2.73 2.96 2.97 2.23 .75 .71 .68 2.23

Median 3 3 3 2 1 1 1 2

Mode 3 3 3 2 0 0 0 2

Std. Deviation 1.06 .81 .98 1.04 .82 .81 .80 1.07




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The QTI charts helped the teachers visualise their interaction with the students and

understand change better. While Teacher 2 showed the greatest level of resistance to

change, her interaction with students showed the effects of coaching sessions as she became

friendlier and more cooperative. On the other hand, Teacher 4 and Teacher 5 changed very

little, as perceived both by themselves and their students.

Qualitative and quantitative triangulation

The mixed method, which was used in this research, allowed me to increase the study

accuracy while investigating one or more “fairly discrete social collectivity” (Bryman,

1988:149). The combination of qualitative and quantitative data provided better

understanding of inconsistencies in findings across the study, which should not be

considered as “weakening the credibility of results, but rather as offering opportunities for

deeper insight into the relationship between inquiry approach and the phenomenon under

study” (Patton, 1999:1193). The two instruments used in this research, QTI and coaching

conferences, supported each other in the validity procedures, where I was looking for

“convergence among multiple and different sources of information to form themes or

categories in a study” (Creswell & Miller, 2000:126) to capture the richness and complexity

of human actions.

Triangulation was a demanding task in this study because unlike coaching conferences data,

which was transcribed and analysed through cyclical phases (cf. Table 5 on p. 64), qualitative

and quantitative data were assessed at the end of the study when the themes were identified

and teacher profiles drawn from the QTI data. I was looking for patterns in data which would

inform the research questions and help me understand the changes that coaching and peer-

collaboration brought about in teachers’ skills and classroom practice, how they affected

teachers’ attitudes, values, knowledge and beliefs and how teachers’ perceptions of

teaching have changed over time. Crucial for this analysis was teachers’ understanding of

what ‘change’ is or rather what they perceived as ‘change’ in their ‘onion’ levels (cf. Figure 20

on p. 123). At one point in the study, Teacher 2 remarked that changing how she marked and

tested was not necessarily going to make her a better teacher just like a new hairstyle was

not going to make her a better parent (snippet CS1T2T6 on p. 145). This was a strong

statement, which made me think about how coaching and peer-collaboration, as a




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pedagogical intervention, can bring about changes which would improve teaching. By

coincidence, this concern was raised during my thesis probation with an annotation that not

every change in teachers’ attitudes, values, knowledge and beliefs brings about an

improvement in their skills and classroom practice and the other way around. I therefore

used triangulation to find where is coaching and peer-collaboration situated in the changed

attitudes, values, knowledge and beliefs, which were reflected as improvements in teachers’

skills and classroom practice. In other words, triangulation was instrumental in answering the

research questions, which is why I decided to write about it in Chapter 8 | Conclusion (p. 179),

where I explained three correlations: (1) coaching and peer-collaboration vs career age, (2)

coaching and peer-collaboration vs reculturing, and (3) coaching and peer-collaboration vs

international education.

These correlations identify change as a ‘mind-switch’ (Zwart et al., 2009) so that the benefits

of coaching and peer-collaboration may imply “the potential power of learning from

observing”, while “the power of coaching can be increased by having teachers interact more

with students not only in their role of teacher but also in their role as observing coach”

(ibid.:996).

Summary

As the teachers advanced into the study, the coaching sessions adopted a less formal climate

and the schedules for pre- and post-conference slowly faded into a more relaxed

conversation between two colleagues. Although created as an aid memoire for teachers in

order to ignite collaboration and encourage communication, the schedules were also

designed to facilitate transcription and analysis. Nevertheless, instead of a lean, smooth ‘my

turn – your turn’ dialogue, the conferences contorted into a cacophony of ideas, suggestions,

proposals, problems and solutions, enriched with anecdotes, disappointments, failures and

encouragements. The three themes also mirrored the course of action in this research. The

teachers started with a rather opposing attitude, but their resistance faded once they found

confirmation of the change process in their own classroom. Through reflective accounts,

coaching sessions, lesson observations and collaborative teaching, they have grown to

understand the benefits of coaching in their own school community, allowing a ‘collaborative

culture’ to replace ‘contrived collegiality’ (cf. Chapter 2 | 4 on p. 35). The quantitative data




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collected through the QTI were analysed and represented as individual teacher profiles,

comparing the questionnaire results in two different points in time (before and after the

coaching) and with two different groups (students’ evaluation and teachers’ self-evaluation).

Having triangulated qualitative and quantitative data, the findings show how coaching and

peer-collaboration can situate in a context depending on the teachers’ career age, their

openness to reculturing and preparedness to adapt to international education requirements,

which are further discussed in the final chapter of the thesis.

8 | Conclusion

____________________________________________________________________________

Guided by the intrinsic motivation to create an environment of mutual support and trust, in

which the teachers would help each other construct new knowledge and reinvent their

pedagogies, I sought to find a model of collaboration which would bring together their

uncertainties and turn them into new teaching potential. Using the Bell Model of Reciprocal

Peer Coaching, I wanted to answer the research question in this study:

What are the changes that coaching and peer-collaboration might bring about in

teachers’ skills and classroom practice?

- How does it affect teachers’ attitudes, values, knowledge and beliefs?

- How have their perceptions of teaching changed?

Observing how the teachers changed their perceptions about pedagogical practice and how

they applied the new constructs in the classroom was a step towards creating a place where

“learning from teaching was part of the job of teaching” (Feiman-Nemser & Buchmann,

1985:64). Moreover, I was seeking a paradigm which would help me create and sustain

teachers’ long-term professional learning (Cochran-Smith, 2005; Cochran-Smith, & Lytle,

1993; Darling-Hammond et al., 2017) in order to make a lasting impact on the school culture,

teacher performance and student academic success. To this exploration, I brought my long

experience in international education, educational leadership honed in several schools,

“Teaching and learning are complicated, labyrinthine processes filled with dead ends, false positives, contradictions, multiple truths, and a great deal of confusion.”

Brooks and Brooks (1999:x)




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inquisitive mind and enormous enthusiasm for school improvements, which I wanted to plant

and grow in Bell. I was aware of the inadequacy of one-time-one-size-fits-all transmission

models of professional learning (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2007) and was looking for

a sustainable solution which would change the habits of mind instead of merely changing

routines. I knew that meaningful professional learning takes time and brings uncertainties

for its contextual application, but Bell needed an intervention and I saw it as an opportunity

to innovate in order to inspire my colleagues to collaborate, knowing that “for systematic

and meaningful change to become integral and sustainable within the profession, the

approach to change must not be contrived, but must emerge from within a learning context

where meanings are identified and negotiated” (Brandenburg, 2008:3).

However, this research has encountered unforeseen impediments along the way, which was

a challenge for myself as a ‘fledgling’ researcher (Smith, 2007). Some of these impediments

emerged from subjective or ethical perceptions which threatened to bias the study

(cf. Chapter 4 | 3 on p. 73), while others developed through “complicated, labyrinthine

processes filled with dead ends, false positives, contradictions, multiple truths, and a great

deal of confusion” (Brooks & Brooks, 1999:x). On the other hand, the transformational

learning, which evolved from change resistance to reconciliation, affected teachers’

attitudes, values, knowledge and beliefs. To assess the forms and degrees of the changes, I

used both qualitative and quantitative instruments, that is coaching conferences, which

recorded critical instances to demonstrate how the teachers gradually changed their

perceptions over a period of time, and the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (cf.

Appendix 1 and Appendix 2 on pp. 213-214), a diagnostic tool which marked the very beginning

and end of the study, as two sign posts. It assessed the changes in the two dimensions of

teachers’ behaviour in the classroom (Influence: Dominance-Submission and Proximity:

Opposition-Cooperation, cf. Figure 13 on p. 45), where both students’ perceptions and

teachers’ self-perceptions created a two-dimensional composite analysis of classroom

interaction.

The changes and the changed

The setting in which the research took place was deprived of interconnectedness among the

teachers. As I was one of them, I hoped not only to reconnect but also to ensure a more




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accurate and relevant understanding of a situation, with a view to producing an effective,

relevant action which would facilitate the occurrence of a more desired and effective

outcome (Bright, 1996). Given the restraints in the professional development of the teachers

in international education and their unpreparedness to teach in an international setting

(cf. Chapter 2 | 1 on p. 16), the benefits of this study lie in using these disadvantages as a

vehicle to set changes into motion and inspire quest for improvement in learning and

teaching. Changes take distinctive yet interdependent forms: (1) changes in the self, related

to the innermost processes of the teachers, their personality traits and core values; (2)

changes in the classroom, that is in the pedagogical practice and instructional designs with

the students; (3) changes in communication within the school, not only with the students and

other teachers, but also with the parents; (4) changes in professional lives, which concern

teachers’ understanding of their immediate context, collaborative culture and learning

community (cf. Figure 22).

Figure 22: Levels of teacher change

Changes in the self were the most difficult to emerge in this research as they stem from the

core values about classroom practice, which are set very early in teachers’ careers if not even

before their careers have started, leaning on their own reminiscences of schooling

(Hargreaves, 2005; Korthagen, 2004, Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2007). Such core values

are deeply rooted in the teachers’ own personality and philosophy of education, and usually

remain unnegotiable during a process of change, as teachers seek good self-argumentation

to internally displace sophisticated understandings about their role in the classroom,

community and professional lives. For example, teachers might like to reconsider their ethical




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values in their relationships with parents, beliefs regarding the ownership of their pedagogy

or perceptions about their peers. Although persistent in their endurance, the changes about

the self were crucial for the success of this research as the participating teachers had to

change their educational philosophy to the level where they can start collaborating with the

same objective – to improve themselves and their pedagogies. The extensive research which

Thomas Guskey conducted on teacher change confirms that what motivates a teacher to

alter their mindset is “their belief that it will expand their knowledge and skills, contribute to

their growth, and enhance their effectiveness with students” (Guskey, 2002:382). As we can

see in Chapter 7 | Research findings (p. 115), novice teachers are more open to these changes

than more experienced teachers. Moreover, beginning teachers change their beliefs more

than their practices while experienced teachers change their practices more than their beliefs

(Luft, 2001). Guskey (2002:382) claims that “change in teachers’ attitudes and beliefs is

primarily a result, rather than a cause, of change in the learning outcomes of students”, which

may bring a certain amount of anxiety and fear of failure, guilt, shame or embarrassment

(Van Veen et al., 2005). In other words, changes in the self trigger fundamental growth from

within (Korthagen, 2009) and empower teachers to embrace new concepts in their

educational philosophy (Darling-Hammond et al., 2017).

Changes in the classroom show on the surface of the pedagogical practice, taking the shape

of innovative teaching approaches and experimentation. However, changes in the classroom

also happen beneath the obvious, through self-reflection and self-criticism, primarily on

teachers’ preparedness to adjust their pedagogies so that they can respond to the demands

of social changes. For example, they might decide to integrate technology in their teaching

or assessment, where they only substitute the learning medium (iPads instead of paper

worksheets) but not their teaching approach or adopt a new marking scheme where the

categories are assigned to the new teaching concepts, which they have to apply. These

changes are more dynamic and rest heavily not only on teachers’ intrinsic motivation but also

on institutional requirements at the school level. In this research, changes in the classroom

were created through the instrument of reciprocal coaching and evidence-based exchange

of experiences. Although the resistance to change behaviours in the classroom was evident

from the very beginning of the study, the teachers’ QTI results (cf. Appendix 4 on p. 216)

display differences in teacher interaction at the beginning and the end of the research,

confirming the findings of the qualitative data analysis.




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For many teachers, Guskey (2002:382) holds, “becoming a better teacher means enhancing

student learning outcomes”, which happens in the classroom in the first place. Once teachers

have proved that new approaches, strategies or methodologies worked in the classroom,

they would start internalising this process towards adopting a new educational philosophy,

which would eventually lead to the changes in the self. On the other hand, Desimone (2009)

argues that teachers first accept new knowledge or skills, which affects their beliefs and

attitudes, which they use to “improve the content of their instruction or their approach to

pedagogy, or both”, which consequently “foster[s] increased student learning” (ibid.:184).

Such an interdependency between the changes in the self and the changes in the classroom

feeds on the interactive nature on reciprocal coaching and peer-collaboration as a

professional development model which provides space for teachers to learn from each other

by accepting trials, errors, wins and failures as intrinsic features of experimentation.

Changes in communication within a school shadow changes in the social context. Teachers,

assuming an inherently socially dynamic role, adapt their behaviour, communication and

action to the culture of the community. For example, they might change their attitude to the

small talk, level of intimacy or even socialising outside of the work environment. These

changes reside in teachers’ social beings and are therefore affected by colleagues, parents

or even family.

Although this study was carried out in a small school, the teachers’ adaptability to

communication was crucial for peer-collaboration so that they can join efforts and re-invent

their pedagogies together (cf. Chapter 7 | 1 | 3 on p. 146). In the previous chapter, we could

see how communication changed over the time, from a rather structured ‘my turn – your

turn’ dialogue to strikingly authentic narratives which inspired a growth mindset that

eventually led to change. When a new ‘collaborative culture’ took over from ‘contrived

collegiality’ (Hargreaves & Dawe, 1990), it seeded a new culture of communication, which

emerged as a by-product in the intellectual trade between the coaching teachers.

Admittedly, communication among the teachers and their wider community had been so

scarce that any kind of intensified exchange of more than a few sentences would be

perceived as improved communication. But it was so much more than that. This intervention

did not only improve the verbal communication that the teachers fed through their




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interactions both inside and outside the classroom, but also the non-verbal communication

which has become more spontaneous and relaxed as the teachers grew more comfortable

about each other. In an international setting, it was wonderful to see how certain gestures,

mimes or facial expressions typical for certain nations or cultures got picked up and adopted

as endemic features of the community. For example, Teacher 3 had her ‘angry posture’ – she

would put on the solemn face, raise one brow, pout her lips and rest both her fists on the

sides of her hips. The Serbian students called this the ‘F posture’, because it resembled a

Cyrillic letter F (Ф), but it soon received various alterations denoting ‘angry’ such as an ‘F

mood’, ‘F smile’ or even an ‘F grade’, which did not mean the mark ‘F’, but the mark a student

gets when a teacher is angry.

Changes in professional lives lie on the margins of the teachers’ integrity, reflexivity,

adaptability and reculturing, as they are influenced by the policy-makers and school

authority. The teachers might not feel comfortable about these changes or they might like

them altogether, however they cannot choose whether to accept them or not – they must.

For example, the new regulations on the marking scheme might be inapplicable or

impractical in large classes or the school disciplinary measures might conflict with teachers’

personal feelings about right or wrong. These changes did not affect this research to a great

extent, yet they were important for the teachers’ attitudes towards the ‘business’ of

teaching. When the reciprocal coaching was introduced as a school level instrument for

improvements, the teachers did participate in the action research despite their resistance,

although they had been informed that they could withdraw at any time. From this distance,

I believe that they perceived participation as a Principal’s instruction, rather than a willing

effort to bring about a change. These power relations between my colleagues and myself

were not insignificant, as any withdrawal would reduce an already small sample. In other

words, my ‘power’ helped me keep the teachers together, negotiate access to the

information more easily, insist on following the set norms in coaching and peer-collaboration,

and, finally, bring about a change which was manifested in teachers’ attitudes, beliefs and

perceptions about their classroom practice once the coaching sessions finished

(cf. Chapter 8 | 2 on p. 185).

As seen in Chapter 7 | Research findings (p. 115), most of the teachers expressed strong initial

resistance to changing their habits of mind and adopting a more collaborative attitude to




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teaching and learning. The reculturing (Fullan, 1995; Fullan, 1999) took place not only to

increase the focus on core instructional goals by improving the capacity of teachers to work

together, but also to inspire the teachers to consciously model their most inner selves by

adopting a different form of classroom behaviour such as reducing the level of strictness and

increasing the level of helpfulness in their interaction with the students. As the phases of

unlearning and relearning alternated, integrative pedagogy permeated into the classrooms,

bringing together teachers’ formal and informal knowledge into a new concept of

collaborative culture. Having gained experiential evidence of improvements in student

learning, the teachers reconciled and reinvented their pedagogy by reframing their attitudes,

values, beliefs and knowledge (cf. Figure 5 on p. 31). Tangible evidence of success and

demonstrable results in student learning were the key to the endurance in the institutional

setting (Guskey, 2002). For example, Teacher 1’s restorative attitude towards discipline has

been evident in this process – from the first lesson observation, where she herself claimed

that teaching well means teaching in a quiet classroom, to the ‘teaching epiphany’ and

declarative appreciation of the coaching experiences. Teacher 3’s understanding of peer-

collaboration changed as she gained more confidence in her own pedagogy through

reflective accounts with the other teachers. Her ‘teaching epiphany’, the critical instance

when she decided to “spice it up a little bit” (p. 145), prompted her to explore alternative

activities for lessons preparation. Teacher 4 matured professionally in this process, changing

her attitude towards her own learning to teach. Having been engaged in the pilot study gave

her an advantage over the other participants as she reframed her mind earlier than the other

teachers. Inexperienced yet receptive to advice, she ‘recultured’ (Fullan, 1995) her

contextual, situational and emotional variables to bring about a change in her teaching

values.

The changes that coaching and peer-collaboration brought about

Viewed as a school development plan, the Bell Model of Reciprocal Peer Coaching was

designed to support a transformational process in which the teachers would grow

professionally while changing their attitudes, values, knowledge and beliefs in order to

improve their skills and classroom practice. In a previous section, I explained how these

changes happened at four different levels yet coaching and peer-collaboration can be

situated differently in a professional learning context when they are affected by teachers’




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career age, their openness to reculturing and preparedness to adapt to international

education requirements.

8 | 2 | 1 Coaching and peer-collaboration vs career age

The teachers in Bell did not bring only diverse educational and cultural backgrounds to the

learning context but also experiences which varied in their length and maturity. Teachers’

age and the stage of their career are factors which affect how they respond to the specific

professional changes, how they cope with the change process itself and how they adjust to

the new rules of engagement. Previous research of teachers’ age has shown that age cannot

be equated with time as ageing intrinsically merges diverse elements such as the state of

mind, emotional understanding, social norms, job stress, economic standing, gender, genetic

predispositions and even geographical region (Borko, 2004; Hargreaves, 2005; Veldman et

al., 2013). Mental ageing, though, could be influenced by a teachers’ well-being, enthusiasm,

motivation, job satisfaction, professional appreciation, social respect or self-image.

The Life Cycle of the Career Teacher model (Steffy et al., 2000) posits that in the inspiring

professional environments teachers do evolve from novice to apprentice to professional to

expert. However, those who are devoted to their profession beyond expectations, tread into

the distinguished phase, or, even further, into the emeritus phase, when they are appreciated

for their lifetime of achievements. Mulford evaluates that

“[m]ovement from one stage of individual development to the next occurs

through cycles of challenge and response, cognitive dissonance, cultural

discontinuity, differentiation, and integration. It occurs when a person

confronts situations for which old ways are not adequate, which require new

ways of thinking and acting. This experience may be uncomfortable and does

not always proceed simply and smoothly.”

Mulford (2005:342)

As teachers walk through these stages of their career, their professional identities, interests,

skills, values and beliefs accommodate in response to their pedagogical needs and emotional

understanding, which are highly subjective processes per se. Age related experiences surely




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add value to the teachers’ professional lives but are not necessarily the variable which

determines teachers’ readiness to embrace change. Studies on educational reform found

that beginning teachers changed their beliefs more than their practices and experienced

teachers changed their practices more than their beliefs (Luft, 2001). However, this research

contests such reasoning and triangulates qualitative and quantitative data in support of this

statement.







freedom behaviour


The QTI results for Teacher 2 (cf. Chart 16), a seasoned educator, and Teacher 4 (cf. Chart 17),

a novice, confirms a difference in their professional identities and self-perceptions before and

after the coaching sessions took place. The QTI, as intended, assessed the teachers’

behaviours in the classroom, where the initial taking served as a diagnostic tool for




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intervention and the final to measure the effects of intervention. As we could see in the

qualitative analysis, Teacher 2 perceived herself as a strict teacher, lacking behaviours which

would support students’ understanding and freedom in the classroom. This was also

observed during the coaching sessions, where she argued that “discipline works only when

you instil it at the very beginning” (p. 134) and that students’ kinaesthetic activity was “too

much noise” for her (p. 136). However, the QTI chart after the coaching sessions shows that

Teacher 2 had perceived her lacking behaviours as areas of intervention, changing not only

her pedagogical beliefs but also her pedagogical practice by offering more understanding to

her students. Interestingly, her scale for strict behaviour followed the same pattern. This

could be interpreted as her reasoning that she could have instilled understanding only if she

had been stricter. Although she had verbalised her resistance to change for most of the

research, claiming that she wanted to learn how to change her classroom and her students,

not herself (p. 121), Teacher 2 seamlessly reconciled, situating her teaching to a more

constructivist pedagogy.

The self-image which Teacher 2 portrayed in the QTI chart and coaching sessions was

different from the image her Year 2 students created about her, especially when they

provided responses to the initial questionnaire, that is, before the coaching sessions. A

second look at the quantitative data indeed showed that her students almost always

evaluated her behaviours as ‘sometimes’ (3), which is why the scales for dominance and

cooperation have similar values. On the other hand, values in the QTI taken after the coaching

sessions show a striking difference, yet closer to the Teacher 2’s self-perception. This

discrepancy contests the reliability of the QTI questionnaire adapted for children

(Goh & Fraser, 1997), where the statements were simplified for the primary school students

(cf. Appendix 2 on p. 214). Teacher 2’s students, at the very beginning of Year 2, when the

initial questionnaire was distributed, might have provided such responses for two reasons.

Firstly, they might not have known Teacher 2 very well as there was little time for her to show

all her pedagogical repertoire and build a relationship of trust and support with them, so their

judgement could have been compromised by her imposed discipline, which she wanted to

instil at the very beginning (p. 134). Young learners inadvertently tend to evaluate their

teacher’s performance on the ‘teacher liking scales’ (Davis and Lease, 2007), where they

measure how much they like the teacher rather than how much they like the pedagogy. In




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other words, their ‘sometimes’ responses to the statements in the QTI could have been

mistakenly interpreted as ‘I sometimes like the teacher when she behaves like this’. Such data are

surely item biased as they measure the meaning of the items which is “not identical across

cultures and relates to anomalies at the item level, such as poor translation or inapplicability of

an item to a specific culture” (Meiring et al., 2005:2) and can be regarded as a phenomenon

that could be additionally explored as an emerging issue in this research.

The other reason for the discrepancy could be found in the students’ misinterpretation of the

QTI statements. As previously mentioned, the pilot study showed that the students had

interpreted the QTI wording differently (p. 78), which is why the teachers were instructed to

familiarise their students with the phrases used in the survey before it was shared with them.

Teacher 2, whose resistance to change might have affected her subliminal messages sent to

the students, could have biased the data collection process. Although another teacher

collected responses of Teacher 2’s students in order to minimise the bias in the quantitative

data collection (Boysen & Vogel, 2009), Teacher 2, who had prepared her students for the

responses, could have influenced their opinions by guiding their interpretation of the

wording. Hypothetically, this could have been done through both verbal and non-verbal

messages. For example, she could have changed her voice pitch, facial expression or body

posture, creating positive or negative rapports, which the students then used when scoring

the statements. As an experienced teacher, Teacher 2 could have easily constructed

situational associations, which triggered students’ decisions when evaluating her classroom

behaviours. Although her colleagues did not observe the lesson(s) when she was preparing

her students for the QTI wording to be able to attest to such conscious or unconscious

manipulation, it is evident in the qualitative account that Teacher 2 demonstrated integrity

and strong persuasion skills throughout the whole study, both with her students and her

colleagues. Questioning Teacher 2’s classroom decisions and possible consequences to the

students’ responses could be viewed as ethically compromising in constructing beliefs,

attitudes, perceptions and value systems.

Given the triangulated data but also concerns about the data collection bias discussed, it

could be concluded that experienced teachers adapt to the changes in their pedagogical

perceptions as long as they do not compromise their teaching integrity and social status in

the community. On the other hand, Teacher 4 as a novice teacher, did not reinvent her




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pedagogy to a significant degree (cf. Chart 17). Contrary to the expectations in the coaching

sessions, where she very often assumed the role of a mentee rather than a coach, learning

how to teach from her colleagues, the QTI scales before and after the interventions look

almost the same. Moreover, Teacher 4 bravely experimented in her classroom, discussed her

performance, sought advice and reflected on her pedagogical instructions, yet this was not

portrayed in the QTI profile. This would imply three scenarios for her classroom decisions.







freedom behaviour


The first scenario is that Teacher 4 might have taken the advice but did not implement it in

her classroom approach because she did not know how. Early career teachers doubt their

self-efficacy and their “beliefs in one's capacity to organize and execute the courses of action

required to produce given attainments” (Bandura, 1997:3). She might have feared the




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pedagogical underperformance or failure to fulfil the expectations of the change process in

this action research, remaining in the safe zone of well-established teaching habits. Such

“professional efficacy discrepancy” (Friedman, 2000:597) is the distance between expected

and actual levels of professional performance, which might have guided her conscious

classroom decisions. On the other hand, she might have tried to implement changes in the

course of the study, realised it did not work well for her and reverted to her own personal

philosophy. As the QTI captures only two instances of perception, before and after the

coaching sessions, Teacher 4’s ‘teaching epiphany’ was not documented in the scores.

The second scenario is that Teacher 4, as an early-career teacher, sought advice from more

experienced colleagues not because she was eager to learn but to establish a more intense

communication with them and find her way to being accepted in the school community. At the

very beginning of the research, she expressed her concerns about collaboration among the

teachers and wondered if this research experiment would bring them any closer (cf. snippet

CS1T4T6 on p. 134). Showing interest in what the other teachers do in their classrooms

decidedly enhances communication among teachers but also sets hierarchy, where Teacher 4

wanted to find her place up the ladder. A sense of belonging plays a very important role in

teacher retention because it helps them integrate better in the given social context, grow

emotionally attached to their immediate environment and allow them to learn within their

comfort zone of familiar faces, habits, routines and traditions. As a teacher who was

compensating her inexperience with the social graces, Teacher 4 might have set her priorities

in such a way that her professional acceptance, created through the coaching sessions,

presided over her experimentation in the classroom. In other words, the change might have

happened at the level of her mission, the innermost layer of the ‘onion’ (cf. Figure 20 on p. 123),

where she questioned herself in relation to the existence and created meaningful connections

with the outer world which brought about the change from within (Korthagen, 2009).

The third scenario accounts for her participation in the pilot study, where she coached with

Teacher 5 and went through a certain transformational process, which helped her identify

her teaching weaknesses and strengths but also her opportunities for improvement. A closer

look at Teacher A’s charts12 (cf. Chart 4 on p. 77) showed scores which are indeed different

12 Teacher A is an alias for Teacher 4 in the pilot study.




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from Teacher 4’s scores in the study itself. The change, which this investigation sought to

find, might have therefore happened antecedent to the part of the research where all the

teachers participated. In other words, Teacher 4 underwent a process of change, but at a

different moment in time, which would skew the research findings if not taken together, as

a composite analysis of Teacher 4’s reculturing, relearning and reaffirmation.

The two profiles of the coaching teachers who are of different age and career stage have

portrayed different paths in accepting the change and experiencing ‘teaching epiphanies’.

The QTI charts, which they received before and after the reculturing intervention, showed

the changes in their interaction and classroom behaviours but also provided prompts for

reflection on their further professional development in the context of new knowledge and

skills acquired in the collaborative pairs.

8 | 2 | 2 Coaching and peer-collaboration vs reculturing

Having planned school reculturing as a process in which the teachers would redesign their

pedagogies, change their beliefs and improve their collaboration, I had long sought for an

instrument which would improve teacher practice without draconian measures and the

emotional disbalance they bring. In a setting in which teachers did not have a thread of

togetherness, it was difficult to even think of school improvements and restructuring

without reconnecting the staff into collaborative teams. Such a community culture was partly

the legacy of the 20th-century pedagogy, in which most of the teachers lived their

professional lives in the constraining contexts where they depended “almost exclusively on

their students for feedback, rewards, and indications of success” and where they “lacked the

collegial interaction and peer supervision that other professionals take for granted in their

work” (Miller, 2005:250).

The teachers in this study had been aware of the structural gaps which would provide the

context for collaboration, but they were not interested to self-initiate change from within.

Coaching through peer-collaboration was therefore a win-win solution, where they kept their

independence in the classroom yet worked together towards a common goal – school

improvements. If collaboration is embedded into routine practices and teachers pursue their

quest for learning how to teach, then the school would shift from a traditional paradigm of




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‘self-centredness’ to a paradigm of, what could be called ‘outreachingness’, where both the

students and the teachers are able to enjoy the well-being of co-constructing knowledge. In

other words, teachers are able to improve their teaching in order to respond to their

students’ needs and abilities instead of setting up a teaching frame themselves and

expecting their students to accommodate. Miller explains that working together on projects

helps teachers make restructuring easier.

“Teachers come together in small groups or as whole school staffs to decide on

common goals, develop integrated programs, of study, craft shared

assessments, and examine student work. They set time aside for planning

together, teaching together, and talking together. Peer observation and

consultation contribute to a shared professional culture where risks are

encouraged, mistakes acknowledged, learning scrutinized, and secrets shared.”

Miller (2005:251)

The reculturing through coaching and peer-collaboration also shifts the pedagogical

responsibility from individual teachers to school as a community, from ‘I’ to ‘we’.

Empowering teachers to learn from each other by sharing their knowledge and skills allows

them to understand and appreciate the work of their colleagues, provide emotional support

in stressful periods of the school year and build an ethos which resonates with trust (Darling-

Hammond et al., 2017). In such a community, teachers are able to thrive on self-reflection,

problem-solving, decision-making and intellectual enquiry, which positively affects their job

satisfaction and retains them in teaching profession. Teachers cannot be forced into

reculturing – it is a process which they have to accept consciously to be able to reconcile and

overcome the impression of self-disclosure as a “risk-taking venture that can cause

uncertainty, discomfort, or embarrassment at times” (Zwart et al., 2007).

The change process through coaching and peer-collaboration engaged teachers into the

construction of new knowledge and a new culture, but it also redefined their mission and

identity (cf. Figure 20 on p. 123), which grew from their self-understanding. In a learning

community, the reculturing depends not only on its capacity for conscious transformation of

its own theory of action, but also on the individuals’ ability to appreciate and transform the

learning context in which they work (Argyris & Schon, 1978). At one point, Teacher 2, who




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resisted the change process adamantly, explained why she had doubts about the

intervention:

“I am not sure this is going to help me teach any better. A change, for example,

how I mark and test, is not necessarily going to make me a better teacher just

like a new hairstyle is not going to make me a better parent.”

Teacher 2 (CS1T2T6)

Although this statement reflects Teacher 2’s down-to-earth educational philosophy, she is

representative of the majority of teachers who are able to accept superficial changes which

do not require them to change drastically (Edwards, 2011). Instead of experimenting to

support reforming from within, they tend to focus on modifications which are evident on the

surface to fulfil the formality of the supervisor’s instruction. When enforced, the change

could be an uncomfortable intervention, which may lead to further alienation and

dysfunctional relations among teachers, or, when invited, it could redefine their cognitive

processes of self-reflection as well as the affective processes of self-affirmation, which foster

teachers’ well-being and sense of belonging. It was the closed context of coaching

conferences that provided a medium for teachers to reconsider their decisions and reflect on

their actions, changing over time their perceptions not only about their own classroom

behaviours but also about the behaviours of their colleagues and students.

Although I thought of the change process in this research as one of ‘reculturing’ (Fullan,

1995), it might be useful to reconsider how much of this process is ‘restructuring’ and how

much ‘reforming’, if the teachers are simply ‘refining’ their identities or ‘redesigning’ their

pedagogies. Each one of these change processes happens at a different level, which requires

different actors and variables, but also bears different consequences.

8 | 2 | 3 Coaching and peer-collaboration vs international education

This research aims to understand how coaching and peer-collaboration may change teachers’

skills and classroom practice, which, in the context of an international school, brings a new

dimension – teachers’ previous experiences in other international schools which they bring

along together with their attitudes, values, knowledge and beliefs. Each international school




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changes social structures more frequently than schools which are predominantly

monolingual and monocultural (Hayden, 2006) but the manifold benefits might be hidden

under a seemingly unstable professional context. Teachers who frequently change

international school have an opportunity to learn new intercultural concepts, meet a variety

of mentalities, more easily accept diversity, develop a sense of cultural immersion and more

readily adapt to changes in classroom dynamics. Yet, they also “find themselves in dense

transnational space where elites, middling actors and local populations agonizingly struggle,

with and against each” (Tarc & Mishra Tarc, 2015:49). It is in this transnational space that half

a million international teachers work together with other people such as service workers,

local teachers, career and itinerant international teachers, administrators as well as local and

expatriate children and parents, creating the community of an international school (ibid.:35).

However, a caveat for reculturing in international schools is that teacher turnover is frequent,

which might hinder the process. Tarc and Mishra Tarc (ibid.:40) explain that international

teachers are a circulating population which “produces and is produced by transnational

space where teachers’ immersion in people, places and cultures re-aligns their sense of self

and relation to others and nation”. If schools should indeed become places where teachers

studied their own practice together and where “future teachers would be inducted into a

professional community where collegiality and experimentation were norms” (Feiman-

Nemser & Buchmann, 1985:64), international teachers then suffer the continuous stress of

assimilation, immersion and adaptation as they change schools several times in their career.

The European Council of International Schools (ECIS) and Council of International Schools

(CIS), which cooperate with a large number of international schools around the world, have

an insight into the data for the international teacher turnover but not of their reasons for

leaving (Bunnell, 2014). Several studies have tackled this issue and find that international

teachers often seek opportunities in international schools to taste cultural differences, enjoy

a happy working climate and get a strong sense of job challenge (Odland & Ruzicka, 2009).

Teachers usually sign two- or three-year contracts, which creates a dynamic job search

agenda, the nature of which detaches them from establishing long-lasting relationships with

school staff and creating a sense of belonging to the community. Moreover, teachers

perceive international schools as unstable working environments not only because staff

leave schools but also because students leave schools. Needless to say, teachers who cannot

respond to the new cultures easily or those who find emotional detachment difficult to bear,




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either change schools frequently in search for the ideal one or remain in one school surviving

the turnover of other colleagues. Regardless of the circumstances which cause staff

turnover, the process of reculturing an international school requires enhanced control over

teachers who join, what experiences they bring along, how their pedagogies resonate with

that implemented in the school and how their mission blends with the values the school

promotes.

The issues in international educational change have not been evidenced prolifically, partly

because it is a rather closed context where the gatekeepers might like to prevent information

leak, and partly because there is a significantly smaller number of researchers who

investigate the phenomenon of international teacher community. Some 17 years ago,

Heyward (2002) argued that ‘international’ schools have become ‘intercultural’ in the

globalised world of the 21st century. He conceived the concept of ‘intercultural literacy’ as

including “understanding, competencies, attitudes, language proficiencies, participation and

identities necessary for successful cross-cultural engagement” (ibid.:10), which both

teachers and students need to respond in order to meet the conditions for effective teaching

and learning in a new cross-cultural or pluralist setting. Research into the cultural adjustment

of foreign students (ibid.) shows that they slide into a period of disenchantment after the

initial enthusiasm. It is only when students change their roles from passive observers of

cultural norms and become active participants in the construction of their culture that they

recover and immerse. International teachers are not exceptions to this pattern. When

changing school, international teachers are very likely to change not only their immediate

working context, but also cultural, linguistic, religious, economic or even political contexts,

which evidently requires their adaptation as a matter of professional and personal survival in

a given setting.

With this in mind, a new research perspective emerges. Teachers’ classroom behaviours,

their resistance to change, reflective practice and peer-collaboration might have had a

precedent in their previous experiences in the change process, which could have been

appreciated as a positive endeavour or refuted as a negative coercion. This issue may have

been a very important factor in the research design if I had known it prior to the intervention.

In a new iteration, instead of announcing intervention to the school staff at a joint meeting,

I would rather interview them individually to learn more about their previous experiences in




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other international school(s) to understand not only how the school can help them develop

further but also how the school can benefit from their previous knowledge in the mutual

trading of support. It could shed light on teachers’ decisions how and when to reconcile with

the reculturing.

My epiphany

If we look again at Korthagen’s ‘onion’ model (cf. Figure 20 on p. 123), a teacher’s attitude,

which should decidedly be placed in the inner layers, permeates all the other layers as an

agent of motivation towards the changes in behaviour, competences, beliefs, identity and

the mission. Without a changed attitude, which is a conscious, voluntary decision, a teacher

would not be able to establish their teaching integrity in the classroom, and beyond. This

‘beyond’ was a trespassing challenge for me – as a researcher, me – as a researched, me – as

a teacher and me – as a school leader. These roles were intertwining along the way,

threatening to bias the research data with my own schooling experience, which formed the

deepest and most resilient synapses with the system of beliefs and values (Darling-

Hammond, 1995). Unlike the teachers, who had undergone reculturing (Fullan, 1995; Fullan,

1999) in the given social setting in terms of their pedagogy and classroom instruction, my

reculturing was also a process of academic maturing and a quest for reflective instances

which would bring about my own ‘teaching epiphany’. Such ‘core reflection’, as Korthagen

(2009) explains, tackles the innermost levels and prompts changes in identity and mission.

For example, there were moments where I felt disheartened about the whole intervention

and I had to find ways to regain self-confidence and re-balance my stance, especially when

the critical incidents skewed my roles in the community. In other words, my reflection was

not only about what I had done but also about what I should do so that I could adapt to the

changes which happened to the other teachers. These decisions were conscious choices

made in order to endure in my own reflective discourse by constructing new pathways to

problem-solving. Pausing for reflection and reconceptualising my vista helped me explore

alternative ways to understanding the transformational process and thinking beyond the

critical instance for a lasting remedy.

However, towards the end of the research, I questioned my own resistance to change and

readiness to learn collaboratively, as I have come to realise that I changed least of all. In an




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attempt to empower my colleagues to embrace change by learning from each other, I

resisted changing myself as the course of the research guided my own gestalts and

experimentation (Korthagen, 1993). Although I differentiated my approach to each teacher

individually, balancing their weaknesses and strengths, it was more of an adaptive skill, which

emerged through self-reflection and work ethics, than a change itself. My teaching-self, the

mission in the ‘onion’, still promoted the same values and beliefs, but the ‘fledgling’

researcher at the beginning of the research matured in attitude towards the changing social

phenomenon. While I was scaffolding the teachers towards their empowerment, I failed to

understand that they scaffolded me in my emancipation as a researcher by hindering smooth

implementation of the research objectives.

In this intellectual trade, my ‘researching epiphany’ happened rather late, when the study was

in the final phase of completion. After long months of alternating foci between teachers’

collaboration and data gathering, my understanding of the complexity of handling raw data,

themes and triangulation, I was also able to broaden my perspective and admit that there

were challenges in this research, which I could have avoided if only I had been able to

approach the setting as an independent researcher. These were primarily the ethical

concerns (debated in Chapter 4 | 2 Ethical issues ), but also concerns regarding the

appropriateness of the mixed method, especially the usefulness of the QTI data as a

quantitative instrument. This was partially because the changes happened slowly in the

beginning and at moments, I doubted that the QTI results at the end of the study would show

any differences in teachers’ behaviour at all. On the other hand, coaching conferences were

yielding quite a lot of data which I could not assign to the themes, such as jokes or personal

anecdotes not related to their teaching. The teachers followed the interviewing schedule

blindly in the beginning, while towards the end they did not use the schedule at all but chit-

chatted about the school stuff in a very informal way. What brought even more complexity

to the transcription of the coaching conferences was the fact that they mixed Serbian and

English, especially when they wanted to recount classroom situations or funny moments.

Needless to say, these instances were rich with data, yet their meaning sometimes got lost

in the translation, especially puns. From this distance, maybe change was happening at the

very beginning as well, but it was not represented in the teachers’ dialogues and not caught

in the discourse analysis. If I could replicate the research, I would first teach the teachers how

to reflect during the coaching conferences so that the interviews were more clearly




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structured towards the aim of the research. This would engender a good level of data

richness throughout the whole research, which is needed for a good qualitative analysis.

An insider’s role helped me negotiate the terms with colleagues and carry out the research

while having access to teachers’ impressions, comments and observations which occurred

outside the coaching conferences. These ‘incidental data’, collected along the way, were very

ethnographic in their nature as they provided snapshots of critical incidents, in which the

teachers expressed their subjectivity, enriching the narratives with personal insights. If I had

not been an insider, I would have never been able to attest to these perceptions and adjust

my researcher’s stance. These adjustments were conscious decisions because “once ‘in the

field’, linked to ongoing personal and professional relationships with participants, insider

knowledge, conflicting professional and researcher roles, and anonymity” (Floyd & Arthur,

2012:172), I could not clearly define my multiple roles.

Although having weaknesses in its implementation, this study helped me set new research

agendas on the margins, which provided me with an opportunity to replant the idea in a new

context and with different variables, bearing in mind that “if practice is to be improved,

someone somewhere – or, more often, a group of people working in collaboration – has to

do something; writing and talking about doing things are not enough” (Swann , 2000:4).

Generalisability of the study

The Bell Model of Reciprocal Peer Coaching which was used in this study was devised as a

stable and generalisable pattern at the school level because it delivers “results in large

measure because of the supportive relationship between the coach and the coachee, and

the means and style of communication used. The coachee does acquire the facts, not from

the coach but from within himself [sic.], stimulated by the coach” (Whitmore, 2009:9).

Although the sample size in this study was small, the principle of coaching pairs could be

conveniently applied to all teaching staff in the school, regardless of the number. For the

schools where collaboration and trust among the teachers is weak, the Bell Model of

Reciprocal Peer Coaching model facilitates teacher learning by “fostering the conditions in

which such learning can take place along with attendant benefits for pupil learning and

attainment” (Rhodes & Beneicke, 2002:303). Such potential for generalisability makes this

study highly valuable in international educational settings, especially those which are small




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in size. In such situations, “a small sample size may be more useful in examining a situation

in depth from various perspectives, whereas a large sample would be inconsequential”

(Myers, 2000:3). Although the qualitative methodology raises a lot of concerns regarding

replicability, most of the Cambridge International Schools in non-English speaking countries

are usually small in size and convenient for replication of the Bell Model of Reciprocal Peer

Coaching.

Having better and broader insight into the needs of teaching and leading staff in Cambridge

International Schools, it seems that Cambridge Assessment International Education

perceived a gap between teaching demands and teachers’ competences, which required a

school-level repair. Searching for the best options to bridge the gap between the efficient

international teachers and the unprepared enthusiasts, Cambridge Assessment International

Education introduced a professional development programme where the core mechanism

rests on reflection and mentoring schemes.

Cambridge Professional Development Qualifications

In 2015, Cambridge Assessment International Education, as one of the leading providers of

international education qualifications in the world, launched a programme to transform the

professional learning for practicing teachers and leaders. Cambridge Professional

Development Qualifications (Cambridge PDQs) cover four themes, each at certificate and

diploma level:

• Teaching and Learning

• Educational Leadership

• Teaching Bilingual Learners

• Teaching with Digital Technologies

The courses are led by programme leaders, who get officially accredited after a ten-week

online training course and approved programme plan and rationale, tailored to the needs of

their school and wider teaching community in the region. Three programme modules are

practice-based and the candidates submit personal portfolios of reflective practice and

mentoring consultations as evidence of programme participation. Each module requires 120




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hours of learning, normally over four months, so that it can fit around a school term or

semester, with a balance between:

• guided learning (e.g. workshops, seminars and tutorials)

• individual study and collaborative learning (e.g. reading, research and discussion)

• school-based learning (e.g. applying new ideas and approaches in practice and

reflecting on experience13).

I was one of the first programme leaders who was accredited for the delivery of the

Cambridge Professional Development Qualifications programme, where the vast experience

gained through this study facilitated the implementation of the approved PDQ plan in the

school. After the first module on Teaching Bilingual Learners, which I led in the school, the

participating teachers received their certifications, which are recognised world-wide.

The similarity between the Cambridge model and the reciprocal coaching model is striking.

Not only are both models based on intensive communication and collaboration among

teachers, but also on the reflective instances which serve as steppingstones in the teachers’

professional growth. In both models, the teachers rely heavily on their classroom experience,

lesson observations and transfer of knowledge through consultations. The role of mentors,

that is more experienced colleagues, is crucial for the transformative process of the

participating teachers, who record their personal accounts of reflection as they apply the

newly acquired knowledge in their classrooms. The interaction between a mentor and a

mentee in the Cambridge model shares the same philosophy as the collaboration of the

coaching teachers in the reciprocal coaching model. A mentor’s role is to be supportive, not

judgemental, so that the mentees can address their concerns without inhibition or a sense of

embarrassment.

On the other hand, Cambridge Professional Development Qualifications, as certifying

programmes, offer 40 hours of guided learning, through which the candidates receive

theoretical knowledge of the programme concepts. For example, Teaching Bilingual

Learners tackles the concept of CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) as well as

13 http://www.cambridgeinternational.org/cambridge-professional-development/professional-development-

qualifications/programme/




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the second language acquisition, so that the candidates may understand the cognitive and

affective processes of the foreign language development. This proved to be a rewarding

learning experience for the teachers, who approached the linguistic (in)competences of their

students with more understanding and intervened with sound judgement. On the other

hand, the Bell Model of Reciprocal Peer Coaching did not focus on the nomenclature and big

pedagogical words, but on its manifestations in the classroom. For example, the coaching

teachers were not familiar with the CLIL concepts, but they could quite easily depict the

differences between ‘subject language’ and ‘student language’. Whereas the Cambridge

model insists on a more experienced colleague as a guide in the learning process, the Bell

Model of Reciprocal Peer Coaching equates the role of teachers in the process of the

experience exchange regardless of their seniority. And finally, the length of the models

differs. Whereas each module of the Cambridge PDQ requires 120 hours of guided learning,

individual study and school-based learning, the Bell Model of Reciprocal Peer Coaching is not

confined by the number of hours but by the number of coaching conferences, which facilitate

reflection-on- and about-action, and lesson observations, with a focus on reflection-in-action.

Ideally, it should be implemented into the school-level professional development policy as a

principle of collaborative culture.

Evaluation of the Bell Model of Reciprocal Peer Coaching

The Bell Model of Reciprocal Peer Coaching was inspired by learning environments in which

“collegiality and experimentation were norms” (Feiman-Nemser & Buchmann, 1985:64),

where teachers would be able to ‘unlearn and relearn’ (Klein, 2008) and where ‘reculturing’

happens in the context of shared experiences, collaborative learning and collective enquiry

(Hastings & Squires, 2002). Coaching is not new to education and research records show

various models which were tested with wavering success in the UK, USA and elsewhere

(Zwart et al., 2008; Kretlow & Bartholomew, 2010). Lofthouse and Leat (2013:8) investigated

“why coaching is faltering in schools and why it may fail to play the part that its pedigree

suggests it might”, having in mind that it has strong impact on student outcomes (Joyce &

Showers, 2002), which is often one of the reasons which attracts teachers to professional

development (Guskey, 2002). They point to the strong correlation between the success of

peer-coaching and interventions made by the senior management. When teachers are

empowered to peer-coach by being provided space and time for collaboration, they create




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shared experiences and joint opportunities for professional learning. However, when peer-

coaching is imposed by the senior management, teachers tend to perceive it to be infiltrated

by managerial imperatives (Lofthouse and Leat, 2013) and lose their enthusiasm and intrinsic

motivation to venture new experiences. Moreover, Pedder et al. (2008) emphasise the

importance of sustained teacher support mechanisms such as mentoring, coaching and

observations as instrumental for professional development in high-performing schools, while

low-performing schools experienced only short-term forms such as workshops. Caught

between teacher empowerment and my multiple roles in this research, one of them being a

school leader in a low-performing school with scarce collaboration, the Bell Model of

Reciprocal Peer Coaching had many hinderances while in the making. Once in place after being

tested, this coaching model could be evaluated as (1) shared yet personal, (2) collaborative yet

individual, (3) structured yet flexible, and (4) transferrable yet authentic.

8 | 6 | 1 Shared yet personal

Regardless of its professional value, coaching in inherently very personal as its malleable

form allows a non-linear progression from transmissive training models to transformative

and collaborative professional enquiry models, so it can be used responsively and

contingently for different purposes (Kennedy, 2014). Prompted to share new experiences in

reflective narratives, coaching teachers use the closed context of coaching sessions to

verbalise their concerns in “a psychologically safe environment where it is all right to

experiment, fail, revise, and try again” (Raney & Robbins, 1989:37). Moreover, professional

development enhanced through peer-coaching provides teachers with meaningful paths

towards re-inventing their pedagogies while addressing their distinctive idiosyncrasies. In the

Bell Model of Reciprocal Peer Coaching, when peer-coaching is correlated with the QTI visual

representation of teachers’ individual profiles (cf. Appendix 4 on p. 216), where they can

easily see how their interaction with the students creates their authentic footprint in the

classroom, it becomes a tête-à-tête remedy for teachers’ self-confidence and a powerful tool

for the growth mindset. The QTI charts which measure teacher interaction before coaching

sessions take place, serve rightly to raise teachers’ awareness of the image they create by

themselves and compare it with the image created by their students. Faced with the

students’ feedback, teachers are prompted to self-reflect on their classroom behaviours and

design a personal plan for improvement, which is then evidenced in the QTI charts generated




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after coaching sessions. In other words, while sharing classroom experiences with the others

in an intensive, long-term school intervention, teachers are given the time to adapt their

personal behaviours not only by changing their pedagogy but also by changing their deeply

rooted values, which usually remain unnegotiable during a process of superficial, short-term

changes (Edwards, 2011). Shared with the colleagues yet meant for the personal growth, the

Bell Model of Reciprocal Peer Coaching enhances emic perspectives of a school.

8 | 6 | 2 Collaborative yet individual

A collaborative context of the Bell Model of Reciprocal Peer Coaching makes teachers learners

again, but this time they learn by reflecting-on-action, reflecting-in-action, reflecting-for-action

and reflecting-before-action in a two-way dynamic interaction with the coaching pair (cf.

Chapter 7 | 1 | 2 on p. 133). Whereas reflection-on-action is a backward step into time to

reconsider experiences, reflection-before-action is “a backward step into the self and it is a

journey that is its own destination” (Tremmel, 1993:456). When teachers engage in reflective

coaching dialogues, they talk freely about themselves, their pedagogy and classroom

impressions because they perceive peer-coaching as non-judgemental, non-invasive and non-

evaluative consultancy. Even the QTI charts, which are very personal by nature, can be

appreciated as a tool for collaboration if teachers are willing to discuss their eight scales of

interactive behaviour with the other teachers in the school without any inhibition or fear of

failure to be ‘ideal’ (cf. Chart 7 on p. 112). Moreover, these individual charts can be used to

conceptualise classroom behaviours by putting the eight scales in correlation and by

stimulating “associations and links within the teachers’ own knowledge if they are

accompanied with powerful labels” (Rickards et al., 2005:268). While “embedding new

approaches, techniques, skills, knowledge, understanding and/or insights into personal

practice” (Pachler et al., 2003:9), the responsibility to grow professionally becomes a

subjective process set upon an individual because “learning happens within teachers, not to

them” (Tomlinson & McTighe, 2006:22), especially when they notice similarities and

differences among personal experiences and gradually build up a concept relating to them.

Although Schön (1983:308) claimed that teachers “become reflective researchers in

situations of uncertainty, instability, uniqueness, and conflict”, this coaching model proved

that they also become reflective in situations of enthusiasm, zeal and relish, which can lead

to ‘teaching epiphanies’ (cf. Chapter 8 | 3 on p. 197). Perceived as tacit, intuitive and




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spontaneous knowing that enables skilful performance (ibid.), reflection also becomes an

explicit, rational and planned intervention when initiated through coaching conferences. By

questioning their classroom decisions at two levels, individual and collective, teachers are

able to emancipate themselves in a collaborative culture as agents of change, who “possess

a rich, coherent conceptual map of the discipline; an understanding of how knowledge is

developed and validated within different social contexts; an understanding of why the

subject is important; and an understanding of how to communicate knowledge of that

subject to others” (Darling-Hammond & Baratz-Snowden, 2007:121). Collaborative in

coaching yet individual in the QTI analysis, this model of professional development

triangulates qualitative and quantitative methods towards a more comprehensive

understanding of reculturing.

8 | 6 | 3 Structured yet flexible

The Bell Model of Reciprocal Peer Coaching has a clearly-set structure: QTI – coaching

conferences and lesson observations – QTI. Moreover, the QTI has 48 explicit statements (cf.

Appendix 1 and 2 on pp. 213-214), which are used to map teacher behaviour on two

orthogonal dimensions, a proximity dimension (cooperation – opposition) and an influence

dimension (dominance – submission) (cf. Appendix 3 on p. 215). The QTI charts are also well-

structured as they provide teachers with scores on the eight scales: leadership,

helpful/friendly, understanding, student responsibility/freedom, uncertain, dissatisfied,

admonishing, and strict (cf. Appendix 4 on p. 216 ). In the same accord, coaching sessions

have three phases: (1) pre-conference, (2) overt lesson observation, and (3) post-conference,

where teachers follow interviewing schedules to facilitate interaction and collaboration (cf.

Table 2 and Table 3 on pp. 43-44) and use the sliding principle to combine coaching pairs (cf.

Figure 12 on p. 41). I think this is a well-structured, linear model of professional development.

So, where is flexibility? Flexibility feeds on a growing sense of one’s self through

systematically subjective enquiry, metacognition, analysis, integration and synthesis (York-

Barr et al., 2001). It grows from teachers’ emancipation through the continuous process of

interpretation and re-interpretation of both classroom practice and coaching dialogues with

a view to empowering their identities and teaching integrity. In this trade-off between self-

actualisation and emancipation, teachers seek professional affirmation in their community

regardless of their career age, school culture or educational context (cf. Chapter 8 | 2 on p.




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185). Decidedly, flexibility rests in their mindsets and adaptability to changes in their

attitudes, values, knowledge and beliefs, which “must not be contrived, but must emerge

from within a learning context where meanings are identified and negotiated”

(Brandenburg, 2008:3). Finally, flexibility is a desired outcome of the transformative process

which eventually leads to open-mindedness while accepting new skills and classroom

practices towards new ‘teaching epiphanies’. Structured on the surface yet flexible below it,

the Bell Model of Reciprocal Peer Coaching is seen as an instrument for teacher empowerment

and collaborative emancipation.

8 | 6 | 4 Transferrable yet authentic

Although the process of empowering teachers by showing them where to look but not what

to see was a challenging task for a ‘fledgling’ researcher like me (cf. Chapter 8 | 3 on p. 197), I

believe that the Bell Model of Reciprocal Peer Coaching can be easily transferred to any

educational context which seeks non-judgemental, non-invasive and non-evaluative

intervention. To empower does not mean to impose the process of change in order to

transform “specific teachers’ practices in the classroom but to generate principles of good

practice that may or may not be taken up by the teaching community” (Lawson, 2011b:321).

For this transformative process to happen “the learner [sic.] undergoes a conscious

recognition of the difference between their old viewpoint and the new one and makes a

decision to appropriate the newer perspective as being of more value” (Mezirow, 1978:105).

In the context of shared experiences, collaborative learning and collective enquiry (Hastings

& Squires, 2002), teachers consciously alter their views, allowing coaching and peer-

collaboration to affect their attitudes, values, knowledge and beliefs so that their

perceptions of teaching can change and prompt changes in their philosophies of education.

While replacing their resistance to change with their commitment to change, teachers who

use this model for professional development would be able to embed new skills and

knowledge deep into minds and hearts. Moreover, if this model develops as “a grass roots

process” (Lofthouse & Leat, 2013:9), initiated by the teachers themselves, it would further

allow “fluidity and organic development of relationships and coaching themes” (ibid.). As

each school has its own ethos, this model can be transferred but not replicated. It is the

authenticity of each learning environment that scaffolds the intricacies of the Bell Model of

Reciprocal Peer Coaching, especially when planted as a ‘grass roots’ opportunity for teachers




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to do something for themselves. In some new iterations, I would love to see if this model

could be transferred to school leaders and principals, as agents of change with an agenda

different from that of the teachers’, yet with the same transformative objective to explore

how coaching and peer-collaboration might affect their attitudes, values, knowledge and

beliefs about their leadership.

QTI and coaching: a metacognitive instrument for a constructivist

classroom

In a school where teachers were detached from their community and reluctant to change

their habits of mind, action research was a necessity for understanding and exploring how a

“teacher’s individual learning orientation interacts with the school-level learning orientation

and how both of these orientations together impact the activities (and features of activities)

in which teachers participate” (Pedder et al., 2008:389). A collaborative context of the

research was such that the teachers were empowered to “enhance information exchange,

dissemination of good practices, and the organisation of mutual support and learning”

(Rhodes & Beneicke, 2002:14). Viewed as a school development plan, which would eventually

bring about a positive change in the teachers’ beliefs, values, perceptions, classroom

activities and social relationships, this intervention was more than mere enforcement of a

school policy or pedagogical paradigm – it was a process of reculturing of the school as an

institution (Fullan, 1999), which would allow the teachers to voice their most pressing

concerns, examine prior knowledge in the light of new understandings and construct new

knowledge through the processes of reflection, dialogue and enquiry (McCormack et al.,

2006).

The construction of new knowledge, while understanding the processes behind it, is crucial

for the motivational, contextual and professional aspects of the teachers’ decisions to adopt

change (Feiman-Nemser, 2012). While reculturing, the teachers were experiencing the

cognitive and affective processes, which eventually led to the ‘teaching epiphanies’ and

redesigned pedagogies. A difference in inner awareness rather than overt classroom

behaviour sets the teachers in the context of a metacognitive paradigm, in which they are

able to verbalise their thoughts while solving problems, discussing concerns, exchanging

experiences or laughing over an anecdote. The constructivist context of the Bell Model of




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Reciprocal Peer Coaching situated the teachers in the introspective and retrospective frame

of mind, allowing them to analyse and understand their thought processes by articulating

their metacognitive impressions. In one of the coaching conferences towards the end of the

research (CS6T4T6), Teacher 4 shared her metacognitive insight about a classroom situation:

“While I was observing them [students] in your [Teacher 6’s] classroom, I

thought for a moment that your prediction of their answers was a key factor in

preparing the lesson prompts. I felt as if you had known what they would say

and then you guided their discovery. It looked as if you had a map! I was

becoming aware of a strategy I never used before. I wonder if my mum does that

to me because she seems to know everything before me. [laughs]”

Teacher 4 (CS6T4T6)

Metacognition is a valuable tool in reculturing schools and establishing a learning

environment where teachers become life-long learners (Lin et al., 2005). It was introduced

by John Flavell, who held that metacognition is “knowledge and cognition about cognitive

phenomena” (Flavell, 1979:906) or, simply put, ‘thinking about thinking’, which helps learners

develop awareness of the learning process. Metacognition explains “the human capacity to

be self-reflective, to consider how one thinks and knows; it directs attention to what has

been assimilated and understood, and the ways in which this relates to the processes of

learning” (Jones, 2007:571). Learning how to learn is, therefore, a conscious decision because

the learner takes control over the learning process. The construction of knowledge occurs

solely in the learner’s mind, when they notice similarities and differences among the personal

experiences and gradually build up a concept relating to that experience (McCarty &

Schwandt, 2000). If teachers understand that they are teaching by reflecting-on- and -in-

practice and regulate their learning about teaching by making their own classroom choices,

then they can reconsider their own pedagogies and transcend their limitations through

classroom experimentation. Moreover, if they understand their own thought processes, they

can facilitate student learning by providing metacognitive scaffolding towards developing

thinking skills. In other words, teaching students to learn metacognitively requires mastering

this skill in the first place and the role of a teacher is to create the conditions for intervention

rather than provide ready-made knowledge (Papert, 1980). The teachers who learn how to

do this are bound to adjust more easily to changes, they become more efficient and open-




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minded to classroom variables and better prepared for pedagogical interventions. Such

‘adaptive metacognition’ (Lin et al., 2005:245) guides teachers through social interactions,

classroom decisions and cultural norms set in a given educational context. This is exactly

what was going on in this research. In the process of learning how to reflect, exchange

experiences and scaffold each other, the teachers created a metacognitive paradigm which

provided a medium for their interaction.

Metacognitive skills encompass active listening, speaking, planning and assessment (Jones,

2007), which are interdependent and developed in the classroom through active learning

strategies but also through coaching conferences as a dialogue platform. If teachers are able

to reach metacognition through self-dialogue and self-scaffolding, they can plan how to

transfer these skills to their students. Moreover, “[t]he role of the teacher in modelling the

metacognitive process is central in asking questions that encourage children to consider

how, for example, they solve problems; why they accept or reject particular ideas; or why,

perhaps, they would undertake the process differently another time” (ibid.:572). In the

context of this research, metacognitive strategies served the purpose of enhancing not only

the interaction between the teacher and their students but also among the teachers

themselves. Moreover, an analysis of the classroom interaction reveals that “the teachers

who were good at metacognition organized well-designed instructions, and the learning

environment created by these instructions was intellectually and socially improved”

(Yerdelen-Damar et al., 2015:1010). In this case, metacognition was a glue which created a

bond between teachers’ experiences, beliefs, perceptions, attitudes and self-regulated

learning as a highly individual and intrinsic process.

Unlike students, who regulate their own learning, teachers have to think not only about their

own but the learning of their students, which is decidedly an inherent responsibility of all

educators. This issue has been recognised in scientific research, where metacognition was

categorised as (1) metacognitive knowledge and (2) metacognitive experience (Flavell, 1979).

While metacognitive knowledge is created through the person, task and strategy variables,

which constitute understanding of the knowledge of self, metacognitive experience grows

from a time variable, allowing contextual and situated learning to create associations which

support cognitive or affective introspection. A person variable is attached to the teacher’s

understanding of their own teaching-selves and their own capacities in the classroom.




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Inherently subjective, a person variable guides teacher’s self-confidence in classroom

experimentation. This aspect is crucial in the change process, which might happen only if the

teachers have found evidence of the positive effects of their experimentation. A task variable

responds to the array of circumstances in which teaching takes place. Teachers who are

efficient and open-minded are more likely to use task variables as a teaching challenge

through which they can test new approaches and strategies. Likewise, strategy variables bear

teacher’s pedagogical knowledge which may be cropped to the measure of the task. While

metacognitive knowledge brings hardware to the classroom, metacognitive experience leans

on teacher’s emotions and motivation, which they find in the act of teaching.

In the classroom context, metacognitive knowledge and experience are enhanced through a

teacher-student and student-student interaction, which adds a new perspective to the

creation of metacognitive knowledge about a person variable. Yerdelen-Damar et al. (2015)

hold that this perspective is threefold: (1) metacognitive content knowledge, that is the

knowledge of the subject taught (2) metacognitive method knowledge, that is knowledge of

various instructional approaches, and (3) metacognitive knowledge about students'

knowledge, which is a powerful tool for lesson planning and experimentation as it rests on

the teacher’s predictions of the student learning experiences. When teachers teach and

understand what they teach, that is how their teaching influences their students’

progression, then they get engaged not only in the process of reflection but also in the

process of metacognition. Therefore, reciprocal coaching provides a medium for

metacognitive prompting, where the teachers create new knowledge through peer- and self-

evaluation, dialogue and reflection, which is the postulate of constructivism in the classroom.

The purpose of prompting in reciprocal coaching is not to solve a pedagogical problem and

intervene in the classroom but to develop problem-solving skills by reflecting-on-action.

Similarly, when the students are being scaffolded by metacognitive prompting, they reach

the zone of proximal development (cf. Figure 15 on p. 54) (Vygotsky, 1934), where cognition

takes place but also teacher-student interaction, which is, in this research, measured by the

QTI. In this intellectual trade, both teachers and students become aware of the changes in

their habits of mind, which is then reflected in their overt behaviour in the classroom,

bringing about a change not only in the classroom but also in the school culture.




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As teacher metacognition has become increasingly popular among educational scientists, a

need has arisen to measure to which extent metacognition has been used in teaching (Jiang

et al., 2016). All these instruments are inventory scales14 where the quantitative data is

collective through the questionnaires or observation protocols but with little evidence of the

“concrete effects of specific instructional techniques on metacognitive skills […] because of

the lack of adequate assessment instruments” (Sandi‐Urena et al., 2011:325). The paucity of

tools to assess teacher metacognition may open a new opportunity for the mixed method

model used in this research. If we think of the QTI as an initial prompt for an individual

metacognitive intervention, then the coaching conferences, with a time variable, can be

viewed as a collaborative metacognitive intervention. In other words, “asking questions of

oneself can begin by being questioned by others” (Larkin, 2006:23). The nature of action

research sets this model in a spiral of continuous reassessment of teachers’ QTI results,

coaching dialogues and pedagogical interventions, which stirs the school culture, refreshes

communication among the teachers and creates a community of teacher innovators. Flavell

(1979:910) pointed out that the metacognitive processing affects the whole person and that

“the ideas currently [sic.] brewing in this area could someday be parlayed into a method of

teaching children (and adults) to make wise and thoughtful life decisions as well as to

comprehend and learn better in formal educational settings”.

Summary

Driven by the intrinsic motivation to bring about a change in an international school in Serbia,

I initiated an experimental exploration to improve collaboration among the teachers and

enhance their professional identities in the classroom through introducing the Bell Model of

Reciprocal Peer Coaching. Although coaching is not new to educational leaders, this study was

different in that it brought together teachers from culturally, linguistically and religiously

diverse backgrounds, who were not formally trained to teach in international settings. This

common trait, initially perceived as a disadvantage, was used as a medium to exchange

pedagogical experiences and grow new knowledge and skills for an international learning

14 Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaires, MSLQ (Pintrich and Smith, 1993), Learning and Study Strategies

Inventory, LASSI (Weinstein et al., 1987), Lernstrategien im Studium, LIST (Wild and Schiefeles, 1994), Kieler Lernstrategien-

Inventar, KSI (Baummert et al., 1992), Metacognitive Activities Inventory (MCAI) (Cooper and Sandi-Urena, 2009), Interactive

Multimedia Exercises software, IMMEX (Cooper et al., 2008).




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environment. The coaching conferences and lesson observations changed the teachers’

systems of beliefs, values, attitudes and knowledge, but they also changed me as a

researcher, providing me with an opportunity to set new agendas and contribute to a wider

international community of teachers who are willing to commit themselves to life-long

learning.

9 | Appendices

Appendix 1: Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI) (Wubbels & Brekelmans, 2005)

LEA Leadership behaviour; Und Understanding behaviour; Unc Uncertain behaviour; Adm Admonishing behaviour; HFr

Helping/Friendly behaviour; SRe Student responsibility freedom behaviour; Dis Dissatisfied behaviour; Str Strict behaviour




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Appendix 2: Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI) adapted for children

(Goh and Fraser, 1997), adjusted Likert scale

LEA Leadership behaviour; Und Understanding behaviour; Unc Uncertain behaviour; Adm Admonishing behaviour; HFr

Helping/Friendly behaviour; SRe Student responsibility freedom behaviour; Dis Dissatisfied behaviour; Str Strict behaviour

Directions: This questionnaire is not a test. We want to know your opinion about how your teacher works with you. We want you to answer honestly. Read each sentence carefully. Show your opinion about your teacher by circling one of the following:

0 if you think that your teacher NEVER behaves this way

1 if you think that your teacher behaves this way SELDOMLY

2 if you think that your teacher behaves this way SOMETIMES

3 if you think that your teacher behaves this way MOST OF THE TIME

4 if you think that your teacher ALWAYS behaves this way

Please answer all questions. If you want to change an answer, just cross it out and circle another answer.

Never

Seld

om

ly

So

meti

mes

Mo

st

of

the

tim

e

Alw

ays

Fo

r te

ach

er’

s u

se o

nly

Sentences

1. We all listen to this teacher. 0 1 2 3 4 Lea

2. This teacher is friendly. 0 1 2 3 4 HFr

3. This teacher trusts us. 0 1 2 3 4 Und

4. This teacher allows us to work on things that we like. 0 1 2 3 4 SRe

5. This teacher doesn't seem sure. 0 1 2 3 4 Unc

6. This teacher is unhappy. 0 1 2 3 4 Dis

7. This teacher gets angry quickly. 0 1 2 3 4 Adm

8. This teacher makes us work hard. 0 1 2 3 4 Str

9. We learn a lot from this teacher. 0 1 2 3 4 Lea

10. This teacher likes to laugh. 0 1 2 3 4 HFr

11. This teacher knows when we do not understand. 0 1 2 3 4 Und

12. We can decide some things in this teacher's class. 0 1 2 3 4 SRe

13. This teacher is not sure of himself/herself. 0 1 2 3 4 Unc

14. This teacher is bad-tempered. 0 1 2 3 4 Dis

15. This teacher looks down on us. 0 1 2 3 4 Adm

16. We have to be quiet in this teacher's class. 0 1 2 3 4 Str

17. This teacher gets our attention. 0 1 2 3 4 Lea

18. This teacher's class is pleasant. 0 1 2 3 4 HFr

19. This teacher is willing to explain things again if we don't understand. 0 1 2 3 4 Und

20. This teacher gives us a lot of free time in class. 0 1 2 3 4 SRe

21. This teacher is shy. 0 1 2 3 4 Unc

22. This teacher thinks that we can't do things well. 0 1 2 3 4 Dis

23. This teacher makes fun of us. 0 1 2 3 4 Adm

24. This teacher's tests are hard. 0 1 2 3 4 Str

25. This teacher knows everything that goes on in this classroom. 0 1 2 3 4 Lea

26. We like this teacher. 0 1 2 3 4 HFr

27. This teacher takes notice of what we say. 0 1 2 3 4 Und

28. This teacher allows us to choose who we work with. 0 1 2 3 4 SRe

29. This teacher is not sure what to do when we fool around. 0 1 2 3 4 Unc

30. This teacher thinks we cheat. 0 1 2 3 4 Dis

31. This teacher shouts at us. 0 1 2 3 4 Adm

32. This teacher is strict when marking our work. 0 1 2 3 4 Str

33. This teacher explains things clearly. 0 1 2 3 4 Lea

34. This teacher helps us with our work. 0 1 2 3 4 HFr

35. This teacher knows how we feel. 0 1 2 3 4 Und

36. This teacher allows us to fool around in class. 0 1 2 3 4 SRe

37. This teacher allows us to tell him/her what to do. 0 1 2 3 4 Unc

38. This teacher thinks that we know nothing. 0 1 2 3 4 Dis

39. It is easy to make this teacher angry. 0 1 2 3 4 Adm

40. We are afraid of this teacher. 0 1 2 3 4 Str

41. This teacher is sure about what he/she wants to take place in the classroom. 0 1 2 3 4 Lea

42. This teacher cares about us. 0 1 2 3 4 HFr

43. This teacher listens to us. 0 1 2 3 4 Und

44. This teacher allows us to choose what we want to work on. 0 1 2 3 4 SRe

45. This teacher acts as if he/she does not know what to do. 0 1 2 3 4 Unc

46. This teacher says that he/she will punish us. 0 1 2 3 4 Dis

47. This teacher has a bad temper. 0 1 2 3 4 Adm

48. This teacher is strict. 0 1 2 3 4 Str




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Appendix 3: The model for Interpersonal Teacher Behaviour (Source: Wubbels &

Brekelmans, 2005:9)




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Appendix 4: QTI results before and after the coaching sessions

Table 13: Comparing Teachers’ QTI responses with their students’ QTI responses

before and after the coaching sessions

Teacher 1

before Teacher 1

after Students 1

before Students 1

after Sdev

Lea 2.7 2.3 3.4 3.4 0.5

HFr 3.5 3.7 3.1 3.1 0.2

Und 3.3 3.2 2.4 3.1 0.2

SRF 1.7 1.5 2.3 2.5 0.4

Unc 0.3 0.2 0.6 0.8 0.3

Dis 0.2 0.2 0.6 0.9 0.3

Adm 0.0 0.2 0.5 0.9 0.3

Str 3.2 3.3 1.9 2.1 0.6

Teacher 2

before Teacher 2

after Students 2

before Students 2

after Sdev

Lea 2.2 2.3 2.1 2.6 0.1

HFr 2.8 2.8 2.3 2.8 0.2

Und 2.3 3.2 2.4 3.1 0.4

SRF 1.7 1.8 1.4 1.9 0.3

Unc 0.5 0.8 0.9 1.0 0.2

Dis 0.5 0.5 0.4 0.9 0.2

Adm 0.3 0.3 0.9 1.2 0.3

Str 2.7 3.2 2.0 3.0 0.4

Teacher 3

before Teacher 3

after Students 3

before Students 3

after Sdev

Lea 2.7 2.2 2.4 1.8 0.3

HFr 3.0 3.5 2.8 3.1 0.2

Und 3.3 3.3 2.7 3.2 0.3

SRF 2.5 2.2 2.0 2.2 0.2

Unc 1.0 0.5 0.7 0.9 0.2

Dis 0.7 0.2 0.7 1.0 0.3

Adm 0.3 0.5 0.8 0.5 0.1

Str 3.3 3.3 1.4 1.9 0.8

Teacher 4

before Teacher 4

after Students 4

before Students 4

after Sdev

Lea 3.2 3.2 3.0 2.7 0.3

HFr 2.7 2.8 2.8 2.8 0.2

Und 2.8 3.5 3.2 3.2 0.3

SRF 2.7 2.3 2.7 2.1 0.2

Unc 0.5 0.3 0.7 0.5 0.2

Dis 0.3 0.3 0.5 0.5 0.3

Adm 0.5 0.5 0.6 0.4 0.1

Str 2.2 1.8 1.9 2.1 0.8

Teacher 5

before Teacher 5

after Students 5

before Students 5

after Sdev

Lea 3.5 3.5 3.4 3.0 0.2

HFr 2.8 3.3 3.0 3.0 0.2

Und 3.3 3.5 3.3 3.3 0.1

SRF 3.0 2.3 2.9 2.1 0.4

Unc 0.3 0.3 0.6 0.4 0.1

Dis 0.3 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.1

Adm 0.5 0.3 0.5 0.5 0.1

Str 1.8 1.8 2.0 2.7 0.4

Teacher 6

before Teacher 6

after Students 6

before Students 6

after Sdev

Lea 2.3 2.7 2.3 2.3 0.1

HFr 2.5 3.5 3.0 3.0 0.4

Und 2.0 3.7 2.4 2.6 0.6

SRF 2.0 1.7 2.0 2.4 0.2

Unc 1.2 1.2 1.0 0.8 0.2

Dis 0.8 0.5 0.9 0.8 0.2

Adm 0.3 1.2 0.7 0.6 0.3

Str 3.7 3.5 2.8 2.5 0.5




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Comparing Teacher 1’s responses with her students’ responses before and after the coaching sessions




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QTI results for Teacher Ideal (Adapted from Wubbels & Levy, 1993)




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Appendix 5: Coaching sessions and coaching pairs

Week Coaching session

Coaching Teachers

1 CS1 T1T2 T3T4 T5T6









10 CS2 T2T3 T1T6 T4T5

11 CS3 T1T2 T3T4 T5T6

12 CS3 T2T5 T1T3 T4T6

13 CS3 T2T6 T3T5 T1T4

14 CS3 T1T5 T3T6 T2T4

15 CS3 T2T3 T1T6 T4T5

16 CS4 T1T2 T3T4 T5T6

17 CS4 T2T5 T1T3 T4T6

18 CS4 T2T6 T3T5 T1T4

19 CS4 T1T5 T3T6 T2T4

20 CS4 T2T3 T1T6 T4T5

21 CS5 T1T2 T3T4 T5T6

22 CS5 T2T5 T1T3 T4T6

23 CS5 T2T6 T3T5 T1T4

24 CS5 T1T5 T3T6 T2T4

25 CS5 T2T3 T1T6 T4T5

26 CS6 T1T2 T3T4 T5T6

27 CS6 T2T5 T1T3 T4T6

28 CS6 T2T6 T3T5 T1T4

29 CS6 T1T5 T3T6 T2T4

30 CS6 T2T3 T1T6 T4T5




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Appendix 6: An example of coding

CS2T4T5 Primary codes

Devised codes

Teacher 5: What do you want to do with this?

Teacher 4: Aagh, I wanted to… hmm, well, let me think… [smiles nervously] Teach

them estimation, I guess.

Teacher 5: But estimation is not estimation if it was obvious.

Teacher 4: True. So this is not estimation…[discouraged]

Teacher 5: It is too transparent, see…What can you do to make it less transparent?

Teacher 4: Add one more element like distance or… a new town? [hesitant] Aaaah

(enthusiastically), I see now. I’ll do it right away.

Teacher 5: When you teach maths, remember that numbers are more than figures

or words. They are very explicit but the thinking behind it is not.

Teacher 4: I am not sure I follow you…[confused]

Teacher 5: You see, when you teach various strategies, you do it so that they can

see numbers and relations from different perspectives. This is where

you develop critical thinking. See?

Teacher 4: Mmmm…

Teacher 5: Tell me how you teach fractions?

Teacher 4: Oh, I explain that it is part of a whole and then write it on the board,

say two thirds, then I tell that two is a numerator and thirds is a

denominator.

Teacher 5: Do they understand what you are talking about?

Teacher 4: Well, not all of them immediately, of course.

Teacher 5: So how did you support those who did not understand?

Teacher 4: Ughhh, I tried again. I used my fingers and then I drew a pie.

Teacher 5: So, when the students can not understand, what do you ask yourself?

Teacher 4: Why did they fail to understand?

Teacher 5: It is not about understanding… it is about your patience.

Teacher 4: What do you mean? I wasn’t patient enough? But I really…

Teacher 5: [Butts in] You were not. Look, teaching fractions is actually developing

their creative thinking. You have to make them create ideas, not have

them ready-made.

Teacher 4: But I really tried to set things right. See, I have made them use these

pies and cards [resources].

Teacher 5: But you did not use them well. If you had reversed your lesson plan and

used it as an ice-breaker instead, you would have engaged them more

and had them think about it when doing on paper [worksheets].

Teacher 4: Oooookey, will do it next time [unwillingly]. But I really thought I did it

well.

TSE

LO –

CH +

LP +

LP +

LP +

LP +

TSE

TL

TL

TL

LP +

TSE

T +

TL

TL

LP +

TL

LP +




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Appendix 7: Global Teacher of the Year announcements

NOMINATION

From: [email protected] Date: Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 8:41 AM Subject: 21CL - Teacher of the Year Award To: <[email protected]> Dear Svetlana, We are writing to let you know that your entry for the Teacher of the Year Award, sponsored globally by Pearson, has been selected to progress to Phase 2 of the award process. Can you please now prepare and submit the following items on or before 3 October 2014:

• Supporting Video (Maximum of 2 minutes) – Supporting video should demonstrate how teacher applicant meets the award criteria.

• Student created artifacts/exemplars and associated lesson plan/curriculum (should be from past two years

• The application must be accompanied by a supporting letter from the Principal or Head of School which also confirms that in the event the entrant wins the competition, that he or she will be permitted to travel to Hong Kong to attend the conference. This visit will be fully funded by 21st Century Learning and the Sponsoring company.

You should submit the materials when you are ready by simply replying to this email and adding them as attachments. You should also include a link to your supporting video.

Congratulations on being selected to progress to the final group of candidates for the award. We look forward to hearing from you soon. If you should have any questions then please do not hesitate to get in touch with me. Regards, --

www.21c-learning.com

[Disclosed name of the Marketing & Events Manager] Marketing & Events Manager +852 9755 0294 7th Annual Hong Kong Conference 11-13 December 2014

http://www.21c-learning.com/






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SELECTION FOR THE FINALIST

From: [email protected] Date: Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 11:08 AM Subject: Entry for Teacher of the Year Award To: S BM <[email protected]> Dear Svetlana, I am delighted to inform you have been selected as a finalist for the Teacher of the Year Award, sponsored globally by Pearson. Please accept my heartiest congratulations for this great achievement. The winner will be announced on 07 November 2014.We would appreciate it if you can keep this exciting news confidential until this date so that we can coordinate publicity and media coverage with Pearson, the award sponsors. As a finalist we will be inviting you to attend the conference with conference fees, travel, and hotel paid for by 21st Century Learning International Limited. So please make sure you block the dates in your diary and we look forward to welcoming you to the conference in December. If you are based in Hong Kong and do not require travel then we will be offering you the opportunity to bring one of your colleagues to the conference free of charge. Please use this link to register yourself and your colleague for the conference. Congratulations once again on being selected to progress to the final group of candidates for the award. If you should have any questions, then please do not hesitate to get in touch with me. Regards, --

www.21c-learning.com

[Disclosed name of the Marketing & Events Manager] Marketing & Events Manager +852 9755 0294 7th Annual Hong Kong Conference 11-13 December 2014

https://21clhk7.eventbrite.hk/?discount=TSOTYF




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