Professional Learning Communities and Teacher Enquiry

by Poultney, Val; Fox, Alison

• ISBN13: 9781912508815
• ISBN10: 1912508818
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2020-07-01
• Publisher: Critical Publishing

Summary

Evidence-based teaching is fast becoming a new orthodoxy.  There are many strong voices, including policy voices, advocating its adoption. Understanding the underlying principles allows you to better evaluate the benefits of different approaches to evidence-based teaching and how they relate to your own school context.

This book provides a critical overview of different ways of thinking about professional learning as a social process through collaborative and collective activity, including the notion of professional learning communities and how these might be used to support teacher enquiry. It examines the opportunities and challenges this poses to teachers and school leaders, and includes practical advice on how to facilitate, engage with and evaluate collaborative teacher enquiry models.

Author Biography

Val Poultney is an experienced teacher educator who has worked in partnership with a number of schools, specialising in evidence-based teaching. She is particularly interested in school leadership and school governance, with a focus on how to develop leadership to support teachers as researchers. Currently a senior lecturer at the University of Derby, she teaches on both initial teacher education and postgraduate programmes. 

Alison Fox is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies at the Open University, UK. After training as a secondary school science teacher, Alison moved into initial teacher training and undertook research around the support of beginning teachers, including their emergent development as school leaders. She also supports practitioner enquiry through  Masters and Doctoral supervision.