Collaborative models of CPD for early career teachers
Author
Kate Thirlwall, The Cherwell School
Summary
This project, undertaken in Part 3 of the MSc in Learning and Teaching explored the value of building a collaborate element into a newly established professional learning programme for second year teachers that required them to engage in a number of action research cycles focused on common challenges in their teaching. The teachers were asked to participate in peer observation and peer coaching twice during the academic year. Interviews with teachers at the end of the intervention indicate that support for practitioners needs to be highly individualised, and that teachers’ views of the value of the process seemed to vary considerably, depending on contextual factors such as their perceived support network within their own departments, their previous experiences of learning, their personal motivation and career goals as well as their own definitions of usefulness. The report includes a summary of the kinds of support that second year teachers valued most highly.