Leading Professional Development in Education OU Reader

Contemporary education systems face significant challenges. Increasing emphasis is being placed on the importance of high-quality leadership to meet these challenges. This book provides a range of case studies and theoretical and methodological perspectives on the practical leadership tasks that underpin educational change. Section 1 focuses on the nature of professional learning and the policy context in which educational reform takes place. Section 2 explores the forms of leadership relevant tot he differing contexts of professional development. Section 3 explores mentoring, peer coaching, team and group work. These processes are examined through international experience and by reference to work in other professions. Section 4 analyzes the experience of evidence based work in medicine and the health service and the potential of applying this to education. The section reviews contested views on this theme. Section 5 looks at the potential role that interactive technologies can play in professional development. This book should be of use to anyone involved in leading professional development, including advisors and inspectors and senior and middle managers in schools and colleges.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1 The changing agenda for professional development in education SECTION 1 Orientations 2 What do new views of knowledge and thinking have to say about research on teacher learning? 3 Getting to scale with good educational practice SECTION 2 Models of leading professional development 4 School leadership: some key ideas5 Leadership for learning: re-engineering ‘mind sets’ 6. Leadership of school subject areas: tensions and dimensions of managing in the middle SECTION 3 Skills and processes in the leadership of professional development 7 Mentoring in professional development: the English and Welsh experience 8 Teachers supporting teachers through peer coaching 9 A new approach to teaching and learning in journal club 10 Teachers’ work groups as professional development: what do the teachers learn? 11 Teams 12 The role of school managers in monitoring and evaluating the work of a school: inspectors’ judgements and schools’ responses 13 Evaluation: Who needs it? Who cares? SECTION 4 Evidence in the development of professional knowledge 14 The teachers’ construction of knowledge 15 Teaching as a research-based profession: possibilities and prospects 16 Educational research and teaching: a response to David Hargreaves’ TTA lecture 17 The knowledge-creating school 18 The experience of evidence-based healthcare 19 What is evidence-based education?20 Accessing the evidence: towards the research-informed age SECTION 5 Education, communication, information and the future of professional development 21 New technologies for teacher professional development 22 Using networks to support the professional development of teachers 23 Breaking the silence: the role of technology and community in leading professional development.

About the Author :
Elizabeth Bird, John Butcher, Bob Moon, The Open University, UK.