Improving the development and warranting of good practice in teaching

Abstract

This paper examines what we can learn from recent experience of National Strategies and teacher research, with a view to improving the development and warranting of good practice in teaching. Official evaluations report that the authoritative stance of National Strategies has failed to engage many teachers thoughtfully, so restricting deeper professional development and educational improvement. Likewise, recent stocktaking indicates that teacher research has emphasised professional development over knowledge creation, and effecting changes over examining rationales. This paper argues that research‐informed development of good practice could be strengthened through ensuring that National Strategies become exemplary in warranting their recommendations for practice, and in providing support for corresponding teacher research. Developing good practice in teaching calls for stronger interaction between teacher expertise in realising such practice and researcher expertise in analysing it. Methods of lesson study exemplify how teacher thinking about good practice can be not just shared, but codified, and informed by scholarly knowledge; while methods of design research hold promise as a rigorous means of developing learning resources, supporting pedagogies and guiding theories to underpin improvement of practice.