Abstract
Based on the journeys of transformation towards becoming teaching practitioners in the Post Compulsory Education and Training (PCET) sector, this paper discusses ways in which interactions between trainee teachers and established teaching community members may be utilised as opportunities for collaboration and development. Beginning with a brief critical reflection on trainees’ accounts of their experiences during placement training, which show trainees experiencing marginalization, blocking and unsolicited interventions at the hands of established community members, I discuss the tensions of being situated temporarily and as novice within an established community of practice. I demonstrate that while situated as occupying roles of both learner and tutor simultaneously, trainees’ emergent teaching identities are ‘pressed’ between conflicting demands and expectations. I argue that such negative experiences may be used positively to support development through a model for practice that I introduce as ‘guided reflexivity’. Central to guided reflexivity are shared explorations of possibilities for developing teaching practices through collaborative reflections. These are formulated through mutually challenging but, supportive conversations between established teaching staff and trainee teachers. This approach shifts the sole responsibility for supporting trainees becoming members of, and belonging to, specialist teaching communities from designated mentors; it has the potential for crossing institutional boundaries and creating holistic cultures of collaborative professional development.
Author Information
Jane Jackson, The Open University, United Kingdom
Paper Information
Conference: ECE2014
Stream: Adult and lifelong learning
This paper is part of the ECE2014 Conference Proceedings (View)
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