Teacher development through language-related innovation in a decentralised educational system

This is a self-archived version of an original article. This version may differ from the original in pagination and typographic details. Author(s): Title: Year: Version: Copyright: Rights: Rights url: Please cite the original version: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Teacher development through language-related innovation in a decentralised educational system © 2021 the Authors Published version Moate, Josephine; Lempel, Liisa; Palojärvi, Anu; Kangasvieri, Tea Moate, J., Lempel, L., Palojärvi, A., & Kangasvieri, T. (2021). Teacher development through language-related innovation in a decentralised educational system. Professional Development in Education, Early online. https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2021.1902838 2021 Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rjie20 Professional Development in Education ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjie20 Teacher development through language-related innovation in a decentralised educational system Josephine Moate, Liisa Lempel, Anu Palojärvi & Tea Kangasvieri To cite this article: Josephine Moate, Liisa Lempel, Anu Palojärvi & Tea Kangasvieri (2021): Teacher development through language-related innovation in a decentralised educational system, Professional Development in Education, DOI: 10.1080/19415257.2021.1902838 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2021.1902838 © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Published online: 21 Apr 2021. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 93 View related articles View Crossmark data ARTICLE Teacher development through language-related innovation in a decentralised educational system Josephine Moate a , Liisa Lempel b , Anu Palojärvi a and Tea Kangasvieri a a Department of Teacher Education, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland; b Department of Language and Communication, University of Jyväskylä, Jyvaskyla, Finland ABSTRACT This study explores how early childhood education and basic education teachers develop and develop innovations within the decentralised educational system of Finland. The comprehensive dataset of 20 field interviews provides a range of insights into teachers’ goals, principles, inspirations and experiences when working with a variety of languagebased innovations across Finland. The ecological perspective employed in the study highlights the complex relationships between the different ecosystems of education. With the particular focus on the educatorexosystem relationship, the findings indicate how Finnish teachers respond to the expectation to continuously develop and innovate as key change agents in education. The findings also outline ways in which teachers’ development and innovation is fostered and disrupted within the educator-exosystem relationship. This study highlights the importance of pre-service teacher education in preparing teachers to innovate and to develop within a decentralised educational system. Moreover, this study highlights the need to ensure that the professional repertoire of teachers goes beyond pedagogical considerations to include interpersonal, organisational, critical and reflexive skills that mediate and sustain the development of teachers within the wider ecology of education. ARTICLE HISTORY Received 29 June 2020 Accepted 17 February 2021 KEYWORDS Teacher development; innovation; exosystem; language education; finnish educational system Introduction This article is based on findings from a project (IKI) established to enhance language-based innovations in Finland from early childhood education (ECE) and through basic education (BE) to the age of 16. Finnish teachers have a significant amount of freedom to develop and implement innovative approaches as the national curricula (FNAE 2014a, Finnish National Agency for Education 2014b, 2018) outline the values and goals of education, without prescribing particular approaches. Teachers can, therefore, be considered as key policy agents in the implementation of education, especially with the introduction of new curricula (Tarnanen and Palviainen 2018). The focus of the IKI project is twofold: firstly, to map, share and develop language-related innovations, and secondly, to support the development of stronger community relationships across and between different levels of education. This study explores how involvement in the development and implementation of language-based innovations informs the professional development of teachers and contributes to the ongoing development of research-based teacher education in Finland (Krokfors et al. 2011, Tirri 2014). CONTACT Josephine Moate [email protected] Department of Teacher Education, University of Jyväskylä, PL35, 40014, Jyväskylä, Finland. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN EDUCATION https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2021.1902838 © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. This article begins with a brief description of teacher education within the Finnish context before providing an overview of different conceptualisations of in-service teacher development. The theoretical framework then introduces the ecological perspective used in this study to make sense of the different layers, or ecosystems, that inform the overall ecology of teacher development (e.g. Godfrey and Brown 2019) with particular focus on the exosystem, that is, the interconnection between educators and the wider educational environment (Heikkinen 2020). The Finnish educational context Since the early 1970s, Finland has developed research-based teacher education requiring all teachers working in basic education (BE) to hold Master’s degrees. Class teachers, qualified to teach in grades 1–6, hold Master’s degrees in education; subject teachers, qualified to teach their subject at all grade levels, hold Master’s degrees in their subject(s) with a minimum of 60 study points in pedagogy (Välijärvi and Heikkinen 2012). ECE teachers hold at least Bachelor degrees in education and currently there are moves to raise this requirement to a Master’s degree. Pre-service teachers are expected to engage with the theory and practice of education throughout their studies and to complete Bachelor and Master theses. Teacher educators are obliged to engage with research, whether as ‘consumers’ of research up-to-date with contemporary developments or as producers of research (Maaranen et al. 2019). In-service teachers are expected to manage their own professional development through lifelong and lifewide learning (Heikkinen et al. 2012). Since the 1990s, curriculum reforms have increased the pedagogical freedom of teachers, and international assessments have replaced school inspections (Jakku-Sihvonen and Niemi 2006). Moreover, the Finnish policy of decentralisation in education means that recent curriculum renewal processes involve deliberative negotiations between different educational stakeholders (e.g. teachers, disciplinary experts, policy makers, parents) at national, regional and local levels (Lavonen 2017). A critical feature of the current curricula is the emphasis on language education and language-aware education as ‘every teacher is a language teacher’ (e.g. FNAE 2014a, p.28). Although Finnish students have been required to study both national languages (Finnish and Swedish), as well as at least one foreign language from grade 3 onwards in previous curricula, the new curricula support the introduction of language education within ECE and preschool, at the latest, in grade one. Moreover, current curricula (2014a, 2018) include chapters on bilingual education outlining a range of options from total immersion to language-enriched activities. This is in addition to the teaching of foreign languages (e.g. German, French, Russian, Spanish) and Finnish or Swedish as a second language for newly arrived students. With the renewal of national curricula for early childhood, preschool and comprehensive education in recent years (FNAE 2014a, 2014b, 2018), the Finnish Ministry for Education and Culture, plus the National Agency for Education have released funds to support the development of key areas in the curricula. These funds have been available to municipalities, educational communities as well as universities and require collaboration between different educational stakeholders. This study examines how educators respond to the promotion of language-based innovations within this decentralised educational setting. Approaches to teacher development Teacher development has long been recognised as a complex process that involves the development of pedagogical understanding and practice (Shuman 1996 and 1997; Loughran 2019) and the ability to reflect and to learn through experience and action (e.g. Dewey 1938/1997; Schön 1987, Van Manen 2008). This complex process has been researched as individualand community-based activity that can promote teacher development as compliance with mandated policies or support the autonomy and agency of educators (Borko et al. 2010, Lambirth et al. 2019). Individual teacher development has been framed in terms of professional maturation through service (e.g. Day and Gu 2J. MOATE ET AL. 2010), examined through the lens of teachers’ existing and potential practice (e.g. Clarke and Hollingsworth 2002) and teachers’ pedagogical reasoning (Loughran 2019). Community-based development more broadly recognises the potential of collegial relationships to nourish or undermine professional development (Hargreaves 2003, Timperley 2011) and the significance of the relationship between students and teachers (e.g. Timperley et al. 2007). These different directions in research on teacher development highlight the complexity of teaching as situated activity. As ‘frontline’ practitioners, teachers play an important role in the implementation of policies, curricula and innovations (Priestley et al. 2013, Lavonen 2017). For professional development to contribute to positive change and reflexive teacher agency, however, it should support pedagogical understanding and collaboration (Kirsch et al. 2020). Moreover, research points to the value of teachers actively participating in research on their own practice and student learning to develop a critical approach to educational development and change (Timperley et al. 2007, Kirsch et al. 2020). In Finland, in-service teacher development is largely based on teacher autonomy, a constructivist view of development, pre-service teacher education and informal activities such as pedagogical cafés (e.g. Heikkinen 2015). Although the Ministry of Education and Culture as well as the independent Finnish Education Evaluation Centre regularly conduct reviews monitoring the quality of educational provision across Finland, in-service teacher education is usually organised at a local level. Regional authorities can decide what kind of training to provide and what themes to address, such as new assessment practices. Public and private services can provide training, and teacher development activities can take place within educational communities or implemented as individual activity. The agreement negotiated by the Finnish teachers’ union, however, means that employers can assign no more than 12 hours of working time a year to co-planning (six hours) and training and planning work (six hours). In addition, teachers in basic education have 126 hours a year to use for planning and follow-up work with immediate and local partners (FTUE 2020) although how these hours are used is decided between each educational community and their municipality with practices differing throughout the country. Within this decentralised system, it is primarily through this open-ended system that innovative approaches and activities are shared with and developed by practitioners largely leaving the responsibility for teacher development with the teachers themselves. The raises the questions how do educators develop within this open-ended system and whether the conditions of this system can ‘promote and value experimentation, risk-taking and innovation and that facilitate change that emerges from teachers’ own ideas, feelings and practices’ (Daly et al. 2020, p. 657). Theoretical framework The complexity of educational communities and the way in which effective teacher development is interwoven with the fabric of the local environment has promoted the use of various metaphors to investigate teacher development. Hargreaves (2003) uses rail networks as well as emotional landscapes, Kirsch et al. (2020) refer to an onion model that peels back layers or cuts through crosssections to examine the professional development of teachers and Daly et al. (2020) refer to the ‘nuanced dance’ of educators and educational communities ‘continuously responsive in interacting with the policies, resources and colleagues’ (p.656). In our research, we draw on an ecological perspective to acknowledge the interconnectedness of different levels that form communities and the critical relationships between individuals and their environment (Toh et al. 2014). An ecological perspective recognises the individual-environment relationship as mutuallyconstituting; this is not a ‘one-way’ relationship, rather they influence the development of each other. This relationship is receptive-responsive (Rayner 2011) with the environment and individuals constantly ‘listening’ to and informed by each other. The dynamism of this relationship is sustained by the affordances provided through the conditions of the environment (Van Lier 2004) and the agentic responses of individuals choosing whether and how to use resources and PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN EDUCATION 3 opportunities (Biesta and Tedder 2007). Actions taken by individuals in turn changing the environment. A key difference, however, between biological and social ecosystems is the way in which human actors can choose whether to engage with the affordances of the environment. Teachers can choose whether to use suggestions presented in-service tasks and activities, head teachers can choose whether to sit alongside their teaching staff or to withdraw from conversations (e.g. Priestley and Drew 2019), educational authorities can choose to invest in practitioners’ initiatives (Timperley et al. 2011). Through these interactions, however, new features emerge and develop as part of the wider ecology. Some emerging features are anticipated, others are unexpected (Daly et al. 2020), nevertheless, over time actions, expectations and perceptions of community members can stabilise this relationship to create a level of ecological coherence and ecological memory (Toh et al. 2014). Ecological coherence and memory can become habitualised in the expectations and requirements of colleagues, parents, educational authorities, as well as in the practices of multiprofessional teams and disciplinary knowledge. These habits ‘oil’ the cogs of daily life (Kraftl 2013) and become generalised over time (Owens 2017). As habits stabilise, however, changing conditions can become more demanding. Rupturing habits destabilises the link between past and present and familiar resources are less appropriate creating ‘risky moments’ (Vanderstraeten and Biesta 2006) prompting further change and emergence in turn reforming the balance and potential of the individualenvironment relationship. From an ecological perspective, the individual and environment are distinct yet inseparable (Rayner 2011): The ecology is not the individual plus the environment, but the individual and environment in relation. A healthy individual-environment relationship should provide sufficient conditions for both individuals and the environment to thrive (Heikkinen 2020). Brofenbrenner’s (e.g. Brofenbrenner1988; Brofenbrenner and Morris, 2006) theorisation of human development as situated within nested ecosystems has provided a critical lens for examining the proximal and distal processes of development in different settings as well as the temporal features of the different ecosystems. Different ecosystems are based on the proximity of the environment to the individual, whether it is an environment that the individual engages with on a daily or occasional basis (see Figure 1). Whilst the microsystem represents the everyday working environment which focuses the overall activities of the teachers, this level is encompassed by the mesosystem comprising, for example, the collegial relationships of a school or daycare centre and the linkages between participants in the microsystem. The exosystem encompasses the linkages of Figure 1. Illustrating the different levels of an educational ecosystem. 4J. MOATE ET AL. the mesosystem and represents the material realisation of the social and cultural values of the macrosystem, that is, the government and wider society. Although teachers do not have regular, direct engagement with the exosystem, this ecosystem can have a profound effect on the day-to-day activities of educators. The curriculum, regional decisions and guidelines, as well as in-service training and social media that belong to the exosystem can require and incentivise teachers to adopt new approaches and to reform habitual ways of being and doing, albeit as distal participants (Guerrettaz and Johnston 2013). Current research suggests that carefully developed activities and relationships fostered in the exosystem can transform educational communities (e.g. Priestley and Drew 2019), although exosystem initiatives can also appear to be effective, without promoting significant change (e.g. Toh et al. 2014). The overall ecosystem is more than the sum of the parts and the interconnections between and within the ecosystems co-create a complex ecology. The dynamic quality of ecosystems is fostered through the vital relationships between the different parts of the ecology, the individuals and ecosystems. Environments and individuals can provide resources for each other and through this relationship new opportunities and affordances emerge (Van Lier 2004, Daly et al. 2020). Moreover, ecosystems at different levels resource one another through their interconnections (Godfrey and Brown 2019). Especially in a decentralised educational exosystem, the choices, responses and actions of teachers have significant implications for the realisation and development of education. How the conditions of a decentralised exosystem foster or disrupt teacher development and how teachers respond to the changing conditions of a decentralised exosystem are little understood. Research task and questions This study focuses on how the exosystem of Finnish education informs and is formed by the practice and professional development of teachers in the decentralised Finnish education system. Our research questions are: 1. What skills does the exosystem in Finnish education require from educators as agents of innovation and development? 2. What features of the exosystem-educator relationship foster and disrupt teacher innovation and development? Methodology This qualitative study is based on interviews with teachers (n. 20) working in ECE (n. 10) and/or BE (n. 10). The approach to both data gathering and handling have adhered to the guidelines from the Finnish National Board for Research Integrity based on the General Data Protection Regulation. The participants had responded to a request from the IKI project to observe and interview teachers involved in the development of language-related educational innovations and as such represent teachers positively disposed to innovation. Table 1 provides an overview of the participants, their educational setting and type of language education they are involved in. All names are pseudonyms and no identifying information is included in the reporting of this study. The aim of the field interviews was to provide a space for teachers to share their perspectives on and experiences of working with language-related innovations. The interviews began with a brief explanation of the IKI project and the interview, ensuring that all appropriate permissions and any questions were addressed. The participants were then provided with a thematic map (see Figure 2) to guide their responses in the interview, but they were free to decide what and how to share their experiences (Tracy 2019). In addition to the map, prompt questions were used if necessary, such as, what kind of collaboration was involved in the development of the innovation or how they hoped the innovation would continue to be developed. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN EDUCATION 5 The interviews, conducted in Finnish and/or Swedish, were transcribed and saved in a secure location provided by the university. The first step in organising the data for the theory-led thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006) was to examine whether and how different ecosystems were identifiable within the teacher interviews. Using the definitions of different ecosystems (e.g. microsystem, exosystem) the relevant extracts from the different interviews were collated into subdatasets under different headings. In a forthcoming study, we explore how innovations are shaped within the microsystem. In this study, we focus teacher development in relation to the exosystem. The exosystem dataset comprises twenty eight pages of font 12, 1.5 line spacing extracts in which the participating teachers explain how they gather and modify materials from outside their Table 1. Participants, educational and language innovation contexts Pseudonyms Educational setting Context for innovative approaches and activities 1 Anna ECE Swedish language immersion Marja ECE Finnish as a second language and Finnish-Swedish bilingual pedagogy Leena ECE Swedish (and German) language showering in preschool 2 Päivi ECE English Language showering Tuula ECE English Language showering Ritva ECE Early introduction of English in preschool Pirjo ECE Early introduction of English in preschool Sari ECE Early introduction of English in preschool Tarja ECE English club Aino ECE Language aware approach with an emphasis on the development of Finnish as second language Elisa ECE and BE German language preschool and grades 1-2 Eeva ECE and BE German language preschool and and grades 1-2 Raija BE grades 1-6 English and Spanish in the lower grades Helena BE grades 1-6 Early introduction of English, French and Swedish Anneli BE grades 1-6 Early introduction of French Marjatta BE grades 1-6 English in the lower grades Pirkko BE grades 7-9 English and Swedish language education Sofia BE grades 7-9 English and Swedish language education Annikki BE grades 7-9 Swedish and Russian language education Lotta BE grades 7-9 Swedish language education 1 For a more detailed explanation of innovative approaches and activities in language education see European Commission 2011. Language learning at a pre-primary school level: making it efficient and sustainable. A policy handbook [online] http://ec. europa.eu/languages/policy/language-policy/documents/early-language-learning-handbook_en.pdf 2 Preschool is one year of compulsory education for six year olds before entering the basic comprehensive school system Figure 2. The field interview thematic map. 6J. MOATE ET AL. immediate community, how they use digital media, how training sessions and visits contribute to their practice, their collaborations in projects and research activities, and how administrative decisions and curricular changes affect their work. Once the dataset was organised, the theory-led thematic analysis involved coding and specifying different aspects of the educator-exosystem relationship (Braun and Clarke 2006, Vaismoradi et al. 2013). The different codes were collated under three heading: Requires, Strengthened by, Weakened by. ‘Requires’ refers to what teachers have to be able to do to in order to engage with the affordances of the exosystem, ‘Strengthened by’ identifies features of the exosystem that appear to foster positive engagement between teachers and innovations, and ‘Weakened by’ includes the features that undermine or disrupt innovative activity or development (as illustrated in Table 2). During this stage, the coding of the data was organised with reference to the different features of the exosystem (e.g. materials, local curricula, municipal decisions). The team members checked the integrity of the analysis of the extracts and any uncertainties were clarified with reference to the interview transcripts (Vaismoradi et al. 2013). The next stage of analysis moved to secondary-cycle coding which Tracy (2019) describes as beginning to ‘organize, synthesize, and categorize these codes into interpretive and sometimes disciplinary concepts’ (ibid. 2019, p.202). Taking each of the columns in turn, a more iterative form of analysis was conducted as the focus shifted from the different features of the exosystem (materials, SOME, regional priorities) to recurring characteristics of the teacher-exosystem relationship. By focusing on and synthesising characteristics and conditions of the educator-exosystem relationship, three themes were developed in relation to the research questions (Vaismorandi et al. 2013, p. 403). These themes are reported in the Findings. Findings The findings present three themes that provide insights into the how the educator-exosystem relationship works. Both partners in this relationship expect ‘the other’ to meet certain requirements and expectations in the process of transforming the socio-cultural values of the macrosystem into appropriate pedagogical action within the microsystem. The requirements and expectations of the exosystem are identifiable through the skills educators have to employ to transform the innovative material into appropriate pedagogical action. On the other hand, the requirements and expectations the educators have of the exosystem are identifiable in the conditions they expect the exosystem to meet. The first theme focuses on the skills required from teachers in response to the exosystem. The second theme outlines the Table 2. An extract from the primary-cycle coding stage with colour codes indicating which level of the educational level the teacher participants were referring to and participant codes to support member check of the codes Includes/ provides Requires Strengthened by Weakened by Materials a degree of creativity and organizational skill to build connections between children, the new language and practical possibilities easy to use (VAKA 1) contribute to children’s language development (VAKA 1) align with teacher beliefs (VAKA 1) (YLÄK 4) children enthusiastic (VAKA 1) systematic organizing of materials as community activity (ALAK 2) investing time (ALAK 2) being able to integrate with other language –focused activities (YLÄK 4) being able to use tools with different groups (YLÄK 4) not connecting to a particular theme (VAKA 1) having to update iPad (VAKA 9) not fitting the rhythm of the community (VAKA 9) having to pay for materials (ALAK 1a and b) having no particular source to turn to (ALAK1a and b) unequal provision of materials regarding different languages (ALAK 2) some activities can only be used everyso-often (YLÄK 4) PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN EDUCATION 7 These findings also add to conceptualisations of education as an ecology comprising nested ecosystems. Recognising that the boundaries between ecosystems are not definitive as suggested by the onion metaphor (Kirsch et al. 2020), but rather indicative of encounters between different educational stakeholders can help to recognise the different skills, challenges and affordances that are part of professional and educational development. Recognising the dynamic interrelationships between different ecosystems and teachers indicates the importance of deliberately developing coherent ways of interacting that enable teachers to use affordances on offer (Toh et al. 2014). If previous experiences anticipate future activities (Biesta and Tedder 2007), working towards coherent forms of collaboration is important. If teachers invest time and energy into project-based innovations only to have their development prematurely curtailed by lack of organisation, struggles to take the affordances offered or project funding, this could undermine their future engagement with innovations. Within a decentralised educational system this can potentially damage the overall development of the system. The teachers in this study demonstrate extraordinary levels of professional agency as they were able to take something positive from in-service training sessions, even if the training itself offered little. To expect this level from all teachers within a system seems to suggest an imbalance in the teacher-exosystem relationship, with the responsibility for innovation unfairly placed on the shoulders of teachers. This study, however, also points to ways in which positive interactions between the teachers and exosystem fosters the emergence (Daly et al. 2020) of innovations in ways that are suitable to particular teachers and communities. Successfully established innovations can then foster further innovations through modifications and practice. If educational leaders are also more aware of the need to coordinate opportunities for collegial collaboration through time as well as the affirmation of efforts, then innovations also seem more likely to become established parts of communities and spread further afield (Drew and Priestley 2019). Another important theoretical consideration prompted by this study is how to conceptualise the temporal rhythm of different ecosystems. When teachers participate in in-service training or projects that are part of the exosystem, they temporarily ‘step out’ of the everyday routines and rhythms of their educational community. When these teachers return to their microsystem, and the innovation has to become part of the ‘lived time’ or habitual rhythm of the microecosystem (Vanderstraeten and Biesta 2006). The findings suggest that a disjuncture between the temporal requirements of the innovation and the habitual rhythm of the microsystem could disrupt the adoption of an innovation. Brofenbrenner and Morris (2007) expand the chronosystem to include microtime as (dis)continuity between ongoing episodes, mesotime as periodic episodes across intervals of time and macrotime as changing expectations and events in society. These temporal notions, however, do not address the ways in which temporal rhythms can differ between different ecosystems creating difficulties for educators as they work in multiple ecosystems. We consider this an interesting area for further investigation. For the IKI project, this study is useful as it helps us to better understand what kind of relationships and activities can foster collaboration and innovation in a decentralised educational system. Moreover, this study highlights the need for projects to listen to the voices of participants and to provide a channel for the experiences and perspectives of teachers to be circulated in the wider circles of the ecosystem. We are aware, however, of the limitations of this study. Our reliance on interview data only provides a narrow perspective on the relationship between educators and the exosystem. A study in which participants maintained diary accounts in response to project activities would be another way of gaining insights into the ongoing negotiations between educators and the exosystem. It would also be important to conduct a study with teachers that resist innovations or struggle to respond to the demands of the decentralised system. Our next study addresses the ongoing formation of innovation within the microsystems of Finnish education. We hope, however, that the study reported here highlights the value of addressing the interconnectedness and temporality of between different ecosystems and the significant implications for the professional development of educators. 14 J. MOATE ET AL. Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. 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