YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → The emergence of teacher expertise

The emergence of teacher expertise — Transcript

by Faculty of foreign languages ChNU · 4,234 words · 649 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:09Okay.
0:11Thank you very much.
0:14Thank you very much.
0:19Good discussions. Good. Good. Good.
0:21Thank you.
0:23Okay. Some really interesting
0:24discussions. It's a very interesting
0:26question and most of us know we
0:28understand what that means as a
0:30question. I was chatting to and
0:32listening to Vera and her opinion. Ver
0:34can you share some of your thoughts on
0:35this question? Pleasure.
0:38>> Okay.
0:40The questions seems to be really easy
0:42and difficult at the same time. Actually
0:45the teacher has been teaching for 20
0:47years and uh the teacher has been ready
0:52to a lot of challenges and new
0:54approaches and try and work uh to
0:58achieve uh their just main goal to make
1:01their students involved, engaged and
1:04active and be ready to share and um be
1:08ready to continue learning English and
1:10to be interested. and the teacher who
1:12has been teaching for 20 years and with
1:15one and the same approach um never ready
1:19to accept new um just perspectives
1:24um new activities so I must say that I
1:27have been teaching for 30 years actually
1:30and um I'm ready for new challenges uh
1:34sometimes they are pretty tough uh and
1:37uh the students have changed uh the
1:40generations have changed. So, and I must
1:44admit that I do like a lot of activities
1:47and provide them with different uh
1:49students, but these activities have been
1:52transformed because they are different
1:54and they are new to that and then I do
1:59um I am ready for the feedback of my
2:02students and I am ready to accept and to
2:06think and even to give up some
2:08activities perhaps which I like very
2:12much
2:14We all do that I think. Thank you very
2:16much for that Ver. Thank you. So a
2:18really interesting point there. I think
2:19Vera is talking about her own experience
2:22there. And what we can see is one of the
2:24qualities that we identified in expert
2:27teachers yesterday that they are
2:28lifelong learners. Ver is here. You are
2:31here. And what we often find is the
2:34teachers
2:35who essentially repeat the same year 20
2:38times, they don't learn anything and
2:40they often don't engage in professional
2:42development. That is one of the
2:44fundamental characteristics of expert
2:46teachers. They continue learning
2:48throughout their career for 30 years or
2:5040 years and some of the colleagues we
2:51have in the room. So often when we talk
2:54about the difference, we recognize it's
2:57got something to do with learning. One
2:58teacher is simply not learning. they're
3:00repeating the same thing all the time
3:02and the other teacher is is learning.
3:04One of the other things that Ver was
3:05mentioning was that she was open to
3:07changes um and that students brought
3:10their challenges and she helped them
3:12with them as well. But it's got
3:14something to do with learning. We often
3:16mention reflection and we were
3:17discussing about reflection yesterday
3:19and the difference between yes
3:20reflection is important but what is
3:22critical reflection? We'll come on to
3:24that.
3:26And so the question I pose here is can
3:28expertise research shed useful light
3:30onto this question and I think it can.
3:34So let's begin with a working definition
3:35of teacher expertise. In my other
3:37publications I provide more detailed
3:39definitions. But the key point about
3:42expertise is it's always context
3:44specific. We find that an expert teacher
3:46in one school, even if you move them to
3:48a different school in the same city, a
3:50bit like on Google Maps, you pick up and
3:52drop the person, you find that they're
3:54not so expert. And if you pick them up
3:56and put them into a different city or
3:58especially a different country, we find
4:00that we have to learn everything again.
4:02And that's an interesting, I think,
4:03piece of evidence. But for this talk, I
4:06recognize teacher professional
4:08competence as expertise. In other words,
4:11our ability to do our job effectively
4:14with recognition that some of us achieve
4:16a higher level of professional
4:18competence than others. Teacher
4:20expertise is often at the higher end of
4:22this competence climb, but it's not
4:24exclusive. And this is important. It
4:27doesn't mean you're better than other
4:28teachers. It means you have what you
4:30need to be a good teacher. And the
4:32research on teacher expertise argues
4:34it's not something exclusive. These are
4:36not outstanding teachers. These are
4:38teachers who have become as good as any
4:40teacher can be at their job and all
4:43teachers can be. So there is a
4:44combination of experience. We know
4:46expertise develops after about 5 to
4:49seven years in the job. So student
4:51teachers there's plenty of time for
4:52learning there which is important. Um we
4:56also know it it also relates to
4:58competence. So teacher expertise is
5:00basically up here that even at the start
5:02of your career you can have high
5:04competence but you may not have
5:06expertise and you can get lots of
5:08experience with a low level of
5:09competence and that is an expertise. So
5:12expertise is the interreation between
5:14high levels of both of these factors.
5:18My research on the topic is quite
5:19extensive now. My PhD study involved
5:22looking at the practices, cognition and
5:25professional development of eight expert
5:27teachers of English in India. But I also
5:29conducted the largest ever systematic
5:31review of teacher expertise research
5:33globally looking specifically at primary
5:35and secondary contexts. In other words,
5:37my interest was what I call real
5:40teachers, the people that we have in the
5:41room today. And I also wrote an a piece
5:45for language teaching which is the main
5:47journal probably the leading journal in
5:48our field uh called a research agenda on
5:51language teacher expertise research
5:53establishing the state of the evidence
5:55base and proposing activities for
5:57research. So if anyone is interested in
5:59looking at that and doing some of those
6:01activities it will be useful. And I also
6:04conducted foundational research on what
6:06we call reflection in action because in
6:08my experience this seems to be a really
6:10important factor. Let's look at that
6:12now. And here in this image, we have a
6:15teacher, an expert teacher from India.
6:16In my PhD study, they were not
6:18anonymized. They read everything I had
6:20to write about them and they chose to be
6:22identified. Research can and often does
6:25anonymize participants, but it can also
6:27celebrate them. And this is Nurahan
6:29Naik. And Nurjahan is a teacher of
6:31English in a in a regional part of India
6:34called Maharashtra. She works in a
6:36beautiful coastal city. I recommend
6:38visiting it. Um but most importantly she
6:40works with disadvantaged learners in
6:42this city who have all kinds of
6:44challenges with their literacy and
6:45development. And you can see her in a
6:47very crowded classroom nonetheless
6:49managing to organize group work by
6:51getting some of the students to turn
6:53around on fixed chairs and to interact
6:55with each other.
6:57So yeah, three different processes I'm
7:00going to mention here. Reflection in
7:01action, adaptive expertise, and this one
7:04which is linked reinvestment and
7:06progressive problem solving.
7:09So
7:11reflection in action it originates in
7:13the work of Donald churn and it's often
7:15misunderstood. We often think reflection
7:17is in action is reflection when you are
7:19teaching and reflection on action is
7:21reflection after teaching. That isn't
7:23really how Donald Shern understood it.
7:25He didn't talk about reflection on
7:27action as much because in fact both of
7:30what we call reflection on and inaction
7:32were part of reflection in action in
7:34Shern's work. The quote here from Shern
7:37is really important and I'll give you a
7:38moment to read it. But basically what
7:40what Shern is talking about is on a
7:42daily basis when we're teaching there
7:44are sometimes moments where something
7:46doesn't fit. Something happens and it
7:48causes us to question what we do as part
7:51of our routines and all of a sudden
7:53we're there thinking
7:55what what happened there. It could
7:58happen during the lesson or it could
7:59happen later. You know when you're
8:01cooking dinner or in the next morning in
8:03the shower and you're thinking why
8:04didn't that work or why did it work so
8:07well and this is what reflection in
8:09action is for Shern. It's those moments
8:11that cause us to question our habituated
8:14practice. Have a read of the quote from
8:16Shern in smaller letters there while I
8:18take some water.
8:30So this is interesting I think. So we
8:33may surface and criticize our initial
8:35understandings. It was like when Vera
8:37was talking about those elements of
8:39change that we're doing something on a
8:40daily basis and then all of a sudden as
8:43Vera put it the students bring new
8:45challenges to the classroom and we have
8:47to respond to those challenges. And
8:49today in in in um Ukraine, it can be for
8:53example the challenges of students who
8:55may have trauma from experiences that
8:57they've that they've had in the last few
8:59years. And we need to now adapt to those
9:01experiences. And that causes us to
9:04surface and criticize our initial
9:07understanding of a phenomenon. This idea
9:09of critique that we were talking about
9:10yesterday with the student teachers and
9:13test the new description by an on the
9:15spot experiment. Again, back to Vera's
9:17example that you try out new things to
9:19see if they help in these situations.
9:23And in my research as well, until I did
9:25this piece of research in 2019, there
9:27was no direct evidence of teachers
9:30engaging in reflection in action. Lots
9:32of people talked about it, but it's
9:33quite difficult to capture. And in this
9:35piece of research published in a
9:37worldleading journal teachers and
9:38teacher education I found examples in
9:41very experienced highly qualified
9:43teachers of all kinds of micro
9:46improvisation as we called it where when
9:48they are teaching they actually respond
9:50to these challenges in during the
9:53process.
9:56So the second point that I want to
9:57mention is there are two types of
9:59expertise in the literature and this is
10:01not just on education it goes across all
10:03walks of life. We will all be familiar
10:05with what we call routine expertise
10:07where you do something so often that it
10:10becomes habituated and you don't have to
10:12think about it. You can think about
10:13somebody working in a supermarket or
10:15somebody working in a factory. They
10:18become very very good and fast at doing
10:20the same thing over and over again. But
10:23that isn't what teachers do because as
10:25teachers we work in what we can some
10:27with what we can call sometimes complex
10:29systems theory. Each student is a
10:32complex range of systems. You put them
10:34in a class with 30 other students who
10:36are complex systems and then you put
10:38them in an educational system that is
10:40complex. And so what we have is multiple
10:42complex systems theory. Arguably one of
10:45the most complex types of expertise. So
10:48for this we need what is called adaptive
10:50expertise by Hatano Nagakani. These two
10:53Japanese scholars came up with the idea
10:56and they recognized that some people
10:58quickly overcome changes in work
11:01requirements by inventing new procedures
11:03and using their expert knowledge in
11:05novel ways and this relates quite
11:07clearly to what Donald Shern is talking
11:09about in in reflection in action. It is
11:12the frame within which reflection in
11:14action happens. In other words, again if
11:16I may go back to Vera's example, those
11:18students bring new challenges. We have
11:20to reflect in action to respond to them
11:22and we have to then incorporate them
11:24into our knowledge systems in new ways.
11:29And what we find is that other teachers
11:31do not necessarily possess this ability
11:34and find themselves going back to the
11:35practices of the novice teachers. And
11:38that might be a key clue to the
11:40difference about when you meet those
11:42challenges, how you respond to them and
11:44whether you are able to learn from them.
11:47So reflection in action and unadaptive
11:49expertise are two of the key features I
11:51think that are important
11:53and it's key to working in highly
11:55complex and stable environment and has
11:58also received support from empirical
12:00studies not just mine but also those of
12:02Crawford and Hayden Netal are really
12:04interesting examples of this
12:07and then two um two experts on the right
12:10on writing expertise Kalbureta and
12:13Scardamalia they argue that two key
12:16processes are also linked and you will
12:18see these link as well to the other
12:19ones. Reinvestment is a type of
12:21motivation. As teachers, we have to work
12:24very very hard and teacher educators as
12:26well. And we have to sometimes protect
12:29some of our time not just for ourselves.
12:32We need that as well. But some of our
12:34time to work on specific problems that
12:36we are facing because we can't approach
12:39every problem all the time. We become
12:42exhausted. And so for the for the
12:44student teachers, it's important to
12:45recognize that you will often find in
12:47your first few months or years of
12:49teaching that you will face a number of
12:51problems. And reinvestment is this idea
12:55that we should perhaps reinvest our
12:57energy in trying to work on one problem
12:59at a time. And progressive problem
13:01solving builds on that. It's the
13:03cognitive aspect of the process of
13:05expertise.
13:07And it's about working out how we can
13:09work on a problem so that we find a
13:12solution that seems to work effectively
13:14across all the situations in which that
13:16problem exists. In other words, if we if
13:19we move on from one problem, try to
13:21solve it quickly, we may not have the
13:23solution. But if we work on it in more
13:25detail, try to work out how it fits into
13:28other things we do, try to work out if
13:30it works in all of our classes, and try
13:32to see if we can generalize from it,
13:34then we as teachers are building the
13:36knowledge base we need to deal with
13:38future problems as well. So we take
13:41reflection in action, we take adaptive
13:44expertise, and we take reinvestment and
13:47progressive problem solving. And we find
13:49as in Amy Choyy's study um in in her
13:52study of an expert teacher of English in
13:54Hong Kong, she found all of these
13:56qualities.
13:59It was heavily influenced by Bereta and
14:01Scardalia's work.
14:03But she argued that in order to
14:05understand expert teachers, we have to
14:07contrast them with experienced teachers
14:09who are not experts. Those ones who have
14:11the 20 years experience,
14:13one year's experience repeated 20 times.
14:16and her expert teacher, Marina,
14:18frequently problematized the unproatic.
14:20In other words, she looked at things
14:21that didn't seem to be problematic, and
14:24she tried to unpick them to see if she
14:25could improve them. Highly critical
14:28thinking.
14:29And she solved apparent behavior
14:31management problems by becoming strict.
14:34But then she realized, as many as many
14:36experienced teachers do, that becoming
14:38strict also has problems because
14:40sometimes you stop students from being
14:41able to open up to share. And that's
14:44particularly important in Ukraine today
14:46to have that safe space that we
14:48discussed. And therefore really expert
14:50teachers, they often go through a period
14:52of being strict and getting through
14:53lessons well. But then they learn how to
14:56open up and to allow students freedom
14:59within the strictness that they
15:01understand are part of that experience
15:03teachers classes so that they can then
15:05have more freedom. And it's a really
15:06interesting contrast you often see. And
15:09just as Marina's teacher,
15:11sorry, as Amy Choyy's teacher, Marina
15:14found, she reinvested. She seek she
15:17sought to resolve a subsequent paradox.
15:19The dichotomy between learn making
15:21learning enjoyable and maintaining
15:23discipline. It's a balancing act, isn't
15:25it? Trying to get the balance right. And
15:27it constantly changes. Again, back to
15:29Vera's example. Different generations of
15:32teachers of students, the balancing will
15:34be different. We know the impact of
15:36mobile phones and social media around
15:38the world. And therefore, as a result of
15:40that generation, we will also need to
15:42change how we do it. And we can only do
15:45that if we keep learning.
15:48And my own research, this is the meta
15:50summary of teacher expertise that we
15:52published. We found that some of the key
15:55features of expertise, and we were just
15:57talking about this with the lady down
15:58here, another experienced teacher about
16:00flexibility in teaching practice. In
16:03other words, we plan carefully, but in
16:05the class, we teach the students, not
16:07the plan. And flexibility was the most
16:09commonly reported theme in the pedagogic
16:12practice of expert teachers over over a
16:15100 papers. We looked at 100 research
16:17articles. And this is true for both
16:19primary and secondary teachers. There is
16:21no difference. It's still the most
16:23important one. There is evidence that
16:25they expert teachers regularly engage in
16:27progressive problem solving. And this is
16:30only possible through extensive
16:32automated huristics. What does that word
16:35mean? Huristics, it means when you
16:36proceduralize something so much that you
16:39can't not do it. Teachers, you know,
16:42when you've done an exercise, your brain
16:44will never forget to do feedback because
16:46you know it's important to that to that
16:48student. But a novice teacher, someone
16:50in the first years of their career, they
16:52can often do an exercise and then forget
16:54to check the answers afterwards. and
16:56students will often reme remind you but
16:58that's one of the huristics that we have
17:00as teachers. It's like also the ability
17:02to write on the board and to talk to
17:04students at the same time. And we can do
17:07this and we can also see somebody who is
17:09misbehaving or using a mobile phone and
17:11do all of those three things together.
17:13And we could also drive a car at the
17:14same time if we wanted to because that's
17:16also an automated heristic things that
17:19our bodies are able to do even quite
17:21complex things. But the key thing is we
17:24sometimes need to interrupt those
17:26heristics and to question them. And
17:28that's what Donald Shern is talking
17:30about in reflection in action. They
17:32become so automated we don't think about
17:34them but we still have to think about
17:36them on occasions when they don't work
17:38as well. And this is because of the
17:40changes that we were exploring earlier.
17:44So the processes introduced we have
17:46reflection in action we have adaptive
17:49expertise. I've put it last here. And we
17:51have progressive problem solving. These
17:53for me are three key processes. I'm
17:55arguing we don't have evidence because
17:57it's such a such a complex thing linking
18:00these together. We don't have certain
18:02evidence, but it seems to me that all of
18:04them are consistently found in the
18:06research on expert teachers.
18:08How do they interact and relate to each
18:10other? My feeling is like this.
18:14Reflection in action contributes to
18:17progressive problem solving. And as we
18:19progressively solve problems, we gain
18:22confidence. We gain understanding of our
18:24environments and we be become in control
18:26of them and this enables our adaptive
18:29expertise to work so that even if and
18:32when Vera faces the next big problem she
18:35has in her classes she will be able to
18:37respond to them with it with her
18:38adaptive expertise.
18:42But what about the pathway to expertise?
18:45How do we get there as teachers?
18:48And that is the key question because for
18:51our pre-ervice teachers, we're
18:53interested to learn about what processes
18:55seem to help me to learn in ways that I
18:58can engage in reflection in action in
19:00progressive problem solving and develop
19:02my adaptive expertise. It's not easy.
19:07So work by Schwarzal built on the
19:09original idea of adaptive expertise by
19:12Hatano Aninagakani
19:14and they argue that there is an optimum
19:16adaptability corridor again similar to
19:18my picture. Notice that this is the
19:20innovation which means doing something
19:22new and this is efficiency doing it well
19:25doing it kind of um how did we translate
19:27efficiency yesterday?
19:30>> Yes, effectiveness but not necessarily
19:34simply effectiveness. is not quite the
19:36same as that doing it effectively and
19:38well in the time we've got. So it's a
19:41slightly different shape to my my
19:43remember mine was experience and quality
19:45essentially but it's still a similar
19:47pathway and they argue that you've got
19:49to balance between these so that when
19:51you're at the start of your career you
19:53don't innovate too much but you develop
19:56some efficiencies. You learn how to do
19:58some of the simple things well like
20:00writing on the board like um creating a
20:02lesson plan and then as you move through
20:04that corridor you can add to that new
20:07qualities and by progressive problem
20:09solving you choose the problem that I
20:11can manage at this point don't try and
20:13take too something too complex just
20:14leave it for now
20:17and their research is also empirical and
20:19linked to this and it supports that idea
20:22and then interestingly real and also
20:25argue that there are three paths to
20:27expertise building on the same model,
20:31but theirs is actually a bit more like
20:33mine because here we have the quality.
20:36Yes, it's innovation, but there's also a
20:37sense of quality here. And this is time
20:39in their diagram. So, what they find and
20:42by the way, you knew this. You can be
20:45great teachers from the start of your
20:46career and I've seen we've all seen some
20:49people who are just born teachers in the
20:50classroom and you will be up here. So
20:53they say there is innovative expertise.
20:55People at the start of their career who
20:57do well. But it's slightly different
21:00because innovative expertise sometimes
21:02works and sometimes it doesn't. And
21:04suddenly you can have a lesson that goes
21:05really well and the same lesson doesn't
21:07go well at all with a similar class and
21:10you're thinking why. And this is because
21:11it's a bit more hit and miss. Sometimes
21:14you hit sometimes you miss.
21:16And efficiency expertise. This is more
21:18like the um what Hatano Hatano and
21:21Inagakani are talking about um when they
21:24talk about routine expertise like the
21:26person who works in the factory. Some
21:28teachers the ones who have one year's
21:30experience repeated they become very
21:32efficient at delivering that curriculum
21:35and they become very efficient at
21:36getting the same levels of learning in
21:38their students. But as the students
21:40change, those levels of learning go down
21:44and that teacher maybe stops trying so
21:46hard and as a result they kind of stay
21:48at the same level of competence. But the
21:51pathway in their opinion to adapt is to
21:53adaptive expertise
21:56and they call it adaptive practice. I'll
21:58just read out what it says here. The
22:00ability to learn in and from practice
22:03again reflection in action progressive
22:05problem solving. This involves the
22:08development of flexible routines
22:12um with continual adjustments between
22:14the needs of specific learners. Remember
22:16what Ver was saying in real time while
22:19matching the needs of communicative
22:21stakeholders over time. This question of
22:23how do we deal with the parents? How do
22:25we manage the parents when they're
22:26taking up so much of our time and this
22:29is key? Sometimes adaptive expertise
22:31moves in the direction of innovation
22:34and at other times towards efficiency.
22:36But the focus is on always building a
22:39deeper understanding of the interaction
22:40to maintain an optimal balance.
22:42Sometimes I think of teacher expertise
22:44is like you know if you stand on a ball
22:48if you fall any one way you could go
22:50fall over. And all of the skills we have
22:52are continu on the ball. One is about
22:55quality, one is about efficiency, one is
22:57about hard work, one is about careful
23:00planning, one is about freedom. And you
23:02have to stay in the ba balanced on the
23:04ball at all times while also juggling.
23:07That's what expertise is.
23:10So let's do a discussion now. I've been
23:12talking for too long. Turn again to the
23:14people you were talking to before or if
23:15you prefer a new partner and discuss
23:18these questions. Does the evidence on
23:20how expertise develop match your own
23:23personal experience? And if you're an
23:26expert teacher,
23:28does it feel true for your experience?
23:30Trust your feeling here. Expert
23:32teachers, those feelings are important.
23:34And if you're less experienced, does it
23:36sound right for other teachers? You
23:37know, you might want to think about your
23:38teachers who have inspired you in
23:40school, for example. And the second
23:42question there, what continuing
23:44professional development activities do
23:46you think will be useful to facilitate
23:48the development of teacher expertise?
23:50And so far, is there anything you
23:52disagree with? Okay, 5 minutes
23:54discussion and then we'll do feedback.
23:56Thank you.
24:16She's going to go back and sit down
24:17here.
24:21>> Very interesting.
24:22>> Yeah, very cool. I like this um
24:24comparison about 20 years of teaching
24:26and doing it 20 times or just having
24:29>> It's the same in any job, isn't it?
24:30There's people who kind of just
24:32proceduralize everything and don't
24:34question it anymore. And in teaching, I
24:36think it's really important because of
24:38the massive complexities that teachers
24:41have to deal with in any one student.
24:43And then when you add that to 30
24:44students, I always when I'm trying to
24:47explain to parents because Olga was
24:49saying that some of the challenges
24:50Ukrainian teachers face is quite
24:52demanding parents. And when you have to
24:54explain to parents about how how much
24:56expertise is in teaching.

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of The emergence of teacher expertise by Faculty of foreign languages ChNU, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 4,234 words across 649 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to choose a caption track available on the video.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, caption language selection, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.