Topic 133
Theories, Knowledge and Practice: Teacher Professionalism
Teacher Professionalism
Becoming a reflective practitioner is a process of combining theories and knowledge into
coherent whole which is meaningful for the teacher and this all comes together to generate a
process which we can think of as teacher professionalism. The fundamental question we have to
ask ourselves here is good teaching is direct consequence of reflective practice. As we have seen
reflective practice is very much a process of inquiring into a problem of investigation and
understanding a problem in order to come to some sort of solution to drive processes to solve
that problem. What this means is that we need to think of reflective practice from certain
viewpoints in terms of professionalism. For example, we need to think of how reflective practice
can boost teacher professionalism and improve and sustain teacher professionalism.
Caliber
One thing we need to look at here is the caliber of teaching, the quality of teaching. The caliber
of teaching, the caliber of reflective practice is very much about challenging the assumptions we
have about the practices of teaching about the pedagogical practices we are using. Using these to
established for us the principles of good practice. In other words, to see teaching as an art and
the process of reflection is to refine and to improve the quality of the art of teaching.
Discourse
Teacher professionalism through reflective practice is also about discourse. Discourse dialogue
helps us cultivate for ourselves a level of confidence in our abilities and discourse also helps us
to describe those abilities to others to articulate the level of knowledge, the level of expertise, the
level of professionalism we have.
Knowledge Creation
We also know that teacher professionalism from the reflective practice standpoint is also about
knowledge generation, knowledge creation because what the reflective practitioner is doing
thinking critically, observing critically and using this criticality to frame changes in terms of our
frames of understanding in order to develop for ourselves new models and theories of teaching.
What this means of reflective practitioner is we think of teacher knowledge and teacher inquiry
from three levels.
Levels of Teacher Knowledge
We have got the level of Knowledge for Practice acquiring and generating knowledge for
improved practice. We have also got Knowledge in Practice or in other words knowledge as
applied in the classroom and also of Knowledge of Practice. In other words, our metacognitive
processes in relation to the work we are doing.
Knowledge for Practice
What we can do with this is begin to think of a diagrammatic representation for this knowledge
and practice generation and this format we can see that knowledge for practice is the
foundational stone of teacher professionalism.
It’s where the teacher is learning content and learning pedagogical knowledge from theories,
from researches and beginning to apply this in practice and although we can consider it a very
basic level of professionalism. It is rather a foundational level of professionalism equally
important to any other level without it we cannot call ourselves professionals. The next level we
can think of knowledge in practice. It is where teachers are acquiring practical teaching
knowledge from the experiences they have of teaching over time. From the reflection of that
experience, inquiring into experience from day-to-day basis.
Knowledge in Practice
Knowledge in Practice is ongoing and forms perhaps the most significant part of teacher
professionalism. On top of this we can think of knowledge of practice. This is where teachers
overtime developing skills sufficient enough to be able to generate knowledge which is coming
from the experiences of the classroom and the school and whether teacher is seeing such
contexts as places of learning for themselves, as process of inquiry in process of teaching. It’s a
way for the teacher to make cognitive connections between theory and practice, between the
issues that they are having personally with the bigger issues concerning education as a whole.
Knowledge of Practice
Knowledge of practice is therefore very much taking a very critical perspective not only of
theories but also of experiences of others and their own experiences in order to bring these three
things together into a new generation of knowledge and understanding. From this generation of
knowledge that we have start to develop the profession and also to develop our own roles as a
professional within the context in which we work. So, the three levels of thinking here and
knowledge generation fundamental to the process of professionalism. The foundational level
knowledge for practice is not insignificant it’s a foundational level and therefore as important of
knowledge of practice which is generating knowledge over time.