Daly, Caroline;
Milton, Emmajane;
Langdon, Frances;
(2022)
How do ecological perspectives help understand schools as sites for teacher learning?
In: Swaffield, Sue and Poekert, Phil, (eds.)
Leadership for Professional Learning: Perspectives, Constructs and Connections.
Routledge: London, UK.
Preview |
Text
Daly_13. How do ecological perspectives help understand schools as sites for teacher learning.pdf Download (331kB) | Preview |
Abstract
School culture is crucial to the realisation of teachers’ professional learning, for both new entrants and experienced practitioners. In this paper, schools are conceptualised as complex, multidimensional ecologies that are constituted by the relations that exist between school leaders, teachers, mentors and all members of the school community. As relational environments, the conditions affecting professional learning are constantly dynamic, with multiple and simultaneous interactions taking place between these stakeholders. Interactions are also multi-layered - between the school system, individuals, classrooms, the community and the policy environment. School leaders are a major influence on these dynamics and affect how schools act as sites of professional formation, mediating external policy as well as affecting micro-dynamics within individual school systems. In conceptualising a complex ecology at work, we illuminate these relational dynamics with a focus, for all stakeholders within schools, including leaders, on the need to recognise and value the importance of ‘emergence’ in professional learning. This means embracing inevitable uncertainty as a feature of schools as complex systems.
Type: | Book chapter |
---|---|
Title: | How do ecological perspectives help understand schools as sites for teacher learning? |
ISBN-13: | 9781032412979 |
Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
Language: | English |
Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
Keywords: | complexity; ecologies, professional learning, relations, school leaders |
UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Culture, Communication and Media |
URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10166741 |
Archive Staff Only
![]() |
View Item |