Teachers’ knowledge work within different school settings: Examining the interrelationship between the epistemic and the organisational

Hege Hermansen, University of Oslo & Oslo and Akerhus University College of Applied Sciences

Teachers’ knowledge work in the context of educational change

• How do teachers collaboratively approach and engage with knowledge when existing conventions for practices are being developed?

• Knowledge work: the work that teachers carry out as they work with and upon the knowledge ‘that matters’ in their practices (Edwards & Daniels 2012)

• Assessment for Learning (AfL) project in a Norwegian city as an empirical case

• Observations and interviews conducted at three lower secondary schools and the LEA from Sept 2009 - Apr 2011

• Focus on collaborative work with assessment resources in different teacher teams

The organisational conditions for teachers’ knowledge work

• This paper: presents two contrasting cases of how teachers’ knowledge work can be constituted at the school level

• Primary data: Interviews with two ”AfL groups”: tasked with supporting the development of assessment practices at their respective schools, and mediating between external knowledge flows and local settings of work

• Empirical focus: How do teachers approach and engage with knowledge when they have been tasked with supporting the development of assessment practices at the school level?

• Analytical focus: How is knowledge work directed at the school level informed by organisational roles, routines and resources

Analytical perspectives

• Social practice theory (Mäkitalo, 2012; Miettinen et al., 2012; Nicolini, 2013)

– our relationship to the world as mediated by cultural tools (Vygosky 1978: Wertsch 1998)

– organisation studies (Gherardi, 2001; Miettinen & Virkkunen, 2005; Nicolini, Yanow, & Gherardi, 2003)

– emphasis on the significance of organisational roles and routines for how everyday work is accomplished

– engagement with knowledge as socially constituted (Jensen et al., 2012; Knorr Cetina, 1999, 2001; Nerland, 2012)

– foregrounds how knowledge is approached and developed within different fields of expertise; ”knowledge work”

Ways of approaching knowledge

• how knowledge is introduced to a school/professional field

• how knowledge is shared, circulated and accumulated

• knowledge produced and developed

• how knowledge is accessed

• relating generically framed knowledge to the specifics of a given work setting

• how gaps in knowledge are addressed

• how knowledge is validated/safeguarded (Nerland, 2008; 2012; Jensen & Christiansen, 2012)

• Sociocultural approaches to analysing talk (content and process) (Marková et al., 2007)

• How did the AfL groups talk about their mandate?

• How did they introduce and share knowledge about AfL, and what resources did they draw upon as part of this process?

• Orientation of their talk – individual vs collective

Focus of analysis

Weston school Bridges school

mandate: formal authority and responsibility to introduce AfL at the school - ”you can’t not do AfL”

mandate: ”think tank” – ”we make no decisions” – translators and buffers”making it edible”

knowledge introduced, shared and accumulated through a range of organisational routines and material resources

knowledge introduced, shared and accumulated through informal, face to face encounters, typically in teacher team meetings

knowledge development/ adaptationsystematic introduction of ideas and joint development work by teachers across the school

knowledge development/ adaptationmore ad hoc/ on demand; teachers worked informally with colleagues to adapt specific ideas and resources

efforts towards standardising AfL practice at the school – collective responsibility to make AfL ’work’

emphasised the individual autonomy of the teachers at the school

their talk oriented toward development at the school level

their talk oriented toward individual practice

Weston school Bridges school

positioned in a way that gave them formal authority - gave access to organisational routines and resources that allowed for the systematic introduction and circulation of knowledge

positioned in a way where they emphasised lack of authority- introduction and circulation of knowledge was more ’local’ in character (specific teacher teams) and more ad hoc

- a larger number of teachers at the school were simultaneously engaged in developing and adapting similar artefacts

- development and adaptation of artefacts based on demands arising out of (primarily individual) lesson planning and instructional activities

- assumed authority over the school leadership (but authority dependent on collective approaches to practices)

- individual autonomy emphasised, but at the same time responsibility for development of assessment practices at the school assigned to the leadership

Implications

• Different relationships between the organisational and the epistemic provide different opportunities and constraints for engaging in knowledge work

• Allows for different kinds of teacher agency in the face of reform

• New resources circulate across the school in different ways – informs who can access new ideas, and how

• Long term consequence: emphasis on individual autonomy more authority to the school leadership?

Thank you!

Hege.Hermansen@hioa.no