Understanding teachers’ professional knowledge

Jaargang 2011 | Editie 4 | 07 december 2011
Gepubliceerd door: John Loughran

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Samenvatting

A considerable literature exists that describes a diversity of views on the nature of teachers’ professional knowledge of practice. However, despite the proliferation of these views, understanding what teachers’ professional knowledge really is, what it looks like and, how it might be interpreted and implemented through classroom actions is exceptionally difficult. As teachers, we often struggle to define our knowledge because it is largely tacit. That is not really surprising because we are so busy doing teaching that there is little time, opportunity or expectation to talk about why we do things the way we do. Because our knowledge of our practice is tacit, it is often misunderstood - despite the fact that it is fundamental to quality classroom teaching and learning.
Teachers’ professional knowledge of practice matters because:
- it is important to be able to recognize and articulate the expertise that is encompassed in quality practice for ourselves and for the wider community;
- there is a continual need to communicate and share our knowledge of practice in ways that extends beyond tips and tricks as the sole measure (or expectation) of classroom expertise;
- we  need to be reminded that the skills we develop in managing the dilemmas and tensions inherent in working with 25 or so different students each lesson is a basis for specialist knowledge;
- expertise needs to be able to be shared in ways that does not always call on each individual to reinvent the wheel; and,
- teachers’ professional knowledge encapsulates the very essence of being an accomplished practitioner.
In the actions we take to facilitate student learning, we are continually developing our professional knowledge of practice.
By valuing what we do, in accepting that good teaching requires skills, knowledge and abilities, it stands to reason that such knowledge needs to be recognized, developed and cultivated. Articulating our professional knowledge requires a shared language from which genuine meaning, application and value to our daily work as teachers might be derived. This paper offers one way of conceptualizing teachers’ professional knowledge of practice.