School Orientation to Teacher Learning and the Cultivation of Ecologies for Innovation: A National Study of Teachers in England

Abstract

In this chapter, we discuss the importance of school orientation to teacher learning for cultivating ecologies of innovation. A supportive ecology is one where the relationships between school practices for organisational and teacher learning and teachers' values on those practices are a focus of a school's critical self-evaluation and double-loop learning processes. Through factor analysis of 1126 teacher survey responses about their perceptions of school practices and their values, 4 underlying dimensions of school orientation were identified: ``providing formal systems and supports for professional learning{''}, ``performance management{''}, ``social capital conditions for learning{''} and ``supporting collaboration and networking{''}. Overall, values and practices were in closest alignment for ``performance management{''} and ``social capital conditions{''}. More marked patterns of values-practice dissonance were recorded for ``providing formal systems and supports for professional learning{''} and ``supporting collaboration and networking{''}. These dimensions of school orientation to learning were used as the basis for cluster analysis. Through cluster analysis, four distinctive groupings of teachers were identified, each reflecting a distinctive combination of teachers' perceptions of school practices and values related to their school's orientation to learning: highly supportive; supportive but under-networked; complacent; and underdeveloped and dissonant. We developed this new typology of school orientation to learning on perhaps the largest and most extensive national survey of teachers in England conducted to date. We conclude that schools in England tend to experience difficulty in leveraging dissonances between school practices for teacher learning and what teachers value in order to create policies and strategies for establishing a supportive ecology for innovation.