Supporting teachers as a profession of knowledge developers and mobilisers

Abstract

Introduction This paper sets out ideas and suggestions for how the College of Teaching could support teachers and the teaching profession as a community of knowledge developers and mobilisers where teachers' professional expertise and judgement are combined with the use of research evidence in daily practices to benefit students' engagement, learning, equity and wellbeing, and where teachers collectively are recognised and valued publicly as a knowledgebased profession. This paper is informed by evidence from England and internationally; it is also, intentionally, written as a discussion paper with the aim to engage and provoke debate about the possibilities to be advanced and pitfalls to be avoided by the College of Teaching. Teaching as a knowledgebased profession: it is or it isn't or it depends…? Let's start with an obvious – but sometimes unstated, disputed or even rejected – statement that teaching is the knowledge profession. Initial teacher education requires attention to developing teachers' professional knowledge (OECD, 2016; Shulman, 1986) and continuing professional development, when involving evidenceinformed quality content and effective processes linked to students' learning needs and teachers' professional practices (CUREE, 2012; Cordingley et al., 2015; DarlingHammond et al., 2009; Timperley, 2008), can further extend, deepen and/or renew teachers' professional knowledge. In practice, teachers draw on a repertoire of knowledge, skills and practices from their professional training and continuing learning, their experiences and their cumulative expertise, plus a range of sources of evidence, whether from research, data, discussion and working with peers, engagement with students, online information, school leadership and school improvement practices, and many more.