Everyday learning : exploring opportunities for professional learning in the day-to-day work of primary school teachers

A pervasive aspect of education in the school system over the last decade has been a ‘standards-based’ approach to learning and teaching (Bloomfield, 2009; Doecke & Parr, 2008; Hayes, 2006; Macdonald, Mitchell & Mayer, 2006, Thomson, 2008). This is evident in curriculum and assessment standards for students, and models of professional standards for teachers. The frameworks of‘standards’ are complex and varied but they represent an attempt to articulate what students and teachers ‘ought to know, understand and be able to do’. By definition standards are situated at a general level and they are not tailored to comprehend diversity, the rich specificity ofindividual teachers, students and school communities. This research develops an alternative view oflearning for teachers that seeks to move beyond the confines ofpre-determined frameworks of curriculum, assessment and professional standards. The research focuses on a small group ofprimary school teachers working in a Kindergarten to Year 12 school in an outer western suburb of Melbourne, Australia. These teachers inquired into the opportunities for professional learning within their day-to-day work, exploring ‘what’ and ‘how’ they learnt from the daily events, activities and experiences that occur in classrooms and schools. My research reveals that the way the everyday is experienced by teachers in schools and classrooms has important implications for learning. The research points to ways in which learning results from the full spectrum of distinctive everyday events, activities and experiences, situated in a network of relationships that constitute a teacher’s personal and professional contexts. Standards-based frameworks and structures that do not capture and encourage opportunities for learning based on the day-to-day work of teachers exclude an important dimension of teachers’ professional lives and limit the possibilities for expanding what we might know and understand about 12 Everyday Learning: Exploring opportunities for professional learning in the day-to-day work of primary school teachers learning and teaching. This thesis argues for an approach to teachers’ professional learning that is inquiry focused and grounded in the cumulative holistic knowledge embedded in the day-to-day practices of teaching.