Podcast: Kayte Haselgrove and Paul Tully on professionalism and expertise

Full transcript

Paul: Hello and welcome to the Education and Training Foundation (ETF) Podcast and the third in the series on professionalism. My name is Paul Tully, Head of Professionalism at the ETF, and I'm talking to teachers and managers from the sector about their professional practice. This series offers a celebration of what is best in the sector, as well as signposting opportunities for change and reflection. Today's episode will look at expertise and to help me explore this topic. I am joined by Kayte Haselgrove from the University of Derby. Good afternoon, Kayte.

Kayte: Hello, Paul. Thanks for having me here.

Paul: It's an absolute pleasure. Really good to have you. Tell us something about your career in the FE sector today, Kayte?

Kayte: At the moment, I'm a post-14 and FE and Skills lecturer at the University of Derby. I'm also external examiner at a couple of universities so it's really nice to see how the programmes are running in different places and how our teachers and learners of tomorrow are being prepared. And I also do a bit of freelance work as a writer, mentor, trainer, generally with Touch Consulting on ETF programmes, such as AP Connect and CfEM.

Paul: So quite a quite a varied career to date, Kayte, that's great, because we're going to be drawing on those experiences for this podcast. Well, this episode builds on a model of professionalism that was first introduced in June 2021 in SET’s intuition journal. Here, three ingredients were outlined for creating a professional culture inside FE institutions; teacher research projects, which build expertise and confidence; teaching circles, which value peer dialogue, support and collaboration; and 360-degree appraisal, in which feedback is used to strengthen an individual's purpose and development. We turn our attention today to expertise, often cited by researchers and teachers as one of the single most important aspects of excellent teaching. But what do we mean by expertise? Why is it important? And should we spend more time developing it? These are questions we shall be looking at in this session. Let's kick off Kayte, what do we mean by expertise?

Kayte: To be an expert in a subject is to be able to understand it well enough to describe it, I suppose, if I'm thinking about teacher training, and to demonstrate it in a multiple of ways. So, if you were to ask me what an expert is, in teaching, it's kind of threefold, as far as I'm concerned; you are an expert in your subject or industry, but in order to be an expert teacher, you also need to be an expert in pedagogy as well. And with regards to the emotional intelligence side and pastoral care, so I suppose expertise is drawing all the skills you need together in order to provide a service or support in a certain area.

Paul: Okay. I mean, that might include things like knowledge and skills, and techniques, curriculum know-how, so perhaps a range of things that we might bucket under the label of expertise. We are talking about it, but why does it matter in teaching?

Kayte: Well, I mean, in order to be able to teach a subject, like I say, you need to know it back to front, you need to know where the misconceptions lie, in order to be able to identify stumbling points for students, or being an expert means that you can describe it in more than one way. Some of the issues that I do see regularly with teachers who perhaps aren't experts as yet, is where they explain something to a student, the student doesn't understand and they repeatedly explain it in the same way, because they're not quite sure how to how to change the way that they're approaching it. A perfect example, is a vocational teacher trying to teach maths. They know how they do it, but they don't have that subject knowledge or expertise in maths in order to be able to work out how to get it across to that student.

Paul: Do you think that expertise gives a teacher more weapons or more choices to make in terms of dealing with a particular situation?

Kayte: Well, absolutely. I mean, for a start, it makes a teacher feel more confident that they know how to approach certain situations.

Paul: Okay, well, let's have a look at what the literature says. The literature states that an expert is someone widely recognised as a reliable source of knowledge, technique or skill, and hear the debate between talent and practice is at its most intense. Now, you might have heard of this research, Kayte, in your teacher training. Anders Ericsson and his colleagues formally investigated the role of deliberate practice in expert performance in 1993, and he came up with that magic 10,000 hours, or 10 years of practice, needed to become an expert. Erickson stated that expertise was acquired through sustained, intentional practice, and he pointed to elite sportsmen, concert violinists and chess grandmasters as examples. Kayte, in your role as a teacher, trainer and learning coach, do you take anything away from Erickson's work and is it useful in your view?

Kayte: As a university our vision is to develop the excellent teachers of the 21st century. And I think that in itself shows an appreciation for how long it actually takes to become an excellent teacher. I think that in the year of development, I know that the Government is looking at increasing those hours of practical experience on placement. But I do think you can leave teacher training as a really brilliant teacher, but it takes experience, professional development, opportunities with feedback, which Erickson talks about, in order to really develop your skills as a teacher. So, I think that's how I would relate it to teacher training.

Paul: In your role as a teacher, trainer and learning coach, what do you take away from Erickson's work?

Kayte: Well, I do believe that becoming an expert in your practice takes an awful lot of professional development and engagement in that task or skill, continual practice as well. So, practising getting the feedback, which he talks a lot about in his study. But we talk about, at university, our vision being creating excellent teachers of tomorrow. So, developing first class professionals, who can inspire and lead tomorrow. I mean, it does actually say, in the 21st century, but it doesn't mean in 10 years’ time, you know, so arguably, I think, yes, to the 10,000 hours with regards to practising what you want to become an expert in or professional in, but also, I do think that you can be a really, really excellent teacher, right from the get go, maybe after your year of development with regards to placement and delivery on the course. So yes, to lots of practice, but no to 10,000 hours, I think that's a little excessive, personally.

Paul: It's one of those things, isn't it, that as a teacher, trainer, you've got trainees coming in, there's a limited time in the classroom, to spend with them talking about both theories and techniques and reflections on practice. Certainly, in my experience, sometimes you get trainees who expect an instant development of their expertise, and they miss that point about practice, that it does take time and effort and intensity sometimes to master something. And, and Geoff Petty is always talking about this, you know – sometimes it takes up to maybe 20 goes at something before you can really feel that you're on top of it, or that you've mastered something. I mean, in your experience, do you feel that some trainees do struggle with that notion that they can't be an outstanding teacher by next week, so to speak?

Kayte: Yeah, absolutely. We've just done some mentor training and we talk a lot about how the theory comes with the practice and the practice comes with the theory. And they've got to be completely interlinked, in order for that student to progress. An awful lot of them come along, incredibly passionate about their subject; they think everybody's going to want to learn about it, too, because they're so enthusiastic, but it takes that practice to identify those areas for development or those barriers to learning or barriers to teaching, which you don't get from not having that experience, basically.

Paul: Absolutely. I mean, Erickson may or may not feature in some of our teacher training plans. I mean, he's an example who is a recent researcher who's tried to look at the psychological evidence and consider what we need in order to become an expert and why expertise is important. We know that Erickson made two observations about deliberate practice. The first was to set explicit goals accompanied by immediate feedback. Erikson believed this was best done with a skilled coach or teacher, I think that's important that the teacher has a very important role in the development of expertise and, and for teachers, perhaps, we're talking about mentors and coaches. And the second was to offer opportunities to repeat the task after a period of reflection. I think that's important as well, that simply to reflect without any further practice, is perhaps doing the trainee a disservice in the need to go back and relook at something and redo something.

Kayte: Learning how to reflect on your practice is actually part of part of the course well, isn't it it's not just that you do it as an assignment. Being a reflective practitioner is how you become an excellent practitioner, because you do something, you think about it, and then you try it again and try to make it better.

Paul: Absolutely right, and, and certainly the role of feedback, and that's where, you know, an experienced mentor or an experienced teacher for a trainee can be really, really important. And feedback that we found in the research on professionalism is also important to the experience of professionalism. Research indicates that it can signal appreciation for a teacher's performance, which has implications for how we might manage teachers on a day-to-day basis. And certainly, Kayte you know, when you are in feedback situations, with trainees, they find it exceptionally useful, do they not, in receiving high quality feedback as precision feedback which is looking at specific things. I mean, I don't know if you've got any examples from your recent experience about how you've used feedback?

Kayte: Well, for a start, we ensure that our feedback is developmental and not judgmental, and we recently picked this apart with the trainee so they know exactly what they should be expecting, and so they can challenge it if they're not getting that developmental feedback, so for us, yes, feedback needs to be incredibly specific, but also highlighting the areas of strength so that students know what to repeat. But as well as those areas for development so that they can see why something hasn't worked, perhaps indicating the theory behind that. Scaffolding seems to be quite a common one where they use that and we have to pick apart why it might not have worked and what steps they might have missed.

Paul: I think there are some important points there, and certainly the point that earlier that you made about 10,000 hours. I mean, expertise may indeed denote superior performance, but teachers are not necessarily striving for world class performance every time they set foot in the classroom, despite sometimes what trainees would like to do, sometimes it is just simply not realistic. And while 10,000 hours may be the model for global superstardom, actually, for most teachers, they're simply looking to get better over much shorter timeframes. But there's a baggage to that term expertise, Kayte, isn't there? That sense of elitism – do you get that sense? I mean, what does the term potentially imply for you?

Kayte: I mean, I can see there are dangerously linked to the word as you know, what level do you claim to be an expert in relation to teacher education, Level three in a subject is where you can be deemed an expert. But then in other scenarios, you might not be deemed an expert until you've got a PhD or you know, or beyond, which kind of brings us back to that level of experience with the 10,000 hours. So, 10,000 hours makes you an expert, or can you be an expert before that, with regards to being an excellent teacher? Because you've had that practice, you've really engaged in that development and you've got teachers who've done it for 10,000 hours, and they haven't engaged in development and that means that they aren't brilliant at that, they're not an expert? I'd also say there's a bit of fear of labelling yourself as an expert.

Paul: Absolutely. So frame of reference is important. And, you know, thinking about the domain of practice on which the label expertise is applied, I think that's important as well. And 10,000 hours may be great to describe the practice of the concert violinist. And in fact, Erickson later said that actually, it was more likely to be 25,000 hours and higher. You know, those kinds of timescales are, are literally very difficult to comprehend. From a trainee’s perspective, who's sitting on a teacher training course, looking to pick up the first signs of techniques, the first knowledge, the first sense of becoming a teacher, and expertise for them is simply mastering perhaps something a lot simpler.

Let me go on. Research has indicated that FE teachers are reluctant to call themselves experts, because it sounds elitist because it flies in the face of lifelong learning. It's exactly what Kayte's just been talking about. How can one be an expert if one is always learning? And despite this tension, Erikson believed expertise was essential to improvement and flagged the importance of coaches, mentors and other critical friends as the catalyst that could explain this. Now listeners, I refer to the ETF’s AP Connect programme, mentoring, training and Advanced Teacher Status (ATS) as examples of where the development of expertise has been prioritised. Kayte, you've got experience of the AP Connect programme, haven’t you?

Kayte: I certainly have. I've been a participant and I work on the back end of AP Connect as well.

Paul: Okay, in your view, what's the relationship between expertise and professionalism?

Kayte: Well, in order to act professionally, you've got to be confident and current in your knowledge and skills, which relate to your expertise. So as a teacher, it's how you gain credibility by being an expert, and therefore, knowing the best ways to teach learners your subject as well as overcome any misconceptions in the learning of that subject. I had a little look at the Professional Standards before I came to do this and look at where exactly they include expertise, and there's an entire section that's linked to expertise and professional skills. That section lists the core skills of a teacher, so motivation, assessment, inclusion, quality, and so on, which suggests that developing expertise is absolutely essential towards the professionalism of a teacher.

Paul: Absolutely. I mean, that's important, isn't it to have some of those things captured within our framework on Professional Standards, which we'll talk about in a future podcast episode. Certainly, in my own research in the post-16 sector, subject expertise was regarded as the single most important attribute of professionalism, even more important actually, than teaching qualifications. So, both of those were valued. But more generally, expertise was found to inspire trust, empower judgement and instal teacher confidence. Are we doing enough to support the development of teachers’ subject expertise? What's your thoughts about that, Kayte?

Kayte: I'd say maybe, maybe not. It's hugely central to our programme at Derby. We talk a lot about pedagogical content knowledge, Sherman's theory on pedagogy, and understanding the pedagogy that relates directly to your subject and therefore being able to identify misconceptions and know how to overcome them. So, we do a lot of work towards that on programme, subject specialist mentors which you mentioned earlier, we have subject specialist pathways identified subject specialist tutorials, you can see it's incredibly high on our list. And we've recently been exploring subject specialists networks for further education, of which we have not found many at all. There's plenty for kind of English, maths, ESOL… but when it comes to the subject specialisms, like sport, there's a couple. There's the odd LinkedIn network on hospitality, for instance. So I'd say no, we're not doing enough across country or, you know, through different training providers. In order to create successful subject specialism networks, we need to find a wicked problem and I give a couple examples of that. So a wicked problem, as far as I understand, is something that hasn't had got an answer yet, nobody's worked out how to deal with it. So English and maths managers, there's an awful lot of subject pressures networks, that link to English and maths because we started with conditions of funding, meaning that we had 1000s of students sitting GCSE and Functional Skills, which meant that English and maths managers had a wicked problem, we all had the same problem, so we all came together to try to work it out.

Joy in FE is another perfect example. So during the pandemic, we all had the problem of one, our mental health and well being as teachers, and to how we were going to deal with being teachers in Further Education during the pandemic. So we all had this wicked problem, which brought us all together. So in order to develop, I'd say you could say the same about STEM, you could say the same about CfEM: The issue being how do we raise achievement in maths at the moment? Nobody's worked out yet. So in order to create successful subject specialist networks, we need to identify what the wicked problem is, for that subject specialism so that it draws people in, and they want to actually engage in this in this network, which is I think where it's fallen down so far is that people just say, “Hey, let's talk about our subject in this area”. Why would you invest your time in that? So that's what I think we need to do in order to develop those networks in FE, particularly.

Paul: And I think that's a lesson I think, for all subject networks, and for organisations that offer those including the ETF, which is to actually find where these wicked problems exist in different pockets of practice. So that we can ask the questions that people are asking at the frontline and solve them as a community. So that's a brilliant point that you've made there. What do you trainees get from those networks? What are you advising him to get from that when you ask them to attend those?

Kayte: So at the moment, we've not necessarily asked them to attend, we've asked them to identify them. And the ones that we want them to find the ones that they can treat as almost a staff room. So yes, you've got your subject specialist networks where you can attend training. And it's that kind of formal training where nationally we're addressing a certain issue. But for our trainees, it's about finding somewhere to talk about the issues that are coming up in your subject and how to overcome them. That's what we're looking for it and to share that passion.

Paul: I think that's an interesting set of developments there because it seems to mirror something that Professor Jocelyn Robson was writing about, and perhaps more than two decades ago; Jocelyn Robson, who I think is still active in the area of professionalism research, believes that we could do more to support teacher subject expertise, she felt it was essential to a healthy teacher identity. Now that work seems to have picked up again, in the last four to five years. This call has now been taken seriously by Professor Kevin Orr, for example, and colleagues who have explored subject pedagogy for STEM teachers, published on behalf of the Gatsby Foundation, and papers can be found on its website. The ATS and T Level Professional Development Programme provides a national example where CPD is supporting teachers to upskill their subject knowledge and skills.

Now, the role of teaching qualifications, which is what we've been talking about earlier, in supporting teachers, pedagogic knowledge and skills has also been hotly debated. Now, you probably remember this, but in 2012, the Lingfield Commission abolished statutory teacher training, which meant that teachers were no longer legally required to be qualified to teach, which is a controversial move, as many would attest to, with critics, echoing sociologist Philip Eliot's point that professions should not be the refuge of the unqualified so and as discussions around teacher training qualifications are now picking up again. Let's consider that last point in more detail. Would you say that teaching qualifications helped to develop teacher expertise?

Kayte: I think that's what they're kind of aimed to do entirely actually. Having looked at the IT Framework very recently, as things have changed, it talks about being designed to help trainee teachers take their first steps towards becoming experts. And you know, that's right at the very beginning of the framework. We explore evidence informed teaching, as I said pedagogical content knowledge, and all elements covered in the Professional Standards. So yes, I would say teaching qualifications helped develop teacher expertise and in turn, help them to become professionals. And looking at all these different sort of elements that we use all these different frameworks we use, it's clear that it's not just about loving your subject, there's so much more to it, which is reflected in the training qualifications, I would say.

Paul: Absolutely. And certainly, I think you've been alluding to this, throughout your answers, really, that, you know, teacher qualifications are a place where trainees find their teacher identity. And it's not not an instant process, it's one isn't it, that it develops in the classroom, and it particularly develops out there, when they're actually teaching and within the context of an expert mentor that can help guide support and if necessary, correct what they are doing to point them in the right direction.

Kayte: That also develops when they're allowed a safe space. So, they're not only out there practising so by taking away the professional qualification, they haven't got their own safe space in which to learn and to be the student who can make mistakes and come back and identify how to how to develop in those areas.

Paul: Well, that's a really good point, isn't it? I mean, having that safe space for new teachers, new, maybe new to the Further Education and Training sector, maybe even new to teaching their subject matter. Having that space where you can make mistakes and perhaps ask questions and seek answers to some of the key issues that you're confronted with outside there in real time in the classroom. Teacher qualifications do provide that necessary space where you can make mistakes, and it's okay, isn't it to make mistakes?

I'm going to move on and stay on that point about professional identity. Professor Damian Page at Wolverhampton University produced an interesting account of construction teachers a few years ago, who thought of themselves as builders first and teacher second. So, asking them to teach outside their specialism as a personal tutor, for example, or working in unfamiliar settings created huge anxiety, and he concluded that teachers who consistently worked outside their subject specialism were more likely to develop feelings of failure as they felt exposed in situations that stretched their credibility. Kayte, how difficult in your view is it for teachers to work across a range of programmes, some of which might be outside their original scope of expertise?

Kayte: Well, I've seen it firsthand. Before I had children, I delivered training across the country on what we call promoting and developing English or maths within vocational subjects. And with the huge rise in the need for English or maths in FE with the changes to conditions in funding, many vocational tutors were moved towards having to add English or math towards on to their timetables, and it caused huge amounts of fear and anxiety.

Paul: Well, some good points there and certainly for some time, which I think is what you've been recognising, for those when you've been teaching English and maths. The FE and Training sector has embraced a concept of dual professionalism, which recognises the twin importance of subject expertise and teaching skills. It's a popular description of the work of teachers with a strong vocational and technical focus, but equally it can apply to all teachers. Now while some researchers have criticised for being too simple, for others, dual professionalis, positions expertise at the heart of teaching practice, and here, expertise is considered a driver of new ideas and innovations. Kayte, you've specialised in the teaching of English and maths, as you've talked about earlier, and have supported many, many teachers over the last few years. So in that context, what do expert teachers do differently to their less experienced colleagues?

Kayte: I touched on it earlier with regards to applying the theory, you know, the pedagogy that's suitable for that subject, but even your kind of generalised theory. So like I say, scaffolding, the less experienced teacher will attempt to do this, but not particularly hit every step that you need in order to scaffold something. And with regards to knowing how to deliver things in different ways, so that you can help with common misconceptions. You also find that they fail to check understanding at all points as well. So there's a common open questions, “Is everybody okay? Okay, great, let's move on”. But what about checking everybody's understanding every single step so that they can move to that next bit, which is probably a kind of a good example, again, of a lack of scaffolding and understanding of the theory of being able to apply that.

Paul: Sure. In your experience of teaching English and maths and supporting teachers, because I know that I mean, we met didn't we back a few years on a joint on a joint CPD day and we bumped into each other and you were supporting teachers in English and maths and I was doing something on outstanding teaching practice. So, when you when you do design those sessions to improve the expertise of your teachers, many of whom have never taught English and maths before, what sorts of techniques and things that you do that, you know, work with building that expertise.

Kayte: So, with vocational teachers, I tended to focus on a three-step programme. So first of all, we identified where English and maths were embedded, so where they naturally arose, then we looked at how we could promote English and maths. So right, you are using maths and English here, this is really important, modelling that behaviour from the vocational teacher, because this was during the transition between the sort of the changes that came after the conditions of funding where students all of a sudden had to do English and maths. So, the promoting was very important for that time. But then we look at how you can develop English and maths within your subject.

So, one part that was really important was showing vocational tutors that they already did English and maths; that's quite a common sort of approach to it. They are an expert within their subjects in the English and maths that they need for their subjects. They might not know how to how to deliver that to a student, but they can certainly identify where English or maths comes up and then go away and think, if I need to do ratios, how do I explain that to students, so breaking it down for them. I would approach this very differently with an English subject specialist who wants to deliver GCSE English, for instance. But in that context, we look at that three-stage programme, so embedding opportunities to promote and then how to develop those skills.

Paul: And again, that that practice that you've just identified, there seems to resonate also with researchers that have actually studied the nature of expertise, some of which is in the area of mathematics, in particular in in English. In some papers, too. I just want to just mention this particular researcher, or set a couple of researchers who've done some great work here, a child with a work of Lloyd and Pain. Now this goes back to 2012, so it's a bit dated, but they studied hairdressing teachers, and found that subject expertise was mainly developed in three ways. First, by undertaking a real work placement opposition. Second by taking up training opportunities held by product suppliers. And third, and this is important and I think you've mentioned this before, through collaborative learning and reflection within that institution. Now these highlight John boss Doc's point that opportunities for dialogue, promote engagement and understanding of subject theory. And what Schuurman called pedagogic content knowledge is what you've mentioned earlier, Kayte, or PCK for short, in which teachers learn techniques which are unique to their discipline. And certainly, from the ETF’s perspective, it has responded to this research by investing in industry placements and collaborative networks to promote the development of teaching expertise and technical teaching. The Industry Insights programme, for example, enables T Level teachers up to five days in an industry setting to update their subject knowledge. So, for listeners that are interested in that more details can be found on the ETF’s website. Given all this, Kayte, is there sufficient focus on developing teacher expertise in organisational CPD programmes? And I think that you've already kind of suggested that more could be done. But if you had a magic wand, what two or three changes would you instantly create looks could develop further the importance of expertise?

Kayte: I think the model of the OTLA projects and the CfEM approach, both ETF programmes – those models are absolutely brilliant because you identify an area of development specifically within that topic. So, it might be English, maths, digital skills, then you look at a long-term project on how to how to address it. It's an action research approach. I think if this was applied in colleges, this is what I tried to roll out in my old college when I was CPD and Learning manager, where we looked at areas for development with regards to the Professional Standards, and they identified where they would like to develop in. And I think one key is choice for teachers not to be told what they need to improve on and then put on training for them to identify what they would like to train in.

Two, would be long-term training as well, so not just a quick, I'll go on a one-day training course, and then go and go and put it in your work and go put it into teaching because they don't develop understanding there, they don’t get any time for trial and error. And then, I mean equally, the trainers that are internal to the providers, they actually need to be experts in the areas that are delivering in, so you might get an advanced practitioner… I mean, the newest model of advanced practitioners seems to be pulling them all out of the subject specialist areas and making central, which means yes more access for teaching learning and assessments, the pedagogy side, but then there's less access for your subject specialist knowledge. So, if I could wave a magic wand, I'd have advanced practitioners, subject specialist, advanced practitioners in every department, I would extend training so that there's room for trial and error and reflection. And I would ensure that this choice, and that people are, there's no deficit model, people aren't being forced to engage in training that a quality team believe they need, but what they're interested in and how they want to develop.

Paul: That's three excellent points there. And for those advanced practitioners, learning coaches who are listening in, your roles are absolutely crucial here to supporting and developing teachers’ expertise. And your own expertise is also incredibly important, as Kayte has just been talking about, because you're modelling that expertise and you're providing a role model for teachers to aspire to. So that type of role, rather than being a cost overhead, in my experience, sometimes it's looked upon as a cost overhead, is actually an essential investment for organisations. And I think that's, hopefully Kayte and I, we would agree on that.

Kayte: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you can't improve if you don't invest. And the advanced practitioners are key to being that that specialist, that expert that can support others to become professionals. And like, like we mentioned earlier about that currency and developing confidence in your practice.

Paul: Absolutely. I mean, even across the offset literature, particularly in the context of teacher training, developing one subject and pedagogic expertise has been highlighted as really important. And it's this connection with quality. That suggests expertise is a window on professionalism. Okay, we've run out of time, unfortunately could have gone on for a long lot longer. This brings us to an end to this podcast episode. A warm thank you to Kayte Haselgrove from the University of Derby for sharing her insights on expertise and how it can support a rejuvenated professionalism. Thank you, Kayte.

Kayte: Thank you so much for having me, Paul. it's been a delight.

Paul: Thank you. Both subject expertise and pedagogic skills are important, but it's the former that is often neglected in CPD programmes. We've also heard today that when this is considered, teachers feel empowered and motivated. Please check out our website for further information on available ETF programmes, many of which are offered free of charge. And if you want to know more about the T Level support and industry placements, subject networks or roof specific training, this can be found on the ETFs TLPD pages. Alternatively, you can contact me Paul Tully at paul.tully@etfoundation.co.uk. For more information about today's episode. If you would like to be a speaker, on a future episode, drop me a line. In the meantime, thank you for listening.