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- Forsberg, Eva, et al.
(author)
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Knowledge sources and autonomy : German and Swedish teachers’ continuing professional development of assessment knowledge
- 2012
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In: Professional Development in Education. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1941-5257 .- 1941-5265. ; 38:5, s. 741-758
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article presents a comparative study of German and Swedish teachers’ continuing professional development (CPD) in relation to student assessment. It investigates the sources teachers use to improve their knowledge about assessment and the relationship this has to different national contexts. Assessment, as well as evaluation, defines what counts as valid knowledge and how this can be measured. As such, assessment is a major focus of teaching and specifies constraints and possibilities for teacher practice in the classroom. Teachers are seen as agents in a regulated CPD marketplace, and within this framework teachers make decisions about the knowledge sources they use to educate themselves about assessment. These choices can be seen as expressions of what they perceive as important and relevant in relation to assessment. We argue that this expression of opinion can contribute to an understanding of teachers’ professional autonomy, especially in relation to their decisions about a crucial aspect of their profession. In this way, we propose a way to conceptualize the impact of the national context on teachers’ CPD.
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- Wermke, Wieland, 1979-
(author)
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A question of trustworthiness? : Teachers' perceptions of knowledge sources in the continuing professional development marketplace in Germany and Sweden
- 2012
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In: Teaching and Teacher Education. - : Elsevier BV. - 0742-051X .- 1879-2480. ; 28:4, s. 618-627
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article aims to investigate teachers' perception of sources of knowledge in their continuing professional development (CPD). It investigates whether the perceived importance of a source can be related to its trustworthiness. Knowledge sources comprise institutions and colleagues, who produce knowledge for teachers' development. The issues are examined by analysis of questionnaire studies on teachers' CPD with a sample size of 711 teachers in Germany and Sweden. The results show that a knowledge source's trustworthiness is a relevant and significant predictor for its importance in teachers' CPD. However, the national context in which teachers work also has a considerable influence.
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4. |
- Wermke, Wieland, 1979-
(author)
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Continuing professional development in context : Teachers' continuing professional development culture in Germany and Sweden
- 2011
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In: Professional Development in Education. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1941-5257 .- 1941-5265. ; 37:5, s. 665-683
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article investigates the continuing professional development (CPD) culture ofteachers, and asks how it is influenced by properties of the school system. Itreports the results of a questionnaire study with 418 secondary teachers fromSweden and Germany. The results show highly significant differences betweenSwedish and German teachers’ practice of and beliefs in teachers’ CPD. Thisimplies a relevant effect of properties of the school system on the teachers’ CPD.The differences are explained by varying perceptions of sources of knowledge forCPD, the influence of different school governance instruments, and differenthistorically developed role definitions of teachers in both countries.
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5. |
- Wermke, Wieland, 1979-
(author)
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Development and Autonomy : Conceptualising teachers’ continuing professional development in different national contexts
- 2013
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis investigates teachers’ perceptions of continuing professional development (CPD) in Germany and Sweden with a questionnaire study comprising a total of 711 mainly lower secondary teachers. Three conceptual terms are elaborated and explained. Teachers act in a CPD marketplace that is constituted by several sources of knowledge which offer opportunities for teachers’ development. How teachers act in the marketplace is a key part of their CPD culture. The study reveals similarities in the two cases regarding the importance of colleagues as well as informal development activities, but there are also significant differences. One the one hand, German teachers can be described as more active in their CPD than their Swedish colleagues in relation to particular aspects of their profession such as assessment, and more suspicious of knowledge from elsewhere, on the other.In order to understand the differences, I argue for an extended focus on the impact of the national context, in terms of socially and historically significant structures and traditions of the teaching profession. The thesis focuses on a crucial aspect with a particular explanatory value for differing CPD tendencies in various national contexts: Autonomy from a governance perspective. This phenomenon, which does indeed change across time and space, is investigated from a socio-historical perspective in both contexts, building on Margaret Archer’s analytic dualism of structure and agency, and a dual pronged model of teacher autonomy. The latter distinguishes institutional autonomy, regarding legal or status issues, from service autonomy related to the practical issues in schools and classrooms. Since these dimensions can be either extended or restricted, different categories evolve which enable us to understand the differences between the two cases.Finally, by using the findings on the German and Swedish teaching profession, a theoretical framework is presented that relates the certain forms of teacher autonomy in particular national contexts to likely CPD cultures that teachers share.
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6. |
- Wermke, Wieland, 1979-, et al.
(author)
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Silent and explicit borrowing of international policy discourses. The case of the Swedish teacher education reforms of 2001 and 2011
- 2014
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In: Education Inquiry. - : Informa UK Limited. - 2000-4508. ; 5:4, s. 445-460
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The article presents different models of comparative education by discussing the government committee reports (SOU) which prepared the Swedish teacher education reforms of 2001 and 2011. These serve as examples for different kinds of policy borrowing from an international Bologna process discourse in national government document. The article facilitates Waldow (2009) term of “silent borrowing”. The reform of 2001 shows distinct references to international discourses without making this explicit. The reform of 2011 is then an example for explicit borrowing. The related government committee report refers very obvious to the Bologna process. However, this is seen as strategy in order to mark its distinction to its predecessor reform. Our cases are assumed to show how socio-historical and political contexts condition national discourses’ resources of legitimation.
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8. |
- Wermke, Wieland, 1979-
(author)
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Teachers’ Trust in Knowledge Sources for Continuing Professional Development : Investigating Trust and Trustworthiness in School Systems
- 2014. - 1
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In: Trust and School Life. - New York : Springer. - 9789401780131 - 9789401780148 ; , s. 335-352, s. 335-352
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Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This chapter presents a research study on trust in sources of knowledge for teachers’ continuing professional development (CPD), comparing two national contexts, Germany and Sweden. From the vantage point of the project’s findings, considerations are made about trust in institutions, which for example offer CPD for teachers, and trust as a property in school systems. Examining trust relationships beyond the individual school community requires an understanding of the effect of nation-specific particularities on the emergence of trust. This chapter proposes to focus on the trustworthiness of institutions from the teachers’ perspective. It is argued that trustworthiness can be partly measured through the same categories that are demonstrated to be productive for examining relational trust, as proposed by Bryk and Schneider (Trust in schools. A core ressource for improvement, New York, Russell Sage Foundation, 2004), including perceived competence, understanding and respect of others. It is furthermore argued that trust and trustworthiness in school systems should be investigated by comparative case study designs that depict trust as an aspect of complex interrelated systems in different contexts. In addition, in order to understand trust as property of systems, data are required that capture the collective voice of the teaching profession. With respect to the proposed case study, the findings of the questionnaire study must then be interpreted in both a case and a socio-historically sensitive manner, in order to give meaning to similarities and differences of trust between the countries investigated. Finally, also drawing on Bryk and Schneider (Trust in schools. A core ressource for improvement, New York, Russell Sage Foundation, 2004), this chapter suggests different categories of trust that can contribute to a conceptualisation of diverse context-specific trust patterns. These are illustrated by examples taken from the German and Swedish cases.
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