���Early Childhood Education Departments’ Network of Teaching Practice�

National and Kapodistrian

University of Athens

Aim of the presentation

• To present the Academic Network of Teaching Practice
• To highlight a) its orientations and actions/interventions,

b) its course and its gradual evolution into a scientific /

professional community of learning and practice.

c) the crucial events of this course and the efforts

and the ways towards compositions.

The crucial events

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• The Network was born in 2007
• without clear goals…. …..
• let’s meet…..
• let’s see….
• maybe it would help
• even in these conditions it is obvious that there was an issue that concerned us: what about the Practicum, how do we give meaning to it in each university department but also what about teacher education how could we be effective and efficient in supporring the student teachers

effective and efficient

Network orientations

We decided to organise meetings every year in different cities:

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Network meetings

Συναντήσεις δικτύου

Network orientations

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The initial orientations of this network were:

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the dialogue & the systematic exchange

of opinions, experiences, proposals, visions

regarding Practicum, but also the

the teacher education in general

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Obvious also the reflexion framework: teacher education and the models conducted by each department but also the research of a common code in order to share, exchange and achieve a deeper understanding of each other

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Interventions I

Gradually the reflection and the dialogue broadened:

• Researches on Practicum were carried out
• The members shared researches’ findings at workshops we organized in our meetings
• The first Network publication of these researches was the product of this dynamic orientation and course

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It seems definitive the importance of building collective knowledge through the shared effort to question as well as to develop the ways we organize Practicum in each department. A development based in research.

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(McLaughlin & Mitra, 2001).

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�Ιt becomes clear that�

• We gradually adopted the research model in the way we worked and collaborated
• We didn't necessarily agree
• We had chosen different ways to organize the Practicum
• However, we decided to investigate them and discuss the emerging evidence

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Towards the reflective model

• Most importantly, this was a way that satisfied us.
• It could broaden our thinking.
• New questions arose.
• We were experiencing the reflective model in practice.
• Why not our students?
• This was also the first step in adopting the reflective model: to understand the value of inquiry for improving practice

Towards the reflective model

• Reflection, evidence-based decision-making, and collaboration guided all of us
• We have also created a community of explanation (Freeman, 1999).
• We had “confidence in our ability to learn from our own separate but also common inquiry work”
• and we tried to develop our own knowledge, focusing “on the types of learning we need to move forward in our focused efforts”

(Mclaughlin and Talbert 2006).

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Interventions I

• It also seems that gradually we have dared and tool another important step: the co-construction of a community of practice:

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• WE shared
• Visions for learning and responsibility for student teachers growth.
• A guiding ethic of inquiry and continuous improvement.
• Collective examination of our practices and related data.
• Reliance on dialogue, reflection and experimentation in practice.
• Regular opportunities built into the work schedule for collaboration.
• A commitment to high level learning for all student teachers.
• A primary focus on working in a participatory and collective way.

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Nehring & Fitzsimons 2011

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Interventions ΙΙ

• Τhe next important step in the course of our professional community is our effort to creating together through discussions, reflection and research
• The product of this effort was our second publication: an interactive manual for the Practicum filled with authentic examples, questions, prompts for creative actions and recordings…

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Student teachers �observe, intervene and reflect

Next steps

• There were plans and proposals for the next steps,
• but as in life, we were interrupted by upheavals (pandemic)

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Our footprint

• we created a dynamic scientific community, with a participatory & collaborative function, which:
• meets systematically, interacts, plans, inquire, implements & reflects on actions related to the development, recording, evolution
• collectively explores new alternatives in the organization of Ptacticum based on research and by extension in teacher education
• attempts interventions in the academic & scientific community...and some at the level of political intervention

Mainly

We showed that

• in difficult times collectives are the way out
• and maybe that is the most important thing