This work suggests the need to find a few elements - strategies and dispositifs - that if included in initial training, induction and in-service training, can facilitate the acquisition of a consistent professional vision and improve the processes themselves in a perspective of long life learning, namely that can overcome a clear demarcation between initial and on in-service training.These elements are: 1) paths based on recursion between immersion in workplace and distancing for a reflection on the practices enacted in an educational environment, 2) use of devices that favour recursion between immersion and distancing (analysis of practices, vicariant tools for practices, e-portfolio), 3) triangulation during the path both in the immersion phase and in the distancing of different perspectives thanks to the interaction among researchers, experts and novices. This contribution checks for the presence of the preceding elements in all steps of training and analyzes the results obtained in the direction of strengthening a professionalizing posture in the three steps.
TopIntroduction
How can we teach a generative theoretical-practical recursion? How can we favour the habitus that belongs to the professionals and that researching attitude that extracts teaching and ameliorative indications from the analysis of our practices?
This contribution analyses the transformations in professional teaching, from technical rationality to reflexive rationality. In particular, it tries to understand how Lifelong learning (LLL) modifies on-the-job teachers training and discusses the initial training and induction as it shifts the focus from the wealth of knowledge to the acknowledgement of the training. This approach needs to:
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Find useful dispositifs to obtain a professional vision;
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Recursively use dispositifs that are similar to the initial training, in new-employees and on-job training; and
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Contemplate the presence and interaction of different figures who encourage the observation and interpretation of the practices inside the devices.
In adherence with the above, we think that the principle of alternation is an important reference and, in line with the principle, this contribution proposes two dispositifs:
The use of these dispositifs will be examined in three different contexts: in-service teachers training, newly qualified teachers training and initial training.
We discuss three case studies: firstly, in-service training involving about 40 teachers in two different experiences in two Italian regions over the period 2008-2016. Secondly, we analyse an experience of Italian national newly qualified teachers training involving about 28.000 teachers in the 2014/15 school year. Then we examine a case of intial teachers training at the University of Macerata involving about 180 student-teachers over the two years, 2014/2015 and 2015/2016.
TopState Of The Art And Background Theories
There are many factors of uncertainty in the teaching, therefore, in the training of teachers.
Several studies have pointed out that these days a teacher has to train students for an undisclosed future and for professions that do not exist today1 while a wide scope for change is foreseeable even in the existing professions caused by the constant progress of the technologies (O’Neil, 2014). The hyper-diversity among classes is another element of complexity “resulting from intensified transmigration in the wake of global flows of people, information, capital, and technology (McCarty, 2014).
This “involves change to professional practice and hence professional development” (Evans, 2008) it requires the presence of professionals who can plan their procedures and their personal trajectory; rather than being experts in mechanically applying standard procedures which derive from what Schon (1983) defined technical rationality.