Experienced teachers' informal learning: Learning activities and changes in behavior and cognition

Abstract

In this study on 32 teachers' learning in an informal learning environment, we analyzed changes in conceptions and behavior regarding students' active and self-regulated learning (ASL), and relations with the teachers' learning activities. Few relations were found between observed changes in behavior and learning activities. Changes in conceptions appeared to correlate with the activities obtaining new ideas, experimenting with new methods, and reflecting on why certain teaching methods seem to be effective and others not. Only one teacher became more ASL-oriented in both behavior and conceptions. The apparent variation in teachers' informal learning should lead to differentiated support for teacher learning in the workplace.

Introduction

“Realising that moving towards this new pedagogy is necessary, makes me happy on the one hand but also somewhat tense. You encounter a continuously changing situation, changing texts, changing approaches to teaching. To work “on automatic pilot” really belongs to the past now”. (Ted⁴, one of the teachers in our research group)

Teachers like Ted are faced with continuous change and need to learn how to incorporate new insights into their teaching practice. Ted has not joined a professional development trajectory and has received little support for learning. How do teachers learn in such an informal learning environment? Although there is a body of literature describing teacher learning in formal learning contexts, little is known yet about the kind of teacher learning that occurs in the absence of any facilitation for learning (Richardson & Placier, 2001). In the study reported on in this article the focus is on experienced teachers' informal learning. In this study, informal learning refers to learning in the workplace where systematical support of learning, such as professional development trajectories, is absent. More insight into teachers' learning in the workplace is highly important, because in today's society lifelong learning is becoming the standard in all kind of professional fields. However, when entering the profession, teachers are usually only incidentally supported in their learning (Van Eekelen et al., 2006, Verloop et al., 2001). For experienced teachers, informal learning is usually the only option for learning.

Nevertheless, teachers report that even when learning is not supported there are all kind of activities they undertake during work that they learn from (Dunn and Shriner, 1999, Kwakman, 2003, Lohman and Woolf, 2001). The question then is what this unsupported learning through daily work looks like and whether and how teachers change through this learning. More insight in teacher learning in an informal learning environment may help to organize support for teacher learning in a way that increases activities that contribute to desired changes and decreases activities that prevent this change. The main question addressed in this study is: What is the relation between teachers' learning outcomes and their learning activities in an informal learning environment?

The study aims to contribute to understanding teachers' informal learning by combining the insights from two types of studies on learning activities. The first type of studies provides inventories of work activities teachers report to learn from, such as collaborating, reading, and experimenting with teaching methods (e.g., Lohman & Woolf, 2001). The second type of studies focuses on the mental activities involved in learning (e.g., Mansvelder-Longayroux, Beijaard, & Verloop, 2007). These insights were the starting point for our study in which we collected data during one year from 32 experienced teachers who did not join any professional development program during that year. These data included both qualitative and quantitative data of teachers' learning experiences and their changes in conceptions and behavior.