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Student Voice and
Teacher Professional
Development
Knowledge Exchange
and Transformational
Learning
David Morris
Student Voice and Teacher Professional
Development
“David Morris makes concrete the possibilities for authentic student engage-
ment in teacher professional development. He presents a dialectical engagement
between theory and practice through a rich case study, to critique the potential
for democracy in schools through students-as-producers of their own educa-
tional experiences. Inside a humanist tradition in which empowering relation-
ships emerge, this returns to the idea that the educator must be educated: and
who better to do so than the students themselves?”
—Richard Hall, Professor of Education and Technology, De Montfort
University, UK
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland
AG 2019
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and trans-
mission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This Palgrave Pivot imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
This book is dedicated to those who departed between 2009 and 2014. In
memory of my brother, Phil; my mother, Ros; my father, John; my aunt,
Emmie; my beloved mother-in-law, Shigeko, and my best friend Nick
Thornton who was proud—while he was still here—to wear the Teach a
Teacher badge.
Preface
It is important to understand that this book not only reflects the culmi-
nation of over twenty years’ experience in education as a teacher of chil-
dren and adults but also stems from my own experiences of the education
system as a child and from my own experience of adult life. I received my
schooling during the 1960s and 1970s and the climate in schools back
then, as well as the social and pastoral attitudes towards children, was
very different to how they are at the time of writing this book. I have one
distinct memory from 1971 when I was nine years old and was in what
would now be Year 5. It was in the middle of winter, perhaps a January or
February afternoon, and it was a Design and Technology lesson where we
were making wicker baskets. I’m not sure why, but the permitted materi-
als included the use of needlework pins, perhaps to hold the work in
progress in place. It was, possibly, through a lack of engagement, teacher
supervision or clear instruction (class size 37), or plain malevolence that
two of my classmates chose to walk around the classroom and use the
pins to prick other children in the arm. This was, obviously, a terrible
thing to do, but there was no discussion and they were sent to the
Headteacher (with a note written by the teacher) and later returned to
the classroom extremely distressed. They had been caned and I was
shocked to see the extent of the damage to their hands which, to me,
conveyed an early and powerful message concerning the underlying bal-
ance of power between pupils and teachers.
vii
viii Preface
This book is based upon a Doctoral thesis in Education which was com-
pleted at the University of East London in July 2017. I will be forever
indebted to my trustworthy Director of Studies, Professor Gerry
Czerniawski, who saw this journey through from start to finish, through
thick and thin, and without whom the completion of this expedition
would not have been possible. Thank you so much for your faith and
belief in me.
I would also like to thank my supervisors—Dr. Alex Alexandrou, Dr.
Ayo Mansaray and Dr. John Trushell—who guided me at various points
along the way and without whom I would never have seen the light. A
special thanks also goes out to my friend and confidant Dr. Dave
Cudworth who kept me sane throughout the journey.
A book is never the product of one person’s effort or labour alone and
so I would like to express my gratitude to Eleanor Christie and Becky
Wyde at Palgrave for their belief, patience and support in getting my
work published. Thanks also to all the teachers and pupils who gave freely
of their time to talk to me—without you there would be nothing to write
about. Further thanks go to the Headteacher of the school and my gate-
keeper for letting me become a part of their community. I am unable to
name you here, but you know who you are.
The author would like to thank the following people for their kind
permission in allowing him to reproduce their work in this book:
xi
xii Acknowledgements
1 Introduction 1
Index149
xiii
Abbreviations
xv
xvi Abbreviations
xvii
List of Tables
Table 2.1 Patterns of partnership: How adults listen to and learn with
students in school 28
Table 3.1 Five levels of professional development 54
xix
1
Introduction
nologies, the pupils in the study reported here were engaged in providing
their teachers with ICT training in the use of Microsoft Office software
such as PowerPoint and Movie Maker.
In 2013 I began the fieldwork at Appledawn, which is a co-educational
academy for eleven- to eighteen-year-olds with approximately 1200
pupils on role. Along with a member of the Senior Management Team
(SMT) who acted as the gatekeeper for the research, it was agreed to carry
out the project with Year 8 pupils (twelve- to thirteen-year-olds). This
year group was chosen because they were neither new to the school nor
did they have the pressure of studying for examinations. Sixteen pupils
and eight teachers were involved in the project with pupils volunteering
and then nominating and approaching the teachers they wanted to work
with. Overall, I spent eighteen months in the school, and although I
parted ways having completed my fieldwork in 2014, the project (under
internal leadership) continued to develop and was still active at the time
the gatekeeper left the school to take up another post elsewhere in 2017.
Given that the study reported in this book involved pupils and teach-
ers using technology, there is, subsequently, some discussion of the gen-
erational digital debate in Chap. 6. It is important to establish at this
point, however, that this book supports the view that it is necessary to
take into account how people’s experiences, attitudes and backgrounds,
as opposed to just their age, may determine how they respond to or
engage with ICT and that the belief that age alone presents a barrier to
teachers engaging with technology may therefore be unfounded. Teachers
with traditionally held beliefs, for example, those favouring children
climbing trees rather than using computers (Cordes and Miller 2000),
may choose to resist using technology in their teaching or as part of
pupils’ learning, even if they are technologically competent themselves
(Hermans et al. 2008).
This book presents an argument for a much-needed step change as to
how, and from whom, teachers may receive or otherwise engage with
support for their professional learning. The overarching aim and purpose
of using an innovative student voice initiative was not just to support
teachers’ professional development with ICT but also to provide a
medium to build trust and empathy and thereby develop and enhance
relationships between pupils and teachers. The research questions for the
study reported here are as follows:
1 Introduction 5
How might pupils leading TPD with ICT influence the ways in which teachers
and pupils engage with technology?
In what ways might pupil-led TPD affect the relationships between pupils and
teachers, and between the pupils themselves?
How is pupil-led professional development for teachers different to peer-peer or
professionally led TPD, in terms of both experiences and skills development
for teachers and pupils?
also as a vehicle for steering school reform (Mitra 2004). The success of
student voice initiatives and the extent to which they are democratic pro-
cesses is largely dependent upon strategic leadership and the school envi-
ronment that this generates (Barber et al. 2010; Smyth 2006). However,
although school leadership and the debates concerning democracy when
implementing student voice initiatives are not the primary focus of this
book, they are given some consideration in Chap. 2.
From a wide—and ever-growing—body of literature on student voice,
it becomes clear that there is a diverse landscape and disparity in terms of
policy, practice and the perceived benefits and shortcomings that pupil-
led initiatives have in relationship to the role that these may or may not
play in schools (cf. Batchelor 2006; Bragg 2007; Demetriou and Wilson
2010; Fielding 2011, 2016; Gunter and Thomson 2007; Mitra et al.
2012; Rudduck 2004, 2005). Although there are studies which investi-
gate pupils’ involvement in school-wide reforms or where students take
on leadership roles (e.g., Goodman and Eren 2013; Lavery and Hine
2013; Taines 2014), research in this area is still thin on the ground.
Research on pupils providing TPD for their teachers is virtually non-
existent, and the only cases found (EdFutures 2018; Gamliel and Hazan
2014; Pachler et al. 2010) are considered later in this book, although
other studies do exist outside of the school setting where teenagers have
given ICT training to senior citizens (Kolodinsky et al. 2002; Lundt and
Vanderpan 2000).
In addition to student voice—and essential to interpreting and under-
standing the situation under investigation here—is the need to explore
the literature on TPD. This presents its own challenges because there is a
plethora of labels which surround this term which makes it difficult to
arrive at a clear definition although this receives further discussion in
Chap. 3. There is the widely held view that effective TPD can be mea-
sured in terms of its impact on the quality of teaching and learning
(Cordingley et al. 2003; DfE 2016; Goodall et al. 2005), and so, by
implication, the success of TPD initiatives can therefore be seen as being
synonymous with improved outcomes for pupils (McCormick et al. 2008;
Timperley 2008). With this equation between effective TPD and pupil
outcomes in mind, of particular significance to this book is the ubiquitous
assumption in the literature—whether tacitly or implied—that TPD will
1 Introduction 7
from the outside is more challenging than from within (McNiff et al.
2002). Regarding the study presented in this book, this was undertaken
by working cooperatively with the school whereby, as an outsider, I had
the opportunity to gain trust, build up a rapport with people as well as
getting an overall feel of the place and the situation (Denscombe 2007).
Although my gatekeeper contributed to how the project was launched,
I was keen to ensure that I was involved in deciding how pupils were to
be selected. It was agreed that rather than pupils being chosen by her,
myself or other staff in the school, the pupils would self-select themselves
and volunteer to participate in the research. Potential interest from the
student body was canvassed during a year group assembly as well as via a
notice circulated in Year 8 registers. The main message at the assembly
and in the circular was about how their participation could make a differ-
ence to shaping teaching and learning in school as well as having the
opportunity to become involved in the process of teaching their teachers
IT skills.
Those pupils who showed interest were directed to attend a lunchtime
meeting in a designated room, K-71, to meet me. Twenty-six pupils
turned up which represented just over 10% of the year group. During the
meeting, I was able to have a more detailed dialogue with the students
about what the project would entail and once this was explained to them,
they were able to ask questions. All pupils at the meeting—and new
arrivals at subsequent meetings—were given an information sheet and
consent form to be read and signed by themselves and their parents. The
initial meeting allowed pupils to talk about which teachers they wanted
to work with and why. Once consent forms were returned, pupils gave
my gatekeeper the names of those teachers they wanted to work with. In
the interest of building trust, I felt that it would provide an initial positive
foundation for the partnership if pupils chose the member of staff they
wanted to work with, rather than the other way around.
K-71, a small networked computer suite, became the regular space for
lunchtime meetings and the cohort of pupils gathered several more times
before I established a cut-off point. The reason for this was that pupils
who had come to previous meetings did not show up at the next one, and
pupils who had not attended previously arrived for the first time. During
this period, thirty pupils turned up and expressed interest in taking part
10 D. Morris
in the study. From that point onwards, I based the final cohort on those
who had shown engagement and commitment by attending regularly
and then invited only those pupils personally by name. Despite this, it
took a period of two to three months before I reached the final cohort
which consisted of sixteen pupils who formed themselves into eight pairs
with the view to each pair working with one teacher.
Once pupils had identified the teacher they wanted to work with, it
was agreed that it would be best if pupils approached their chosen teacher
in person. To help facilitate this process, I produced an information sheet
for them to share with their teacher and although this seemed straightfor-
ward, as with the selection of pupils, events did not turn out as expected
with the selection of staff. During the process of identifying and selecting
eight teachers, some twenty teachers were either approached or nomi-
nated by name. The pupil-teacher grid was therefore constantly changing
as some teachers declined and so others needed to be approached in their
place. After several months, the cohort of twenty-four participants for the
Teach a Teacher project was finalised—pupils (16) and teachers (8)—and
to protect both the pupils’ and teachers’ anonymity, pseudonyms
were used.
For both teachers and pupils, participation in the project ultimately
rested with recognising the extent to which they identified with the proj-
ect which in turn determined the degree to which they bonded with each
other in their commitment to achieving shared or common goals which,
in this case, involved a collaborative shift in the existing patterns of teach-
ing and learning using ICT. Ultimately, once the project began it was
down to the pupils to discuss with their teacher what it was they wanted
to learn, as well as where and when the training sessions would take place.
Given that the sample size was small and that I had not thought about
the problem of attrition beforehand, I was fortunate that over the dura-
tion of the project the cohort remained constant with only one teacher
and one pupil withdrawing over the eighteen-month period of the study.
This did mean, however, that I only carried out seven teacher interviews
rather than eight.
Much of the preparatory work described above—as well as ensuring I
had a place to carry out observations and interviews, even getting to
know my way around the building and know pupils’ names—needed to
1 Introduction 11
be in place before data could be collected. In this respect, this phase of the
research constituted a part of the piloting process. The data, upon which
this book draws, was gathered using the following methods: observations
of pupils working with their teachers (8), one-to-one teacher interviews
(7) and pupil focus groups (4). In addition, the gatekeeper, who was the
Deputy Headteacher at the school, was also interviewed. The pupil-
teacher observations were videoed and the interviews and focus groups
were audio recorded.
The main reasons for choosing observation as my principal method of
data collection was so that I could observe first-hand the following: (1)
How pupils and teachers negotiated the space they were in, for example
where they sat and who had control of the equipment and when; (2)
How pupils shared, negotiated and orchestrated the learning for their
teachers; (3) How the process of instruction physically took place, what
it was the teacher was being taught and what was happening on their
computer screen; (4) How the use of teaching strategies other than verbal
instructions was being employed, for example, pupils modelling opera-
tions for the teacher or pointing to menu options on screen and; (5) How
non-verbal behaviours such as gestures, body language and facial expres-
sions indicated levels of engagement or interest.
Having observed the teachers working with their pupils, it was logical
to probe their experiences, thoughts and feelings regarding this process
by following up with one-to-one interviews. Rather than limit the discus-
sion to a structured interview with closed questions, I favoured using
semi-structured interviews because they allowed me to probe, and in
doing so, revealed additional information and insights.
I chose to use individual interviews with teachers as a secondary
method of gathering data because they allowed me to: (1) Follow up and
ask them about what they or the pupils said or did during the observa-
tion; (2) Ask them about issues which they might otherwise be sensitive
about discussing in front of their peers, the pupils or members of the
Senior Management Team; (3) Explore or probe their answers to ques-
tions or adopt additional lines of inquiry which might not be easy to do
in a group and (4) Seek their individual opinions about the project and
about the process of role reversal and how they felt themselves and the
pupils had benefitted.
12 D. Morris
The dynamics of the focus groups also enabled the pupils to interact
with each other as opposed to myself controlling the discussion and the
pupils’ views therefore tended to predominate (Cohen et al. 2011). In
addition, the face-to-face meetings facilitated discussion as to how they
see the world and themselves (Deacon et al. 1999). In this regard, it was
felt that the focus groups would provide deeper insights into their experi-
ences and that the pupils would offer their opinions more readily than
during individual interviews. To a large extent, the questions given to the
groups for discussion mirrored those questions given to teachers with the
aim of providing insights and answers as well as triangulating findings. It
was also considered advantageous for the pupils to work in peer groups
where they could make sense of their experiences and formulate their
views (Barbour and Schostak 2005) and therefore be more likely to coop-
erate with one another (Creswell 2005).
To supplement the use of observations and teacher interviews, pupil
focus groups were useful because: (1) Their organisation afforded the
opportunity to have a gender balance and a mix of pupils in these groups
who had taught different teachers and were able to come together and
compare their experiences; (2) It offered a supportive environment for
pupils to voice their opinions openly about the project but without being
in the presence of the teachers; (3) It provided a social dynamic whereby
they could interact with peers they might not otherwise engage with and
(4) It offered a supportive forum where the exchange of ideas meant they
might volunteer opinions or ideas they might not have thought of
independently.
Once transcripts of the observations, interviews and focus groups had
been completed, I began seeking ways of classifying the data and started
out by taking a deductive approach to the analysis by identifying themes.
These provided initial typologies and taxonomies for measuring, cate-
gorising and ordering according to type or properties and hence this exer-
cise started the process of developing a coding system (Walliman 2006).
Taking one theme at a time, I recorded all the occurrences throughout
the full range of transcripts before moving onto the next. Some of the
themes identified (e.g., ‘relationships’) emerged from the literature on
student voice and literature concerned with TPD. Whilst involved in this
process I moved on to focussed coding to further break down themes or
1 Introduction 13
note new occurrences which had previously been missed. In doing so, I
moved beyond identifying concrete statements into analysing and inter-
preting them (Charmaz 2006), thereby adopting a process of inductive
analysis (Strauss and Corbin 1998). I worked with printed copies of the
transcripts and used a process of colour coding for themes. Sometimes
themes overlapped or gave rise to another strand which meant provi-
sional ‘double’ coding until statements were finally assigned to a theme.
Coding the data was a constantly expanding process and there were
moments when themes sometimes fractured. What was previously con-
sidered to be one theme, became two, for example, I found ‘benefits for
teachers’ split in two to also become ‘impact on teaching’, that is, two
sides emerged—benefits of taking part in the project and benefits per-
ceived in the classroom. I also found that new and unexpected themes
presented themselves such as the idea of ‘role reversal’ which derived from
the relationships between the pupils and their teachers and the explicit
use of that phrase in the transcripts. Having trawled through the data
many times, I reached a stage where I could see no new insights or themes
emerging and therefore reached a point of data saturation.
Morsian: 190.
"Vieläkö sietäisi venonen
Tuulen kahta kauheamman?" —
Päästi solmun kolmannenki:
Itse Ilmari jo suuttui,
Pääpalvelja taivaan herran;
Pohjaisvanka taivahalta
Nosti myrskyn, mastot huojuu,
Purjeet pahoin paiskelehtii,
Vene hyppii kallistuen.
Itse morsian vetihen 200.
Alemmaksi purren pohjaan,
Peitti silmänsä säkenet.
Päivä uus' kun alkoi paistaa,
Veljet kiipii kukkulalle
Katsomaan mihin sisar päätyi.
Päivän säteissä sulivat,
Kivettyivät kallioksi.
Vaakessa he nähdään vielä,
Vaskivenhe kalliona.
(Muist.)
49—53. Tyttö sitä tarkottaa, että pikku vieras vaan sentähden olisi
saapunut, että tulisi jättiläisiltä syödyksi.
2.
"Kobbu sodn?" —
"Čappis āsin kalles súollet koddī,
Valtī älume, valtī āra hauteb.
Ju leb mon tu vārutam,
I kalk čappis āsīt altait,
Baikkala pēlīt kaddīt."
Jū tē aččes käddīt,
Orrutakkait oddosti, ceggoi.
Muistutuksia.
20. mehtsin. M.
24. hankāhiste.
48. čuohčutam. —
49. niära posld, muinoin läsnä oleva palvelija, tässä: yhen käden
palvelija.
50. čoggānādtam. —
64. juhčā.
89. keärak, kiärak veden pintaa suom. kärki; kerrēk il. hastav,
hastav.
177. kute.
180. tīvam.
208. peädnakines.
211. taktites.
221. oivemus.
Herjedal'ista.