Thirdly, we need to explore the scope of accomplished teaching. Motivated and
engaged teachers are essential for the generation and exemplification of interac-
tional and contributory expertise. However, we need to consider whether we follow
Berliner’s( 2004 ) proposition that expert teachers will be a small cadre of highly
skilled teachers or should whether we should be aspiring to a critical mass of
teachers demonstrating accomplished teaching. In Scottish education there is a clear
move towards looking at accomplished teaching as the building of a critical mass of
highly skilled and effective teachers that will have a system level impact. If that is
the case, then we need to establish ways of developing, recognising and if neces-
sary, rewarding expert practice particularly in mid-career for teachers who are not
pursuing promotion through the management structure. However, this has impli-
cations for career long professional learning.
If we are to raise the quality of teaching and build greater capacity and capability
for accomplished teaching across the education system, we need to consider the
design of professional learning. One of the early theorists on expertise is Glaser
who addressed the issue of the agency of the learner as part of the processes of
developing expertise. In this he proposes a developmental process:
- externally supported: taught coherent and structured programmes of
development - transitional: decrease in the structured learning and more emphasis on‘guided’
learning - self-regulatory: in this stage a developing expert controls much more of their
own learning environment. Here the conditions for deliberate practice are
arranged. The emerging expert receives the feedback they need, and also
chooses the level of challenge for their own development (Glaser cited in
Berliner 2001 : 478).
6.9 Conclusion
Using the idea of expertise helps to consider the intersection between experience,
practice and ongoing professional learning. It seems essential that we move away
from that idea that continuing professional learning is about keeping teachers
up-to-date and instead consider professional learning as a means of fostering
expertise. Therefore, there clearly needs to be a practice-based learning element but
side by side with this, there needs to be opportunities for teachers focus on and
reflect deeply on their practice and the impact this has on the learners. This
exploration of and reflection on practice is not a solitary process but is very much a
process of development that takes place within a community of practice. In this,
however, we have to be cautious of the dangers of conformity within an inward
looking culture and of the over routinsation of practice. The building of interac-
tional expertise has to be a collective enterprise to build knowledge and commit-
ment within the specific contexts of practice but where the processes found by
98 M.A. McMahon et al.