Teaching and Learning as Complex Phenomena: Implications for Policy and Teacher Professional Identity

Abstract

Widespread support exists for the view that teaching is a complex task (Schulman, 2004), that learning is a complex, dynamic phenomenon and that classrooms are ‘complex systems’ (Hardman, 2010). Systems behaving in complex, emergent ways cannot be successfully ‘managed’ by rigid, scripted practices but demand flexibility, responsiveness and in situ judgement. However, these dispositions appear only fleetingly, if at all, on professional standards rubrics and statutory descriptors of effective teaching. Discretionary judgement is implied but rarely emphasised. Drawing on the first author's doctoral study of ‘emergent learning’ in a primary school classroom, we demonstrate the importance of pre- and in-service teachers developing expert in-the-moment professional judgement to navigate the emergent and complex nature of classroom learning and argue that professional judgement should enjoy a more prominent, less tacit, position in pre-service initial teacher education (ITE) and in-service Continuing Professional Development (CPD). This chapter briefly describes and presents findings from the doctoral research which focused on how learning emerges bottom-up through classroom interactions, discusses the implications of this for teachers and concludes by setting an agenda for future research into teachers' experiences of agency and autonomy.

Citation

Knight, B. and Harrison, N. (2024), "Teaching and Learning as Complex Phenomena: Implications for Policy and Teacher Professional Identity", Waller, R., Andrews, J. and Clark, T. (Ed.) Critical Perspectives on Educational Policies and Professional Identities, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 87-104. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83753-332-920241006