The Indicators of Becoming an Effective Science Teacher or why objectives in the rear-view mirror may be closer than they first appear Allan Blake & Jim McNally, University of Strathclyde

Dimensions of Early Professional Learning Identity Formation Emotional Relational Structural Material Cognitive Ethical Temporal

Identity Formation Newcomers into teaching are joining a community of practice but this transition involves, as Wenger (1998) argues, a relationship between learning and identity in which a sense of identity is integral to the individual’s feeling of belonging. The learning is transformative and is a process of becoming a new person or, in this case, a teacher. (McNally et al. 2009: 328)

From relationality… now a major conceptual theme, proposed in earlier research (McNally 1994; 1997): informal relational support as ‘natural mentoring’ experience of new teachers governed by ‘relational conditions’ with colleagues and pupils.

“I am being undermined at times when people [other teachers] come into the classroom and make comments in front of pupils about the way I am teaching or the way things are being done and I don’t necessarily think that is the way it should be done. I think perhaps that it should be said at a different time and certainly not in front of pupils.” (Butterkist)

…to relativity “To be able to measure the size of the effect of A on B. This is genuine social science”. (Blunkett 2000)

A general theory of relationality ρ = 0.642, p<0.01, N = 29 Suggests that 41 per cent of the variation in new teachers’ overall job satisfaction is attributable to working relationships with colleagues.

Interact

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Mean scores of the rank ordering (1-12) of most significant person with whom NTs interact Person categoryNMin.Max.Mean Std. Deviatio n Teacher your department Pupils I teach PT or faculty head Mentor/supporter Other new teacher Teacher in nearby room Family or friends Teacher other department Other staff Senior manage team LEA staff other Mean scores of the rank ordering (1-12) of most significant person with whom NTs interact Person categoryNMin.Max.Mean Std. Deviatio n Teacher your department Pupils I teach PT or faculty head Mentor/supporter Other new teacher Teacher in nearby room Family or friends Teacher other department Other staff Senior manage team LEA staff other Mean scores of the rank ordering (1-12) of most significant person with whom NTs interact Person categoryNMin.Max.Mean Std. Deviation Teacher your department Pupils I teach PT or faculty head Mentor/supporter Other new teacher Teacher in nearby room Family or friends Teacher other department Other staff Senior manage team LEA staff other

CEPSATI

“It doesn’t actually give anything of me, ‘Rachael the teacher’. It’s just like a ticky box style of a form and in some cases I did put in a lot of work and to an extent I would have liked to have blown my own horn, saying I put in all this work and look what I have achieved, whereas no I just put in fourteen-eleven-o-four (14/11/04).”

Interviewer: Did you give out the [Cepsati] questionnaire to the pupils? New Teacher : There were some rather bizarre pictures of me that they drew and there were also some comments about it was a bad class and they didn’t behave […] they are quite a difficult class. Interviewer: Was it helpful? NT: I think it was yes, I think it was quite helpful because it raised a couple of points about things that they were doing in class and how they were kind of doing them maybe differently. We were about to start a new course for the second years and it hadn’t been written yet, so with that class I sat down and spoke to them and said, well you raised these things and I know that you don’t like doing this or that. So we spoke about things and actually discussed what they would actually like to do and based the new course roughly round that, which is something that we were planning to do anyway but didn’t realise that they felt that strongly about it, so it was quite good to get input from them.

Boa de-constructor This night begins to lighten a little at the moment when linearity – which is not loss or absence but the repression of pluri-dimensional thought – relaxes its oppression because it begins to sterilize the technical and science economy that it has long favoured. (Derrida 1991: 50)