Білім беру бағдарламасы аясында оқытушылар біліктілігінің артуы республикалық ғылыми-әдістемелік конференция материалдарының жинағы

This article is for result of “science promahin’s work” by the finalist of “Bolashak” program of theachen hy educations in Moscow state conservatory named P.I. Tchaikovsky (sciense practic’s) assistant of science of arts, professor D.Zh. Zhumabekova is foresult of science theachen hy education in Russia.

«Болашак» бағдарламасы бойынша Мәскеу мемлекеттіқ консерваториясында ғылыми стажировка өткен бітірушінің (ғылыми зерттеу жұмысының нәтижіесі тұралы) өнертану ғылыми кандидаты, профессор Д.Ж.Жұмабекованың Ресейдегі ғылыми стажировка қорытындысына арналған.

Астана, АО «Центр международных программ»

Another root of networking is that professional learning takes place in a ‘community of practice’ (Wenger, 1998), because learning is not solely an individual process but also social; thus, there is a need for a deeper understanding, and creating of favourable conditions which support and encourage professional learning and commitment to a profession.

Therefore, in most approaches to school improvement, networking is regarded as an essential aspect. Academics and policymakers are promoting school-to-school or university-to-university networks based on various assumptions, the most important of which, presumably, is that schools have a shared interest in learning, and similar problems, which are easier to solve collaboratively; thus, there is a high degree of improvement at different levels, which helps to promote system-wide education change.

Simultaneously, it should be admitted that, although teachers, schools and other educators have already networked in different ways for many years, the idea of school improvement with help from formal networks has recently become a policy agenda in many education systems, particularly, in the UK, where a rapid movement towards collaboration and networking can be seen from 2002, when the National College for School Leadership (NCSL) established the Networked Learning Communities (NLC) (Stott et al., 2006).

However, it should be admitted that networking is a complicated phenomenon, with its benefits and possible concerns, and this fact gives an impetus for the present inquiry. I find it interesting and useful to explore the nature of networking, considering possible constraints as I believe that effective networking may be an integral part of teacher professional development.

Therefore, the first part will be devoted to the nature of networking with the aim to identify its purposes, role and forms. In the second part, I shall attempt to investigate possible concerns in the process of networking, and in the final part, I will examine the issue of leadership within effective networking.

The modern world can be characterised by the existence of various forms of organisations; however, there is a remarkable trend that teamwork and collaboration have become essential aspects in the process of raising organisational productivity and innovation. These new features of contemporary organisations are peculiar not only to one organisation, but also extend to the formation of inter-organisational networks (Ávila de Lima, 2010).

Networks may be categorised as well-suited organisational forms for an ‘information age’, in comparison with bureaucratic organisations (Ávila de Lima, 2010; Friedman, 2005; Lieberman, 2000). Looking at the present-day business world, it can be noticed that there is an increasing number of acquisitions, joint ventures, partnerships and other forms of alliances. As for the education world, networking, as an education phenomenon, supported by academics and policymakers, has become an integral and essential part of educational change.

The answer to the question of what networking is, may be different according to the field of usage. The most generalized is the definition from the Oxford English dictionary, where network is ‘a group or system of interconnected people or things’. As for schools, “the idea of networks suggests that schools working together in a collaborative effort would be more effective in enhancing organisational capacity and improving student learning than individual schools working on their own (Wohlstetter and Smith, 2000)” (Wohlstetter et al. 2003, p. 399).

Movement towards collaboration and networking has recently become one of the aspects of school improvement. In some countries, particular in the UK, it has become a policy agenda, as in 2002 the National College for School Leadership (NCSL) established Networked Learning Communities (NLC) (Stott et al., 2006).

The definition of NLC proposed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) emphasises knowledge transfer, and professional learning, and their position in the education structure, as it was based on the research of professional learning communities (PLC) (OECD, 2003, p.154):

Networked Learning Communities are purposefully led social entities that are characterised by a commitment to quality, rigour and a focus on outcomes... . They promote the dissemination of good practice, enhance the professional development of teachers, support capacity building in schools, mediate between centralised and decentralised structures, and assist in the process of re-structuring and re-culturing educational organisational systems.

One of the first main arguments for networking is rooted in the contemporary understanding of knowledge formation. It has been argued that along with the process of individual knowledge formation, knowledge creation is the process of participation in different cultural practices, in other words knowledge is created with a help of dialogues which makes ideas, beliefs, and ‘tacit knowledge’ (Polanyi, 1997) explicit and accessible. Thus, the central idea is learning from each other (Lieberman and Pointer Mace, 2010; Veugelers, 2005; Berry et al., 2005).

When people in Networked learning communities combine outside explicit knowledge with ‘tacit knowledge’, with the aim to solve their ‘burning’ issues, innovative solutions are more likely to arise (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). That is why, in Education, the process of supporting innovation and the development of networks play a crucial role, being an essential complement and not an alternative to existing forms of public provision (Bentley et al. Online, NCSL). In this light, Bentley (online, p.4) proposes four reasons for networking. The first is that “Networks foster innovation”, they are a “place for new ideas”, they “provide challenge and discipline to teachers’ learning” and the last is that “Networks help to integrate services”, based on the idea that to educate a child, there is a need for more than one teacher.

Having agreed with other scholars, Leiberman (2000) concludes that, as the result of teachers’ mutual learning, networks have become a vital force for teacher development. When teachers participate in networks (voluntarily), they are open to learning and have an opportunity to learn not only from their own experience, but also from research and other people, their colleagues or academics. Thus, there is an increase in professional development, as networks contribute to teachers learning, opens them to critique, and enlarges their repertoire (Lieberman and Pointer Mace, 2010; Wilding and Blackford, 2006; Varga-Atkins et al., 2009).

In regard to professional development, Veugelers and Zijlstra (2004) argue that networks extend professionalism, because, as a result of working together with other colleagues and being a part of a larger educational community, teachers broaden their perspectives. For instance, Veugelers (2005), Day and Hadfield (2004) point out, that within most networks there are various methods of professional development, particularly, action research, where by means of constant reflection in, on and about action (Schön, 1983), teachers are able to challenge their current educational practice and stimulate educational change.

Having acknowledged that one of the general goals of networking is learning and school (university) improvement, Muijs et al. (2010) offer two more possible goals of networking in the present education system. They indicate that networking broadens opportunities, as schools (universities) working with each other and with “other external agencies are more able to provide a full serves to students, addressing the social, health, and psychological needs of students in ways that would not be possible for individual schools” (p. 7). Another possible goal of networking, showed by them, is the idea of networking, bearing in mind the idea of business, which means “to save materials and staff costs to apply for funding through joint bids (Nooteboom, 2004) or for the provision of more effective and scalable CPD (continuing professional development) activities (Hadfield, 2005)” (p. 7).

Another role of networking, which is not usually divulged by most of the studies, but clearly stated by Veugelers & Zijlstra (2004) and Hadfield & Chapman (2009), is that of interpretation of Government Policies: when teachers of different schools (universities) discuss between themselves, there is a possibility of having better understanding of the consequences of governmental policy and different opportunities for restructuring education and implementing policy. Simultaneously, networks of teachers can also influence Government Policy, by means of giving feedback as a group. According to Veugeler’s (2005) point of view, networks are considered to be ‘bottom-up’ movements, as teachers and principals have an opportunity to express their opinion and benefit from being a large group of educators to influence educational policy. Moreover, networks promote the potential fundamentally, to change the local operation of an education system (Hadfield, Chapman, 2009).

Consequently, the increase of networks of schools or universities and teachers may be regarded as the process of teacher empowerment by means of letting them ‘speak’ and learn in a social context, where their ‘tacit knowledge’ is valued. In other words, teachers become an integral part of educational community (Veugelers and Zijlstra , 2004; Veugeler, 2005; Harris and Muijs, 2004; Stoll et al., 2006; Bolam, 2008).

In the bounds of system-wide educational improvement, specifically in the most challenging context, Chapman and Fullan (2007) state that “collaboration [networking] between differently performing schools (universities) can help to reduce the polarization of the education system, to the particular benefit of students who are on the edges of the system and performing relatively poorly” (p. 207).

However, along with collective aims, there might be an individual, self-centred motivation to be involved in networking. For instance, it may be a splendid opportunity for someone to take on a leadership role, which he or she could not achieve in his/her school or university, and in this way it helps to develop a career (Hadfield and Chapman, 2009). Additional prestige, for being a leader not only of one school, may also be a reason for school leaders to form a network (Muijs et al., 2010).

The literature (Ávila de Lima, 2010; Hadfield and Chapman, 2009; Holden, 2008) suggests that networks can be formal and informal, which distinguish the initiator of a network, in other words, characterizes the network ownership. The first one is when networks are externally sponsored with prearranged criteria for membership. In most cases, they are encouraged by central government with the aim to support the implementation of educational reforms; thus the ownership is located centrally. Whereas informal networks are described by shared ownership, and may be organized spontaneously and voluntarily with the aim to learn from each other, to share costs and risks, to stop competitors or to gain access to particular resources. Apart from these two extreme forms (‘voluntarily’ and ‘coercive’), Muijs et al. (2010) identify ‘intermediate’ as networks which cannot only purely occur in these two forms (for instance, when government encourages schools or universities to form their own network).

There are various advantages and disadvantages in all these forms, to describe which is beyond the scope of the present work. However, it could be indicated from the research conducted by Edge and Mylopoulos (2009) that there is a need for delicate balance, as “most learning communities (LC) would prefer to maintain the informality of their LC Network but also desire the opportunity to be formally recognised and supported for their LC Network-based initiatives” (p. 156).

As well as having different ownership, networks may vary in regard to the timescale of activities embarked on (Muijs et al., 2010). Some networks can be ‘short-term’ with immediate ‘burning’ issues to solve and not aimed to have ‘long term’ impact; whereas others have long term aims, which are associated with fundamental educational changes and usually take several years to achieve. At the same time, there are some networks which may be distinguished as ‘medium term’ as they make “short term impact and longer term development” (p. 8).

In regard to geographical spread, networks may consist of two neighbouring schools or universities, a group of universities across the country or even internationally, which is possible owing to the development of technology.

Playing a crucial role in teachers’ professional development and, as a consequence, students’ performance, networking may also have some concerns, which should always be taken into account during the process of establishing effective networking.

One of the evident risks, identified by many scholars (Ávila de Lima, 2010; Earl and Katz, 2007; Lieberman, 2000), is that of work overload. Teachers who are already overloaded in their own schools may simply not have energy and time to undertake additional activities. For instance, Wohlstetter et al. (2003) found in their study of four “school families”, that teachers in all these schools were challenged with every day routine work and additional activities within networking at the same time. As for Kazakhstan, it has become common for teachers to have extra job because of low salary. As a result, in some cases, they undertake extra work if only it was compensated financially.

Thus, a positive idea of “extended professionalism”, defined in England by Stenhouse (1975) as involving the commitment to constant reflection and questioning of one’s own teaching, readiness to be observed by other professionals, so as to have ‘critical friends’, and the ability and desire to observe and test theory in practice, may also be regarded as a possible concern owing to additional time demanded; because “extended professionals ” are those who participate in a different conferences, workshops or meetings within a network. However, there is no escape from it, as Stoll et al. (2003) state that “learning and change take time, and need investment of time” (p.98).

General literature of inter-organisational relationships (Berringer and Harrison, 2000) indicates some possible concerns which are also appropriate for networks in education. They identify management complexities, which may involve financial and organisational risks, a potential clash between partners’ “culture” (if a network consists of schools or universities with different vision), and partial loss of autonomy in decision-making.

Although the importance of collegiality between teachers is mainly a positive aspect in education, particularly within networking, it can also have a disastrous effect if collegiality is “contrived” (Hargreaves, 2003). Thus, one of the important factors to sustain effective networking with efficient collegiality is to have a “shared ownership” (Veugelers & Zijlstra, 2004), so that teachers themselves feel the need to collaborate, not because the Local Education Authorities require it, as in such situation network may have a disastrous effect on educational process.

Moreover, there is a need not only for every individual to have his/her own ownership, but also for collective ownership as well, and a useful reference point for this idea can be Trotman’s study (2009, p. 344), who states that “tacit recognition of change processes” is not sufficient for effective networking. In lending support to his argument, he cites Schratz (1993, p. 67-68), who has highlighted the powerful impact of “collective consciousness”.

One of the possible concerns, which is not usually considered by networks founders, but was identified as the result of Trotman’s study (2009), is that of the unpreparedness of participants, which consequently leads to their frustration. In most cases it may be the root of various problems during the process of networking, and the evident conclusion which may be drawn is that there is an immense need for training prior to establishing a network.

The last among those presented here, concerns, is the capacity of networks to find a balance between ‘’top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ strategies. The top (the policy) has to recognize the bottom-up initiatives, but at the same time the top should not use networks as simply a means for realisation of their interests, which is “exactly the danger networks fear” (Veugelers, 2005). The lack of balance may usually occur in officially sponsored networks where teachers are thoroughly selected and “trained to operate as key players and advocates for specific reforms in their schools, using a variety of proactive influence strategies to seduce principals and colleagues into their perspectives” (Ávila de Lima, 2010, p. 16).

Thus, it can be clearly seen that in order to establish effective networking, one should take into consideration all possible concerns, in order to be able to overcome them and to find a balance between all the stakeholders of the networks. Predictably, network as any other social organisation should have a proper leadership which ensures effective network operation.

Thus, it can be concluded that effective networking fosters knowledge formation, promotes innovation, and as a result of mutual learning supports teacher development and consequently improve education system. Moreover, networking broadens opportunities for school or universities and can help to save money (as it may ensure formal professional development at a low cost). However, one of the interesting roles, in my opinion, is that networking is considered to be a tool which helps to interpret government policy, and at the same time it may be a powerful system which can influence government policy, thus, empowering teachers.

According to Davis and Davis (2009), it is good when a leader is able to exercise strategic leadership, where one of the aspects is the importance for leaders to have the skills of ‘looking forwards and backwards’, with the aim to make fewer mistakes. Thus, the process of identifying possible concerns within networking was somewhat essential, as a result of which it may be concluded that leaders of any network should take into account issues such as: teachers’ workload, contrived collegiality, unequal relationships between, balance between ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ strategies, and management complexities.

With these cautions clearly in mind, it may be concluded that networking may be a powerful means of teacher professional development, particularly at the time of global educational change in our country.

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