Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University of Geneva,

13-15 September 2006

How do teachers learn and develop throughout their professional career?

The case of French teachers in compulsory education and within an educational priority area 1

Michel Grangeat
Laboratory of Educational Sciences (L.S.E. UPMF & IUFM) – Grenoble – France

This paper aims to understand the ways in which teachers develop their professional competences
throughout their professional activities. Goals are: i) identifying these ways; ii) characterizing
competence improvement; iii) outlining both workplace organisations and continuing professional
development programmes in order to make teaching more effective; such improvement aims specially
that teachers take account of low-skilled learners more efficiently.

Within this paper, professional competences are analysed according the framework of the
professional pedagogies (‘didactique professionnelle’ in French). This framework has been recently
designed by several French researchers (Pastré, 2004; Rogalski, 2004; Samurçay & Rabardel, 2004)
some of whom are connected through common European approaches (Boreham, Samurçay &
Fischer, 2002). This framework aims to characterize professional knowledge in order to design more
effective professional development programmes.

1- Professional development as conceptualisation enhancing

The professional pedagogies model seems particularly relevant in order to identify both processes
and evidence of professional development (Pastré, Mayen, Vergnaud, 2006). This framework itself
refers to the ergonomic psychological one, which presumes that professionals develop themselves by
acting at work: competences are enhanced when agents challenge their own approach to the tasks in
order to carry them out more efficiently. In this way, these models are close to the work process
knowledge framework (Boreham, 2004).
Nevertheless, two points of this model have to be clarified. Firstly, ‘agent’ defines the one who
carries out the professional activity when the latter is complex and constricts choices that can be made
among many ways to achieve the task. Secondly, ‘competence’ represents the way in which agents
both make meaning at work and achieve the task. Hence, competences are neither simple skills nor
some kind of standards which could be applied by the agents or on themselves.

- An analysis of professional activities

Understanding the professional competence development entails an analysis of professional
activities in two ways.

1) Identifying the relationship between the work context and the agent’s activities according to three
elements (Leplat,1997) :
- The situation (i.e. how the professional environment is organized);
- The work prescription (i.e. what one had to do);
- The actual activities (i.e. what one does eventually).
Some components of the work context (situation and prescription) constrict the agent’s activities, but
the real activities always have some overlap with the prescribed task. Particularly, a complex work
situation strengthens the difference between the prescribed task ad the actual activities because
agents have constantly to make up their minds when facing unexpected events which appear within
their professional contexts.
1
Grangeat, M. (2006, September). How do teachers learn and develop throughout their professional career? The case of
French teachers in compulsory education and within an educational priority area. Paper presented at the European Conference
on Educational Research, Geneva, Switzerland.
 2) Identifying the cognitive part of the work activities, since professional activities are seen as an
articulation of two processes (Samurçay et Rabardel, 2004):
- The productive activities which consist in altering an object in the concrete world (e.g.
to repair a car; to make the students understand new contents);
- The constructive activities which change agents while they carry out the task (e.g. to
understand how to achieve a new kind of diagnosis; to develop a new way to enlist students
in a new task).
Such a difference between constructive and productive activity is used by Stevenson (2000)
drowning a framework which connects experiential and theoretical forms of knowledge:

‘This framework seeks to achieve connectedness by relating knowledge, vocation, being, living and
working through the concept of generative and productive activity. It is doing that is taken to be central
in all these concerns – doing in a generative and productive sense. Doing is seen to be the expression
of knowledge. Doing can be saying or any other kind of activity. The knowledge, which constitutes
doing, is seen as being developed as the individual is transformed in pursuit of vocation.’ (Stevenson,
2000, 513).

Currently, within professional pedagogies (Pastré, 2005) and ergonomic psychology (Darses, Hoc &
Chauvin, 2004) frameworks, understanding agents’ cognitive activities is becoming the focus of
research.

In the case of teaching studies, analysing constructive activities seems to be amongst the most
interesting purposes: it complements the studies of teachers’ professional development which have to
take into account the teachers’ own history and identity (Hodkinson & Hodkinson, 2003), and it tackles
the problem of the teachers’ conceptions about the curriculum, which are likely to underpin a part of
teaching effectiveness (Bernstein, 1975). This paper focuses only on teachers’ cognitive activity.

1.1- Two components of the cognitive activities

According to Pastré (2005) who has conducted many studies in different kinds of companies, the
core of a competence could be described as the network of an agent’s conceptions about the tasks.
Such a network changes with experience: when facing new problems, an agent’s operative model
enlarges and reorganises towards a better stage of understanding and abstraction. This network,
named an ‘operative model’, is the set of components of the situation that the agent takes into account
in order to accomplish the work; it is organised on some essential dimensions, which gather different
ways of acting efficiently.

Each dimension of the operative model consists of three elements:

1) A set of a few ‘activity organizers’ – ‘concepts organisateurs’ – which allows agents to act
rapidly and efficiently; it results both from scientific knowledge learned during a formal
curriculum and from pragmatic knowledge shared by agents within the workplace.

2) A set of a few ‘indicators’ taken either directly from the situation (e.g. noise increase) or
indirectly from an artefact (e.g. computer’s monitor).

3) The range of ‘action pace’ – régime de fonctionnement – which agents could face within their
activity; it results from a categorization of different situations that the agent either has met
previously or is able to design proactively without actual encounter.

According to Vergnaud (1996), such a cognitive organisation of the activity is based on the
conceptualisation process, more precisely on schemata enlargement and structuring. The schema is
defined as the element which undertakes the transition from action to its representation. It means an
identifiable unit of an agent’s activity which corresponds to a specific goal and a clearly defined time
limit. This activity unit is quite fixed for a given set of situations: changes could be made according to
parameters of the situation but the overall organisation remains the same.

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 The schema consists of four elements:

1) ‘Operational invariants’ which enable the identification of relevant information according to a

specific object of the activity;

2) ‘Goals’ which cover the planning stage of the activity;

3) ‘Action rules’ which consist in generating the action:agreeing on it, collecting information for it
and monitoring it;

4) ‘Reference knowledge’ which enable one situation to be matched to another, taking into
account similarities and singularities, in order to define a strategy for action.

While an agent’s experience grows, schemata enlarge and deepen integrating more and more
different work situations. In this way, such an increasing cognitive structure, which organises the
professional activity, underpins the improvement of the operative model, and therefore increasing
agent’s efficiency for overcoming problems which are embodied within complex work situations.

In order to characterize the extent of the work context taken into account by each teacher, this paper
use the concepts of operative model. In order to identify the means which each teacher use to enlarge
this context, the study lies on the identification of the action rules.

- Knowledge immersed within the work process

Boreham (2002) stresses the point that professional knowledge enhancement arises out of agents’
efforts to resolve contradictions among what theoretical knowledge enables them to predict, what the
standard operating procedure tells them to do and what the reality that confronts them is.

“construction of WPK often arise out of efforts to resolve contradictions between what the
theory predicts will happen (or what standard operating procedures are telling the [agent] to
do) and the reality that confronts them” (Boreham, 2002: 8).

Thus, taking account of the agents’ personal meanings —especially the means they use to cope with
critical situations— is crucial to understanding the way that they conduct and achieve their
professional activity.

Indeed, these kinds of meanings —called work process knowledge— can be conceptualised as :

1) A consequence of the agents’ involvement in work, particularly when they are solving
problems collectively.

2) A linkage amongst their personal professional experience (especially about other agents,
partners, users, machines, artefacts, and previous problems), all the resources that exist in
the work situation (work teams, procedure manuals, internet, etc.), and theoretical knowledge.

3) A network amongst individual and collective knowledge since in complex, dynamic and
unpredictable work environments, agents cannot make meanings at work on their own. In
such situations, agents need a social structure, a relevant work organisation, for creating
shared meanings in order to make the situation more intelligible and controllable.

The special qualities of work process knowledge consist in the fact that it is defined as a cognitive
model that aggregates knowledge which both come from scientific and empirical fields, and entail
individual and collective competences. This concept stresses the embodiment of work-related
knowledge in the work process itself and the crucial role of professional exchanges about day-to-day
work problem-solving, in order to achieve complex tasks in a flexible and dynamic professional
situation.

The paper focuses on the role of both discussions amongst the teachers about professional
problems, and the extent of the resources they use, in order to make sufficient sense of the work
situation.

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 Hence, this paper should contribute to the Lifelong Learning European Project, which currently
requires accelerating the pace of reforms - especially within education, in order to improve equity
(CEC, 2005). These European goals are quite ambitious according to the French educational system,
and entail challenging traditional teachers’ teaching and learning approaches which seems quite
individual and cellular. The study aims to identify these approaches.

2- The case of French teachers

Data come from interviews which are conducted with teachers (N=60) who work within educational
priority areas of the city of Grenoble, and whom students are from 8 to 14 year-olds. Inside this
sample, a first variable concerns teachers’ experience: 21 are beginners (they are under 30 and have
been working for less than 2 years in the school); 24 are experienced (over 35). A second variable
concerns the teachers’ involvement in interactions targeting professional issues: 14 teachers
(Ordinary) limit their commitments to ordinary and compulsory meetings; 21 teachers (Responsible)
participate in numerous meetings and projects with other teachers or school partners. Before
participating, all the interviewees were given a written statement of the project’s aims and a copy of
the guidelines. They were informed that if they agreed to participate, their views might be quoted
anonymously in publications. Two text analyses are conducted.

- Role of professional experience

A first text analysis (powered with Tropes; this software guarantees pertinence and
comprehensiveness) provides a score at each interview according to the extent of the work context
taking into account by each teacher. The variables are both the pronouns and the occurrence of
specific notions (learner, colleague, partner, content, pedagogies, etc.). This score allows a
categorization within four stages ranged from a restricted modality to a connected one. The restricted
modality gathers teachers who are centred on their own teaching object (mathematics, history, etc.)
and the whole class. The teachers of the connected modality steer interactions with colleagues and
partners, and keep more attention to each student. Thus, we could presume that the later face
complex teaching problem more efficiently and that they particularly take into account low-skilled
learners with a more efficient way.

The findings corroborate previous results obtained from a group of 45 teachers (Grangeat &
Chakroun, 2005): competences develop with age but, beyond 45 years of age, many teachers operate
on ‘restricted’ competences (see Table 1).
Length of service in the school
1 = [0,2] ; 2 = ]2,5] ; 3 = ]5,15] ; 4 > 15 years
Modalities of competences
development within the 1 2 1 2 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 Total
collective work Age
≤ 30 years ]30, 35] years ]35, 45] years > 45 years
modality 4 (connected) 2 3 1 3 1 2 2 1 16
modality 3 5 1 3 1 2 2 1 14
modality 2 8 2 1 2 1 1 1 14
modality 1 (restricted) 6 1 1 1 1 1 3 16
Total 21 2 9 4 8 1 3 2 3 4 3 60

Table 1 : Teachers according to experience and modalities of competence development

Nevertheless, such a finding is quite unsatisfactory because age is a free variable which offers poor
possibilities in order to enhance teaching. So we use the second variable: teachers’ involvement in
interactions targeting professional issues. Three ways of embodying in a professional network are
compared: teachers who limited this implication to ordinary and compulsory meetings (Ordinary);
teachers who participate at few meetings with others teachers or partners (Participant); much
implicated teachers (Responsible). According previous score, such a variable seems to be important in
improving teachers’ professional development (see Table 2).

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 Modalities of competences Teachers involvement in professional interactions
development within the Total
collective work Ordinary Participant Responsibility
modality 4 (connected) 1 5 10 16
modality 3 3 8 3 14
modality 2 3 6 5 14
modality 1 (restricted) 7 6 3 16
Total 14 25 21 60

Table 2 : Teachers according to their commitments and modalities of competence development

Consequently, competence improvement depends on two factors: i)competences develop with age
but, beyond 45 years of age, many teachers operate on ‘restricted’ competences; ii) teachers’
involvement in interactions targeting professional issues is important in improving the degree and
process of professional development carried out by teachers. These findings corroborate some of ours
previous results (Grangeat, 2004; Grangeat & Chakroun, 2005; Grangeat & Munoz, 2006).

Nevertheless, beyond these findings, the question is how teachers themselves think about their own
professional development.

- How teachers think about their own professional development

In order to answer this question, we realized a content analysis of each interview transcription. We
identify each part of the interview within the teacher explain how his or her professional competences
grow. Within each part we select only action rules (e.g. I look for an experimented colleague and I ask
her a question about my trouble). Then we categorized these propositions within 6 main factors of
development (see Table 3).

According interviews, French teachers learn basically by themselves: the majority of the propositions
(59%) tell how they think about the class in order to enhance teaching. The second source of
development seems the teacher team (17%) and the students (13%). The formal development
programmes appear as efficient for a few of them (3%) and, in France, the school staff is quoted as an
anecdotal way of learning (2%).
Teaching development factors N %
Agent (self teaching) 266 59%
Teacher team 75 17%
Students 60 13%
Partners 31 7%
Formal development programmes 15 3%
Heads and institution staff 7 2%
N = numbers of propositions (many propositions possible in each interview); % = frequency of each item
Table 3 : Sources of professional knowledge

Hence, in this sample, learning by her or himself seems very important for teaching improvement
(see Table 4Error: Reference source not found). Teachers say that they think and assess their own
methodologies after the class (88%) and few of them that they think about this assessment during the
class itself (25%). Nevertheless many propositions make explicit how teaching improvement get up
through doing the class –especially by adapting teaching during the course by progressive trials
(42%)– or designing a learning project or a course (35%). So it seems that these teachers count
essentially upon themselves for improving teaching.

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Table 4 : Self teaching n %
Thinking
Assessing their own methodologies after the class 53 88%
Assessing their own methodologies during the class 15 25%
Doing
Adapting teaching during the class by progressive trials 25 42%
Adapting teaching according the own teacher feeling about the class work 13 22%
Designing
Designing a learning project or a course 21 35%
Targeting a particular improvement for themselves or for the students 11 18%
Learning
Reading professional books 21 35%
Reading professional websites 10 17%
Learning new activity in a social context 4 7%
Experience
Becoming self-confident about teaching year after year 13 22%
Adapting teaching by doing year after year 13 22%
Enhancing teaching consciousness by changing one’s posting 4 7%

Table 5: Teacher team n %

Whole school team
Exchanging ideas about teaching in an informal way 15 25%
Overcoming professional difficulties 15 25%
Designing a common teaching project 6 10%
Content team
Scheduling contents during relevant meetings 4 7%
Specialized teachers team
Exchanging ideas about low-skilled pupils in an informal way 4 7%
A particular colleague
Exchanging teaching methodologies with a colleague of another school. 12 20%
Thinking about teaching methodologies with a mentor or with trainee teachers 15 25%

Table 6: Students n %
Assessing
Adapting teaching according students’ work 22 37%
Observing
Adapting teaching according students’ behaviour 17 28%
Questioning
Adapting teaching according students’ answers or telling 5 8%
Comparing
Adapting teaching according different students’ work 4 7%

Table 7: School partners n %

Teaching with an outside contributor
Enhancing teaching by cooperating with an outside contributor into the classroom 9 15%
Enhancing teaching by cooperating with outside contributors by steering a common project 8 13%
Cooperating with a volontary association
Enhancing teaching by interactions during conferences or meetings 5 8%
Students’ parents
Discussing about the learning difficulties and about suitable assistances 2 3%

Table 8: Formal development programmes n %

Learning about teaching content within formal courses 8 13%
Learning about teaching methodologies within formal or informal dicussions 6 10%

Table 9: Weaknesses n %
Cellular organisation of the school 25 42%
Lack of accompanying programmes 14 23%
Too much social difficulties of the students’ families 13 22%
Inefficiency of the formal development programmes 13 22%
In these tables, many answers are possible within each interviews

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 Nevertheless, the teacher team appears as an important second factor of teaching improvement
(see Table 5). Frequently, teachers explain that they learn about teaching by exchanging ideas with
colleagues in an informal way (25%). Equally, they say that these exchanges are useful in order to
overcome professional difficulties (25%). For many of them such a colleague could be a mentor or a
trainee (25%) or a teacher involved within another school (20%). So the professional community, in
this study field, appears as useful in order to enhance teaching.

Students represent the third cause of development (see Table 6). Following the interviews, two ways
of learning about teaching are useful: adapting teaching according both students’ work assessment
(37%) and students’ behaviour (28%). Questioning students about teaching in order to adapt it is a
rare practice (8%) within teachers’ answers.

School partners are also a factor of development but in a minor way (see Table 7). Nevertheless,
cooperating with an outside contributor into the classroom (15%) or by steering a common project
(13%) seems an efficient way in order to learn new teaching methodologies.

Finally, formal development programs are rarely quoted (see Table 8). Moreover, in the time of these
programmes, exchanges about teaching methodologies, in a formal or an informal way (10%), appear
scarcely as efficient as formal courses about teaching contents (13%).

In consequence, in this sample, informal learning about teaching appears as the main way toward
teaching improvement. Nevertheless, teachers deplore several school organisation weaknesses which
obstruct their own development (see Table 9). The main one is the cellular organisation of the school
(42%): during the interviews, teachers complain about lake of work time dedicate both to discuss with
colleagues about school organisation or teaching, and to observe colleagues during a class. It appears
that teachers feel themselves very isolated, so they complain about lake of accompanying
programmes (23%) and inefficiency of the formal development sessions (22%). Moreover, in this
sample, social difficulties of the students’ families appear also as an obstacle to develop (22%).

So, such wordings about weaknesses able us to think that teachers themselves feel that learn about
teaching merely by themselves is an inefficient way.

3- Conclusion
Approaches which French teachers use in order to improve their practice are threefold: i) day-to-day
individual reflection about teaching after each class; ii) informal talks with more experienced
colleagues during lunch or recreation time; iii) steering a common project with more efficient partners.
Hence formal programmes do not seem very effective in teacher’s interviews. These findings
corroborate some others outcomes according to the connected curriculum (Young, 1998) or to
collaborative work with partners (Boreham, 2004).

So enhancing school organisation would be a main goal for school boards and researchers.

Hence we should outline a new approach in order to improve teacher’s practices. According to the
main issues highlighted in the studies about complex and dynamic work fields (Pastré, 2005; Rogalski,
2003; Stevenson, 2005, 2000) we should design a continuing professional development programme in
the shape of activity analysis workshops. Within this programme, teachers and their various partners,
beginners and experienced professionals, can meet, in order to set up a repertoire of know-how and
theoretical references which support their individual learning.

This presentation and the paper could be downloaded from:

http://web.upmf-grenoble.fr/sciedu/grangeat/Publi.html

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