INNOVATIONS IN TEACHER DEVELOPMENT
A Research Symposium at King’s College London
in association with Teachers College, Columbia University
and Teacher Education Exchange
16 – 18 June, 2017
King’s College London
Call for Papers
If we accept that the quality of teaching is the most significant in-school factor in students’
progress, how do we prepare teachers initially and throughout their professional careers to
make the greatest difference to young people’s lives? How do we define this ‘progress’ and how
also ‘the greatest difference’? And what does it mean to learn to teach and to develop your
teaching – and to support teachers in these endeavours - from a critical perspective on teacher
development, on researching teaching, on ‘effectiveness’, and society?
Innovation is a word we often hear in discussions of increased effectiveness, value for money,
or delivering services efficiently within the status quo. But what does innovation look like when
we take it to mean transformational change in public services such as education, where the
values on which such change is predicated are not about increased productivity and lower cost
but social justice and equity? What does innovation in teacher development look like when it
promotes ‘long-life’ professional development within sustainable career structures; socially
and politically engaged student learning; and a community-oriented view of schools as
institutions and potential levers of positive social change? How do we promote innovation that
creates new ideas that have value – for the whole of society, especially those who have been
poorly served, historically, and continue to be so?
This symposium will address these questions from a range of research perspectives and will
prioritise responses that are at the same time practice-focused and theoretical, to the extent
that they can be abstracted to other settings and contexts beyond those in which the research
has been conducted. No particular methodologies will be preferred and we seek contributions
that reflect the widest range of robust and imaginative research designs. We are particularly
keen to include reports on interventions designed to stimulate innovation in initial, early
career and continuing teacher education, both inside and outside traditional university and
district programmes, built on expansive understandings of the concept of teacher development
and with socially transformative aims.
Small, informal and organised so as to promote a collegial and mutually supportive
environment, the symposium will involve whole-group discussions of previously circulated
papers in addition to a small number of keynote and other presentations. Participants in the
symposium will remain together in conversation for the duration with no parallel sessions. A
post-symposium publication will be planned.
Innovations in Teacher Development will take place in the Somerset House Wing of King’s
College London in the heart of central London at the height of summer. The symposium fee
includes participation in all symposium events, daily refreshments, three lunches, a drinks
reception, and dinner on Saturday evening. Participants are responsible for their own hotel
accommodation and we can provide details of hotels with which we have negotiated discount
rates. A concessionary fee for doctoral students is available.
Submitting your proposal
Five hundred word abstracts of proposed papers should be emailed to the symposium
organisers [email protected] by 3 May 2017. Abstracts should detail, at minimum, the
question or questions driving the research to be reported; the theoretical and methodological
perspectives taken; the data or evidence upon which the paper’s argument is founded; and any
implications and/or reflections.
Please include your name, institutional affiliation and a contact email address at the bottom of
the abstract.
Proposers will be notified of decisions by 5 May 2017.
Draft 2000 word papers will need to be submitted by 2 June 2017 so they can be read by
participants in advance of the symposium itself in order to maximize discussion time.
Please note, given the nature and scale of this symposium, only authors of accepted proposals will
be able to register as participants.
Symposium Committee
Viv Ellis, Professor of Educational Leadership and Teacher Development, King’s College
London; A. Lin Goodwin, Evenden Professor of Teacher Education and Vice Dean, Teachers
College, Columbia University; Keith Turvey, Principal Lecturer in Education, University of
Brighton; Janice Howkins, Headteacher, Bentley Wood School, Harrow; Kenny Frederick, PhD
candidate, Brunel University London; Sarah Steadman, LISS DTP student, King’s College
London.
Registration
General symposium fee: £250
A concessionary fee for doctoral students may be available.
The symposium fee includes participation in all symposium events, daily refreshments, three
lunches, a drinks reception, and dinner on Saturday evening. Information about how to pay the
symposium fee will be sent to authors of accepted proposals.
Contact: [email protected]