PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY RESEARCH IN PRACTICE


How does a previous career shape an FE teacher’s professional identity?


FE teachers bring a wealth of experience from earlier occupations to their new careers, so what are the different influences shaping their outlook and practice in their teaching journey, asks Dr Mark Smithers.


Like many other vocational teachers working in the further education sector, I had a significant career before entering education (Maxwell 2010). I was working in the hospitality industry for more than a decade. As I entered teaching, part-time in the beginning, I still felt a strong allegiance to my former industry. This significantly influenced my teaching practice and view of myself, or what I would now call my professional identity. As I got to know other vocational teachers, I observed that many used their rich previous occupational experience to inform their teaching practice and development, which greatly benefited their students’ learning.


I became intrigued and wanted to find out more about the journey FE teachers undergo while their professional identity as teachers was formed; what Gleeson (2014) called ‘becoming’. Robson (1998), in her seminal paper on the FE teaching profession, had suggested that this was an area that needed exploring. In early 2016, I carried out a small


research project at four FE colleges in the south east of England. This involved interviewing vocational FE teachers, with varying backgrounds, to find out what the most significant influences were in forming their professional identity. The results proved interesting, especially considering FE’s growing need, with the introduction of T Levels, for teachers and trainers with recent industry experience. Teachers’


REFERENCES


• Mark’s full report is available on UCL Discovery, University College London’s open access research repository http://discovery.ucl. ac.uk/10064593/


• Maxwell, B. (2010). In-service Initial Teacher Education in the Learning and Skills Sector in England: Integrating Course and Workplace Learning, Vocations and Learning, 3(3):185-202.


• Gleeson. D. (2014). Trading Places – On Becoming an FE Professional. In Crowley (ed). Challenging Professional Learning. London: Routledge.


• Robson, J. (1998). A Profession in Crisis: Status, Culture and Identity in the Further Education College. Journal of Vocational Education & Training, 50:4, 585-607.


professional identities tended to align with two differing perspectives: their former occupation (e.g. “I see myself as an engineer who teaches engineering”) and teaching (e.g. “I am a college lecturer whose subject is engineering”). The longer that an individual had


worked in their previous occupation, the more likely they were to align their professional identity with that occupation. For those whose teaching career was longer than their former occupation, teaching was foremost in their professional identity perspective.


LEARNING FROM OTHERS When asked to describe the most significant factor in forming their teaching identity and practice, teachers highlighted several common themes. The most consistently reported and most influential theme was ‘learning from other experienced FE teachers’, which I summarised as experiential workplace learning. It took various forms. The main two were observation of experienced teachers delivering lessons, and formal and informal professional discussions. This strategy of learning from others was instigated and actively encouraged both by managers and the new teachers through informal networking with peers. It was also evident that while


vocational teachers see themselves as professionals, that professional identity is distinct to that of school teachers.


Teachers who learned from experienced FE teachers believed that they had a proactive approach to their own professional development. They also tended to highlight the importance of their organisations in creating an environment that supports professional development, with managers who allow space for their professional development. A further unexpected finding was that many of these respondents reported a negative experience of initial teacher training, with some claiming that their teaching qualification had had little impact on forming their professional practice. I hope my research makes salient suggestions for initial FE teacher training – specifically, providing evidence for, and lending weight to, the argument that when new teachers come into FE, straight from industry, they need exposure, both formally and informally, to established expert FE vocational teachers. And for this to happen, managers and course leaders in FE need to create meaningful learning opportunities and time for new teachers to work with existing practitioners.


Dr Mark Smithers is assistant principal for the Faculty of Arts and Science at Havering College of Further and Higher Education. Mark is a Fellow of SET.


inTUITION ISSUE 36 • SUMMER 2019 15


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