The perceived needs of teacher educators as they strive to implement curriculum change

ABSTRACT

The focus of this study was to explore teacher educators’ experiences as they prepared preservice teachers to implement a new physical education curriculum, and to identify their professional needs to support this work. Individual interviews were conducted with 14 teacher educators who taught in a physical education teacher education (PETE) programme. Data were analysed in the spirit of grounded theory [Mordal-Moen & Green, 2014. Neither shaking nor stirring: A case study of reflexivity in Norwegian physical education teacher education. Sport, Education and Society, 19(4), 415–434]. Time to engage with curriculum, space to come together, leadership to manage the process, and opportunities to meet together in a professional capacity were identified as important for implementation of curriculum change in the PETE programme.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher educators
• theory of change
• curriculum change
• physical education teacher education
• professional learning community

Introduction: curriculum change and teacher education

With the escalation of systemic reform initiatives across economically developed and developing nations, there are pressures for change in the field of teacher education (Peck, Gallucci, Sloan, & Lippincott, 2009). Lynch (2014) suggests that curriculum change requires effort from the individual teacher, the school, and other stakeholders in the education system i.e. policy makers, teacher education and professional development agencies. This highlights the crucial role of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) during times of curriculum change. Recognising the importance of teacher autonomy and developing teachers’ ability to make curricular decisions (Olson, 1977), it is imperative that teacher education becomes a significant means of influencing curriculum change.

Peck and colleagues (2009) have suggested a need for more systematic theoretical and empirical work that contributes to understanding the change process in teacher education; a point the authors believe is still pertinent despite a dearth of more recent research. While there is considerable research reporting on teachers’ attempts to implement curriculum developments (Jin, 2013; MacLean, Mulholland, Gray, & Horrell, 2015), less is known about how teacher educators consider curriculum change. This study sets out to explore how teacher educators working in a physical education teacher education (PETE) programme in Ireland reflected on physical education curriculum developments and considered implications for the practice of preparing pre-service teachers. The specific research question is, ‘What are the perceived needs of teacher educators as they strive to implement curriculum change?’

Curriculum implementation

The multifaceted process of curriculum implementation plays a significant role in whether an intended curriculum achieves its desired outcomes (McLaughlin, 1990). Policies (e.g. goals, targets and tools), people (i.e. all of those who play a role in curriculum design and implementation), and places (e.g. where curriculum unfolds) influence curriculum implementation. The way in which these policies, people and places interact adds to the complexity of the curriculum implementation process (Honig, 2006). When planning for and managing implementation of a new curriculum, it is imperative to develop a strategy for support (Taguma & Barrera, 2019) that includes a clear vision and a solid theory of change (Fullan, 2016).

Considering theory of change

‘Change knowledge’ can include theories of change and theories of action (Fullan, 2007). A theory of change ‘is a predictive assumption about the relationship between desired changes and the actions that may produce those changes’ (Connolly & Seymour, 2015, p. 1). When considering curriculum implementation, a theory of change can be described as the set of steps that policy makers and curriculum designers identify as appropriate and the intended strategies they promote to achieve the desired outcomes of an intended curriculum (Taguma & Barrera, 2019, p. 3). This theory of change can provide an infrastructure to guide the introduction of new curricula by teachers and teacher educators. Fullan (2016) reinforces that effective theories of change must simultaneously focus on changing individuals and the culture or system in which they work. However, Fullan (2007) suggests that theories of change used previously in education reform are ‘flawed’ as they focus on improving individuals rather than improving systems. He proposes theories of action as a progression of a theory of change.

A theory of action provides an implementation plan to describe the steps that will be taken by teachers and teacher educators to implement steps identified to achieve the theory of change. Theories of action have been described as a set of assumptions about how one can move from a current state to a desired state (City, Elmore, Fiarman, & Teitel, 2009). Fullan describes a number of strategies that underpin his use of theories of action. Examples include, a focus on motivation, capacity building with a focus on results and learning in context (Fullan, 2007).

Fullan (2007) outlines three examples of change theories which have been used in educational reform; (i) standards-based reform initiatives, (ii) professional learning communities (PLCs) and (iii) ‘qualifications’ frameworks that focus on the development and retention of quality leaders in schools. Given that the focus of this paper is on exploring the perceived needs of teacher educators as they implement curriculum change, our particular interest is to explore further PLCs as a theory of change.

Professional learning communities (PLCs)

As noted above, PLCs are an example of a theory of change employed during times of educational reform. The idea for PLCs originated from Senge’s learning organisation construct (1990) and was proposed by DuFour and Eaker (1998) as the educational equivalent of a learning organisation. A PLC provides a safe environment that provides learning opportunities for teachers to come together to improve professional knowledge (Lieberman & Miller, 2008) and ultimately enhance student learning. According to Fullan (2016), the best learning occurs in focused collaborative cultures such as the environment where people work. The cultural aspect of change is critical to avoid the term PLC from becoming a ‘meaningless label’ reflecting a collection of individuals, rather than a community (DuFour, 2004). Indeed, Elmore (2004) posits that professional learning within the work context has the greatest chance of encouraging change, leading to ‘learning to do the right things’ in the environment where you work.

Hord’s (2004) model of PLC is based on research into school reform focusing on nurturing development of learning communities to improve teacher capacity for learning and change. This model identifies five dimensions of PLCs: supportive and shared leadership; shared values and vision; collective learning and application of that learning; supportive conditions; and shared practice. While each dimension is important, Hord’s (2004) work which is still relevant today emphasises the role of leadership in developing and implementing shared values and vision to establish supportive conditions for collective learning to take place.

Curriculum change in Ireland

There has been significant curricular reform in second level education during the past decade in the Republic of Ireland. The second level education system is comprised of junior cycle and senior cycle. Junior cycle is the first three years of second-level schooling with students typically aged 12–15 years. Senior cycle, the final two to three years caters for students aged between 15 and 18 years. During this period of curricular reform and review at both junior and senior cycle, there has been a great deal of curriculum change within physical education. The focus of this research is on teacher educators’ engagement with teaching preservice teachers about the Wellbeing curriculum, a junior cycle curricular initiative.

Wellbeing curriculum in Ireland

Smyth (2015) conveyed that the experiences Irish second-level students have at school affects their sense of wellbeing and this specific finding was, to some extent, a catalyst for including Wellbeing as an area of learning at junior cycle. Wellbeing Guidelines (NCCA, 2017) were designed to help schools understand Wellbeing and how it can be introduced in schools. Wellbeing is comprised of three existing subjects of Junior Cycle education, (i) Civic Social Political Education, (ii) Social Personal Health Education and (iii) Physical Education. The Guidelines stipulate that students should experience a minimum threshold of 135 hours of physical education over the three years of junior cycle (DES, 2019). As a result of these developments, the subject of physical education is now viewed as an important contributor to the development of young people’s wellbeing in Ireland (NCCA, 2017).

Teacher educators and teacher education programmes in Ireland

Teacher educators are commonly described as those educators/academics who work in universities and are involved in the teaching of prospective teachers enrolled in a teacher preparation programme (Loughran, 2014). Teacher educators are critical stakeholders within the education system for maintaining and improving the quality of the teaching workforce, which in turn can have a significant impact on the quality of teaching and learning in our schools (European Commission, 2013). As a relevant stakeholder, the teacher educator has an important role in following through on the construction, implementation and enactment of curricula, which is imperative to the success of students achieving learning outcomes (Whittle & MacPhail, 2020).

All initial teacher education (ITE) programmes in Ireland are subject to review and accreditation by the Teaching Council for teacher registration purposes. The Teaching Council has identified essential learning outcomes for graduates of ITE programmes which include both subject knowledge and curriculum processes and content. The expectation is that graduates will be knowledgeable about national curricula in their area of study including the subject content, pedagogy, and pertinent methodology.

Methodology

Qualitative fieldwork was undertaken at a single location involving individuals who taught in the same PETE programme. Similar to all PETE programmes in Ireland, the programme (1) is accredited by the Teaching Council with specific subject requirements that must be met; (2) is made up of four elements – foundation and professional studies (education), subject discipline (physical education), a second subject discipline (elective) and school placement; and (3) has subject specialists from aligned physical education areas such as physiology and biomechanics who teach aspects of the programme. Ethical approval was granted from the authors’ university.

Context and participants

This study took place in a PETE programme at a university in Ireland. Participants included 14 professionals who taught pre-service teachers in the PETE programme at the university and included full-time faculty members and doctoral students. The lead author of the paper was a PhD student, and a faculty member of the PETE programme, resulting in an increased level of access to participants and a familiarity with the PETE programme. While it was acknowledged that this could result in participants more freely talking with someone they knew, there is also the possibility that it could hinder participants from sharing specific, more sensitive, points. Participation in this research study was voluntary and informed consent was obtained from each participant.

Participants were purposely sampled given they were deemed relevant to the research question being posed (Bryman, 2012). Inclusion criteria were comprised of those who engaged with the teaching of pre-service teachers in the PETE programme. Exclusion criteria were comprised of those not currently teaching in the PETE programme. Participants included six females and eight males. Eleven of the participants identified as teacher educators and three of the participants recognised their role as that of a teacher educator when they engaged in teaching pre-service teachers as part of their role as an academic. Participants’ experience in educating pre-service teachers ranged from one to 30 years. To preserve participant anonymity in a small and easily identifiable complement of participants, no further participant data are provided. In instances where participants are referenced throughout the results and discussion, they are coded as teacher educator 1–14. Given the complement of participants, the term ‘teacher educator’ captures those individuals who are involved in engaging with pre-service teachers, those with expertise in the pedagogy of teaching and teacher education and/or those who are subject specialists.

Data collection

Semi-structured interviews were selected as the most appropriate data collection tool as they allowed flexibility for topics of particular interest that were to be pursued (Bryman, 2012). For lead author and participant convenience, individual interviews were conducted at the participants’ workplace. Several key themes and related questions formed the basis of the semi-structured interviews. These included PETE and Wellbeing (e.g. To what extent have there been discussions on how to embed the Wellbeing curriculum into the PETE programme?) and knowledge of Wellbeing (e.g. How familiar are you with the Junior Cycle changes specific to Wellbeing and Physical Education?). Each participant undertook one interview and interviews lasted between 32 and 64 minutes.

Data analysis

Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. All transcripts were checked against recordings by the author for accuracy. Transcripts were returned to participants to ensure accuracy and two participants made edits to clarify comments and returned transcripts.

Data were analysed in the spirit of grounded theory (Mordal-Moen & Green, 2014). This process is inspired by the principles of grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014). However, as all ‘steps’ are not followed from the grounded theory approach there is no suggestion of developing a ‘new’ theory. Working in the spirit of the grounded theory process involves a combination of an inductive and deductive approach (Scanlon, MacPhail, & Calderón, 2019). The approach is inductive as the coding process occurred as soon as the interviews were transcribed and it is deductive as sensitising concepts i.e. change theory and curriculum change (Wellbeing curriculum), were not applied until the final stage of the coding process (Charmaz, 2014). This process allows further concepts to be used if they best explain the constructed data (Charmaz, 2014), which was the case in this study. A three-phased coding process was used to analyse the data (see Table 1). Each phase was completed manually. Initial coding involved a combination of line-by-line (labelling each line in the transcript) together with incident-by-incident (labelling important segments in the transcripts) analysis. Focused coding involved selecting the ‘most fruitful codes’ (Mordal-Moen & Green, 2014). Initial codes were refined into focused codes that were more directed, selective and conceptual (Charmaz, 2014). Categories and sub-categories were constructed through a constant comparison approach (Weed, 2009). For example, codes such as ‘leadership needed to create action points and assign responsibility’, ‘would undertake leadership role if asked’ and ‘need someone in charge to hold people accountable’ were grouped into the focused code of ‘leadership needed to take charge of process of introducing new curricula in the PETE programme’. The third and final stage of the coding process was theoretical coding. Theoretical coding involved drawing connections and identifying relationships between categories that had been constructed at the focused coding stage. Sensitising concepts were used at this stage to make sense of the constructed categories (Charmaz, 2014). For example, the sensitising concept of change theory allowed me, the lead author to grasp the notion that change is a process and in turn better understand the constructed category ‘leading and managing change on a PETE programme’. Memo writing (Charmaz, 2014), which had been utilised throughout the analytical phase of the coding process, was beneficial as it helped the lead author to detach from the data when coding. When something came to mind, e.g. a link to a theory, it was noted in a diary to revisit at a later phase of data analysis. Although not used as a sensitising concept originally, in working through the data it proved best to interpret the constructed categories through the lens of learning communities. The lead author had regular meetings with the author team throughout the process to report on progress with data analysis and to agree on the constructed categories. Two categories were constructed and will be discussed in the Findings section.

Table 1. Example of codes during the three phased coding process.

Three phase coding process (Charmaz, 2014)

Initial coding (examples)

– Leadership needed to create action points and assign responsibility – Would undertake leadership role if asked – Need someone in charge to hold people accountable – Have conversations with colleagues about curriculum change, Wellbeing and the PETE programme – Discussion at end of semester to help progress – Hold away day with faculty on PETE programme at start of academic year – Structures need to be put in place – Wellbeing will fall through cracks if not more unified planning on PETE programme – Without unified planning people going insular – More mapping and planning needed on PETE programme

Focused coding (examples)

– Leadership needed to take charge of the process of introducing new curricula in the PETE programme – Need to come together more to discuss and plan for PETE programme changes – Finding time to come together greatest challenge – Have not exploited expertise we have on PETE programme – Uncertain what is happening in modules across PETE programme beside one’s own

Theoretical coding

Sensitising concept used to explain constructed data: – Concepts of change theory (sensitising concept) help to understand that the teacher educators were seeking a process to help the PETE programme with the implementation of the Wellbeing curriculum Constructed category title: – Leading and managing change on a PETE programme

Findings

In this section, we present our findings of how teacher educators working in a PETE programme reflected on physical education curriculum developments and considered implications for the practice of preparing preservice teachers.

Category 1: Leading and managing change on a PETE programme

Three sub-categories identify what these teacher educators perceived was required to successfully support the inclusion of the Wellbeing curriculum and other physical education curriculum developments across the PETE programme modules. These subcategories include (a) collectively discuss and plan for programme development and changes, (b) the challenge of dealing with multiple curriculum changes, and (c) strategic leadership and guidance.

Collectively discuss and plan for programme development and changes

Teacher educators reported the necessity to come together to discuss, make sense of and plan for changes to the PETE programme, including the introduction of the recently introduced school Wellbeing curriculum. While there was an assumption that the Wellbeing curriculum had been introduced by colleagues in some modules given that individuals could speak to related aspects they included in their own modules, teacher educators shared the view that no one colleague had knowledge of the extent to which the Wellbeing curriculum was being infused across the programme. One participant expressed, ‘Right now, I only know what we’re doing in the two modules I teach on. I presume others are actually doing it [Wellbeing] but I just don’t know’ (TE 11). In considering the prevalence (or not) of Wellbeing across the programme, one teacher educator was prompted to consider the necessity to seize the opportunity to work together across the PETE programme in a bid to share an informed understanding of the programme content and practices including the Wellbeing curriculum and other physical education curriculum developments.

One teacher educator who valued the importance of planning suggested that planning together was a missing element when working in the PETE programme. It was expressed that any planning that was occurring was at an individual level to ‘fix’ shortfalls but not as part of an integrated process that involved all those teaching across the PETE programme. Another teacher educator shared that more meetings with colleagues that focussed on the inclusion of school physical education curriculum developments were needed to increase communication within, and across, the programme.

Teacher educators concluded that more dedicated time together to make sense of the Wellbeing curriculum would help individual understanding of what it entailed. One teacher educator expressed that they had neglected to include the Wellbeing curriculum in their modules, admitting that this could happen again with other new school curricula without some unified planning across the PETE programme, ‘this has fallen through the cracks with me and it will happen everywhere if we don’t have more unified planning together’ (TE 13).

It was suggested that a programme meeting with the Wellbeing curriculum as a stand-alone agenda item would help with the organisation and dedication of time to plan together. It was also suggested that meeting at the end of each semester would create time to discuss and consider the introduction of the Wellbeing curriculum and other curriculum changes. Collective workshops to aid discussions on synergies and alignment across modules to understand what was being covered, and how to introduce what should be included but was not, was shared as further reasons to come together to discuss the PETE programme. Finding time for all teacher educators to meet was a challenge. It was expressed that all faculty have a heavy workload and that department support would be needed to protect time for planning in the form of away-days or workshops that had been organised in previous years.

The challenge of dealing with multiple curriculum changes

Teacher educators spoke of the many curricular changes happening simultaneously and the challenge that this would pose to the PETE programme in trying to respond to those changes at the same time while teaching the related and expected content and pedagogy to pre-service teachers. Attempting to deal with these changes simultaneously was noted as being extremely difficult with one teacher educator describing it as dealing with a ‘tsunami of multiple changes all at the same time’ (TE 6). Being overwhelmed in managing the introduction of many new curricula at once was expressed by some participants as ‘surviving’ the associated expectations. Regardless, teacher educators believed that all the changes happening within the same time period was of benefit given that the physical education profession had been advocating for such curricular changes for many years:

We have been fighting for so long to get opportunities in physical education and advance the field. It’s brilliant but it’s like all the buses are coming at once and we’re swamped with surviving it … people are trying their best to survive it. (TE 8)

Strategic leadership and guidance

A ‘scattergun approach’ and ‘piecemeal’ were phrases used to describe the way in which elements of the PETE programme were delivered. This implied that there was no strategy or guidance as to how teacher educators could convey a shared philosophy and practice when including changes to school curricula in their respective modules. One participant described how faculty were, ‘supposed to take them [new curricula] up by osmosis’ (TE13).

A coordinated approach that involved one person being responsible for overseeing the introduction of new curricula on the programme was suggested, and included the creation of a strategy with action points:

Taking on different things here [PETE programme]  …  seems to be a bit haphazard. There’s no vision of how as a group, we should be doing things … we need a coordinated approach that would require somebody to take it on as a project. (TE 6)

Teacher educators admitted that they would be happy to be involved with projects relating to curriculum change if approached to do so. However, there was a lack of confidence in taking on the initiative given the belief that an already established and allocated faculty role within the programme was responsible for leading such school curricula initiatives. Teacher educators did not wish to be seen to encroach on this individual’s space.

Category 2: Preparing pre-service teachers to implement school wellbeing

This category describes how teacher educators approached preparing pre-service teachers to implement school Wellbeing and includes four subcategories, (a) talking and sharing experiences, (b) documentation as a continual point of reference, (c) capturing the concept of Wellbeing accurately and, (d) opportunities for continual professional development (CPD).

Talking and sharing experiences

There was a strong sense of reliance on dialogue with colleagues as a means of making sense of how to prepare pre-service teachers to deliver a Wellbeing curriculum in schools. Strategies that teacher educators suggested they could undertake to ‘make sense’ of the Wellbeing curriculum included interacting with colleagues, teachers, and pre-service teachers to share experiences of how to enact the Wellbeing curriculum in schools. All suggested that speaking with other colleagues was important for developing their own understanding, ‘Through talking to colleagues who have done projects on it [Wellbeing] … observing other people and how they approach it [Wellbeing] … watching other people … going back to our colleagues, we’ve [PETE programme] a wealth of knowledge’ (TE 1). Others referred to how speaking with teachers and pre-service teachers who had engaged in school placement was as an opportunity to better understand how to enact Wellbeing, ‘ …  finding out maybe off my friends who are physical education teachers. How are they implementing it [Wellbeing]? What worked well for them? What has not worked well? What advice would they have for me?’ (TE 3).

Documentation as a continual point of reference

Re-reading the Wellbeing document was highlighted as aiding teacher educators’ understanding on how physical education aligned with the Wellbeing curriculum. One participant spoke of ‘going back to the documents again and again’ (TE 6) as assurance that they were teaching pre-service teachers the correct information regarding where physical education resides within Wellbeing at Junior Cycle and, subsequently, how best to implement the curriculum. The breakdown of Wellbeing into six indicators (i.e. active, aware, connected, respected, responsible and resilient) within the document was a common way in which teacher educators made sense of Wellbeing and embedded it in their teaching. Teacher educators admitted the need to return to the Wellbeing document regularly to develop their understanding of how to align their teaching with the Wellbeing curriculum, highlighting the importance of curriculum documents in the ongoing sense-making process.

Accurately capturing the concept of wellbeing

Teacher educators expressed concern about how they approached teaching Wellbeing with pre-service teachers as they were overly conscious of deconstructing the notion of Wellbeing. They reflected on how they had perhaps been over-reliant on separating the Wellbeing curriculum into its six indicators in a bid to enhance pre-service teachers understanding of Wellbeing. As a consequence, there was the possibility that they had encouraged a tendency to favour a ‘tick box’ approach (i.e. that all indicators had been covered) at the expense of developing pre-service teachers’ overall understanding of Wellbeing in physical education and in all subjects across the Junior Cycle Framework:

They [pre-service teachers] don’t see their understanding of physical education residing in Wellbeing and Wellbeing being that overall umbrella … they know about matching Wellbeing indicators but that’s on a very superficial level … the actual engagement of Wellbeing as an overall encompassing space for PE to reside, is missing … Maybe we are unconsciously supporting the discourse that is already there in relation to this … Maybe by actually breaking it down into individual learning we’re not helping them as opposed to constructing a much more holistic notion. (TE 7)

Rather than a reliance on breaking Wellbeing down into different parts of the programme, it was proposed that Wellbeing could be the overarching guiding conceptual framework for all teaching on the PETE programme. Given that physical education resides within Wellbeing in schools, it was suggested that this could be emulated in a similar fashion across the PETE programme:

This notion of Wellbeing, being a holistic concept or a conceptual umbrella … of what happens at junior cycle. For us, Wellbeing is taught through physical education so we have a responsibility to deliver physical education curriculum but also the concepts of Wellbeing through physical education … it [Wellbeing] gives us the opportunity to teach to the whole child and gives us responsibility to teach to the whole child and if we can pull that off then we are certainly seen as a contributor to the whole development of youth, in a very meaningful way. (TE 5)

Teacher educators believed that considering Wellbeing as the conceptual umbrella of the PETE programme could help prepare pre-service teachers to deliver the Wellbeing curriculum in schools in a way that would support the holistic development of young people.

Opportunities for continuing professional development (CPD)

Knowing how to most effectively include Wellbeing in a module, teach pre-service teachers how to include Wellbeing in their teaching, and make Wellbeing explicit in teaching were aspects that teacher educators highlighted as areas to develop in their teaching. One teacher educator admitted that she was not aware of any organisation dedicated to CPD for teacher educators. As a way to combat this deficit, and to keep up to date, this teacher educator attended CPD opportunities intended for post-primary school teachers and admitted that the information was not designed for the needs of teacher educators:

I would like some CPD … any form of professional development available … As a teacher I know where I could source CPD, but as a teacher educator I’m not sure where I would go about sourcing that [CPD] … I avail of what’s available to second level teachers. I have gone to several PDST [Professional Development Service for Teachers] workshops but they are not geared towards PETE educators … (TE 12)

Discussion

The aim of this study was to explore teacher educators’ experiences as they prepared preservice teachers to implement a new physical education curriculum and to identify their professional needs to support this work. Guided and informed by the study findings, we provide two important considerations on how best to incorporate school curricular changes in a PETE programme.

A strategy for implementation – theory of change/theory of action

Curriculum implementation is a complex process (Honig, 2006) as evidenced in this study where the people and the setting added to the complexity. Findings suggest that while teacher educators were beginning to address school curriculum changes within individual modules, there was no strategy regarding how this could be done across the programme. The lack of awareness of what school curricula were included in the PETE programme, or the extent to which school curricula permeated across the PETE programme, raises the question of programme coherence. There is a need for faculty teaching in a PETE programme to come together to make sense of new curricula as well as an aligned programme approach across modules (City et al., 2009). This would help ensure coherence across the PETE programme. A clear strategy for support (Taguma & Barrera, 2019), such as an organised process was being sought by these teacher educators.

While all teacher educators were invested in the PETE programme, they were somewhat lost given there was no formalised central opportunity to discuss and share experiences of school curriculum changes and associated teaching practices. Teacher educators shared the desire to come together as a collective to discuss and plan for programme developments (Lieberman & Miller, 2008). Lack of a space in which to collaborate suggests that this PETE programme was lacking the initial impetus for developing a theory of change on how to implement a new school curriculum (Connolly & Seymour, 2015).

One theory of change, in the form of a PLC, could be such a support strategy for this group of teacher educators (Taguma & Barrera, 2019), providing an infrastructure where collaboration, collective interaction, development of new ideas and strategies are encouraged and competence is developed (Lieberman & Miller, 2008). However, conscious of DuFour’s (2004) perspective on the PLC becoming a ‘meaningless label’, the cultural aspect of change needs to be fostered by teacher educators through their work. A PLC could enable teacher educators to enhance individual and collective professional development and the development of the PETE programme, ultimately allowing for the cultural aspect of change to develop (what Fullan (2007) would prompt us to consider as ‘collaborative cultures that focus on building capacity for continuous improvement’ (p. 6)).

Appreciating that an effective implementation strategy requires a clear vision (Fullan, 2016), the lack of vision and plan for the inclusion of new school curricula stems from the apparent lack of clear leadership in the programme. It was evident that there was a level of anxiety regarding the challenge of introducing multiple curriculum changes at once and that designated leadership would have been helpful to manage the change process. This need for leadership guidance was noted in Hord’s model of PLCs where supportive and shared leadership was identified as an important dimension for developing supportive conditions to facilitate collective learning (Hord, 2004). A planned theory of action (Connolly & Seymour, 2015) such as ‘learning in context’ (Fullan, 2007) would encourage the development of supportive conditions such as the parameters of the PLC and the creation and protection of time and space for these teacher educators to meet as a collective group. Having more time would allow teacher educators to engage in sense-making, understanding, planning and programme coherence with respect to supporting the implementation of new school curricula. The suggestion from City and colleagues (2009) that a theory of action would allow progress to be made in moving from a current to a desired state would meet the needs of these teacher educators and help them achieve their goals, build their capacity and increase their motivation (Fullan, 2007).

Professional learning needs of teacher educators

It became apparent that there were differing levels of ambiguity amongst teacher educators of how best to prepare pre-service teachers to deliver changes in school curricula. Teacher educators lacked the knowledge to (fully) prepare pre-service teachers for teaching new curricula in schools and this was an area they identified as needing time, space and CPD to make sense and implement the new curricula. It was evident that some teacher educators grappled with the concept of Wellbeing while others were comfortable in identifying Wellbeing as a holistic concept.

This suggests that teacher educators have professional learning needs. However, while the pathway for professional learning is clear for teachers, a level of ambiguity surrounds professional learning provision for teacher educators (Czerniawski et al., 2021). This heightens the awareness that if the quality of teachers is dependent on the quality of our teacher educators, then the professional development needs of teacher educators needs to be considered and supported (European Commission, 2013).

Our findings suggest that both formal and informal learning in the workplace is important (McNamara, Murray, & Jones, 2014), with teacher educators valuing talking to colleagues to make sense of new curricula as well as being interested in accessing any formal CPD opportunities relating to changes in school curricula. An added dimension to the professional learning challenge in this study is that several faculty members teaching specific aspects of the Wellbeing curriculum in the PETE programme only occupy the teacher education space when they are scheduled to teach a specific subject discipline to pre-service teachers. They identify primarily as subject specialists in (predominantly) sport science and are therefore not accessing the same discourse and ongoing conversations around Wellbeing as teacher educators. This heightens the necessity of working collaboratively across the PETE programme to share knowledge and educate each other.

Conclusion

Rather than advocating for a PLC that directs all its attention to a specific curriculum change (such as Wellbeing), we suggest a PLC to deal with the concept of curriculum change. This space would allow teacher educators to come together to discuss and understand the concepts and principles related to curriculum change. This could help teacher educators develop their conceptual understanding of curriculum implementation, which in turn would allow them to identify similar concepts to dealing with curriculum change regardless of the specific curriculum. In addition, this PLC could be extended to include practising teachers and pre-service teachers to learn from the experiences of those who are implementing curriculum in schools and during school placement.

Fullan (2007, p. 9) describes capacity building as ‘any strategy that increases the collective effectiveness of a group’. A PLC is one strategy that can aid capacity development of individuals teaching in a PETE programme, noting that the collective aids the individual. While this group are a community in spirit, the challenge of appropriate leadership raised by the teacher educators in this study is pertinent to the evolution of an appropriate PLC. Bringing this group of individuals together will require leadership to guide the process in the first instance, before exploring how best to support and share leadership as a central essential characteristic of the PLC.

In order to be truly collective, and increase the effectiveness of a group (Fullan, 2016), there is a need to find something that connects everybody in the group. For the teacher educators in this PETE programme, that connection appears to be curriculum change in physical education. The notion of a PLC dealing with the concept of curriculum change is therefore presented as the necessary and welcomed legitimate space to address the numerous curricula undergoing change. Future consideration for professional development providers (who tend to have a remit to upskill teachers in specific curriculum developments) may be to remove the specific school curriculum focus and upskill teachers and teacher educators in the principles and concepts of curriculum change that are relevant to, and transferable across, multiple curricula.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Claire Walsh

Claire Walsh’s research interests include (physical education) teacher education, professional development, curriculum change, and Wellbeing.

Deborah Tannehill

Deborah Tannehill’s research interests are teaching and teacher education in physical education, continuing professional development, communities of practice, curricular initiatives, and instructional alignment.

Ann MacPhail

Ann MacPhail’s research interests revolve around (physical education) teacher education, curriculum development in physical education, teaching, learning and assessment issues, methodological issues in working with young people, and ethnography.