Teacher Development

ISSN: 1366-4530 (Print) 1747-5120 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rtde20

Decisions, decisions, decisions: the process of

‘getting better at teaching’

Denis Hayes

To cite this article: Denis Hayes (1999) Decisions, decisions, decisions: the process of ‘getting
better at teaching’, Teacher Development, 3:3, 341-354, DOI: 10.1080/13664539900200090

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Teacher Development, Volume 3, Number 3, 1999

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions: the

process of ‘getting better at teaching’

DENIS HAYES
University of Plymouth, United Kingdom

ABSTRACT In the light of the demands made by exit competences on student teachers
and those in their first year of teaching, this article examines the influence of decision-
making as a factor in ‘getting better at teaching’. It begins by examining a variety of
models which purport to explain the way in which decisions are made, the factors that
influence the process and the difficulties facing those who assess competence.
Suggestions are made about the relevance of experience, the cyclical nature of
development and the tension between rational decision-making and spontaneity. The
value of using competence statements to describe the complexities of classroom teaching
is challenged and the article concludes by warning that the existence of tightly-bound exit
competences has the potential to suppress creativity and enterprising teaching as student
teachers settle for compliance rather than operating innovative forms of decision-making.

Introduction
The use of closely defined criteria for establishing and monitoring pupils’
achievement targets and progress has become commonplace in educational
thinking and impacted on the work of primary teachers in England. In
particular, specific targets have been set by the national government for pupil
achievement in English and mathematics, so that the test results of
comparable groups of pupils in different schools can be published and
contrasted. Schools whose pupils fail to achieve the targets or where annual
improvements in standards cannot be demonstrated are closely scrutinised by
inspectors from the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) until there is
evidence that the shortcomings have been rectified. The Department for
Education and Employment (DfEE) reserves the right to recommend closure
of schools that fail to register the necessary improvement over a specified
period of time. In the prevailing political climate, ‘naming and shaming’
schools that fall below the required standards has formed part of the
government strategy for levering up performance. There has been no shortage
of advice from the Government about how improvements can be achieved,

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and the introduction of a national strategy for teaching literacy and numeracy
has underlined the view that the Government is determined not only to tell
teachers what to teach but also how to go about doing it (DfEE, 1998a, 1999a).
In the same way that serving teachers have been required to respond to
government directives about the curriculum and its delivery, teacher
education and training has been subject to specific requirements about the
standards that newly qualified teachers must reach, based on the assumption
that a description of teaching in the form of competence statements can be
interpreted, translated and transposed into classroom practice. This
assumption has resulted in the publication of criterion-referenced statements
relating to qualified teacher status, most recently in Circular 4/98 (DfEE,
1998b), a part of which refers to the exit competences demanded of student
teachers in their planning, teaching and class management (Annex A, Part B)
before the award of Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). Similarly, the
reintroduction of an Induction Year following QTS (DfEE, 1999b) has been
accompanied by further criteria to measure teaching performance, using
competence statements.
Despite the comprehensiveness of the competence standards listed in
Circular 4/98, there is no guidance in the document about the process by
which they may be achieved, the strategies needed to ensure success, the
impact of contextual factors on progress, or any ideas about the development
stages typically associated with the route to competence. The standards are,
therefore, terminal statements, devoid of map, compass or survival kit as basic
resources for the long haul. In particular, and despite considerable evidence of
its prime significance as a component of successful teaching, there is no overt
reference to the importance of decision-making in guiding teachers’ planning,
teaching and class management. This puzzling omission must be posited on
one or more of three explanations: (a) those who compiled the 4/98
statements did not know how they might be achieved or did not think they
needed to know; (b) the compilers assumed that it was the job of the training
providers to sort out the details; (c) the compilers believed that providing
student teachers conformed to the stated requirements, the means by which
they did so were unimportant. It is the second and third of these possibilities
that are most pertinent to this present article.
The absence of any explicit reference to decision-making in the
competence statements is even more striking in that it has long been
recognised that an important feature of teaching performance is the way that
effective and reasoned decisions are taken and enacted. Eggleston (1979)
asserts that ‘decision-making is probably the central feature of the role of the
teacher’ (p. 1). In similar vein, Calderhead (1984) refers to the heavy demands
made on inexperienced teachers as they cope with numerous decisions, and
their implications, during a typical lesson. If decision-making is central to
effective teaching, it is essential that student teachers gain a firmer grasp of the
factors influencing it, the way in which decisions are taken and refined, and the
relationship that exists between decisions and effective teaching. The

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remainder of this article seeks to rehearse our present knowledge of teachers’

decision-making, and extend our understanding of the associated issues with a
view to informing training providers about how they might help student
teachers to ‘get better at teaching’ through improving their decision-making
capability. In doing so, three points should be noted.
First, assessments of student teachers’ ability are, inevitably, context-
related. The notion that competence checklists can be used without reference
to the prevailing classroom circumstances defies common sense. (See
numerous examples in Calderhead & Shorrock, 1997.)
Second, improvements in teaching performance (however measured)
must take account of the struggles that face all teachers in moving from the
safety of well-established to more innovative and effective practice. If ‘good
enough to meet the basic requirements’ becomes the norm, fewer cases of
outstanding classroom practice can be expected.
Third, the interpretation, monitoring and administering of standards’
statements imposes additional work on to student teachers, who are already
busy in planning, teaching and managing. Care needs to be taken that their
obsession with compliance does not deflect from their propensity to evolve
effective decision-making strategies.

Getting Better at Teaching

Models of Decision-making
Many experienced practitioners seem able to make effortless decisions about
classroom practice in a way that inexperienced teachers find baffling.
Numerous studies have been carried out in an attempt to establish a
satisfactory theory to explain how this ‘natural’ ability develops. For example,
early work by Jackson (1968) suggests that a model of classroom decision-
making is needed to distinguish between preactive and interactive contexts –
preactive decisions taking place outside the lesson time, interactive decisions
happening during the lesson. As an acknowledgement of the demands that
interactive teaching makes on teachers, Peterson & Clark’s model (1978) relies
on cue observation as the most significant factor in influencing teachers’
decisions, as they constantly seek to interpret signals from what is happening
in the classroom and respond appropriately. According to this model, the more
effectively a teacher is able to identify and interpret the cues, the greater the
likelihood of successful teaching and learning. Peterson & Clark’s model
highlights the importance of knowing how effective cue interpretation
evolves; for instance, whether is it through trial and error, through learning to
reflect more intelligently on classroom episodes, through taking advice from
others, or through a combination of factors. Similarly, although Calderhead
(1984) refers to a number of different models which emphasise the importance
of teaching experience in decision-making, we are still left to grapple with the

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concept of ‘becoming more experienced’. (I return to this important issue

later.)
Kwo (1994) emphasises the importance of determining the relationship
between ‘interactive thought’ and decisions, and questions the extent to which
the process of decision-making is in harmony with student teachers’ thinking.
Kwo cites several studies which indicate that around one-half of decisions
occur as a result of cues from pupils; the other half depend on antecedents
originating in the student as a person or the environment in which the
decisions took place.
Other studies of classroom decision-making acknowledge that student
teachers who seek to improve their classroom practice differ from qualified
teachers in that the former cannot make their decisions without some
reference to the class teacher’s (and tutor’s) priorities and expectations (e.g.
Hodkinson & Hodkinson, 1997). It is unclear how much the development of
teaching skills is affected by the subliminal messages that student teachers
receive about acceptable practice from more experienced practitioners and the
assiduity with which they are prepared to respond. Nevertheless, any model
has to consider the extent to which a student teacher’s ability to make more
effective decisions is the result of careful consideration, instinctive reaction,
responding in a way that will meet with a tutor’s or host teacher’s approval, or
a deep-seated impulse that defies ready explanation (McCallum et al, 1993).

The Way It’s Done Here

One problem facing student teachers is that they have little idea about their
placement school’s prevailing ethos and ‘the way it’s done here’ and may
unwittingly contravene unwritten codes of behaviour and expectations. Elliott
(1993) argues that qualified teachers’ attitudes to pupils’ learning is based on
their experience of non-situational factors, which exist regardless of context,
and situational factors which relate to the particular lesson context. Typical of a
non-situational factor is the circumstance in which a child comes to school
hungry, where the effect of the hunger on the pupil will be much the same,
regardless of the lesson or the teacher. A situational factor, on the other hand,
might relate to the particular form of organising for learning that the teacher
uses in a lesson. A child who behaves inappropriately due (say) to the formal,
didactic approach used by the teacher in one lesson, may be contented and
cooperative in one involving more liberating collaborative problem-solving.
Elliott suggests that not only are inexperienced teachers less likely to be aware
of non-situational factors, but they also have less idea about which ones are
significant when it comes to making decisions about taking a particular course
of action.
Elliott (1993) further argues that student teachers gradually move from
an analytical mode (making conscious decisions) to one of intuition, described
as an ‘unselfconscious appreciation of the situation’ (p. 72), and finally to whole
situation recognition, by which the student has ‘the ability to synthesise all the

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salient components into an understanding of the total situation’ (p. 73), either
through conscious analysis (in the earlier stages of this ‘total situation’ phase)
or intuitively (in the later stages). If Elliott’s analysis is correct, the issues he
raises will have an impact upon a student teacher’s decision-making for at least
three reasons.
(1) They may not have a complete grasp of the extrinsic (‘non-situational’)
factors influencing pupils’ behaviour.
(2) Even if they do know about these external factors, they will not always
know how to take account of them when making classroom decisions.
(3) A tentative classroom manner (due to lack of non-situational information)
may undermine the student teacher’s authority and discipline (see also
Copeland, 1981).
Student teachers may make faulty decisions because they do not have
sufficient information about their pupils. Furthermore, they may not have had
time to grasp classroom procedures, and ways of doing and saying things, that
the resident adults and pupils have subconsciously absorbed and take for
granted.

Experience and Intuitive Decisions

If effective decision-making is an essential component of ‘getting better at
teaching’, it is important to consider the factors that combine to influence the
process. Of particular interest is the development of the spontaneity that
characterises effective practitioners, born of an intuition for making the right
decisions. In this regard, Sutcliffe & Whitfield (1979) note that teachers make
decisions based on a wide range of stimuli; some of the decisions appear to be
instinctive (that is, without conscious awareness) and others are based upon a
‘conscious processing of alternative responses’ (p. 15). Calderhead (1984) goes
further in suggesting that decisions that are routine and do not require
conscious thought for experienced teachers, may require conscious decisions
from the inexperienced. To better understand the significance of effective
decision-making, we need, therefore, a clearer definition of what constitutes
‘experience’.
First, we can reasonably assume that rational (conscious) decisions about
aspects of classroom practice are more likely to characterise inexperienced
teachers, as they do not possess sufficient exposure to classroom life to be able
to respond to situations spontaneously. Much of their teaching will therefore
be predetermined (see Jackson, 1968, earlier). They will have carefully thought
through each stage of the lesson, planned in detail, and taken close account of
learning objectives, such that they can articulate their intentions and justify
their approach to an external verifier (tutor, mentor, class teacher). Second, we
may speculate that as student teachers gain more experience, they develop a
firmer epistemology, with the result that some of their pedagogy becomes
spontaneous and less consciously derived. That is, student teachers move from

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a position in which they are dependent upon more experienced practitioners

to guide their actions, to one in which they become more secure about their
own abilities and unconsciously use their repository of acquired skills and
strategies. Paradoxically, student teachers may be more able to teach
effectively as they gain classroom experience, but less able to explain why they
do what they do, as the ability increasingly resides in the sphere of the
mysterious capacity known as intuition. The paradox of seeing greater
expertise associated with a diminished ability to articulate the reasons behind
actions is frequently expressed by experienced teachers in terms of ‘I don’t
know why I do things like I do, I just do!’ However, for student teachers there
is a potential dilemma, for if assessment of their competence takes account of
their ability to explain and justify their actions to the assessor, they must retain
the strength of articulation that they possessed in the early stages and not lapse
into perfunctory descriptions of their classroom practice, however effective the
pupils’ learning might be.

Responding Appropriately
The foregoing dialectic also suggests that however well student teachers learn
to articulate their thinking and rationalise their decision-making preactively,
they may still lack the experience to interact effectively with pupils due to an
inability to ‘read the runes’ during lesson times. As a result, they may respond
spontaneously to situations and events, but do so inappropriately. In developing
a satisfactory model to explain how teachers get better at teaching, we have to
consider that interlaced through a proposed continuum between conscious
decision-making (i.e. rationally derived) and subconscious decision-making
(i.e. spontaneously derived), there are bonding threads of ‘experience’ and of
something which can only be referred to rather vaguely as a ‘natural ability’ or
discernment. Inexperienced teachers may learn to react spontaneously but lack
the wisdom of experience and the sensitivity which characterises the very best
practitioners. At the other extreme, experienced teachers may defer making a
spontaneous decision because they ‘sense’ that a more considered (rational)
approach is necessary and want to take their time deciding.
To understand more adequately teachers’ ability to act instinctively and
know the most appropriate form of action to take, we should note that the
majority of experienced teachers, like the majority of experienced drivers, are
rarely taken by surprise by classroom events. They usually manage to stay
calm in an emergency, select the correct strategy, quickly correct errors, and
react decisively as problems arise (see, for example, the seminal work by
Kounin, 1970). Inexperienced teachers, on the other hand, despite the most
conscientious study, reflective application to the task and awareness of
significant contextual factors, often find it impossible to behave like their
experienced colleagues. The explanation for this inability can be explained to
some extent as follows:
[ the children may not respect the student teacher’s authority;

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[ student teachers may lack a full understanding of the implications of their

decisions and actions;
[ student teachers may not always know what importance and significance to
attach to different facets of classroom life.
Although teaching skills and strategies may be well rehearsed and thought
through in advance of the lesson, inexperienced teachers are less able to
anticipate the likely outcomes of their actions. Only a close involvement with
pupils over a period of time can bring about a gradual shift from being a
‘learner driver’ who stares hard at the bonnet, to the confident and relaxed
teacher who makes everything work together in harmony, is able to look
ahead, foresee problems and take prompt action when necessary. One way or
another, a failure to read the runes or to make appropriate spontaneous
decisions has implications for improving teaching effectiveness. At heart, all
decisions about appropriate teaching must be balanced against the immediacy
of responding to individual learning needs (Galton et al, 1999).

Getting Better at ‘Getting Better’

Decisions and Decision-making
Getting better at ‘getting better’ at making decisions requires that student
teachers give careful thought to appropriate teaching strategies, classroom
procedures and the implications of their actions. However, the thrust of the
arguments explored so far suggests that decisions may not necessarily take place as
a result of decision-making. That is, some decisions will ‘just happen’ without
recourse to logic or pre-formulated plans (spontaneity); others will occur after
careful consideration and the weighing of alternatives (rational decision-
making). Furthermore, Swann & Brown (1997) suggest that it is not only the
ability to think and reason that controls decisions, but also responses to a
variety of factors that are sometimes within the practitioner’s control (such as
the lesson content) and sometimes not (such as the pupils’ previous
experiences of learning). Decisions that result from carefully conceived and
executed judgements may not provide for the immediacy required to maintain
the momentum of a lesson or react to pupils’ learning requirements and
behaviour.
We should also note that teachers’ aspirations may not be reflected
through their actions. Segal (1998), for instance, argues that there is often a
tension between teachers’ beliefs about teaching and the way they go about it;
thus, ‘espoused’ theories of teaching and ‘theories in use’ (Argyris & Schön,
1974) might differ due to the need for teachers (especially, it might be argued,
inexperienced ones) to survive rather than any commitment to a desired course
of action (cf. Woods, 1979). The need to survive becomes even more acute for
student teachers who are working in someone else’s classroom and under
constant scrutiny.

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Propositions about getting better at teaching must, therefore, take

account of the diversity of factors which impinge upon classroom decisions.
The assumption that teaching skills can, by a simple process of accretion, be
systematically gained and improved over time, without an acknowledgement
of the numerous other influences which help to shape classroom practice, is
akin to a ‘virtual reality’ game in which the sensations and images are clearly
defined but the emotional and practical dimensions are neglected (see, for
example, Richardson, 1990). All teachers strive to make effective classroom
decisions, but sometimes the urgency of deciding and the compelling necessity
for self-preservation may combine to annul the process of decision-making in
favour of a less rational spontaneity.

The Cyclical Character of ‘Getting Better’ at Teaching

The difficulties attached to an attempt to define the process of improvement in
teaching through making more effective decisions, and the many
combinations of decisions that are taken by a student teacher to ensure sound
learning and discipline, suggest that a description of the processes operating in
a successful lesson should accommodate something less easily described,
namely, instinctiveness. The ‘instinctiveness’ which characterises more
experienced teachers is indicated through comments such as: ‘It just happened
...’, ‘Something told me to ...’ and ‘I reacted without thinking ...’ and other
expressions which suggest that it is difficult to have a complete grasp of the
many cognitive and, perhaps, subliminal, operations that take place when
decisions are made. Although time spent identifying positive features of good
teaching in the lecture theatre or school staffroom provides a worthwhile
canvas against which to illuminate aspects of good practice, the challenge for
tutors is to consider how best to help student teachers develop the art (or is it
science?) of ‘just knowing’, a strategy on which experienced teachers rely so
heavily.
Furthermore, we have to consider that student teachers not only lack a
basic knowledge of appropriate strategies for making effective decisions, but
also may be unaware of what they need to know. As they become more aware
of areas for development in their classroom practice due to regular dialogue
with tutors and teachers, and their own reflective thinking (Pollard, 1996), they
can persevere to improve their skill levels until they reach a point at which
they feel, or are helped to recognise, that mastery has been achieved. Student
teachers must then follow the often painful pathway by which they are alerted
to, or become aware of, what remains to be achieved. They subsequently
struggle to attain the more demanding levels of expertise before this new ‘level
of competence’ is absorbed into their subconscious minds and becomes a
spontaneous, instinctive component of classroom practice. Over time, this
cycle of Awareness–Striving–Attainment–Spontaneity (ASAS) will be repeated
at an increasingly sophisticated level of competence, though the length of the
ASAS cycle from ‘unaware of incompetence’ to ‘operating instinctively’ will

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vary depending upon a range of factors which are difficult to define, but
doubtless include intensity of work, quality of health, the weight of other
commitments and a willingness to learn. During times of stress and overwork
or acute anxiety, the temptation to maintain the status quo may prove
irresistible, as progress to the ‘next level’ is likely to involve working through
times of uncertainty and painful self-examination.
Kagan (1992) argues that in order for student teachers to move from a
‘novice’ state to one of competence, they need to spend time on an inward
focus and reconstruction of their self-image. However, Grossman (1992) warns
that once practitioners have established stable classroom routines, they may be
reluctant to question them and begin the move towards a higher state of
competence. Training providers can begin to help student teachers to
understand that once these subconscious decisions (‘just doing it’) become
established, it is time to re-examine practice and see whether a further cycle of
awareness-raising needs to be embarked upon before atrophy undermines
what has been gained. This will necessitate stepping back from a reliance on
spontaneous decisions and a careful evaluation of practice as the student
teacher works through the adjustments needed to reach the new and higher
competence level.

Assessing Competence
Any assessment of student teachers must take account of the fact that students
may be at different points within the aforementioned ASAS cycle and that
their apparent struggles in the classroom may reflect their attempts to shift up
a gear to new heights of achievement rather than a sign of a downturn in their
fortunes. On the positive side, there are some signs that the Government is
recognising that the fierce imposition of competence criteria may suppress
teachers’ and pupils’ creativity and induce a ‘play safe’ mentality. First, a recent
report from the DfEE includes the phrase ‘creativity and culture’ in its title
(DfEE, 1999b), and second, the consultation document for a review of the
National Curriculum in England (DfEE, 1999c) highlights issues relating to
pupils’ identity, spiritual, moral, social and cultural heritages, aesthetic fields of
achievement and, notably, ‘the opportunity to become creative, innovative
and enterprising’ (p. 5). It remains to be seen whether the Government’s
obsession with forcing up standards in literacy and numeracy allows for any
significant progress to be made in other dimensions of school achievement. It
is certain that a failure to allow student teachers to flourish in an enterprise
culture, where risk-taking and imaginative teaching decisions are encouraged,
may condemn them to the secure-but-mundane enclosures of well-trodden
lowland paths.

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Gaining and Using Experience

It is also important to note that earlier attempts to identify characteristics of
‘experience’ indicated that any attempts to equate experience with effective
decision-making and accompanying teaching behaviour must distinguish
between the terms ‘experience’ and ‘experiences’. Experience comes about as a
result of gaining experiences; however, mere exposure to experiences does not
necessarily impact positively upon classroom practice and result in becoming
the sort of successful practitioner that can be described as ‘experienced’. Two
student teachers having similar experiences will benefit from them in
manifestly different ways, due not only to their existing abilities and
propensity for teaching, but also to the way in which they are able to use the
information gained to enhance their teaching capability. Supervising tutors
have the responsibility of helping student teachers to incorporate their
accumulated insights into their practical teaching and adjust their existing
notions about teaching-and-learning until they have penetrated beyond a
purely intellectual appreciation of their significance, and the concepts have
become absorbed into the fabric of their psyche. The process by which such an
intellectual grasp is translated into subconscious thinking is not easily defined.
It appears to rest upon student teachers’ ability to reflect intelligently on their
classroom practice, their willingness to accept advice from experienced
colleagues, and their mental aptitude for assimilating new thinking into their
present understanding (Hayes, 1999).
In terms of the continuous decision-making operations which
characterise the teacher’s role, we may surmise that the more efficient the
translation from ‘purely intellectual’ to ‘subconsciously assimilated’ the
process becomes, the more spontaneously the decisions emerge. Student
teachers who are still operating solely at the intellectual level lose vital time
while weighing up the options in situ, a situation that is likely to contrast
unfavourably with the relative immediacy of decisions from those who have
fully assimilated their experiences and can react to classroom events and
incidents in an unpremeditated way.

The Challenge for Training Providers

The significance of teachers’ thinking, awareness and decision-making for the
development of classroom teaching skills and strategies indicates that it is
essential for training providers to spend time exploring their significance when
devising training programmes. A failure to offer a carefully considered
rationale for the means by which effectiveness can be achieved provides
succour to anyone claiming that teaching ability can be enhanced through
mere exposure to classroom teaching, rather than by using professional
judgements within a properly conceived framework, based on an
understanding of the teaching-and-learning process.

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In developing a framework, training providers must not lose sight of the

fact that teaching and learning has to be conducted in a dynamic classroom
environment. The interactive, intense atmosphere of a classroom, in which
pupils’ reactions and responses are largely unpredictable, and the impact of
particular words and actions can alter the lesson direction and classroom
climate, has to be taken into account whenever teaching ability is assessed.
The lesson context is also important: for example, a circle time with 5 year-olds
does not bear immediate comparison with an investigative science lesson with
Year 11, as the desired outcome may be the same (sound learning and
discipline) but the process by which it is achieved will vary with the
circumstances.
The self-evident truth that teaching environments differ points up the
inadequacy of an assessment of student teachers’ competence in which the
complex job of teaching is broken down into an itemised checklist of desirable
behaviours, without taking account of intention, awareness and intelligent
application of knowledge that contribute to the different decisions and
responses woven into the fabric of a lesson. Even when set criteria are used for
assessment, their interpretation is still important, as we need to take account of
the way teachers act and feel (Halliday, 1996). In doing so, we must also allow
for the fact that the reason for classroom decisions may not be obvious to a
casual observer. For instance, we can envisage a situation where Student 1
accepts a particular standard of behaviour from a pupil, while Student 2
regards it as unsatisfactory. The variation in approach is apparent in that while
Student 1 ignores the behaviour, Student 2 immediately confronts it. The
observer might conclude that the second student has higher standards than the
first or that the second student’s monitoring skills were superior (as s/he
spotted the misdemeanour that the first student apparently missed). However,
a subsequent conversation with the students may reveal that the first student
was, in fact, exercising a higher level of professional sensitivity than the second
in deciding to overlook the behaviour. In the first student’s case, their
monitoring may have resulted from (say) a greater knowledge of the particular
pupil’s attention-seeking tendency or non-situational factors (see Elliott, 1993,
earlier). The second student may have lacked the first student’s understanding
of the situation; on the other hand, they might be a more courageous and
determined teacher than their colleague in confronting the pupil’s behaviour.
Either way, the observer would need to take account of the rationale
underpinning the students’ decisions in order to make a satisfactory
assessment of competence. Judgements about the quality of student teachers’
classroom achievements must not only take close account of pre-lesson
decisions such as establishing learning objectives for pupils, providing
resources and creating a worthwhile lesson structure, but also of
understanding the student teacher’s educational priorities; in short, to
understand where student teachers are ‘coming from’.
Judgements about teaching ability also need to be rooted in an awareness
of significant tensions or points of disagreement between the teacher,

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supervisor and student that may influence the quality of teaching and learning.
Reynolds & Salters (1995) summarise the position as follows: ‘correct
interpretation of a situation requires accurate perception and understanding of
relevant data’ (p. 356) and therefore a need to share an agreed conceptual
framework. Thus, ‘learning about teaching and how to teach depends on a
common understanding, which encompasses values’ (p. 356). Similarly,
Grimmett & MacKinnon (1992) emphasise that teaching proficiency relies not
only upon possessing certain skills and strategies, but also upon maintaining a
certain disposition towards learning. Thus, ‘craft knowledge emphasises
judgement ... It relies heavily upon intuition, care, empathy for pupils. It is
steeped in morality ...’ (p. 429). Student teachers may not agree with their host
teacher’s (or college supervisor’s) approach but feel obliged to compromise
their own values for the sake of harmony and a successful outcome.

Conclusion
This article’s attempts to understand the means by which student teachers ‘get
better at teaching’ has relied upon a number of propositions about decision-
making which, in part, parallel the action-research model for the professional
development of qualified teachers. Such a model indicates that progress
towards being an effective practitioner depends upon student teachers’
determination to learn by investigating their own classroom practice and
establishing ‘new thoughts about familiar experiences and about the
relationship between particular experiences and general ideas’ (Winter, 1989,
p. vii). Student teachers’ development is thereby stimulated through ‘a more
deliberate consideration of daily experiences, intensive examinations of
fundamental classroom processes [and] committed efforts to changing how the
classroom works’ (Thiessen, 1992, p. 101). Furthermore, we have noted that
the assumption that ‘gaining classroom experience’ will automatically result in
more appropriate teaching decisions and effective teaching has to be treated
with caution, as prerequisites of effectiveness include intelligent reflection on
past experiences, familiarity with classroom procedures and the ability to
accommodate the demands made by the particular context into decision-
making.
Once the complexity of making teaching decisions is recognised, the
practice of mechanically checking off teaching skills as ‘acquired’ or ‘not
acquired’ becomes an inadequate mechanism for developing and assessing
competence. Indeed, in trying to conform with standards, student teachers
may be tempted to take decisions which reasonably ensure ‘compliance’, at
the expense of creativity and innovation. The form of professionalism that
values teacher autonomy, fresh thinking, new paradigms for learning and bold
decisions about classroom practice is unlikely to be celebrated in a political
climate where deferential submissiveness to externally imposed criteria and
teaching strategies dominates the agenda. If student teachers are to progress
beyond the level of banality, we must better understand that no matter how

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skilled, hard-working and capable a student teacher may be, there are
dimensions of effective teaching that can only be gained through intelligent
reflection on practice that gradually leads to a subconscious ‘just knowing’ and
concomitant, spontaneous decisions. An essential element of this process is the
freedom for student teachers to think expansively about teaching and learning
and, with suitable support, advice and encouragement, to act courageously in
pursuit of their objectives.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the formidable grip exercised by the
exit competence statements which circumscribe classroom teaching ability is
in danger of sapping the energies of tutors, mentors and student teachers, and
enervating the potential and enthusiasm which many student teachers possess.
Time would be more profitably spent on improving and enhancing student
teachers’ ability to survive and prosper in the hothouse of classroom life by
making well-informed, appropriate decisions, rather than agonising over the
interpretation of cumbersome assessment criteria which take little account of
context, individual circumstances or educational ideals.

Correspondence
Denis Hayes, Rolle School of Education, University of Plymouth, Douglas
Avenue, Exmouth EX8 2AT, United Kingdom (dhayes@plymouth.ac.uk).

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