“It's Good to Talk”: Exploring Effective Professional Conversations in Teacher Education

Abstract

Professional conversations are significant in teacher education, yet policy makers and practitioners differ in their understanding of what these involve. The purpose of this study was to identify and understand the critical elements of successful professional conversations; the elements that effectively contribute to critical reflection and evaluation of teaching practice. Insight is provided by 10 participants who took part in a discussion group, in-depth interviews and written reflections. All participants are involved in professional conversations for a teacher education programme in Wales, in their capacity as either a student teacher, practice tutor or mentor. Findings highlight that some of the significant elements needed for an effective professional conversation include adequate preparation time for the conversation itself, knowledge of programme requirements and professional teaching standards, along with knowledge about the student teacher's school context – these can all be described as “hard” inputs; whereas the “soft” inputs include effective listening and questioning skills, and being able to offer challenge to the student teacher. Similarly, outputs of professional conversations can also be recognised as 'hard': effective reflections contributing to progress against the professional teaching standards; and “soft”: collaborative working relationships that are honest and positive with two-way learning for the mentor and the student. It is concluded that the softer skills of questioning and understanding the student teacher's expectations must be developed effectively for professional conversations in teacher education to have a positive impact on all those involved.

Received: 20 September 2024 | Revised: 5 November 2024 | Accepted: 16 December 2024

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to this work.

Data Availability Statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.

Author Contribution Statement

Alison Glover: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Project administration, Funding acquisition. Catharine Bleasdale: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Funding acquisition. Grace Clifton: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition. Angela Thomas: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Writing- review & editing, Visualization, Project administration.