Learning and impact – Perspective from John Loughran
Delwynne’s learning and the insights she has gained are powerful. Her ideas may seem simple:
“I’ve stopped: telling teachers what to do; using questions to lead them to the ‘right’ answer; thinking while they’re talking. I’ve started: using evidence to prompt teacher actions; asking questions that I don’t know the answers to; listening to what is being said.”
But they are really far from simple, as these phrases capture the essence of what she has learned to do. Her learning goes way beyond propositional knowledge of practice into real depths of understanding. She is far more informed about what she is doing and, as a consequence, her practice has been transformed. She has learned how to confront being a “living contradiction” and to do something positive about it.
Those with whom she works, such as Kathy and Geraldine, are also benefiting from these changes. As a consequence of her experiences, what she has learned to do herself now shapes the ways in which she helps others to learn. By embedding learning in real experiences and modelling the value of so doing, she has learned how to support deep change in the beliefs and practice of others.
