Conversations about Effective Teaching

The expression ‘craft knowledge’ is not heard very often these days when talking about teaching. A critical evaluation of research into ‘best practice’ for effective teaching, uncovers a variety of available strategies that apply in a variety of ways. The successful teacher needs to develop a repertoire of appropriate skills to meet the varied demands of classroom teaching. Formal opportunities for in-service training give teachers ongoing access to these important skills but these, on their own, may not readily transform into effective teaching practice in the classroom. The thesis of this paper is that it is in the context of dialogue amongst colleagues on the job, often spontaneous, that teachers can further develop their ‘craft’. The following, imagined, dialogue between a teacher in the early years of teaching and a longer serving colleague, suggests how this might happen.