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the professional stance.
These extracts have highlighted the role of the tutor, the avail-
ability of the experience within the small groups, and the importance
of encouraging the students
personal and professional concerns as
the focus for developing professional knowledge.
Finally it was
suggested that
professional interests
and personal concerns bear
an intimate if often unexpressed relationship.
6.2 The nature of pedagogy
a) Using student experience
Within the Research Group it was seen that students
problems
with
their teaching were influenced by factors to
do with other teachers,
the
departments
they worked in
and other aspects of school life.
If problems were
seen as to do largely with control or inexperience
then the means of
tackling
the problem could
be restricted
Moving
through the year with the
students it was often apparent that with
increasing knowledge about the school, the classes and themselves
they developed new directions and used strengths which effectively
O
changed the nature of the problem. This suggests that if ‘the’
problem of student and young teachers is seen as control and profes-
sional knowledge and advice is geared to this, opportunities for
a wider analysis are lost. A wider analysis should address the part-
icularities of a student’s or a school group’s perceptions and this
involves the tutor’s knowledge of the school and requires realistic
possibilities for the building up and utilisation of that knowledge.
These possibilities are basic to the school group way of working.