The Oxford Education Society (OES) Lecture is an annual public lecture organised by the Department of Education at the University of Oxford. This year’s lecture forms part of an eight-part public event series on ‘Future directions in teacher education research, practice and policy’, led by the department and convened by Diane Mayer (Professor of Education (Teacher Education)) and Alis Oancea (Professor of Philosophy of Education and Research Policy and Director of Research).

This event is free to attend and aimed at academics, researchers, teachers, head teachers, government members, policy-makers and students and alumni of the department, but anyone with an interest in this subject is welcome to attend.

ABSTRACT
While calls for the improvement of teaching permeate public, policy and academic arenas, achieving wide-scale improvement remains elusive. In this presentation Jenny Gore will explore why efforts to improve teaching too often fail. First, she will outline how some of the field’s most time-honoured approaches to improving teaching might actually be impeding growth, because of the multiple ways in which they position teachers as inadequate, inexpert, and uninformed. She will go on to outline some of her own research on pedagogy and teacher development, which has been achieving promising signs of real change – with demonstrated substantial improvements not only to the quality of teaching but also to teacher morale, teacher relationships and school culture. These positive effects have been found across grade levels and subject areas, and for both beginning and experienced teachers. She will then discuss how even such rigorous empirical evidence provides no guarantee of wider influence and impact. Complex processes of representation and recognition, on the one hand, and institutional integration, on the other, will continue to thwart the fundamentally complex quest for better teaching. Rather than feeling paralysed by this complexity, Jenny embraces its liberating warrant for ongoing creative struggle. If large scale change is to occur, however, a much broader conversation about how it can happen is needed.

EVENT TIMINGS
5pm – welcome and introduction from Diane Mayer (Professor of Education (Teacher Education), Department of Education)
5.10pm – annual lecture: ‘The Quest for Better Teaching’, by Jennifer Gore (Visiting Professor, Department of Education and Laureate Professor of Education and Director of the Teachers and Teaching Research Centre, University of Newcastle, Australia)
6pm – lecture response, chaired by Diane Mayer. Respondents: Dame Alison Peacock (Chief Executive of The Chartered College of Teaching), Martin Mills (Professor and Director of the Centre for Research on Teachers and Teaching, UCL) and Trevor Mutton (Director of Professional Programmes and the Oxford Education Deanery, Department of Education)
6.15pm – Q&A chaired by Diane Mayer
6.30pm – Drinks reception

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jenny Gore is Visiting Professor at the department and Laureate Professor of Education and Director of the Teachers and Teaching Research Centre, University of Newcastle, Australia

ABOUT THE RESPONDENTS
Dame Alison Peacock, Chief Executive of The Chartered College of Teaching

Martin Mills, Professor and Director of the Centre for Research on Teachers and Teaching at UCL

Trevor Mutton, Director of Professional Programmes and the Oxford Education Deanery, Department of Education