Formal skills and learning communities

The seminar, led by Mathias Thorborg, was attended by members of CRiEDO and other researchers from the Autonomous University of Barcelona interested in the development of formal skills within professional learning communities.

The starting point of the seminar was the revision of the publication carried out by Thorborg and his colleague Lars Qvortrup, where they present the different approaches to professional learning and development (in English, Professional Learning and Development - PLD) produced as a result of the school reform of the year 2014 in Denmark. In this paper they describe how the formal competency development approach dominated in the initial phase, and how it was gradually complemented by a top-down teacher collaboration approach within the framework of professional learning communities (PLC). Collaboration led to increased workplace learning through feedback and reflection. However, none of the recent PLD approaches appear to have had a significant positive impact on student achievement. Thorborg and Qvortrup discuss examples of faculty collaboration as part of the PLD and include a complexity-oriented theoretical perspective and a case for an approach according to which the collaboration of faculty and the PLD should be viewed as a result of emerging organizational and managerial processes. of complexity rather than as a result of top-down management decisions.

Mathias Thorborg is a primary and secondary teacher and has a master's degree in educational psychology. After obtaining his master's degree, he held a position as a research assistant in projects that revolve around food pedagogy and school meals. He started his doctorate in 2020 and will deliver his thesis in the first semester of 2023. He is currently doing a pre-doctoral stay at CRiEDO.