Conscious Reflection and Implicit Learning in Teacher Preparation.

Part II: Implications for a

Balanced Approach
Author(s): Peter Tomlinson
Source: Oxford Review of Education, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Dec., 1999), pp. 533-544
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
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OxfordReviewofEducation,Vol. 25, No. 4, 1999

~,~f.

Conscious Reflection and Implicit Learning in

Teacher Preparation. Part II: implications for a
balanced approach

PETER TOMLINSON

ABSTRACT A previous linked paper (Tomlinson, 1999) considered recent work in

psychologyon implicit learning and connectionismas renewed supportfor the anti-
rationalisttraditionassociated withRyle and others.By way of a re-consideration of the
knowing how-knowing that distinction,it proposed a non-reductiveview embracing
various kinds of interplaybetweenproceduraland descriptivekinds of knowledgein the
acquisitionand implementationof skilfulcapability.
The presentpaper examines the implicationsof these ideas for our understandingof
what studentteachersbring to their courses of initial preparation,furtherunderlining
Lortie's 'apprenticeshipof observation' idea. It goes on to suggestthat the medium of
interactivevideo offersmuch-neededhelp to counterthisby simultaneouslyharnessingthe
power of implicit learning and providing a concrete,flexible resourcefor reflective
analysis.

In a previous paper (Tomlinson, 1999) I triedto show how recent work in psychology
on connectionistnetworks and implicit learning lends powerful support to the anti-
rationalisttraditionin the study of action associated with such philosophers as Ryle,
Oakeshott,Polanyi and Dreyfus.By way of a re-considerationof the procedural-declar-
ative, knowing how-knowing that distinction,I sought to construct a non-reductive
view of skilfulcapabilityand its acquisition which admits of various kinds of interplay
between procedural and descriptivekinds of knowledge.
The most obvious implication of the previous paper would appear to be a need to
question the virtuallyexclusive emphasis on conscious thinkingand learning which
appears to persist in teacher education in spite or even, as I suggested previously,
because of Ryle's famous distinctionand Sch6n's influentialemphasis on reflection.If
there is an even more basic lesson, however, it is surely to avoid the thought versus
action dichotomyof traditionaldualism, but instead to grapple with the difficultissues
of balance and interplaybetween implicit and explicit facets of processing. In this
respect,the argumentsof the previous paper may be usefullyextended by referenceto
Eraut's (1994) cognitive continuum frameworkfor decision-making.This envisages
three time-scales: a relativelylong-termtime-scale which allows conscious planning
decisions using deliberativeanalysisand explicitknowledge;an intermediatetime-scale,
involvingrapid, conscious thinking'on the hoof; and an immediate response time-
scale, requiringinstant,implicitprocesses.
Nevertheless,the main case I want to make here is fortakingimplicitlearningmuch

ISSN 0305-4985 (print)/ISSN1465-3915 (online)/99/040533-12© 1999 Taylor & FrancisLtd

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534 OxfordReviewofEducation
more seriouslyin teacherpreparation,not just passively,but by seekingto harness such
featuresas the 'exquisite sensitivity'connectioniststudies point to in human awareness.
Along with other aspects of transferand generalisation,these may have important
lessons for us to take to teacher preparation,especially if they can be combined with
complementaryideas fromrecentwork in activitytheoryand socioculturalpsychology
(Wertsch, 1998; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Chaiklin & Lave, 1993). In this finalsection I
thereforewant to suggest some such implicationsfor certain core, perennial issues in
initialteacherpreparation,in particularhow they(a) may illuminateour understanding
and treatmentof what student-teachersbring to theircourses and (b) may contribute
to our understanding and strategiesfor optimising what students get out of such
courses.

WHAT STUDENT-TEACHERS BRING TO THEIR TRAINING COURSES

A firstimplicationis that the lengthyexperiences of schooling broughtby virtuallyall
student teachers to their courses may constitute a powerful influence on their pro-
fessionallearning.This suggestionis of course not original:Lortie (1975), forinstance,
wrote of the 'apprenticeship of observation' student teachers will have undergone
during their schooling. Moreover, recent appreciation by teacher educators of the
constructivenature of human cognitionhas led to increasingfocus on the ideas, beliefs
or 'subjective theories' student teachers bring with them from such experience (cf.
Handal & Lauvas, 1987), includingthe possibilityrecognised by Freeman (1994) that
much of this 'knowledge' (his term) may be 'mistaken and counterproductive'.
However, it is only relativelyrecentlythat the unarticulated, often image-based
nature of student-teachers'cognitiveresources concerning teaching has been brought
to the fore (cf. Calderhead, 1989, 1995), as indicated in expressions like 'thought-
in-action' (Schon, 1983) and it is stillmore recentlythat groups like the IVLOS team
at Utrecht have tried to devise explicit strategies for dealing with this in teacher
preparation (cf. Wubbels, 1992). Even then, in spite of the familiarityof the idea of
'craftknowledge' in the teacher education domain, as far as I am aware, none of the
work just referredto has made referenceto the possibilityof such learninghavingbeen
implicitin the firstplace and, indeed, there sometimes seems to be an assumption (in
Sch6n's writings,for instance) that with suitable concentration tacit resources can
always be raised to consciousness. Still less have implicitlearningexperimentalresearch
and the compatible connectionistideas referredto above been acknowledged in teacher
education and developmentwriting.Yet these two strandsmay not only underlinethe
need to take students-teachers'existingresources into account, but also suggestfurther
insightsinto their various layers, explicit and implicit,first-orderand metacognitive.

Detailed, ImplicitKnowledgeof 'Normal ClassroomLife'

(a) Powerfully
Given student-teachers'massive involvementin teaching interactionsover some eleven
or more years of theirown schooling,then in the lightof what we have seen above they
are likelyto 'know an awfullot about teaching', at least in the sense of possessing rich
implicitawarenessof kinds and sequences of classroom events,but also includinga great
deal of know-how.That is, to a considerable extent,studentteachers will tacitly'know
what to do' in classroom, theywill 'have responses ready', although this 'possession of
relevantscripts'will be largelyimplicit,as social scriptstypicallyare. On the basis of the
work reviewed in the previous paper, we may expect that these resources will deal in

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 and ImplicitLearning 535
ConsciousReflection

termsof prototypicalclasses of action patterningin response to particularkindsof event

patterns,stored in termsof massive, directlyutilisable situationaldetail, littleof which
may be or become conscious. These will thus tend to provide student-teachers''default
options' by way of teaching action, guiding what they do 'other thingsequal'. This all
the more to the extentthat any new, consciously acquired teaching strategieshave as
yetnot been consolidated into theiraction repertoireor been threatenedby the stresses
of classroom complexityand pressure. Although this experientialresidue should echo
the range of approaches a student-teacherhas encountered, it may well be that as
Wubbels (1992) suggests,in many countriesit will tend towards a didactic style,insofar
as that has been dominant in the teaching culture of schools (cf. Bennett, 1976).

(b) ExplicitIdeas about Teaching

If student-teachersare likely to bring massive implicit resources fromtheir previous
'legitimateperipheral participation' (Lave & Wenger, 1991) in classroom situations,
then they are neverthelessalso likely to bring consciously held concepts and views
regardingteaching. Some of these will have theirorigins in explicit thoughtprocesses
and social exchanges concerning schooling, others may have been acquired implicitly,
but have eventuallythroughconsolidation 'come to the surface' (McGeorge & Burton,
1989; Stanley et al., 1989), available for 'representationalre-description'as Karmiloff-
Smith would put it. The latter possibilityfitswell with the findingthat teachers and
student-teachersreach for 'images' (Calderhead, 1987, 1995) or 'left brain language'
(Wubbels, 1992) when asked to articulatetheircraftknowledge, since these would be
nearest to the richnessof what theyhave stored. But on the same basis, we need to be
wary of thinkingthat student-teachers'resources are exclusivelyin terms of particular
instances;it may simplybe that the flexibleprototypesdeveloped by our neural nets are
difficultto indicate explicitlyexcept by such particularreferences.

(c) ResourcesGroundedin thePupil Perspective

This implicit and explicit residue of previous schooling experience is likely to be
immenselyrich, but it is also personal and not just perceptual. It will include not just
simultaneousperceptual patternsof experienced classroom minutiae,nor just the ways
in which these tend to change over varyingtime periods. It will also include first-person
orientations,includingintentionsand feltmotives,feelingsand affectivesensationsthat
have accompanied and interacted with perceptions within the experiences of each
person's long pupil history.
But this also alerts us to what seems an importantlimitationon this experience in
relation to learningto teach: virtuallyall of it has been as a pupil and hardlyany of it
as a teacher. That is, unless exceptional by way of including, say, considerable peer
tutoring,the student-teacher'sexperience is not likelyto have been that of someone in
the teacher role, still less of one tryingto promote learning. It has rather been the
soaking up of prototypicalregularitiesof observable teacher-pupil-contextinteractions
fromthe-typically ratherlimited-viewpoint of pupil.
To the extentthatthese interactionshad in factbeen effectivein promotinglearning,
much useful teaching know-how may neverthelesshave been implicitlyacquired: the
evidence cited in the previous paper supportsthe optimisticpossibilitythat,like Ryle's
chess-learningboy, one may implicitlylearn aspects of good teaching by receivingit.
Indeed, this possibilityshould not be too readily ignored, since it may be difficult to

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536 OxfordReviewofEducation
acquire some of themany otherway, particularlyvia explicit articulationor systematic
training,so thatsuch experiencemay thus be one causal antecedentof 'naturalteaching
capability'. On the other hand, to the extentthat the studenthas experienced limited
teaching strategies,or even the 'mistaken or counterproductive'ones entertainedby
Freeman (1994), he or she will tend also to have internalisedthese implicitly,unfet-
tered by the application of any negative evaluations based on teaching intentionsand
understandings which would have tended to be private to the teachers he or she
witnessed.
This latterpoint neverthelesssignals a ratherbasic issue which the laboratory-based
work cited in my earlierpaper leaves open, namely: to what extentwill pupils in fact
pick up bases forteacherlyaction implicitly,simplythroughobservation?Althoughthe
implicitlearningliteraturesuggeststhat 'artificialgrammars'may be acquired implicitly
through exposure, the little laboratorywork available suggests, consistentlywith the
traditionalcognitivetheoryof skill (cf. Fitts & Posner, 1967), that implicitacquisition
of complex system control requires actual participation, with observation of such
activitiesonly being effectivefor skill learningwhen the action-consequence relation-
ships are easily perceivable.
For this and perhaps other reasons, pupils may be more likelyto acquire classroom
management strategies implicitlythan learning promotion strategies, inasmuch as
desirable classroom behaviour is more publicly observable by pupils, who can more
easily tell the extent to which it is being achieved at any given time. By contrast,
learninginvolves 'invisible' goals defined in terms of disposition and capability,which
are more difficultto recognise publicly: here pupils may be more likelyto pick up the
sortof 'performance'as opposed to 'learning' or capabilityorientationnoted by Dweck
(cf. Dweck & Legett, 1988). A contrastingand currentlypopular view mightbe that
pupils themselvesare best placed to recognise when theyhave learned, though in turn,
this may still only apply in fact to noticeable experiences such as pupils being able to
relate sudden conscious insights to particular teacher explanations. Noticing the
influencesupon the learninggains acquired more graduallyis probablymore difficult.
We may thereforeconclude thatthe laboratorywork cited earliercannot be 'applied' to
teacher learningin any unproblematicallydirectway. Rather,it raises some intriguingly
important,relativelyspecific research questions which need to be pursued in the
contexts of teacher education and development.

(d) MetacognitiveResources:explicitand implicitideas about how one learnsto teach

The above subsections are relevantnot just to firstorder resources for teaching, but
equally to notions about how one may learn to teach, extendingto how to participate
in being taught or trained. Such notions are now oftenreferredto as 'metacognitive',
though there is disagreementabout the clarityof this concept (cf. Simons, 1996).
Sufficeit to suggestthat 'second order' conceptions (in otherwords, 'folkpsychology')
concerning cognitive processes such as learning and teaching may themselves be
acquired and/orheld implicitly,by way of assumption, as well as explicitly,and that as
usual a veryintricatemixtureof both probably tends to be involved.
In this respect,what seems likelyis that students' experientialresidue will echo their
language and culture.In the Westernworld thisis likelyto mean a dualist view in which
thoughtand action are separated, the latterbeing thoughtto require practical involve-
ment ratherthan reflectionforits effectiveacquisition. Even worse, it may also involve
a talentview of capabilityof the 'teachers are born, not made' kind [1] (cf. Tomlinson,

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 ConsciousReflection
and ImplicitLearning 537

1998). Consistent with this, there are indications (cf. Hagger et al., 1993; CLAMP
Team, 1995) thatmanyUK student-teachershold the view thatone onlylearns to teach
by gettinginto the action and 'having a go oneself, togetherwith a 'behaviourist-
didactic' conception of trainingas being 'told what to do' (cf. Perlberg & Theodore,
1975).

(e) The Worstof Both Worlds?

To the extentthat the above conjectures have any validity,theypoint to the likelihood
of dilemmas and double binds for many student teachers. On the one hand, to the
extent that a student-teacherhas indeed undergone the sort of implicit learning just
hypothesised,they may have Berry's 'phenomenal sense of knowing': they feel they
'know what teaching's all about' and to that extentare confidentabout 'gettinginto the
action and givingit a try'.This may stand them in good stead at various levels but, as
suggested above, is on its own unlikely to constitute an entirelysufficientbasis for
adaptivelyvaried teaching. Their teaching dispositions are likelyto be of a particular
kind, perhaps the 'conduit' (Wubbels, 1992) or didactic type, and they may be
correspondinglyanti-reflective, not to mention anti-formaltheory.
Alternatively,to the extent that a student-teacherhas any conscious sense of not
knowinghow to teach ('because I've never even done it before'), then theymay fail to
profitfromtheirimplicitresources. They may wish forassistance but possess underly-
ing assumptions of a behaviourist-didactickind and may harbour unrealisticexpecta-
tions of theircourse and of themselves,in that theyare pushed into expectingfromthe
severelyrestricteddeliberative mode to be able to cope with the messy realities of
classroom interaction.That is, theywant to be told, in simple terms,exactlywhat to do.
And thisis not even to talk about the effectsof varyingdegrees of anxietyand classroom
stress.
Perhaps the saddest potential effectis on the sensitivelyopen and reflectivestudent
teacher,who writesintelligentessays,who perhaps has some negativeimages fromtheir
schooling, but neverthelesswants to be thoughtfulabout all aspects of theirteaching,
yet cannot manage to do this in the face of situational demands. Particularlyunder
stress,theymay revertto preciselythose well-establishedteachingregularitiestheyhave
implicitlysoaked up and, full of guilt, decide that they 'don't have what it takes to be
a teacher' (which, in a thoroughlyironic sense, may be true!).
These, then,are some of the possible implicationsfromthe previouspaper of the task
teacherpreparationfaces. Whilst in myview theyare indeed daunting,it is possible that
the same sources may also offerus somethingpositivewhen it comes to the way we go
about the initialpreparationof teachers.

STRATEGIES FOR ENHANCING EFFECTIVE TEACHING CAPABILITY

To the extentthatthe above thinkingis valid, teacher preparationneeds to integrateits
implicationsfor(a) takinginto account and dealing withwhat student-teachersbringto
their courses, and (b) promoting the acquisition of furtherteaching capability re-
sources.

(a) Dealing withExistingStances

As recognised earlier, suggestions about taking student-teacherbeliefs and outlooks
seriously are hardly new, but recent implicit learning research should support this

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538 OxfordReviewofEducation
stance, helping us furtherrecognise that some aspects of the ideas and tendencies
student-teachersbring may be fullyimplicit and not directlyarticulatable,even with
considerable honestyand effort.This reveals a greaterdifficulty, but indirectlyit may
strengthenour likelihood of dealing more effectively with student resources, as I shall
suggest below.
Nor must we forgetthat studentswill also bringconscious ideas and stances, or that
theremay be tensions or even contradictionsbetween these and theirimplicitassump-
tions. Again, this recognitionmakes it even more difficultto decide on strategiesin this
area. Past tendencies to associate constructivismwith consciousness might,for exam-
ple, tend to suggest explicit examination and challenging of existing conceptions,
especially where we hold these to be at all questionable. Here one might draw on
Corporaal's (1988) principles for integratingtheoryat the level of actions, including
practical experiencingof non-fruitfulness of own theories. On the other hand, if one
thought that everythinginfluencingpractice was implicit(cf. the commentaryon Table
I in the firstpaper of thispair), then thiscould hardlybe contemplatedand ifwe accept
the currentsuggestionof an intricateinterplayof conscious and passive processes in
learningand action, then thingsbecome even more problematic.But it probablymakes
a differencewhetherone is talkingabout students' 'firstorder' resourcesand tendencies
or about theirmeta-perspectivesconcerninglearning and themselvesas learners.

MetacognitiveStances RegardingtheirLearning
To the extentthat studentshold explicitideas about the nature of teaching,the nature
of learningto teach, themselvesas learnersand, correspondingly,expectationsregard-
ing appropriate forms of provision by their courses, these ideas must surely be
addressed overtly,sooner or later. A variety of strategies and differingdegrees of
individual matchingmay be possible, but it is surelyessential to establish recognition
of the real possibilityof implicitlearning. It would thus appear importantto indicate
thatthe programmeis startingfromthe well grounded axiom that students'many years
of schooling are likelyto have left them with rich sets of implicit ideas and natural
strategieswhich theymay find themselvestending to use in the classroom, especially
when under pressure. In the latter case they may even find themselves resortingto
approaches ofwhich theyconsciouslydisapprove. There will,of course, be considerable
individual differencesin student receptivitytowards such a reflectiveperspectiveand,
ironically,the studentsmost likelyto resist it will be those who have most implicitly
soaked up an anti-reflective, dualist culture of skill training.Nevertheless,given that
consciousness is such a definingfeatureof human experienceand identity,dealing with
such meta-perspectivesmust surelycount as essential foreffectiveteacher preparation
and certainlyfor promoting students' capacities for intelligentprofessional learning
over the longer term.

TeachingConceptionsand Tendencies
Without implyingthatthismetacognitivefrontshould or could be dealt with separately
or, still less, before addressing firstorder teaching conceptions and tendencies, what
can be achieved as regards uncovering and dealing with the latter will interactwith
progressin the former.Considering the strongrationalistcomponent of common sense
dualism, it bears emphasisingthat implicitresources may be exceedinglydifficultto get
at. In this sense, even Sch6n's otherphrase 'theory-in-action'perhaps functionslike his

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 ConsciousReflection
and ImplicitLearning 539

reflectionemphasis to maintain such dualism, insofar as the term theoryis assumed

(implicitly!)to referto somethingthat can be articulated. To the extentthat teacher
educators do feel it importantto uncover and discuss such orientationsthen the 'left
and righthemisphere' strategiesput forwardby Wubbels (1992), as well as indirect
means such as narrativeabout students' own schooling, or the drawingsand picture-
commentariesapproach currentlybeing triedby othersin the Utrechtgroup (Swennen
et al., 1997) may help uncover some of them, though students' masteryof such media
may be a confoundingissue. Sometimes, however,implicitresidues may only be visible
in what students actually do in the classroom. Once more, then, we see that effective
reflection(effectivein the sense of it having an effectsooner or later on what actually
gets done) requires close access to real action, preferablyparticipation-and not just
'peripheral participation',but gradual initiationinto central aspects of the activityof
teaching with teacher-mentors(i.e. 'progressivelycollaborative teaching', cf. Tomlin-
son, 1995, p. 51 ff.).
However, if this paper's earlier section on practitionerresistance to reflectionis
anywherenear accurate, then,as suggested,thisis the more serious problem forteacher
educators, particularlystudent-teachers'resistance to 'digging up the past when what
we want to know is what to do when we get into the classroom'. In such a case the
promotionof reflection,including dealing with these residues of the past, may need all
the more to be connected with, even embedded in, the other main aspect of teacher
preparation,namely attempts to influence positivelywhat student-teacherstake with
them into theirprofessionallives.

Acquisitionof Strategiesand Skill

(b) Promoting
In consideringimplications of the foregoingmaterial regardingpositive strategiesfor
enhancing student-teachers'professionallearning,I shall limit myselfto general com-
ments on traditionalapproaches and to specificsuggestionsforpositivelyharnessingthe
power of implicitlearning,in particularthroughthe potential of interactivevideo.

GeneralImplications
for CommunicatingTeachingStrategies
Some years ago I explored possible uses of online radio contact for directlysituated
coaching of student teaching in the context of real classrooms (Tomlinson, 1991).
Amongst the lessons learned fromthis Radio-AssistedPractice(RAP) were two which
not only helped change my prioritiesat the time, but which are also relevant to any
explicitattemptto influencethe developmentof studentteachers' classroom strategies,
both of which connect with the role of implicit levels of cognitive processing under
discussion here.
A firstwas that that the teacher educators involved in the project did not actually
seem to thinkin terms of particularteaching strategiesthey might offerto or discuss
with theirstudents (Tomlinson & Swift,1992) and stillless, as othershave noted (e.g.
Hargreaves, 1996) did they deploy any systematiclanguage or vocabulary of teaching
strategyto do so. In keeping with currentneo-Vygotskianrecognitionof the centrality
of effectivecommunication in any assistance for learning (Edwards & Mercer, 1987;
Cooper & McIntyre, 1996), this lack of systematic communication tools-a 'lan-
guage'-in the promoting of student-teacherprofessionallearning must be seen as a
cause forconcern. On the otherhand, a specialist language does not necessarilymean

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a differentterminology,it might also consist in specialised usage of the everyday
register.
This may very well have been the case in the RAP project, as illustratedin the
followingexample, which also taughtme a furtherlesson concerningthe importanceof
implicit cognition in communication. The situation was one in which a teaching
practice supervisorsuggested in one of his radio messages to the studentthat she 'get
a bit firmer'with a certain group of pupils. The student appeared to take no action as
a consequence, which was her explicit prerogative,but in discussion followingthe
lesson it emerged that this had been because she 'didn't know what you meant by
"gettingfirmer"'.Here we seemed to have an example of one of the paradoxes of skill
(Tomlinson, 1995), in which someone who is relativelyexpert assumes (implicitly)
their own (implicit) knowledge and semantics to be shared by the novice they are
seeking to assist. It appears to illustrate a point made in the earlier paper: that
meaningfulcomprehensionof a verbal message, let alone its use to influencepractical
action, requires one or more layers of perceptual encoding, which will always be
implicitat least to some extent,sometimes almost totally.
One implicationof this is that where explicitcommunication about teaching strate-
gies and aspects of classrooms is concerned and especially when new terminologyor
usage is introduced, there is a need to insure, by referenceto concretelyobservable
action, that student-teachersacquire a truly working usage of the concepts and
terminologyinvolved. We perhaps need to add that if such conscious formsof strategic
knowledgeare indeed to informaction and, stillmore crucially,to become consolidated
within the student-teacher'srepertoireof action dispositions, then they must also be
given ample opportunityto do so. In keeping with traditionalskillacquisition research
(Gellatly, 1986; Tomlinson, 1995), this appears to mean the opportunityforrepeated
attemptsat the implementationof strategies,i.e. at 'doing' them,but withprovision of
feedback,analysisand guidance sufficiently close to the action to influenceit effectively.
The new arrangementsfor school-based teacher preparation in the UK constitute a
large step towards such provision in principle,though in practice a number of barriers
may obstruct its realisation, such as the professional learning assumptions held by
teacher mentors (cf. Edwards, 1997).

HarnessingthePotentialofImplicitLearning
However, my final suggestioninvolves the more radical possibilitythat implicitforms
of learningmightthemselvesbe harnessed in promotingthe acquisition of a desirable
repertoireof strategiesand tactics. The most economical possibilitywould appear to
involve, as a key weapon, implicitobservationallearningthroughsubstantialexposure
to a verybroad range of instances of good teaching. Indeed, this may perhaps be the
only effectivemeans of counteractingthe sorts of unfortunatelong-termimplicitprior
learningdiscussed above. It ought also, other thingsbeing equal, to lead to conscious
articulationswhich would have the advantage of being consistentwith what is being
picked up implicitly.
Given a sufficientrange of positive instances of contextualised 'good practice', such
implicitlearningdoes appear capable of extendingto verymany aspects of a capability,
includingits goals and subgoals, strategiesand substrategies,and contextualindicators.
But it seems importantto point out that what is at stake and thus what needs to be
witnessed is not just the modelling of behaviour, even though the contributionsof

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 and ImplicitLearning 541
ConsciousReflection

implicitlearningand connectionistmodelling research have helped reveal the richness

of what observationallearningmay achieve. Teaching is purposefuland therefore,to be
useful, exemplificationof teaching probably also needs to give access not only to the
externaleventsof classroom process and strategy,includingthe formativeand summa-
tive evaluation of pupil learning,but also to the teacher's internalperspective,including
their conscious thoughts,decisions and reflectionsin the course of action, situated
withinthe context of theirlonger-termplanning, evaluation/assessmentand reflective
analysis (cf. Tomlinson, 1995). A crucial point forimplicitlearningto take place in all
these respects would seem to be that a student-teacherneeds to experience relatively
large amounts of all of them.

InteractiveVideo as a Vehiclefor such Learning

An immediate problem arises here with the availabilityand provision of such concrete
forms of good teaching, particularlyinsofar as getting into the minutiae of real
classrooms would seem important,given the potentially'exquisite sensitivity'of human
learning. It would be impossible, if not even undesirable fromsome angles, to ensure
'perfect practice at all levels' in every one of a large number of real life classroom
placements.
Given these circumstances, an obvious strategymight be the use of videotaped
material,which ifpresentedin interactivePC packages via CD-ROMs could potentially
fill a double bill. Interactive video could in principle provide (a) the quantity and
range of good teaching,includingthe expertanalysisand reflectiveteachercommentary
needed for such implicit learning, as well as (b) the material for explicit analysis
and reflective discussion by students and their course tutors/mentors.Such a
medium could thus assist learningwith respect to all three of Eraut's (1994) different
kinds of professional decision-making. At least one project claiming considerable
success in the latterrespects has recentlybeen reportedby Bliss & Mazur (1996), but
a considerable varietyof pedagogical strategiesforthe use of such materialswould be
possible.
There is no suggestionhere that such provision should replace traditionalmethods
such as the discussion of historical context, general learning principles and so on,
indeed it could complement them by providingwell situated instances for such inputs
and discussion. Nor would such observational learning remove the furtherneed for
active engagement in the assisted cycle of planning-teaching-feedback-reflection em-
phasised by so many sources on the development of skilful expertise (Tomlinson,
1995): individual mentoring/supervision in relation to student-teachers'own develop-
ing attempts remains of central importance within initial teacher preparation as a
whole.
Nevertheless,such carefullydesigned interactivevideo materialand itsusage in initial
teacherpreparationwould offerthe possibilityof capitalisingpositivelyon what appears
to be the considerable potential of implicitlearningas regardsprofessionallearning,in
order to counter the powerfullynegative residues attributedto prior schooling experi-
ence. It would strengthenthe positive ones, and provide new resources for student-
teachers to take into their active learning cycles. Whilst these potential benefits are
considerable, it is also clear that quite basic issues of theoryand pedagogical strategy
remain with respect to these implicit learning possibilities, so that careful evaluative
research remains important. Given the specificityand empirical strengthadded to

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542 OxfordReviewofEducation
traditionalphilosophical critiques of the rationalisttraditionby the kinds of recent
psychological researchcited in these papers, not to mention the common ground they
offerwithpractitioneroutlooks, it does seem time to take veryseriouslythe integration
of this and other implicit learning possibilities into our overall provision in initial
teacher preparation.

NOTES

[1] This seems to me a particular tendency of English culture, extending from

education throughto sport-compare Simon's 1988 paper famouslylamentingour
lack of interestin pedagogical enquiry.I recentlywatched a televisionprogramme
examiningthe England soccer team's exit fromthe 1998 World Cup competition
afterlosing a penalty shootout. In the programme,one of the England manage-
ment personnel,himselfa formerinternationalplayer,argued thatit was not worth
practisingpenaltyshots because the real situationwas 'totallydifferent'.Afterall,
he claimed, Roberto Baggio did 18 practise penalties the day beforehis infamous
miss ...

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Professor
Correspondence: ofLeeds,
PeterTomlinson,School of Education,University
Leeds LS2 9JT,UK.

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