Teacher Development as the Future of Teacher Education

1. Teacher Development as the Future of Teacher Education Rama Mathew Delhi University, Delhi

2. Presentation • Part 1:Policy perspective • Part 2:What is happening around the world in TD • Part 3:What is happening in India • Part 4: Where we need to go

3. TT, TD and TE • Training: familiarising student teachers with techniques and skills to apply in the classroom • Education involves teachers in developing theories of teaching, understanding the nature of teacher decision making and strategies for self-awareness and self-evaluation...

4. TT, TE and TD • TD is seen to be a voluntary process, on-going, bottom-up since the starting point is the teachers’ own experience where new information is sought, shared, reflected on, tried out, processed in terms of personal experience and finally ‘owned’ by the teachers • CPD refers to continuing professional development

5. Policy perspective: an overview

6. University Education Commission • ‘It is extraordinary that our school teachers learn whatever subject they teach before reaching 24 or 25 and that their further education is left to experience, which in most cases, is another name for stagnation. We must realize that experience needs to be supplemented by experiment before reaching its fullness and that for a teacher to keep alive and fresh he/she should become a learner from time to time.’

7. Kothari Commission (1964-66) Concerns • Quality of teacher training institutions (TEIs) is mediocre or poor • TEIs are isolated from the mainstream academic life of universities and from schools • Facilities for training are inadequate • Provision for CPD of all teachers is inadequate

8. Recommendations • Comprehensive internship of student teachers with systematic collaboration between TEIs and schools • Opportunities for new teachers to learn from their experiences and through consultations and discussions with experienced teachers in the school. Principal and senior teachers to organize staff study circles and discussion groups, supported by Education Departments, TEIs and teacher organisations

9. Recommendations • CPD to be informed by research in education: Results of research to flow down to the classroom and classroom problems to climb up to research institutions for effective and practical solutions For Teachers in Higher Education • Newly appointed teachers to be encouraged to attend the lectures of senior colleagues, study their methods of teaching and after the lecture, both could discuss the methods and techniques

10. Other Committees • Organising on-site programmes within the school for their own identified needs, calling experts from outside and sharing successful practices as well as ineffective methodologies with a view to developing solutions to teachers’ problems (National Commission on Teachers 1983-85) • Enabling trainees to acquire the ability for self-learning and independent thinking (Yashpal Committee 1993)

11. National Policy on Education (1986/92) • Providing on-site, continuous, need-based opportunities to the teacher through courses/seminars to enable teachers to experiment and to share their experience with colleagues to achieve self-learning and independent thinking.

12. National Council for Teacher Education(1998) • One of the objectives of in-service programmes is making teachers reflective; it also visualizes a continuum with programmes that are wholly non-school based at one end and wholly school-based at the other, and contends that programmes in India fall mostly at the left end of the continuum, with a few of the recent ones falling a little toward the mid-point.

13. National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education (2000) • Continuing education of in-service teachers needs attention because all their initial education and training may not remain relevant and effective because of the present rate of change in content and pedagogy in the national and world scenario. • Offering in-service education in a sustained manner, for which a cascade model of training is recommended

14. National Curriculum Framework (2005) • Focus Group on Teacher Education not only sees CPD as the most prominent measure for bridging the gap between pre-service and in-service education of teachers through well designed pre-service programmes and on-site support to teachers, but also the school-TEI collaboration in this enterprise as crucial.

15. National Knowledge Commission (2008) • A context that fosters an attitude of life-long learning and greater freedom for teachers to choose courses that they would like to do, to increase their personal initiative and absorption of training • Incentivise short courses, by making attendance and completion of courses pre-requisites to professional advancement • Peer feedback as a support for TD

16. National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education(2009) • Aim of CPD programmes: Teacher to ‘break out of intellectual isolation and share experiences and insights with others in the field, both teachers and academics ….’. • Principles to be followed in designing these programmes: the principle of ‘creating spaces for sharing of experiences of communities of teachers among themselves’ is stressed.

17. Recommendations • To establish Teacher Learning Centres (TLCs) for teachers, teacher educators and trainees to come together within TEIs and share experiences, access resources and discuss and plan classroom-based action research • Stronger links between schools and the various institutions and bodies responsible for CPD and in-service and pre-service teacher training

18. Summary: Coming to terms with ‘terms’ • ‘Training’ and ‘Development’ in the documents are interchangeably used. • Terms/notions such as CPD, sharing of practice, need-based programmes, self-learning and independent thinking, reflective practice, action research are used. • ‘Training’, ‘reorientation of teachers’, ‘equipping’ (as opposed to ‘enabling’, see Prabhu 1987), focus on content enrichment as opposed to pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman 1987) are also used.

19. Summary/Critique • Earlier recommendations saw a need for CPD but did not articulate its ramifications clearly enough for implementation. • The more recent ones spell out more details that render CPD achievable in more concrete terms in school as well as TEI context.

20. Summary: Making CPD achievable • Creating a space for teachers to share experience with peers, with the locale of this activity being the school rather than the TEI, and with increased school-TEI partnership and collaboration • What is not suggested is how this space can be created in the teacher’s otherwise busy schedule • Policy statements do not find a corresponding provision in actual practice in schools • Schools and regulatory bodies do not mutually ensure that the policy provision is realised in actual practice

21. Status of CPD in Schools: What do teachers say? N= 30, 2-20 years’ experience, primary to higher secondary, govt and private schools in Delhi (open ended questionnaires and interviews) Work they do: teaching, organizing and participating in a large number CCAs and endless correction work; it has now increased with the introduction of CCE In Govt. Schools: non-academic duties such as census work, election duty, which they cannot refuse

22. Their work over the years • About half of them found their work interesting and challenging in the first year but with the passing of time it had become boring and monotonous. Others find it a ‘routine’ and just ‘tolerate’ it. • Others: ‘Enthusiasm of students makes my work 100% interesting’

23. Pressure of syllabus • Many of the things learnt during B.Ed. are not useful/helpful, as ‘one would take years to finish the volume of syllabus assigned for each class’. • What I do not like about my teaching is when I am forced to resort to the lecture method to be able to ‘finish’ the syllabus

24. Keeping themselves ‘uptodate’ • Feel the need to replenish/update themselves • Long for a forum and an outlet where they could express and share their experience with each other • Seminars and in-service workshops especially those conducted in the summer vacation by the Directorate of Education are monotonous and of little help: Only 10 % of the workshops have something new to offer; others are repetitive’

25. Teacher development? Haven’t heard of that But have learnt to survive on their own in different ways

26. Some success stories

27. TE 21 • TE 21 (NIE, Singapore) • A framework which provides for a well-rounded professional: skills, knowledge and values along with a Teacher Growth Model (TGM) • TGM provides for six domain developmental areas:

30. The Teacher Growth Model • Want to power up? Popeye has his spinach: We have TGM. How can it help us stay strong till the finish? • TGM power-up flavours: Ethical educator Competent professional Collaborative learner Transformational leader Community builder

31. Professional Standards for Teachers (2007) Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills) • Qualified Teacher Status • Core • Post Threshold • Excellent Teacher • Advanced Skills Teacher

32. The standards have been designed to set out a basic framework within which all teachers should operate from the point of initial qualification. Appropriate self evaluation, reflection and professional development activity is critical to improving teachers’ practice at all career stages. The standards set out clearly the key areas in which a teacher should be able to assess his or her own practice, and receive feedback from colleagues. As their careers progress, teachers will be expected to extend the depth and breadth of knowledge, skill and understanding that they demonstrate in meeting the standards, as is judged to be appropriate to the role they are fulfilling and the context in which they are working.

33. Stages in Professional Development (British Council) • Starting • Newly Qualified • Developing • Proficient • Advanced • Specialist

34. Teacher Growth • Multidimensional • Based on prior learning • Involves different forms of learning • Implies cognitive and affective changes • Occurs in a range of contexts (Elliott and Calderhead1995)

35. Cline of Experimentation Safe experimentation  Autonomy in P D (reflection on experience) (sustainability of research attitude) [minimum risk involved] [maximum risk involved]

36. What is happening in India: Examples

37. CBSE-ELT Curriculum Implementation Study (1993-1998) • Many teachers involved in monitoring the implementation of the English curriculum in a research-based way • Conducted need-based workshops to strengthen the curriculum • Teachers took on different roles: teacher as researcher, as resource person, materials writer, assessor, mentor

38. Philosophy underlying the project The Project was based on the premise that it is only when teachers confront commonly held beliefs and attitudes in actual teaching-learning contexts that they will change in ways that provide a basis for continued growth, that is, “self-sustaining, generative change” (Franke et al. 1998). According to these authors (p. 67): In order for change to become self-sustaining, teachers must begin to engage in practices that have built-in support for the changes they have made; otherwise, the changes are likely to erode over time…for change to become generative, teachers must engage in practices that serve as a basis for their continued learning.

39. When the project ended…. • It was clear that a top-down as well as a bottom-up approach to curriculum renewal is important to bring about change in schools. • The main recommendations that had emerged from the teacher-led project were not built on. • CBSE had to attend to other priorities… • Teachers had moved on…

40. Tracer Study: to evaluate its impact after 3 years • Main questions addressed: (i) the nature and extent to which the communicative curriculum introduced in 1993 continued to be communicative and learner-centered, taking into account the kind of support available in school; (ii) the nature and extent to which the teacher-research approach to on-going curriculum renewal and professional development had been sustained.

41. Findings • Their task as Field Researchers of visiting different schools to observe classes and talk to teachers and students gave them a broader perspective on the curriculum in different contexts. Before the project, they merely taught the ‘lesson’, did the exercises, and conducted tests and they were happy. Now their work did not end with a class. They could observe colleagues’ classes in a nonjudgmental way and that it ‘worked wonders’ with colleagues. • Many of these teachers managed these on-going professional activities in spite of the school’s (unwritten) rules and conventions.

42. Conclusion • Clearly exam boards mandate what is to be done in schools and schools/teachers do not have much say in it. • There are teachers who carry out things that they feel need to be done, in spite of school constraints (silent innovators) • There is a need to build on existing structures to support the teacher in her on-going professional development.

43. Case Study (6 teachers) The study explored the following questions: • How does the pedagogical understanding of teachers develop and change over time? • What personal and professional influences impact teachers’ pedagogical understanding? • What kind(s) of inputs are self-sustaining and generative? • How do teachers build on these inputs to become on-going learners?

44. Conclusions Four important themes that shape teacher development emerged from the case study: • Certain personality traits that enable the teacher to see teaching as a vocation • Apropensity for reflective thinking • The need for on-going professional development activities, and • The importance of school support.

45. Mentoring in Delhi Schools (11) (2008-2010) Main aims: • Arrive at a workable model of mentoring • Createa community of teachers who support each other, keep growing and help bridge the gap between TEIs and schools.

46. What teachers did on the project • Observed each other’s classes using the observation schedule at least once in two weeks; • Discussed their class (co-analysis of practice); • Looked at colleague’s lesson plans, tests, worksheets, etc.; • Wrote reflective journals on work done; • Did diary writing (general) at least once in two weeks

47. Tools used • Handbook on mentoring— a self-instructional pack • Classroom Observation Record • Questions to guide journal entries • Reading articles/papers in the area

48. What worked, didn’t and why • About 3 schools (Type A) did the work very well, benefitted from it, and went beyond the brief of the project • About 4 schools (Type B) saw the work as ‘extra’ and did it because they had agreed to do it. • 4 schools (Type C) were non-starters for various reasons.

49. What worked, didn’t and why • About 25-30 out of the 80 teachers managed to do most of the things and saw value in it • About 25 of them gave it a try with different degrees of success • The rest were non-starters: not volunteers, inadequate school support, not motivated enough

50. Diary study with teachers • Voluntary • Wrote diaries and looked at each other’s and commented on them in a non-judgmental but a critical way • Teachers saw meaning in diary writing and saw it as a tool for professional tool • Presentation in a seminar (TEC 12) and a subsequent publication was clearly a motivation