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The development of teachers professionally is examined and reported Assessment Training in the pertinent literature in numerous diverse ways. But always central to such initiatives is that professional growth is all about teachers learning learning how to learn and turning their knowledge into practice for the sake of their students’ growth. Teacher professional development is an intricate process which involves cognitive and affective engagement of teachers individually and in groups the ability and willingness to reflect on where each one is in relation to beliefs and convictions and the reading and implementation of suitable alternatives for improvement or change.
All this happens in specific educational policy contexts or school cultures some of which are more suitable. These triggering tools also vary in accordance with the goals and requirements of teachers as well as their students. Formal arrangements like workshops and courses therefore may fulfill some purposes whereas participation in the Teacher Professional Development production of curricula the discussion of assessment data or the sharing of strategies may fulfill other purposes.
Not all types of professional development even those most well documented to have a positive effect are themselves universally applicable to all teachers. There is therefore a continuous need to research experiment discuss and reflect in addressing teacher professional development on the interacting links and influences of the history and traditions of groups of teachers the educational needs of their student populations the expectations of their education systems teachers working conditions and the opportunities to learn available to them.
In the last decade, there have been numerous articles in Teaching and Teacher Education that have presented research and interventions with teachers and by teachers specifically for their professional development with a focus on their effects on teacher and student transformations. They represent varied geographical locations and varied research and development processes. The initial section of this article offers an eye bird view Professional of developer of the content of these articles thematically arranged in terms of their primary focus. The second section summarizes more closely nine articles chosen as being especially representative of the thematic fields and also representative of various geographic locations and contextual specifics.
Sources
In order to try to answer the research question a search was made of the topic of pedagogy in the ISI WEB of Science search made on 9 August 2011 with the search terms teacher learning teacher development and Teacher professional development and for the years 2009-2011 to question the most recent ten years of studies. Articles covering basic education primary and secondary school were chosen and articles covering learning with digital tools and the internet and recently trained teachers were excluded.
A total of 31 articles were chosen out of this search. To achieve width and depth of coverage this was complemented by a sample of review studies and research in further education in regard to teachers learning. The texts were explored through open and axial coding generating main and sub categories.
Lesson Study
Lesson study is a multi-step process where teachers collaborate Subject Specialist Training, Pedagogical Skills, Reflective Practice, Instructional Coaching, Mentoring and Coaching, to design study and enhance their lessons. In this practice a member of the study group delivers a lesson while others observe in detail. Following the lesson, all group members get together to share their observations and deliberate how the lesson could be enhanced. The lesson is re-taught to another set of students and the cycle of observation collaborative data analysis and revision of the lesson is replicated Fernandez and Choksi 2002 Watanabe 2002.
Lesson study is another prototype for employing collaborative self-study of teacher practices as a vehicle for promoting teacher development and teaching improvement Mid Atlantic Eisenhower Regional Consortium 2002.
Teacher-to-Teacher Cadre
Over 100 Delaware public school educators make up this cadre of teacher leaders who render professional development services to teachers within their respective school Teacher Training Workshops districts. Professional development undertaken by the cadre is meant to be integrated into teachers day-to-day work guided by teachers and students needs and supported.
Professional Development Clusters
These professional development experiences can blend coursework Lesson Planning Strategies action research study groups and independent research. Professional Development Clusters are designed to be taught at a level of difficulty matching graduate-level study to enhance teachers’ knowledge and skills for the purpose of affecting student learning and aligning with Delaware education standards. Approved cluster topics include literacy educational technology international education and cultural diversity. The Michigan English Language Framework MELAF was a federally funded statewide school reform initiative to create a standards based curriculum instruction and assessment framework.
Related professional development activities were continued content focused and teacher directed. Students compared their own understandings of language arts content to state standards and other language arts content models engaged in study groups on related professional literature attended workshops in which they experienced and evaluated exemplary practices and planned jointly a culminating statewide conference. Teachers in this project indicated changes in their own literacy practices as well as in their instruction.
Most used reading and writing as reflective tools for learning from their practices in the classroom Detrol Fisk Koch Rokop & Dixson 2002 Formative and Summative Assessment 795. MELAF provided teachers with a chance to articulate and hone their teaching and learning philosophies and offered assistance to use these philosophies more purposefully in classrooms.
The character of professional development as outlined here involves a different perspective of teaching as a profession activity. It opens up possibilities for teachers to become responsible for their own learning and teaching but it also imposes additional responsibilities on them on school administrators and on education policy makers. Professional development that aims to facilitate teaching as Teaching Innovation a continuous investigation into better classroom practice has to overcome a number of considerable barriers to change.
Lesson Study
Since the autumn of 2002, the University of Delaware Mathematics and Science Education Resource Center has utilized federal grant money to fund lesson study for six public middle school science faculty members in Delaware. The teams work together to establish educational objectives design lessons and carry out public lessons.
Teachers and observers then reflect on the lessons and their effects on student achievement. Experience in this work to integrate professional develop into teachers’ everyday work indicates that teachers workdays must be restructured creatively to provide space for self Teaching Pedagogy study and collaboration with peers.
Lewis Elementary
School is a Texas urban school where 93% of the students are of low-income families. In this school professional development to meet district and state accountability needs helped to achieve dramatic improvement in students’ reading achievement. Professional development assisted in the implementation of the Success for All reading and mathematics curriculum by emphasizing common learning goals teaching approaches and high student achievement expectations. Grade-level collaborative work teams were involved in teachers individual and collective Student-Centered Teaching, Learning Outcomes, Teacher Feedback, Curriculum Alignment, Technology Integration in Teaching, professional development King & Newman 2000.
Methodology
Our research was a simple interpretive study the most prevalent type of qualitative research. Simple interpretive studies are commonly utilized in applied practice fields like education administration health social work counseling and business and involve clarifying and making sense of the meaning of a phenomenon to the people involved. In addition simple interpretive studies mostly employ interviews observations and document analysis as methods of collecting data.
A review of some professional development programs indicates that what is taught in in service programs really does matter and that programs centered on subject matter knowledge and on students learning specific subject matter are likely to have bigger effects on student learning than are programs centered on teaching behavior Kennedy 1998. This review asserts that as compared to other models CGI methods had the most influence on students basic skills
achievement, reasoning and problem solving performance.
Discussion
This research examined articles on teachers PD with the goal of identifying the key characteristics of the PD process. It is important for policymakers and researchers to know the components that affect teachers qualifications since the quality of the students’ educational Reflective Teaching Practice outcomes relies upon the quality of their teacher PD Soane & Lumper 2014. We posited that the main issue that was preventing teachers PD was not that they lacked programming or content for successful professional development.
Result
Additional research on CGI implies that when teachers work together they are more likely to risk, learn from failures and exchange successful methods. When they reflect on their own classroom practices in principled manners teachers can combine their practical knowledge and research based knowledge in ways that lead to more successful practices Carpenter Fennoman Franke & Levi 2001 655. Teachers who were involved in CGI instructed problem Cambridge Teacher Resources solving much more and instructed number facts and skills much less. The teachers used different instructional strategies listened to students more and believed that instruction would build on what students know.