The Importance of and Impacts of Professional Development in Education Essay Example for Free

The Importance of and Impacts of Professional Development in Education Essay Abstract: Like any area of human endeavors, the professional development in case of education is considered as a key factor in honing the over all performance of the students thereby resulting in a marked success of educational institutes. In this regard, importance and the positive implications of efforts in terms of teacher development cannot be denied. This paper succinctly touches on the contemporary trends pertaining to the development in education sector with a special elucidation of professional development where areas like collegial interactions, teachers leadership, community interaction, teachers’ individual learning and data driven decision come up to be the effective strategies in order to enlighten the education system with positive reforms.    The paper also analyzes a few research based programs as the case studies for advocating the importance of teachers and their collegial interactions for the success of any institution. Development in Education: In the changing world, the aggrandizing competitiveness has overwhelmed every sphere of the contemporary life. It’s a datum of experience that to cope with the increasing demands of the current era, a modern man is in a continuous process of inoculating reforms in every field. In this regard, what surpasses all the fields is the sector of education since it forms the basis for strengthening all the other institutes of life. In other words, for the provision of better workers, the engineering sector is as much dependent on the education system as is any other field like Medicine or Business.   Keeping in view such a crucial importance of education, various analysts and educationists are bringing new innovations in order to hone the current education system. These reforms involve issues like the quality of teachers, testing and evaluation, learning environment, course design, curriculum and need analysis of the students etc. Professional Development in Eductaion: â€Å"Student learning depends first, last, and always on the quality of the teachers (Usdan, McCloud Podmostko: 2001).† When talking about the reforms in the education system, the role of a teacher cannot be denied. Since teachers play a key role in the over all accomplishment of any educational institute, they have rather become the cynosure of educational reforms where they are considered as students who are in a constant process of mentoring and being mentored. The reason behind bringing the teachers to the centre of attention is the fact that any kind of improvement happening in any classroom involves the participation of a teacher (Schwarz: 1998). Any development in teachers would not only improve students’ performance but would also motivate the teachers themselves. According to Fullan and Stiegebauer, â€Å"Good change processes (are those) that foster sustained professional development over ones career and lead to student benefits (Schwarz: 1998).† Reasons behind Professional Development: â€Å"Processes, practices, and policies that are built on (†¦) view of learning are at the heart of a more expanded view of teacher development that encourages teachers to involve themselves as learners in much the same way as they wish their students would (Lieberman: 2002).† Behind the increasing trend towards the teacher development lays the notion of ‘learning by changing (Lieberman: 2002)’. According to this notion, the basic catalyzing force behind teacher development is the process of changes implemented in the institutions in an expectation of amelioration. In order to cope with the increasing demands, the teachers not only attend to their individual skills but also refer to their colleagues. This concept views the teachers in a constant process of learning that facilitates them to realize their changing roles as instructors, peer coach and researches, to create new structures like problem-solving groups, decision-making teams, to work on new tasks like journal and proposal writing and to establish an inquiry oriented culture in the classroom (Lieberman: 2002). Models and interpretations of teachers’ professional development: Sparks and Loucks-Horsley have proposed five levels of teacher development which are individually-guided staff development, observation-assessment, involvement in a development and improvement process and training and inquiry. However Hargreaves and Fullan propose that the term ‘teacher development’ has multiple interpretations which include the search to find learning opportunities for better performance, finding places for personal development and helping to foster a learning oriented and supportive work environment (Kee Luan : 1996). Marsick and Watkins proposed their Model of the Learning Organization to have three levels namely individual learning, team learning, and organization learning (NCREL: 2003). The first level focuses on individual skills that may be obtained in solitude or in groups whereas the last two refer to the collaborative skills of the teachers. Issues and Scope of Professional Development in Education: The scope of professional development in education can be best seen in the light of various strategies and issues involved under the vast umbrella of the term ‘professional development’. Team Learning and Teachers Collegiality: According to Bernard-Powers et al., â€Å"Adults are learners just as are children, and that everyone learns best when there are ongoing opportunities to develop questions, investigate, reflect, apply and share knowledge in real-life contexts (NCREL: 2003). Collegiality or Collegial Interaction is a phenomenon whereby the teachers get a chance of interacting with their colleague teachers for active professional learning through events like Conventions, Faculty meeting, Seminars, Lesson planning, School Visitations, Sharing materials, Conferences, Workshops, Examination preparation, Informal meetings and Team teaching etc. According to the research work done by Jackson and Goodlad, the greatest impediment in the way of teacher development is the absence or lack of collegiality. It is because learning new skills and implementing them is a matter of trial and error. As long as the teachers work and asses the performance on their own, a much greater space for improvement is left as compared to the case where the teachers work in groups (Kee Luan: 1996). The concept of teacher collegiality or the collaboration of teachers for the purpose of honing their performance is not a novel idea. Although prevalent for the past decades, collegiality has gained special interest of educationists in the recent few years when it is considered to be the most effective way of teacher development. With its roots profoundly interred in the organizational theory models, Collegiality fosters team work of the teachers thereby assuring the success of the institute. During the collegial interaction process the teachers learn from the experienced teachers and apply collaborative skills. In this concern, organizations like Australian College of Education and the General Teaching Council for England have already taken active measures to encourage teachers’ collegial interactions (Leonard, L. Leonard, P.: 2003). Teacher leadership: Teacher leadership is often considered as a direct contrast against collegiality because collegiality is misinterpreted as a form of interdependence of teachers on one another which leaves the individual potential of the teachers as leaders in doubt. Such misconception arise because of the lack of information that the collaboration of teachers not only helps in accommodating the weaknesses but also emphasizes on the encouragement of teachers in case of their achievement. Such an encouragement boosts a spirit and motivates the teachers for further honing their performance.   This makes the teachers individually strong rather than being dependent. According to McCann and Radford, collegiality also indicates the positive contribution of other teachers in the success of a particular teacher (NCREL). Succinctly speaking, the ‘celebration of achievements is important to give teachers encouragement and recognition. Ways of sharing and celebrating achievements before a wider school audience should be a component of a mentoring scheme ( NCREL).’ Community Interaction: According to the Ontario College of Teachers, the teachers are educational leaders who collaborate not only with their colleagues and students but also with the parents, and members of the community. As proposed by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, an effective teacher is a participant of the learning community (Leonard, L. Leonard, P.: 2003). The learning of such teachers is not merely confined to the premises of the institute but is stretched throughout the community. Occasions like parent teacher meetings, co curricular events, exhibitions and fairs provide a fair chance of learning experience in a culture specific context. Individual Learning : â€Å"Just as independent learners inspire an engaged and effective classroom, teachers who are themselves independent learners inspire vital and engaged learning communities (NCREL: 2003).† Among many areas that are kept under consideration for teacher development, technical proficiency often supersedes various other skills since education like any other field is also overwhelmed with the current of latest technologies. For the very reason, professional development in education also focuses on the teaching of technological skills. According to a survey conducted in different schools of the West, technology use by teachers results in an improved student performance thereby resulting in an increase of such trends (Brumfield: 2006). It is because the modern methods of teaching employ different technologies which make the lessons not only innovative but also interesting for the students. Individual Learning through Collegial Interactions: Collegiality also helps in honing the individual skills of the teachers in such a way that interactions with colleagues help the teachers to be acquainted with innovative strategies. Group discussions allow them to   implement better strategies of the other teachers in their classrooms, helps them in fulfilling the needs of all the students and provides them with a standard of professional practices to be implemented in the classroom (School Education Division: 2006) . Cultural Contexts in Teachers’ Learning: Since collaboration of teachers is wholly coalesced with the process of sharing ideas, the cultural context plays a vital role during its practice. It is in the light of the cultural notions that the teachers share common norms while practicing collegiality. Consequently, this culture-specific collegiality is responsible for the creation of a particular school culture. Peterson draws a schism between two types of cultures prevalent in the schools.   Namely Positive Culture and Toxic Culture, the former exists in educational institutes with teachers actively involved in collegial practice whereas the latter ascends the institutes where such exchange practices are discouraged (Leonard, L. Leonard, P.: 2003). Educational Decision-making: Decision making in education is an extremely critical issue since the major decisions not only hold the fortune of the students but also determine the over all success of the institute. Any rightly taken decision may boost a positive wave of change when at the same time a wrong decision may mar the prospects of the school’s population and its reputation. Realizing such a significance of educational decisions, the modern educationists propose a data-driven approach to decision making.   Although with its idea being inoculated back in 1980s, data driven decision making in education has actually gained strength in the present day world. The pre-requisite of such a decision making is the presence of data as a proved reason for implementing any new policy or a change in the institute. Such a data is systematically collected and analyzed by the teachers, heads and administrators. This data is of various types including the input, process, outcome and satisfaction data. Here the input data involves the data on the demographics and expenditures of the school, the process data comprises of the data on quality of instruction, the outcome data analyzes the dropout rate and the test results and the satisfaction data asks for the opinions of teachers, parents, community and the students etc   (Marsh, Pane Hamilton: 2006). Instead of relying on a single type of information, triangulation of data is considered the most effective way of getting the maximum information possible. In the triangulation of data, various sources and techniques are adopted which are tallied with one another before arriving at any concrete finding to form the basis of the future decision. Such decisions fall under two categories namely the identification oriented decisions and the action oriented decisions. In the case of identification oriented decisions, the data obtained is utilized to identify goals and to do the needs analyses. In the case of action oriented decision making, one of the most viable ways of data collection is to introduce temporary changes in the classroom and obtain the data in the form of achievement test. The results of such an achievement test are further compared with the tests administered in normal circumstances. The difference in the average results of the students before and after the implementation of transitory changes determine whether the decision of implementing the change permanently would be workable or not. Research works on Professional Development and Collegial Interactions: The Project for Enhancing Effective Learning: The Project for Enhancing Effective Learning (PEEL) was launched in Australia in 1980s and proved to be a ground breaking work of teacher collaborative action research. The project commenced as a research work confined to the classrooms in Melbourne. Originally focused on the development of students and their learning practices, the proceedings of the research indicated a need of similar meta-cognitive development of the teachers in order to make the teachers play a positive role in facilitating the changes implemented in the classrooms.    As a result of the changing environment in classrooms, regular meetings of teachers were held in which the colleagues used to mention their observations, share their experiences and come up with their innovative ideas thereby making the meeting rather informal at many times. In the words of Baird and Hagglund, â€Å"The over-riding outcome of PEEL was that every one learned (1994).† Concerning the teachers, the Baird and Hagglund gave the following pictorial model to show a step-by-step approach of reforming education by the role of teachers in a collegial environment (1994). POOR LEARNING TENDENCIES Replace with GOOD LEARNING TENDENCIES Foster by practicing GOOD LEARNING BEHAVIOURS Stimulate such behaviours by applying GOOD TEACHING PROCEDURES (That should be associated with GOOD CURRICULUM DECISIONS and GOOD ASSESSMENT PRACTICES) The above mentioned Peel Pathway of Improving Learning stresses the coalition of learning in a collaborative situation. Since its inception, PEEL has not only become a popular education reform model for Australian institutes but also for the institutes in other countries like Canada. PLAN- Project: PLAN in Swedish means ‘Project for Independent Learning’. Originally based on the methodology of PEEL, the PLAN Project of Sweden was started being framed in 1992 in order to bring a positive change in Gà ¶kstensskolan Institute of Sweden. The project was considerably based on a model that favored collaboration among teachers. One of the terms of agreement for joining PLAN was that the teachers should devote an hour for collegial interactions practiced in the form of groups having 12 members each. The group leaders of different groups were also required to collegiate with each other frequently with a sole purpose of training the teachers for rising students’ performance. Impacts of Professional Development: As a consequence of aggrandizing emphasis on professional development of teachers, the education system has witnessed a considerable phase of amelioration. According to the studies of Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, as a result of professional development, the teachers do not confine their lessons to the conventional facts but keep updating their knowledge with latest developments in their fields. Similarly, the teachers do not expect normative feedback but appreciate multiple perspectives from their students. They also design the curriculum in such a way that the knowledge inculcated to the students becomes more thought provoking. In order to elucidate various concepts, they try to extract examples from the real life situations instead to sticking to the text book instances. Through the practice of collegiality, teachers are now able to work in groups in order to share different teaching strategies about which they had learnt either in workshops or through community interaction and also share materials they that had retrieved from various sources which are helpful in honing the teachers’ performance. As a result of frequent interactions, all the teachers of the institute simultaneously hone their abilities thereby rising the over all quality of the institute’s education. In a special case when a large number of teachers leave the institute, teacher collegiality helps in training the novices who enter the faculty. In this way the weaknesses of a few teachers are accommodates by the strengths of the others (Inger: 1993). Conclusion: The area of teacher development pertaining to the educational reforms is challenged by a number of impediments. Among these hindrances, a few pointed out by Lieberman involve the lack of knowledge about how teachers learn, little space for invention and the building of craft knowledge and the view of teachers in practices which is not considered as an acceptable moiety of teachers’ learning (Lieberman: 2002). Even with such obstacles, the significance and positive implications of Teacher Development Programs cannot be denied. In the light of case studies of various teacher development programs, it is clear that the place of teachers as learners in a collegial environment is as necessity for the development of education systems as the teachers’ place in the form of educational leaders is made possible only by the collegiality practiced among them at different levels. 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