How can I help with shaping more effective teacher professional development sessions?
Rationale
According to Oxforddictionaries, professional development is defined as “the development of competence or expertise in one’s profession; the process of acquiring the skills needed to improve performance in a job.” In a wide range of professions and businesses, professional development, either required or voluntary, happens when employees learn and apply new knowledge or skills to improve their work performance. In schools, specifically, effective professional development positively affects students’ learning. When teachers focus on how to address student’s learning challenges, students learning and achievement increase dramatically.
Professional development is essential to both beginning teachers and experienced teachers. Even though with the mandatory teaching licensure and basic knowledge of teaching methodology, beginning teachers are new to the profession. It takes time for them to effectively apply their learning theory in the context of teaching in a real classroom. In this case, mentoring and coaching from veteran colleagues is critical for novice teachers to learn from appropriate practices and then analyze and reflect their teaching. On the other hand, it is beneficial for veteran teachers to have ongoing opportunities to learn from each other. Ongoing professional development provides them with up-to-date new research so as to maintain a high standard of teaching. As the review on teachers by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2005) has reviewed:
Effective professional development is on-going, include training, practice and feedback, and provides adequate time and follow-up support. Successful programs involve teachers in learning activities that are similar to ones they will use with their students, and encourage the development of teachers’ learning communities. There is growing interest in developing schools as learning organizations, and in ways for teachers t share their expertise and experience more systematically.
Findings
The school I work for, the Primary School of Beijing Royal School, has experienced its fastest development in history both in student number and teaching quality in the last three years. Meantime, teacher professional learning is more organized and systematic so as to keep up with the fast growth of the school. Teacher PD is better planned within different subjects and also among all staff. The school is aware of the fact that teacher PD is one important driving force to empower the teachers academically and mentally.
Currently the profession development mainly lies in these aspects:
1. New teacher orientation by HR Department
2. School-held training about teaching methodology to new teachers
3. School-held demo class observation/ evaluation
4. Subject-level/ grade-level weekly meetings to discuss recent issues related to teaching and classroom managements
5. Monthly/ half-semester/ semester/ school year staff meetings which summarize the teaching and overall school work
5. Educational speeches by renowned guest speakers
With the sponsorship of Beijing Royal School, I have the opportunity to pursue my master’s degree in education at NC State University and will return to work after graduation in August of 2018. The advanced educational resources I am collecting during study will definitely provide theoretical foundation for my future teaching and administrative work.
Besides the existing teacher development methods, I would like to systematically introduce the core education knowledge and approaches I have acquired through time and empower my fellow teachers with the latest theories and practices so as to benefit the overall development of students and the school. I would advocate and organize the four different teacher professional development themes with estimated action plans as followed:
1. How does technology implementation make a difference in classroom teaching?
2. How does project-based inquiry foster 21st-century learners?
3. How teacher leadership matters to all?
4. How does the supporting program help with the survival of first-year teachers?
The designing and implementing processes of the above PD series will generally follow the steps in the professional development cycle by Hassel (1999):
According to Oxforddictionaries, professional development is defined as “the development of competence or expertise in one’s profession; the process of acquiring the skills needed to improve performance in a job.” In a wide range of professions and businesses, professional development, either required or voluntary, happens when employees learn and apply new knowledge or skills to improve their work performance. In schools, specifically, effective professional development positively affects students’ learning. When teachers focus on how to address student’s learning challenges, students learning and achievement increase dramatically.
Professional development is essential to both beginning teachers and experienced teachers. Even though with the mandatory teaching licensure and basic knowledge of teaching methodology, beginning teachers are new to the profession. It takes time for them to effectively apply their learning theory in the context of teaching in a real classroom. In this case, mentoring and coaching from veteran colleagues is critical for novice teachers to learn from appropriate practices and then analyze and reflect their teaching. On the other hand, it is beneficial for veteran teachers to have ongoing opportunities to learn from each other. Ongoing professional development provides them with up-to-date new research so as to maintain a high standard of teaching. As the review on teachers by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2005) has reviewed:
Effective professional development is on-going, include training, practice and feedback, and provides adequate time and follow-up support. Successful programs involve teachers in learning activities that are similar to ones they will use with their students, and encourage the development of teachers’ learning communities. There is growing interest in developing schools as learning organizations, and in ways for teachers t share their expertise and experience more systematically.
Findings
The school I work for, the Primary School of Beijing Royal School, has experienced its fastest development in history both in student number and teaching quality in the last three years. Meantime, teacher professional learning is more organized and systematic so as to keep up with the fast growth of the school. Teacher PD is better planned within different subjects and also among all staff. The school is aware of the fact that teacher PD is one important driving force to empower the teachers academically and mentally.
Currently the profession development mainly lies in these aspects:
1. New teacher orientation by HR Department
2. School-held training about teaching methodology to new teachers
3. School-held demo class observation/ evaluation
4. Subject-level/ grade-level weekly meetings to discuss recent issues related to teaching and classroom managements
5. Monthly/ half-semester/ semester/ school year staff meetings which summarize the teaching and overall school work
5. Educational speeches by renowned guest speakers
With the sponsorship of Beijing Royal School, I have the opportunity to pursue my master’s degree in education at NC State University and will return to work after graduation in August of 2018. The advanced educational resources I am collecting during study will definitely provide theoretical foundation for my future teaching and administrative work.
Besides the existing teacher development methods, I would like to systematically introduce the core education knowledge and approaches I have acquired through time and empower my fellow teachers with the latest theories and practices so as to benefit the overall development of students and the school. I would advocate and organize the four different teacher professional development themes with estimated action plans as followed:
1. How does technology implementation make a difference in classroom teaching?
2. How does project-based inquiry foster 21st-century learners?
3. How teacher leadership matters to all?
4. How does the supporting program help with the survival of first-year teachers?
The designing and implementing processes of the above PD series will generally follow the steps in the professional development cycle by Hassel (1999):
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