Professional Development of Teachers - 12-4-2010 (Lecture at Mount Carmel College of Teacher Education for Women, Kottayam

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF TEACERS AND THEIR CONTINUING EDUCATION
T. C. Thankachan M.A (Pol.), M.A (Socio.), M. Ed, M.Phil
Lecturer, St. Thomas College of Teacher Education, Pala

Competency Based Teacher Education
Competency-based education, also known as performance-based education, is a new approach to teaching, having as its core, the ideas of accountability and competencies. With regard to accountability it is argued that teachers should be held ‘accountable’ for their products. This accountability is accomplished by breaking teaching into discrete competencies or behaviors, which can be stated as objectives. In competency-based education, competencies are spelt out so that it is possible to assess student learning through direct observation of student behavior.
Competency-based teacher education is a teacher preparation programme, which intends to develop among the teacher trainees certain, specified teaching skills at mastery level. A Skill is a task or group of tasks performed to a specific level of proficiency, which often uses motor function and requires manipulation of instruments and equipments. The important teaching skills developed at Stanford University, California are given below:
• Stimulus variation
• Set induction
• Closure
• Teacher silence and non-verbal cues
• Reinforcing pupil participation
• Fluency in questioning
• Probing questions
• Use of higher order questions
• Divergent questions
• Reorganizing and attending behaviour
• Illustrating
• Lecturing (explaining)
• Planned repetition
• Completion of communication
Most of the skills in teacher education are based on knowledge, application, interest, appreciation and attitude. Competency is a skill performed to a specific standard under specific conditions.
In the consultations initiated by NCTE at several national seminars, the following ten inter-related categories of competencies have emerged quite prominently;
Contextual competencies
Here the teachers’ job is not only the understanding of total educational system but also of the total social and cultural systems in which they have to operate. They should be able to identify and analyze the factors responsible for obstructing the growth of literacy in the country, reasons for poor enrolment, retention and problems of wastage and stagnation.
Conceptual competencies
It is equally essential to develop in the student teachers the right perspective in education that would enable them to receive new experiences meaningfully and in greater detail and depth, besides helping them thoroughly understand the meaning of education and learning and the impact of socio-economic and socio-cultural factors on them.
Content competencies
Effective teachers are those who acquire sufficient mastery over the subjects they teach. Teachers must have sound knowledge of the content or substance of whatever subjects or sources they teach. Teacher should always be resourceful and let the students drink from running stream rather than from the stagnant pool. A good teacher is always a learner.
Transactional competencies
Teaching as a concept is to be conceived in three stages: planning, teaching and learning process and evaluation. During transaction, the teachers put plan into action and evaluate its impact in terms of competency achievement level at the end of the transaction. In short, the teacher must know what to teach, how to teach and with what results.
Competencies related to other educational activities
The curricular activities are supposed to take care of the cognitive development of the children. Their development in the non-cognitive area is equally important, which deserves due consideration as part of their learning-teaching process and transactional strategies.
Competencies to develop teaching-learning material
Evaluation competencies
Management competencies
Competencies related to working with parents
Competencies related to working with community and other agencies
Competency-based teacher education therefore is unique in the sense that it focuses on the teachers’ or teacher trainees’ acquisition of pre-specified, agreed upon competencies, and demonstration of these competencies through objective assessment.
Competency based teacher training programme in general, has the following components.
• Basic teaching competency – Subject competencies
• Cognitive based competencies – writing instructional objectives, assigning home-work, developing problem solving ability etc
• Performance based competencies – writing on the blackboard, explaining, illustrating with examples, gaining and sustaining attention, fluency in questioning, probing questions, etc.
• Affective based competencies – increasing pupil participation, recognizing, attending behaviour of students, developing social values in students, etc.
• Consequence based competencies – giving reinforcement, evaluating student learning, etc.
• Managerial competencies – managing supportive classroom environment, maintaining classroom discipline, using teaching aids, etc.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF TEACERS THROUGH PRE-SERVICE & IN-SERVICE EDUCATION
1. PRE-SERVICE EDUCATION
India has now accepted a ten years common school system, divided into three stages: pre-school education, elementary education and secondary education. There is provision for two year diversified senior secondary education in which the emphasis is given to subject oriented and disciplinary approach. The maturity and psycho-social make-up of the students and curriculum requirements demand separate teacher education courses to prepare teachers for the three stages of the school education. Pre-service education includes all the stages of education and training that precede the teacher’s entry to his/her employment in a school or in an educational institution. In-service training is the education and training that the teacher receives after he starts career. For giving a clear and quality based teacher education at all levels, we need Pre-service Teacher Education under the following levels:
• Pre-primary School Teacher Education
• Elementary School Teacher Education
• Secondary School Teacher Education
• Senior Secondary School Teacher Education (Academic and Vocational Stream)
• Teacher Education for Physical Education
• Teacher Education for Distance Education and Open learning systems.
The quality of teacher education depends on the quality of teacher educators. Since they play the most important role in the professional education teachers, their education becomes a vital input not only for the implementation of the recommendations of the curriculum framework but also for the improvement of the overall quality of education. The reconsideration of the programmes for the professional preparation of teacher educators has become obligatory.
Pre-service Teacher Education - Some basic principles and considerations
The basic principles and considerations common to teacher education programmes at all stages are as follows:
• Teacher education programmes are programmes for professional preparation of teachers and not programmes of general, academic study. They should accordingly provide for a comprehensive coverage of professional knowledge and understanding of attitudes, interests, values and skills, and have a strong functional orientation.
• Pre-service teacher education is to be considered as an induction and initiation process. It is not aimed at turning out a “finished” teacher. The programme should have an open ended design fostering initiative for further growth and should equip the trainee with the needed skills of self-directed learning through projects, individual assignments, etc.
• The programme should not be rigid and prescriptive but flexible to accommodate local and regional needs, individual differences, creative and innovative ideas and practices.
• Teacher education programmes for the different levels should share a common design with a built in provision for horizontal and vertical mobility to break the isolation from stage to stage.
• Each component of teacher education curriculum should have clearly defined objectives, realistic in its expectations.
• The curriculum should emphasize integration of theoretical understanding with their practical application without overdoing one or the other theory, without practical and functional derivatives and practice without any additional frames of reference, which will be without consequences.
• The programme should provide for comprehensive and continuous evaluation using demonstrable verbal and non-verbal performance criteria.
• The curriculum should give practicum or field work the central place with appropriate weightage considering its crucial importance in teacher education.
• The programme should foster research outlook and the desire to experiment and innovate.
2. IN-SERVICE TEACHER EDUCATION
Throughout the world, in-service teacher education has acquired an important position for the improvement in the quality of teachers. The National Policy of Education holds it to be a continuation of pre-service teacher education and believes the two to be inseparable like the two sides of a coin. This is the age of knowledge explosion. In addition to explosion of knowledge, there has been another explosion in the means of acquiring knowledge and advancement in teaching and learning procedures. Teachers unaware of the advances and incapable of utilizing them in education would not be able to perform their duties in a rapidly changing learning society. In-service education of teachers therefore becomes essential for bridging the gap in pre-service education and for meeting the demands of the changing educational scenario, its context and concerns.
The term ‘in-service teacher education programme’ connotes any programme provided to teachers already working, with the explicit purpose of updating and renewing their knowledge, technical skills, etc., for maintaining and enhancing their efficiency. Teaching, being a creative and individualistic endeavour, requires periodic rejuvenation of teachers’ attributes and upgrading of their technical know-hows. Even a schoolteacher who has been ‘an outstanding B.Ed student’ who begins his teaching career with great enthusiasm, equipped with an initial amount of technical know-how and the positive feedback received while ‘under training’, needs improvement. Every teacher can perceive his own diminishing ‘impact’ on students. In-service education can be one way of maintaining them at least at the minimum level of efficiency.
In-service education plays a crucial role in teacher development. The National Policy on Education, stipulated that “teacher education is a continuous process and its pre-service and in-service components are inseparable.” UNESCO also stresses the importance of in-service education and observes “in-service training is on the whole as effective as pre-service training, if not more so in its effect on quality”. Professional development of a teacher begins with pre-service and gets renewed through in-service programmes. It does not mean that there is a simple linearity between the two. In-service courses are offered to teachers to upgrade knowledge and pedagogical skills. They are organized to provide them training and acquaint them with emerging trends and new policy issues.
Rabindranath Tagore has said, “a lamp can never light another lamp unless it continues to burn in its own flame.” This aspect of developing skills and attitudes for life long learning need to be reinforced through In-service programmes. It should also try to develop creative tensions. One of the key occupations of in-service programme should be to make teachers reflective learners and to sensitize them towards “deeper mission of schooling”, promoting curiosity, growth of imagination, and refinement of sensibilities. In-service teacher education must develop a symbiotic relationship between action research and classroom practices. And above all it must develop teachers as continuous learners and co-learners. “The capacity to learn is the capacity to alter what one is and has been. It places the present at risk”
Objectives of the In-service Teacher Education
• To foster the desire for life-long learning and to empower teachers ‘learning to learn’ and ‘learning to be’.
• To fulfill the gaps of the pre-service education, remove its inadequacies and make it more realistic.
• To enable the teachers to meet the requirements of changing educational and social contexts and concerns.
• To remove the out-dated mentality of teachers in content and pedagogy, transactional skills and evaluation techniques.
• To acquaint them with the new international experiments in education and absorb their findings in the system incase they are found to be useful.
• To make them aware of new developments in the areas they teach and information they impart to their students.
• To sensitize teachers with the educational problems of the neglected sectors.
• To equip the alternative teachers with the job specific skills and competencies.
• To increase the level of motivation of teachers, to develop self-confidence, to promote the spirit of inquiry and help them to be committed and reflective teachers.
In-service courses are also offered to prepare teachers for new roles. It can be effected through attachment, study visits, exchange programmes. It can be offered through long or short-term orientation or enrichment programmes. In-service courses are:
• Refresher courses
• Summer courses
• Orientation programmes
• Correspondence courses
• Workshops, seminars, symposia, conferences etc.
Training strategies range from lecture cum discussion to project work, library work, group interaction and field visits. In-service education and training programme also uses transactional strategies like case study method, brain storming sessions, panel discussions, seminars, symposia, and small group techniques. The transactional model of in –service education can be classified into three. They are face-to-face model, cascade model and media based open distance model.
Face to face Model: This model offers in-service training programmes at its premises using direct face-to-face training approach. It is most effective when the number of participants is around 30 to 40. Besides lecture – cum – discussion mode, many other transactional strategies are also used, namely project method, case method, library work, peer learning sessions, buzz sessions and other small group techniques. The merit of this approach is that there is a direct and sustained interaction between the participants and the resource persons.
Cascade Model: The number of persons to be trained in this model is very large and the training design is built on two or three tier systems. In the first step, the key resource persons are trained, who trains resource persons and who, in turn, train teachers. The advantage of this model is that a large number of teachers can be trained within a short duration of time. However, it has its limitations. Knowledge and information passed on at the first tier of key resource persons and then at the second tier of resource persons get diluted, resulting in transmission loss of training effectiveness.
Media Based Distance Education Model: With the advent of satellite technology and computers many training programmes are imparted using electronic media. Audio– conferencing and tele–conferencing are being used. In these, the electronic media play the key role and the print material a supportive role. The advantage of this model is that the training objectives can be achieved within a limited time period. The constraint of this approach, however, is the limited availability of the technology itself and its high initial investment. Online in-service courses are yet to come on the Indian scene. IGNOU and Nasik Open University have made some modest beginnings.
Society expects the teachers to have an obligation to become more proficient in their art and science of teaching, more competent and more committed. In-service teacher education with its wider connotation of study leave, exchange programmes, attachment, sabbatical leave, school based programmes, extension programmes, has become very relevant as never before. At present, many agencies are involved in in-service education of the teachers. UGC, NIEPA, NCERT, SCERTs, DIETs, IASEs, (Institute for Advanced Studies in Education), CTEs (Council for Teacher Education), NGOs, University Departments of Education, Academic Staff Colleges, etc. are some of these agencies. For conducting programmes in education, cooperation should be sought from the NGOs, retired teachers, teacher educators and officials of various dep