Professional Development
School leaders need to understand human nature as so much of what happens in school and learning depends on commitment, collaboration, and common goals. For this reason, Zendeli (2011) argues that principals need to be trained in managing human resources. One of the most important human resource management strategies is the provision of effective professional development for teachers, as this is crucial to student learning. However, the best performing education systems have human resource strategies for effective recruitment as a starting point, attracting capable people into the teaching profession to enhance students’ achievement. They do that by selecting the right applicant to be a teacher, and paying good compensation while studying. In addition, providing in-service training and coaching is essential to support teachers in their ongoing professional development. Capacity building needs to include training teachers in how to coach their peers, how to give peer reviews from classroom observation and then how to give feedback (Barber & Mourshed, 2007).
High performance schools ensure that every student benefits from the methods of teaching and learning, setting high expectations for what each student can achieve, and measuring that student’s performance against the expected learning objectives, as well as looking at how each year cohort measures up against national and international benchmarks. Therefore, it can be seen that the changes required for sustainable school improvement are complex and involve both individual and school learning (Howard, 2009). In the context of school improvement, teachers need to change their role from teaching to facilitating (Schoening, 1998), a major change that requires a movement from teacher-centred approaches towards student-centred approaches (Mertkan-Ozunlu & Thomson, 2009). This move in effect requires a different school culture. To be effectively implemented learner and learning-centered approaches may require external support to bring about the needed changes. To ensure sustainable best practice schools must provide support and guidance, and share ideas and plans with teachers (Fullan, 1985).
The amount of development required of the teacher to become an effective part of the school improvement team depends on the extent of the learning and development needed for students to attain the targeted outcomes. The school leader’s role is to facilitate teacher growth, which indirectly affects students’ growth and learning (Leithwood & Montgomery, 1982). Therefore, it is necessary to design stimulating, practical, and effective professional development programmes (Vandenberghe, 2002). There are a number of different techniques and approaches being used to effectively improve the teaching profession, such as providing practical examples during training, supporting teachers inside schools by a subject supervisor, and facilitating the school environment for teachers to work collaboratively and to learn from each other (Barber & Mourshed, 2007; Cordingley et al., 2015). The use of practice monitoring, evaluation, and feedback from an external support team has also been found to improve the implementation of school improvement projects, according to Desimone (2002) and Cordingley et al., (2015). Ideally, education reforms start by setting high expectations of what individual students can achieve and what it is expected that schools can do (Barber & Mourshed, 2007), and this needs to trickle down to what individual teachers are expected to change with regard to the teaching process and their classroom practices. However, Vandenberghe (2002) suggests that changing teaching practices inside classrooms is complex and it requires effective use of teaching and learning methods, accurate assessment procedures and, above all, changes in teachers’, students’, and parents’ behaviours. Teacher professional development needs to be linked with their needs (Zendeli, 2011), to be ongoing, and of high quality (Desimone, 2002), and to be monitored, measuring the impact of it on students’ achievements (Barber & Mourshed, 2007; Timperley, Wilson, Barrar, & Fung, 2007). There are many studies of the effectiveness of teachers’ professional development programmes that suggest that they are often ineffectual, in that there is little change observed of teachers’ practice inside classrooms. Consequently it is recommended by Vandenberghe (2002) that, rather than policy-makers shaping the teaching practice, it is advisable that teachers shape the policy. This approach involves teachers changing their practice, measuring the impact, and then transferring the good practice across their school and, by governments identifying and sharing best practice, across the nation.
Indeed Fullan and Langworthy (2013) believe that the quality of teaching is the main and most important factor in a school that shapes learning outcomes. Teacher professional development programmes need to ensure all students can benefit from high-quality teaching and therefore access outstanding learning (Timperley et al., 2007). The quality of teaching depends on the appropriate application of skills, a sound foundation of subject knowledge and understanding of different pedagogical models or philosophies that impact on the way students are learning in the classroom as well as educating themselves in other formal and informal learning contexts (Hopkins & Stern, 1996). To achieve quality of learning there is a need to differentiate the professional development support provided to teachers and deliver each strategy according to teachers’ needs, with effective teachers being given autonomy to innovate and experiment, whilst weaker ones require very specific guidelines, so that they do not put learners at risk. This differentiated approach is supported by Desimone (2002) and Hopkins and Stern (1996), who identify effective teachers as those who know their students, have a knowledge of curriculum content, understand and practice a diversity of teaching and learning methods, and are able to utilise the skills, knowledge and understanding of their students to stimulate their learning.
There is a strong evidence showing the link between new methods of teaching and learning and deep learning (Fullan & Langworthy, 2013). However, there are challenges that hinder the implementation of effective professional development for teachers and reduce its impact on students’ learning. A major challenge is teacher workload, identified in case-studies conducted by Bodilly and Berends (1999, as cited in Desimone, 2002), in which it was revealed that new methods of teaching and learning were not implemented due to pressure in preparing and drilling for high performance in national and international tests. These tests were given priority focus by teachers because these results were the main measures of the performance that the general public and ministries around the world use to make judgments about teacher quality and school effectiveness. Another factor in teachers’ difficulties using the new teaching and learning methods and implementing them effectively that Dello-Iacovo (2009) observed in many schools was that, given today’s more global labour market, they came from different nations using different teaching and learning methods, and received little preparation time to adjust to a new school culture.
Therefore, to facilitate effective professional development programmes, the most important first step is to identify what teaching and learning methods will foster deeper learning outcomes, establish how teachers can be effectively supported and guided in their implementation of innovative new approaches, and identify how teachers can be supported within a subject to enhance school improvement (Vandenberghe, 2002).
To sum up, teacher professional development programmes need to ensure all students have access to outstanding learning and can benefit from high-quality teaching. These professional development programmes can be supported by external support and through close monitoring of their performance against expected practice. Within the school support system, mentoring and coaching through the adoption of a professional community of learners approach can also be effective.
Dr. Ahmed AlKoofi
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