Design and Evaluation of Training Programs - Week 2

Introduction: Hello and welcome to week two of the course Design and Evaluation of Training Progams and Workshops. Today we will do several activities to explore the differences between professional development and teacher training, compare and contrast the roles they play in teacher learning, and discuss ways that teachers can be supported at different stages in their professional life cycle.

Task 1: Metaphors for your Teaching Journey

Think back on your growth as development over your years of teaching. Propose a visual metaphor to can describe your experiences at these points in your career:

• Pre-service training and university education
• Your first year of teaching
• How you saw yourself JUST before COVID
• Your transition into online teaching

Be ready to describe and/or show your visual representation and explain what it means to you and why you chose it.

Task 2: Training vs Development 

Let's reflect on your Reading Response task for this week. We read the first three chapters of Farrell's (2015) Language Teacher Professional Development. Based on what you read and your own experiences, what can you say about the following:

• Chapter 3: What is Professional Development?
• Think about the terms "teacher training" and "professional development". In your own experience, what term do you hear used more often to refer to teacher learning? Why is that?
• What do we mean by teacher training? What are its goals?
• What do we mean by professional development? What are its goals?
• Are they the same thing?

• Farrell adopts another author's definition of PD saying that it is the "process and activities designed to enhance the professional knowledge, skills, and attitude of educators so that they might, in turn, improve the learnong of students (p. 10)."

• "...when teacher educators put an emphasis on training, they are looking for learner teachers to be able to isolate, practice, and eventually master discrete teaching behaviorssuch as teacher talk, wait time, and use of questioning techniques (p. 10)."

• "In the 1990's, within the second language teacher education literature, there was a move away from a training approach to teaching toward a development approach to teaching...It recognizes professional development as the continual intellectual, experiential, and attitudinal growth of teachers. In this approach, the role of teacher educators, supervisors, and workshop leaders changes from a perscriptive type of leadership (training) to one that provides opportunities for teachers to participate in a variety of activities (p. 10)."

• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Farrell identifies three types of English teachers:

• 1st - Gets bored and quits.
• 2nd - Gets bored but keeps teaching .
• 3rd - "...those who realize that they can become genuine educators by reflecting on their actions, and who may change what they do in the classroom based on the results of this reflection...Type three teachers are truly professional and are doing the best job possible, always knowing that they will never know it all (p. 1)."

• Have you had any experience with these teacher types? What are they like?
• Have you been one or more of these types of teachers? 
• Would you say there are other types of teachers? 
• How does one become the third type? 
• If you were (are) in a leadership position in an educational institution, how could you help Type 1 and 2 teachers and sustain Type 3 teachers? 

• Chapter 2: Why Develop?
• Who should take responsibility for professional development, the individual teacher or the institution?
• If the institution takes responsibility for their teachers' professional development, how do you think this will materialize?
• What degree of responsibility do educational institutions have to provide ongoing professional development for their teaching staff and what are some of the challenges from an institutional perspective of implementing these initiatives?

• If the individual teacher takes responsibility for his or her own development, how will this materialize?
• In your opinion (experience), for the average teacher in Costa Rica, what barriers exist that can explain why many teachers do not take advantage of available professional development opportunities or do not seek them out on their own?

• Select one of the four assumptions about PD on pages 8 and 9. What is your understanding of this assumption? What does this imply about the nature of PD and how PD should be approached?

Task 3: Sharing your PD Journal

Let's take a moment to share your PD Journal. Show us what it looks like and how you decided to organize it and why. Summarize what you wrote in your introduction in regards to:

• The purpose of your journal or blog
• Teacher life cycle stages and your "ideal teacher self"
• Assessment of your current PD level and future PD goals

Task 4: Teacher Life Cycles

Both Farrell (2015) and Richards (2018) made reference to the idea of a teacher life cycle and they cited Huberman's model in particular. This model presents teacher evolution as consisting of distinct stages but in a non-linear process.

• Novice: Career Entry, Survival, and Stabilization 
• Midcareer: Experimentation and Diversification, Taking Stock
• Late Career: Serenity, Conservatism, Disengagement

Open the graphic below that illustrates the stages and possible movements in Huberman's model. 

• What might lead a teacher to move from one stage to the next or move backward or laterally in their development?

Click to see full size image.

Randall and Thornton (2001) in their book Advising and Supporting Teachers describe another life cycle model based on skill development and expertise. It outlines the skills and abilities teachers develop as they progress through stages in their careers. 

• What teaching skills and abilities do you imagine a teacher would have a these stages in their career? 
• How do teachers develop these skills?
• What are the potential strengths and limitations of framing teacher development in terms of expertise?

• The Novice
• Advanced Beginner
• Competent
• Proficient
• Expert

• CLICK HERE and skim through the descriptions in the model. Discuss these questions with your partner.

• What similarities and differences do you see between this model and Huberman's model as described in Farrel and Richards?
• Do the models complement each other?
• What role do you think training plays in the development and acquisition of the skills outlined in this model? What could account for the rest?
• Considering both life cycle models as well as your own experience and intuition, how can institutions and administators support teacher learning and different stages in their professional life cycle?