Design of Teacher Training Programs - Week 4 - Defining Context and Assessing Needs

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 4 of the course Design and Evaluation of Teacher Training Programs and Workshops for the Master's in English Teaching at ULACIT. In this class we will do several activities to explore the topics of using lesson plan templates and classroom observation protocols as a professional development strategy. discuss the importance of context in teacher training, identify strategies to conduct an effective training needs analysis, and consider ideas to include in the design of your data collection instruments. 

Today's Goals:

• PD: Explore your beliefs and habits related to lesson planning and the reasons for your preferences.
• T: Review key concepts related to context and needs analysis for teacher training.
• T: Propose contextual factors and possible trainee needs to consider when designing your course and strategies to collect necessary information. 

Guiding Questions:

• PD: What are the features of an effective lesson plan? 
• PD: Why do I plan the way I do?
• T: Why is it important to define context in teacher training?
• T: How can I determine teacher training needs?

Warm Up: What do you see?

Click on your assigned link below and describe your image to your partners with as many details as possible. Try to determine what are the similarities and diffrences between your images.

• Group A: CLICK HERE
• Group B: CLICK HERE
• Group C: CLICK HERE
• Group D: CLICK HERE

Now, let's consider another image (CLICK HERE). Discuss these questions with your partners. 

• What does this new image make you think about?
• What do you think the artist's message could be?
• How might this image serve as a metaphor for teaching?
• How might it serve as a metaphor for training and developing teachers?

Task 1: Sharing your PD Journal

Last week you read the section "Observe the Nature of Lessons" in the Richards (2017) book and you selected at least one PD tip to react to. Let's take a moment to hear what some of your found to be most interesting.

• Review designs for lesson plans
• Identify the features of an effective lesson
• Develop a lesson observation form

Task 2: Comparing Lesson Planning Habits

Planning is one of the major responsabilities of a teacher, but how often do you specifically analyze the nature of your plans? Click your group link below and complete the tasks with your partners.

• Group 1: CLICK HERE
• Group 2: CLICK HERE
• Group 3: CLICK HERE

Task 3: Exploring PD possibilities with Lesson Plans and Observation Protocols

In your professional development tips reading this week you explored several topics including creating an observation form and anlayzing lesson plans. Let's propose a few ways to work with these tools in order to support teacher development.

• Ideas:
• Comparing and evaluating lesson plan models
• Evaluating and improving sample lesson plans
• Co-creation of new lesson planning template, experimentation, and analysis
• Independent or co-creation of observation protocols, experimentation, and analysis
• Guided observation protocols for novice teachers
• Ideas for working with video observation protocols
• Other related ideas?

Task 4: The Importance of Considering Context and Needs

For your reading response task last week you read portions of chapters 2 and 6 in Graves' (2000) Designing Language Courses. Discuss the following questions with your partners. 

• What are we talking about when we refer to context?
• Why is it important for training course designers to define their context?
• Graves introduced the term "problematizing" in Chapter 2. What does that mean and why is that a valuable strategy for teachers and trainers?
• Consider the two graphics below from Graves (2000) Chapter 6. In what ways might the purpose and process of carrying out a needs assessment be similar and different in the context of designing a language course or the context of designing a teacher training course?
• How are the needs of students and trainee teachers similar and different?
• CLICK HERE to go to the Google Doc and work together to share some important factors to consider when defining context.

Click to see full sized image.

Click to see full sized image.

References:

Graves, K. (2000). Designing Language Courses: A Guide for Teachers. National Geographic Learning.

Richards, J. (2017). Jack C Richards' 50 Tips for Teacher Development. Cambridge University Press.