Design of Teacher Training Programs - Week 2 - Foundations of Teacher Learning

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 2 of the course Design and Evaluation of Teacher Training Programs and Workshops for the Master's in English Teaching at ULACIT in Term IIIC 2023. In this class 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.

Today's Goals:

• Contribute to the group creation of conceptual outline describing a model for language teacher education.
• Differentiate between the concepts of training and development by contrasting their processes, goals, and outcomes.
• Compare two models describing teacher life cycles and discuss how teachers can be supported at different stages.

Guiding Questions:

• What is the content of language teacher education and how can teachers acquire it?
• What are the differences between training and development?
• How can life-cycle models and metaphors help us understand how teachers change over time?

Task 1: Metaphors for your Teaching Journey

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

• Pre-service training and university education
• Your first year of teaching
• Your transition into online teaching
• How you see yourself as a professional now

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

Task 2: Sharing your PD Journal

Let's take a moment to share some ideas from your PD Journal. Summarize what you wrote in your introduction in regards to:

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

Task 3: Teacher Life Cycles

In the pages you read, Richards (2018) makes reference to the idea of a teacher life cycle and he cites Huberman's model in particular. This model presents teacher evolution as consisting of distinct stages with associated attitudes but in a non-linear process.

• Career Entry: 1-3 years

• Survival: New teachers face challenges of their professional field. They deal with complex emotions and feelings of insecurity and their focus is on surviving the lesson, the school day, the term, etc. 

• Discovery: New teachers also have the opportunity to explore strategies to address the challenges they are facing.

• Stablization: 4-6 years
• As a result of experience, trial and error, on the job training, support from more experienced colleagues and other factors, teachers begin to feel comfortable in their classes and develop their professional identity.

• Midcareer: 7-18 years
• Experimentation and Diversification: Now that teachers are comfortable in their professional identity and have become familiar with their subject matter and developed pedagogical routines, they may feel that their development as teachers has reached a plateau. A growing sense of disastisfaction can lead them to experiment with new ways of teaching, incorporate different resources, or apply new assessment strategies. They may also decide to study an advanced degree.

• Taking Stock: This stage can also be one in which teachers deal with negative emotions. As they reach the midpoint of their professional lives, they may look at their current teaching abilities or context and feel a sense of dissatisfaction at where they are now compared to where they imagined they would be when the began their career. Some teachers may even consider a career change at this point.

• Late Career: 19-30 years
• Serenity: Teachers at this point in their careers are highly experienced and able to complete their tasks and responsibilities effectively. They recognize the growing generation gap between themselves and their students and younger colleagues but they generally have a positive and serene disposition about their job. They may also serve as mentors and resources for less experienced colleagues.

• Conservatism: Teachers at this point may also grow bitter and resentful. The growing age gap between themselves and their students, colleagues, or administrators may cause them to become more rigid in their practices and they may refuse to try with new ways of teaching, reject new technologies, and be resistant to institutional efforts to implement curricular changes.

• Disengagement: 30+ years
• Teachers gradually let go of professional responsabilities, spend more time on personal matters, and eventually move into retirement.

Click the graphic below for a better view. It illustrates the stages and possible movements in Huberman's model. Then discuss this question.

• What might lead a teacher to move from one stage to the next or move laterally in their development?
• What challenges and opportunities do we have as educational leaders to provide effective support, training, and professional development to teachers at different stages in this model?

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. 

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

• Can you identify any similarities between the descriptions of the early stages and your own experiences as a beginning teacher?
• What are the potential strengths and limitations of framing teacher development in terms of expertise?
• 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?

Task 4: Teacher Training, Development, and Decision Making

Now you will review some of the key concepts from the article you read for this week (Freeman, 1989) regarding a conceptual model for language teacher education. This is very important since it will influence the way we view the goals and processes of teacher training and professional development in the rest of the course. 

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

Task 5: Training vs Development 

In the book Language Teacher Professional Development (Farrell, 2015) the author explores the definition and purpose of professional development at length. Let's read some quotes and consider how they complement the model presented by Freeman.

• What is development?

• 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 learning 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 behaviors such 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)."

• What do you think?

• 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?

References:

Farrell, T. (2015). Language Teacher Professional Development. TESOL International Association.

Freeman, D. (1989). Teacher Training, Development, and Decision Making: A Model of Teaching and Related

Strategies for Language Teacher Education. TESOL Quarterly, 23(1), 27-45.  https://doi.org/10.2307/3587506

Randall, M. & Thronton, B. (2001). Advising and Supporting Teachers. Cambridge University Press.

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