Teacher Development Activities

There are some recommendations of teacher development activities.

Teacher development activities should:

  1. provide long-term mentoring supports to teachers (Pillay, 2002: 24);
  2. promote and empower teachers to be innovative in order to meet the challenges of the education reform (Pillay, 2002: 24);
  3. promote teachers to change their fundamental beliefs (Pillay, 2002: 26) and build awareness of the education reform (Pillay, 2002: 46);
  4. provide a good understanding of the multidimensional nature of knowledge that they can use to identify appropriate strategies for both teaching and assessing students (Pillay, 2002: 27);
  5. provide new learning strategies (such as constructivism, critical reflection, transformation, and ICT) for teacher to develop themselves (Pillay, 2002: 28);
  6. provide teachers broader and deeper subject knowledge to make them to design curriculum more flexible and more integrated for students (Pillay, 2002: 28);
  7. promote an ability to self-evaluate in order to improve their own practices. Action research is recommended (Pillay, 2002: 29);
  8. promote teachers to collaborate with other stakeholders such as administrators, parents, local experts in form of a community of learners (Pillay, 2002: 31); This can be conducted through debates, brain storming, project work, collaborative work, group work etc (Pillay, 2002: 50);
  9. include or be based on classroom activities (Pillay, 2002: 50);
  10. promote teachers to understand classroom research and how it can enhance their practices (Pillay, 2002: 50).

Pillay (2002: 49) suggests that intensive workshops with an on-line, school-based, mentoring support model of teacher development should be considered.
There is a need to develop local expertise in the form of master teachers that can train other teachers (Pillay, 2002: 50).

To achieve this, there is considerable amount of work yet to be done in developing the necessary knowledge and skills, and the delivery and support systems. Types of training may include (Atagi, 2002: 56):

  • Pedagogues including learner-centered approach;
  • curriculum development;
  • assessment of students;
  • use of ICT;
  • school-based management;
  • subject-specific teaching.

There is a need of development of professional communities that can have an effective impact on school quality beyond individual contribution. The support is needed for teachers to help establish professional communities such as teacher associations and study group (Atagi, 2002: 57).

Professional development must be provided on a continual basis in order for teachers, administrators, and facilitators to institutionalize their skills and knowledge acquired into the system, especially since the change is radical (Atagi, 2002: 66).

Types of training include (Atagi, 2002: 66):

  • Learning reform;
  • Curriculum development;
  • ICT use;
  • international best practices;
  • assessment;
  • school-based management;
  • school reform initiative.

On-site facilitation plays a significant role in supporting the change process. facilitators' technical assistance for knowledge building and moral support to form learning communities is indispensable for the continuation of the reform process (Atagi, 2002: 66).

As suggested by Pillay (2002), Fry (2002: 4) also agreed that teacher learning and development should be school-based, facilitated by the effective use of ICT and creating local learning centers to facilitate learning reform and life-long teacher learning is important.

Solid understanding of the concepts, principles, and processes involved in the new approaches of teaching and learning should be provided for teachers (Pillay, 2002: 49 cited by Fry, 2002: 10).

The emphasis should be on the development of life-long teacher learning (Fry, 2002: 10).

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License