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SUPPORTING CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT OF TEACHERS: THE SURVEY OF EUROPEAN STRATEGIES
© Ovchinnikova O.S.1
Shadrinsk state pedagogical university, Shadrinsk
The article considers the problems of the induction period and early career years of novice teachers in Europe. Different strategies of continuing professional development are presented. Some principles and solutions that would foster teacher's professional development in this phase of their career are surveyed.
Keywords: continuing professional development (CPD), support, induction, beginning teachers, the initial period of the teaching career.
In education, as in any employment area, each year produces a certain number of newly minted professionals. But due to the particular economic, social, technological and cultural changes in Europe newcomers to the teaching profession face a real challenge.
One of the profound transformations European countries have encountered in recent years was from relying on industry to adapting to the challenges of the knowledge-based society. Each member of the knowledge society should understand complex concepts, media literacy and information technology and be prepared for lifelong learning [3].
Every year thousands of new teachers leave university or teacher education institutions in Europe and within minutes they have to switch from having been a student to teach and educate those who are now sitting in the school desks. This change of sides is a critical period in the life of beginning teachers, regardless of how well they have been prepared for this moment. It is critical because many teachers leave the profession after the first couple of years, very often frustrated by their objective or subjectively perceived failure to succeed in the trained profession.
1 Доцент кафедры Английского языка и методики его преподавания, к.п.н.
The increased professionalisation of beginning teachers is on the agenda across all OECD (The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries. It is assumed that if young teachers are more professional sooner, educational systems will be more effective and students will be better trained. Consequently, teachers need actively to maintain and further develop their professional competences throughout their careers, in an ongoing professional development process which at the same time supports the individual engagement and professional profiling of teachers. For teacher education systems to enable all teachers to acquire and develop the competences they need, as stated in the work of the Thematic Working Group «Teacher Professional Development» which comprised experts nominated by 26 European countries, three key system components are needed:
- stimulating teachers' active engagement in career-long learning and competence development in effective ways;
- assessing the development of teachers' competences, with tools that are aligned with the purpose and design of the teacher competence model being used in each system;
- providing coherent, career-long appropriate and relevant learning opportunities, through which every teacher can acquire and develop the competences (s)he needs [2].
But what is more important is the empirical observation in terms of effectiveness, that is the degree of success of educating pupils. The first years of teaching can show incredibly positive progress if the induction of young teachers is well prepared and accompanied. It is imperative for them to receive support, both from inside and from outside the school. Rudi Schollaert, Programme Manager of CIDREE (the Consortium of Institutions for Development and Research in Education in Europe), suggests the following types of support [1].
Internal Support
Within the school, the conditions that are necessary for teachers to develop their full potential can be created through capacity-building and coherence-building.
Capacity-building
The competence needed is acquired through systematic and continuous learning. Supporting CPD involves proper planning and organisation of professional learning activities. Teachers need structured time for consultation and cooperation. They need proper equipment and infrastructure. This is considered to be a support task for the school management. It is more than just facilitating. It requires a cooperative school culture that is based on mutual trust and tolerance of error.
Practitioners who are willing to take the risk to change their practice go through a period of temporary incompetence as they try to replace old routines by new ones. They are bound to make errors. Making errors is an inalienable part of the learning process. If teachers - and learners for that matter - are penalised for making errors, they will stay on the safe side, and consequently they will cease to learn.
A sure sign of a professional attitude is that practitioners can decide for themselves what kind of professional development they need. Here again, support needs to be provided in either tracing and contracting the external expertise that can meet the teachers' needs, or alternatively to trace and mobilise the internal expertise that may well be available in the school.
Teachers' learning is grounded in their concerns here and now, their experience, the context they work in. They want to learn from people who share these experiences, who understand this context and who have found satisfactory solutions. In other words, they want to learn from peers. This is why internal, school-based professional development activities are such powerful tools in teacher learning. An important benefit of drawing upon internal expertise is that it results in deepening and widening this very expertise that is available within the school. Indeed, teachers teaching or coaching their colleagues will not come unprepared and in doing so will develop their own competence. Through this way, internal professional development contributes to capacity-building in schools.
Having the competence to do something is one thing, having the authority to do it is another. Being able to make one's own decisions and act upon them is an important feature in the concept of 'agency'. People have agency if they can have an impact on things that really matter to them.
Lots of teachers are agents within the sanctuary of their classrooms. Yet, teachers are expected to take on responsibilities beyond what is going on in their classrooms, they have to be given power that transcends their classroom.
It follows that, if people who hold the formal power in the schools want teachers to get involved in issues that go beyond their classroom or their subject area, they should negotiate mandates with them and facilitate their work, while at the same time publicly supporting them.
Coherence-building
Coherence-building is the second strategy for systematic work on school improvement.
It has two components: coherence of ideas and coherence among people.
Coherence of ideas is often referred to as 'shared meaning'. Attributing meaning to the knowledge that has been jointly created provides a powerful way of taking ownership of what has been learnt, and may gradually get people to substitute their old beliefs by new and more adequate ones that are shared with colleagues on the basis of common experiences.
What is needed is not a monolithic view and corresponding practice, but a wealth of variations on a theme. This is also the reason why not all teachers should be expected to adopt and implement a new practice at the same pace and in the same depth. Some will learn fast, others more slowly; some will pick up this, others will focus on that; some will learn more, others will learn less. This is unavoidable and it does not even matter, as long as they are in unison with the philosophy underlying the joint project people have committed themselves to.
Creating shared meaning needs time, a place, a procedure, a common, unambiguous terminology, in short a discussion platform.
However important these physical attributes of consultation may be, shared meaning will only emerge if people get to understand the bigger picture and if they understand their role in this, how what each individual does contributes to the common cause.
But there should not only be coherence in thoughts, but also among people. This kind of coherence is called «connectedness». The concept of «connected-ness» addresses issues such as mutual emotional support among school head, staff and students, and taking a collaborative responsibility towards pupil interests. In such a collaborative culture, diversity is an essential ingredient. The prevailing school climate is a major facilitating factor or a major impediment for working and learning together. For this purpose, the traditional concept of teacher autonomy should be replaced by that of positive interdependence.
If learning is constructing meaning, learning in interaction with others becomes constructing shared meaning. People will learn better together with peers, by comparing notes and complementing one another's partial understanding.
External support
Like pupil learning is promoted by having it facilitated by an expert teacher, teacher learning and organisational learning can be promoted by an external expert. Rudi Schollaert refers to the meta-analysis of Timperley et al. (2007) where it is pointed out that external expertise is necessary for challenging existing assumptions and developing new knowledge and skills [1]. It is claimed that there are two ways of ensuring that CPD will not have any effect at all: by leaving teachers to their own devices or by outsourcing professional learning; i.e. by having external experts passing on recipes for teaching.
Rudi Schollaert also cites data obtained by a small-scale qualitative research project carried out in Flanders. This research project revealed the reasons why school teams appreciate support from an external expert, an advisory teacher or an inservice trainer. One reason is that external support creates a mild pressure to stick to agreements made and deadlines set. On the whole, the knowledge of external experts is also more explicit than the tacit knowledge that is typical of teachers. This makes it easier to create a common framework for a cooperative culture in the school. External experts can act as «eye-openers» by introducing ideas that no one would have thought about. They can break through existing patterns of navel gazing by their unbiased approach. Most of all, they can be of assistance by taking on the role of critical friend, coaching people on one occasion, confronting them on the next [1].
CPD facilitator can affect learning results of teachers and students in the following way:
- extensive support time;
- acquainting teachers with the existing (empirical) knowledge base;
- input of new knowledge and skills;
- facilitating teachers' changing practice;
- making the link between CPD and pupil learning explicit;
- supporting over time (longitudinal);
- facilitating and promoting independence;
- taking into account the start situation and emotional aspects of learning;
- experimenting;
- self-regulating peer support;
- embedding CPD in the goals and leadership of schools;
- involving school heads in facilitating CPD activities and aligning them with the school development plan [1].
Summing up we can say, that teacher roles have changed dramatically over the last decade. This has a huge impact on teacher education in general, and on CPD in particular. The early period of the professional career has often been considered an administrative process of entering the educational institution and profession instead of a planned and goal-oriented process of support and professional development of novice teachers. The initial period of the teaching career is very important because of its effects on professional development, professional efficiency, satisfaction and career duration, respectively.
It is stated that systematic and coordinated novice teacher induction into the professional cultures of school in today's teacher education system in Europe is a blind spot and many positive effects of initial teacher education are wiped out when novice teachers reach schools. For this reason internal and external support is acquired in order to achieve sustainable effects. Novice teachers should be included in professional learning communities from the very start. They should be involved in self-directed CPD activities such as joint reflection on student learning and what they can do to enhance it. They should be involved in action research, planning, delivering and evaluating lessons and assessing students' work together with experienced colleagues.
The application of the induction strategies studied above to Russian system of education requires further consideration.
References:
1. Schollaert R. Continuing professional development for the 21st century: setting the scene for teacher induction in a new era / P. Picard & L. Ria (Eds.) // Beginning teachers: a challenge for educational systems. - CIDREE Yearbook: Lyon, France: ENS de Lyon, Institut français de l'Éducation, 2011. - P. 9-28.
2. Supporting teacher competence development for better learning outcomes [Electronic resource]. - Access mode: http://ec.europa.eu/education/policy/school/ doc/teachercomp_en.pdf.
3. Valencic Zuljan, M., Marentic Pozarnik, B. Induction and Early-career Support of Teachers in Europe // European Journal of Education. - 2014. -Vol. 49. - № 2. - P. 192-205.
