The New Approach For Professional Learning Development For Educators Essay

Practitioner inquiry advances student learning by improving teaching practice. Improving teaching practice is crucial, as the quality of teaching is “the most significant within-school factor influencing pupil performance” (Darling-Hammond et al., 2005, Hattie, 2009, McKinsey & Co., 2007, all cited in Menter, Elliot, Hulme, Lewin & Lowden 2011, p.14). Without disciplined examination, lessons from teaching experiences can pass by unnoticed (Shulman, 2005, cited in Menter et al, 2011, p.19). Inquiry helps teachers improve the quality of their teaching by focussing reflections on specific questions, giving teachers an opportunity to understand their practice better, evaluate its effectiveness and identify alternatives or improvements (McLaughin, Hawkins, McIntyre, 2004, cited by General Teaching Council for Scotland, 2016). Inquiry encourages the sort of reflective practice that may lead to a more formalised and systemic inquiry based around research questions (Menter et al, 2011). As such, practitioner inquiry allows teachers to drive their own processional learning.

This portfolio seeks to critically reflect on my engagement with the Teach First Leadership Development Program (TFLDP) and how the Continuous Professional Development (CPD) offered as part of the program has influenced my current and future classroom practice. The TFLDP is the official title given to the training program that all Teach First participants are expected to complete. The program is two years in duration, throughout which, participants are offered various forms CPD, all of which falls under three broad headings; Leading Self, Leading People and Leading Learning. In this assignment, I will focus on how, in conjunction with Teach First support staff and CPD opportunities, I have addressed two of the three key strands; Leading Learning and Leading people. The first strand I will focus on is Leading Learning. I will describe how I worked with my Leadership Development Officer and Educational Consultant to engage passive learners by introducing cooperative learning into the classroom, I will critically reflect on the progress we made towards the vision I created. Secondly, I will focus on how a session forced me to address the wider issues facing my students outside of the classroom and the work that I have done with the East Midlands Action Network (EMAN) to make progress towards providing Socio-economically disadvantaged children with enriching experiences.

The purpose of this unit is to assess the learner’s knowledge, understanding and skills required to promote the professional duty to maintain the currency of knowledge and skills and the need to continually reflect on and improve practice.

Facilitating a foundation in academic or philosophical pedagogy can help form a path for the educator, a path to better understanding teaching, education, learning and learners. Often, most of the programs designed for learners and the curriculum is often derived from theories. Understanding theories can help guide a teacher through their education journey. Sometimes, teachers may struggle with classroom organisation or implementing the curriculum in a considerate, all-encompassing and engaging way, especially if you are a CRT or Graduate Teacher - and often these concepts can help inspire and encourage teachers. To be an empowered teacher means your classroom and students will be empowered learners, and that is the best type of learning. There are many theories that have contributed to education as a body and has many of these theories help educational departments plan curriculums to benefit not only teachers but also all students. What makes for a great teacher is considering the characteristics of the local community as well involving students’ families’ in the school body. Influences that help shape a teacher’s identity can include…

Professional Development measures the degree to which teachers value continuous personal development and school-wide improvement.

Reflective practice can be used by workers to enhance their performance and practice at work.

The field of family therapy, particularly the approach of systemic family therapy, is popular not only in the United States but also all across Europe. While this course was designed for future family therapists in the U.S., this paper tries to identify characteristics and differences of the profession’s European counterpart. Several noteworthy differences in degree and educational requirements were identified as well as the professional associations which are responsible for practitioners in Germany and Europe in general. However, it is important to state that the main principles of both the American and European family therapy profession are similar, if not identical, which illustrates the interconnectedness of professionals across the world. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to identify ways of developing a professional identity and promoting professional development throughout and beyond graduate studies in the field of family therapy.

The Framework for Teaching by Charlotte Danielson has been developed through research as a guideline for current and future teacher’s professional responsibilities in and out of the classroom. Districts throughout the country are using this framework to assess and guide their teachers to build successful methods of planning and preparations, setting up the classroom environment, instruction and professional responsibilities. Each of these domains builds off of each other to form a successful learning environment. Domain 3 focuses more specifically on instruction using communication, discussions, engagement, assessments and flexibility.

In my opinion, implementing reflective practice approach to professional development in order to expand our knowledge is a challenge. This challenge involves teacher’s ability to “reflect on

Traditionally, teacher development typically occurs through trial and error in the isolated confinements of each teacher’s classroom with some periodic whole-group professional development (Goddard & Goddard, 2007). Within the past few decades, many schools and districts, including ours, have considered and experimented with Professional Learning Communities (PLC) as an alternative framework in guiding a more efficient development program for their teachers. PLCs are focused on enhancing student learning through developing teacher practices. The concept of PLC relies on using structured collaborative sessions amongst teachers within the school to build internal capacity. Through PLCs, teachers critically reflect on current

The GTCNI have argued that, “Professional knowledge, by its very nature, is organic and, to an extent, evolutionary, reflecting a synthesis of research, experiences gained and expertise shared” (GTCNI, 2007:10). The GTNCI further reinforces this statement when it states that, “Teaching can never be reduced to a set of discrete skills to be mastered in some mechanical process of assimilation” (GTCNI, 2007:5). Teaching today has moved beyond the outdated view that the most important thing for a teacher was solely to have professional knowledge. Professional knowledge encompasses a range of different forms of knowledge such as knowledge on the curriculum and children and pedagogical knowledge e.g. how to manage a classroom amongst many other forms. Whilst this is still of great importance professional knowledge is of no use if you are not able to adapt this knowledge to meet the ever-changing dynamic situations that you will encounter in the classroom. This essay will examine how reflective practice can be unlisted by teachers to ensure that they are meeting the needs of their pupils as well as

As educators, we regularly take an action and considering the impact of the action. Then we analysing the results of the action by reflecting upon it and critically evaluate our professional knowledge and the effectiveness of our teaching. Further, we are altering and revising conceptions and planning following reflection. Finally, we are implementing these plans in further actions. In this process, teachers work collaboratively with other members of the profession and engage in discussion of contemporary issues and research to improve professional practice. Many educators are involved with praxis but it often isn’t part of their vocabulary. Without knowing the concept (inquiry as praxis),

There is a usual but important cliché for a teacher´s career: a teacher has to be a life-long learner to be an effective teacher. Research on effective teaching over the past two decades has proved that effective practice is related to questioning, reflection and continuous professional development. Reflective practice can be a satisfying experience for a teacher evolution. It covers self-analysis, questioning one owns methods, assumptions about learning, theories as well as one´s attitudes and behaviour as a facilitator and communicator, in short making a deep analysis of the actions. Reflecting on teaching includes the teacher´s thoughts on the successfulness of the lesson planning and the implementation used to teach. Within the time progression the teacher´s reflection should be more precise and he or she could

There has been a rapid increase in the ides of critical reflective practice over the last few decades, (Gould, 2004). Before we look at the value and purpose of reflective practice, it is important to take in account ‘reflective practice’ carries multiple meanings from the idea of professionals engaging in self-analysis to that of engaging in critical dialogue with others. For example, with reference to teacher education, Larrivee, (2000) argues that reflective practice is fusing together personal beliefs and values into a professional identity whereby critical reflection can take place without staying trapped in unexamined assumptions and expectations of our professional practice. Therefore, from this, it can be concluded that as a teaching professional, it is important to develop reflections on ones’ professional and pedagogic knowledge to set aspirational goals for a continuing personal and professional development, in other words, it is a way of life.

“When teachers possess the wisdom and resilience to adopt a reflective and objective view of their own practice, they also have the vital ingredients for enhancing their classroom practice.’’ (Jones et al. 2006: 45).