Education
Global perspectives on teacher learning: improving policy and practice
Preparation and continuing professional development of elementary school teachers
Authors:
J. Schwille; M. Dembélé
Publisher:
International Institute for Educational Planning, UNESCO, 2007
This booklet provides a way of thinking about the preparation and continuing professional development of elementary school teachers. It can be used as a basis for evaluating existing programmes and planning new ones. It is intended for those engaged in educational planning and administration. It is also useful for those seeking a general understanding of educational planning and its relation to overall national development.
The authors argue that the formulation of policy and the design of programmes must take into account teachers’ opportunities to learn from the beginning of their own schooling and throughout their teaching career. The concern is not with teacher preparation programmes in isolation, but with the continuing professional development of practising teachers. It is essential to take into account informal as well as formal opportunities for teacher learning (including what teachers have learnt in the past from observing their own teachers in school). Recommendations to policy-makers and planners for improving teacher education include:
Conducting continuous empirical evaluation of programmes of initial teacher preparation, induction and continuing professional development, asking:
- is there a vision of good teaching embodied in national and institutional policy documents?
- what are the aptitudes and prior capabilities of the most likely entrants into teaching?
- does the mix of career teachers and contract teachers need to be changed to improve the recruitment of teachers within the constraints of available resources?
Investing in empirical research to address a variety of special issues and problems that constitute key obstacles to improvement of teacher learning, asking:
- to what extent can the undesirable consequences of the apprenticeship of observation be avoided?
- would a model centred on school-based apprenticeship be tested in comparison with existing programmes in colleges or universities?
- what would happen to teacher capabilities if the credentials required for teaching were raised or lowered, if the duration of formal teacher preparation were increased or decreased?
Promoting cross-national research to answer questions of the following sort, which are difficult to address within a single country, looking at:
- what can we learn about different visions of good teaching when attempts are made to implement them on a widespread basis in education systems?
- what are the consequences for teaching, learning and teacher education of different degrees of specialisation in teaching and associated communities of practice
- what are the advantages and disadvantages of learning to teach in institutions in which all teachers are treated as aspiring teachers and in which most of the content instruction focuses on the elementary or secondary curriculum they will be expected to teach?
The authors nevertheless suggest that developing countries facing the challenge of rapidly having to increase their basic education teaching force with limited resources should focus their policy debate on:
- cost-effectiveness
- the mix of career and contract teachers
- make school-based apprenticeship models work
- the competence of teacher educators
