The Growth and Development Approached for Teachers

Post date: Aug 6, 2018 7:32:23 AM

The Growth and Development Approached for Teachers

By: Irene P. Mendoza- Teacher III

City of Balanga National High School

How does faculty approach their development as teachers? The faculty hailed from different disciplines, have different family backgrounds and genders, and have varying levels of experiences and different kinds of academic appointments. In order to grow, one needs to know how. I believe, with the personal narratives of others who have grown as educators with a well written account of a teacher learning from his or her careful, critical analyzes of teaching experience can motivate a deeper level of personal reflection. What growth and development as a teacher meant to them, how they went about it, and what they hoped to achieve. (Maryellen Weimer, Phd)

Here are five different approaches to growth and development that emerged.

1. Teaching development as building a better knowledge of one’s content area, in order to become more familiar with what to teach- To know the content are better is the ultimate goal that will increase teacher confidence and teaching will become easier and more comfortable.

2. Teaching development as building up practical experience as a teacher, in order to become familiar with how to teach- Growth from this perspective equates with experience. With more experience come greater confidence, ease and comfort. Believe that growth come naturally from experience-learning by doing. Teaching is a natural ability and practice is what allow skill to emerge and develop.

3. Teaching development as building up a repertoire of teaching strategies, in order to become skillful- By approaching growth as the process of acquiring teaching strategies as it would not happen naturally, they come from outside or require a certain amount of effort to master for successful incorporation.

4. Teaching development as finding out which teaching strategies do and don’t work for the teacher, in order to become effective- This approach goes beyond the previous category in that these teacher actively seek to discover which strategies work best for them. They experiment with different strategies, reflect on their results, and buttress their understanding of effectiveness with feedback from students and colleagues. These teachers are seeking new strategies even though the ones they use may already work quite well. Here success is measured by student satisfaction with the strategy and by teacher comfort with the approach.

5. Teaching development as continually increasing one’s understanding of what work and what doesn’t work for students, in order to become more effective at facilitating student learning- Feedback is an important process and exclusive focus on student learning. Teacher concerns go beyond student satisfaction, or whether or not they like the strategy. These teachers care about what a student will take away from a course long term. What students learn and retain is more important than their short-term satisfaction. (Gerlese S. Akerlind)

The above named approach addresses the impact of faculty conceptions of development on student learning. Teachers who focus on students and student learning tend to have students who orient to learning as understanding. Teachers who focus on themselves and what they are doing tend to have students more likely to equate learning with memorization. The idea of faculty orientation to development having implications for students is a new idea, and one that merits thoughtful analysis.