Qualitative Study.docx

The Continuous Professional Development of Public Elementary Teachers (Qualitative Study)

Prepared by: Kim Harvey N. Dela Salde MAEE-1

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. What are the reasons why professional development should be seen in the public elementary teachers?

2. What are the nature and effect of professional development initiatives needed for public teachers to provide quality teaching?

3. How can professional development continually help the public elementary teachers in their educational and professional growth?

THEORETICAL LENS

The theoretical underpinning of this study derives from Piaget and Vygotsky. Piaget, a psychological constructivist, argues that learners construct knowledge by transforming, organising and re-organising previous knowledge. Vygotsky, a social constructivist, believes that opportunities should be provided to learners so that they are able to construct knowledge and understanding through social interaction (Kalpana, 2014:27). According to Richardson (2003:1625), both social and psychological approaches to constructivism assume that knowledge or meaning is actively constructed in the human mind. Social constructivism focuses on how formal knowledge is shaped within power, economic, social and political forces. The psychological approach to constructivism focuses on the manner in which meaning is 16 generated within the individual mind and, more recently, how shared meaning is developed within a group context. Constructivist theory has a rich history, initiated by John Dewey in his progressive models for teaching and learning (Dewey, 1916; 1933; 1938). At the start of the 20th century, Dewey generated justifiable theory for learner-centred education based on pragmatic philosophy. Constructivism is a learning theory, not a teaching theory (Richardson, 2003). It has implications for how teachers approach their teaching. Teachers need to understand how to incorporate constructivist teaching methods, strategies, tools and practices in order to ensure an effective environment for learning (Powell & Kalina, 2009:241). Constructivism is a theory that assists teachers to understand how learners gain knowledge: this guides the way teachers approach their teaching. From a constructivist perspective, teachers need to model suitable conduct, guide learners in their activities and provide different types of examples rather than falling back on outmoded teaching methods that focus on telling and directing (Sparks, 1994:27).

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Professional development (PD), is an integral part of the life of schools and teachers. It is an important mechanism to ensure educational reform and improvement in school settings. However, different viewpoints and perspectives on PD occur, with considerable tension between advocates of PD for broad, systemic and PD for more localized, profession oriented purposes (Day & Sachs, 2004). Different perspectives on PD, and tensions between these perspectives, are important because they influence the nature of the education promoted in school settings (Bolam & McMahon, 2004). In this study, I investigated the viewpoints on PD of a group of senior educators in Mati City during a period of significant educational reform. I drew upon interviews with a variety of senior educators during a period of intense interest in improving, inter alia, students’ literacy and numeracy outcomes. These educators with considerable experience of PD included provincial educational administrators, principals, and academics. I used Bourdieu’s (1990a, 1998) theory of practice to interpret the viewpoints of these educators and to make sense of their viewpoints in light of current understanding of the different perspectives on PD. BOURDIEU’S APPROACH For Bourdieu (1990a), social practices are a product of power relations between individuals and groups who compete with one another over specific, valued resources. As a result of these struggles, practices exhibit their own peculiar characteristics, or “logics.”

These practices, never static, are the product of a constant state of tension between

these competing positions and dispositions. Practices are hierarchical and exist in a contested either dominant or subordinate – relationship with one another.

This contestation occurs

within specific social spaces, or “fields,” of practice, and characterizes these individual fields (Bourdieu, 1990a, 1990b, 1998). For Bourdieu (1990b), fields and their stakes are “. . . produced as such by relations of power and struggle in order to transform the power relations that are constitutive of the field”. Fields are characterized by a constant process of competition over the stakes to be.

The Good Thing of Parent-Teacher Partnership (Qualitative Study)

Prepared by: Kim Harvey N. Dela Salde MAEE-1

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. What is role and function of parent-teacher partnership to the learners and to the school?

2. What are the effects of having good partnership of the teacher and parents to the performance of the learner?

3. How can parent-teacher partnership contribute to the improvement of the school?

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Most teachers think about having a good relationship with parents. However, just as images of teaching and learning environments vary, so do images of “good” parent-teacher relationships. At one end of the spectrum, the image of a good relationship is an effective separation of roles and functions between home and school, an optimal social distance combined with mutual respect. The family meets the school’s expectations efficiently, and the school effectively educates the child without undue demands on the home (Henry, 1996; Epstein, 1995; Powell, 1989; Lortie, 1975). The degree of success that teachers have in developing a partnership with parents depends heavily on the fit between parental cares and concerns and those of the teacher. Unlike many other kinds of relationships in people’s lives, the parent-teacher pairing occurs by assignment rather than choice. The research described above tells us that effective parent-teacher relations are founded on the understanding of the unique elements of the parents and teachers’ roles and how they complement each other and subsequent modifications of their roles growing out of negotiations that reflect the unique needs of both parent and teacher. In effective partnerships, parents and teachers educate each other during open two-way communication. Each point of view enlightens the other. “Mutually responsive relationships seem more likely to flourish if such programs focus more on the interconnectedness of parents and teachers through their mutual commitment to children and on exploring ways to enhance and celebrate this connectedness” (Sumsion, 1999). If these effective partnerships are to develop, the literature also tells us to be cognizant of the factors described earlier and recognize (1) the diversity in teachers’ and parents’ cultures and values including their backgrounds, race, ethnic group, socioeconomic class, and educational level; forces such as technology, workplace characteristics, and changing family structures; and influences on teachers’ and parents’ enactment of their roles including how they construct their roles, their sense of efficacy, their expectations and personal attributes, and their communication styles.

THEORETICAL LENS

Ecological Systems Perspective The ecology of human development involves the scientific study of the progressive, mutual accommodation between an active growing human being and the changing properties of the immediate settings in which the developing person lives, as this process is affected by relations between these settings and by the larger contexts in which the settings are embedded” (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, p. 21). The ecological environment, according to this theory, consists of a set of nested structures, each inside the next, like a set of Russian dolls. At the innermost level is the immediate setting containing the developing person. This microsystem concerns relations between the person and his or her immediate environment. The next circle, the mesosystem, represents the relation between the settings in which the developing person participates (e.g., work and home, home and school). The third level, the exosystem, refers to one or more settings that affect the person but do not contain the person (e.g., workplace or church). The final level, the macrosystem, refers to values, laws, and customs of the culture that influence all the lower orders (see Figure 2). Within this theoretical structure, there is interconnectedness both within and between the settings (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, p. 8). Social System Perspective Just as the ecological perspective helps remind us of the complexity of the individuals, in this case the teacher and including the present challenges to building and bridging the partnership above. The next circle represents the mesosytem where the adults interact within the school bringing what they have experienced with them. The two outer circles, exosystem and macrosystem, represent the societal influences of the more distant environments and contexts including workplaces, laws, and customs. This adaptation of Bronfenbrenner’s model helps us to see the complexity of the teacher-as-person and the parent-as-person, and the skill that is required to bridge the differences that exist. The parent teacher pairing occurs by assignment. Their common interest is the child. Though the child only appears in this figure within this proposed model, the child is a variable that is pervasive. How parent and teacher come together over their common interest in that child is influenced not only by the mitigating personal and

social factors but also by how they each interact with the child, and their feelings with regard to that child. Recall that in the role description the parent focuses on her child, and the teacher must view the child as an individual but also part of the class (Sumsion, 1999).