Can Continuing Professional Development change lives?

This is the third article in our series which presents extracts from the British Council publication, ‘Innovations in the continuing professional development of English language teachers’. Here the author, Ann Wiseman, revisits teachers from a CPD programme that took place 12 years before, to discover if CPD changes lives.

Extract from the editor’s overview (p14)

In Wiseman's chapter we are able to see in particular the long-term impact on the people involved. Impact came not just in the intended outcomes - improved skills as trainers, for example - but also in the unintended outcomes. These were both personal and professional. Yet again, the notion of a community of practice comes to the fore.

The participants in the original project have a lifelong bond, built on shared experiences and shared understandings of practice, as one said: 'The thing is that I say something, just two or three words, with Elena and she understands. With other people, even university people who haven't been part of this group, I have to explain myself.' Beyond the professional, the personal impact was often transformative too, creating a new sense of possibilities for project participants ('I learnt to swim at 40, I learnt to drive and now I am learning Turkish') and those around them.... Of course, change may not be without tensions, an 'inside struggle', reinforcing the lesson that one cannot underestimate the time needed for significant shifts in practice to be assimilated into an individual's professional frame of reference; and, as the narratives in this chapter show, for impact of an innovation to be felt in other parts of the education system.

Extract from Chapter 13 ‘'My life changed when I saw that notice': an analysis of the long-term impact of a continuing professional development programme in Bulgaria’

Personal development and 'life-changing' events

Part of my rationale to conduct this research was to explore what lay behind the comment which I had heard from time to time that the project had changed people's lives. Interestingly, this view was articulated unprompted in a number of interviews, for example:

I underestimated myself in many ways. I wasn't ambitious to make a career. But [through the project] I realised that relationships helped you. (Sara)

Yola talks about how, because of the project, she became inspired to learn new things, and continues to do so even now:

I learned to swim at 40, I learned to drive and now I am learning Turkish.

This inspiration to continue learning even spread to her family:

This [project] changed my life. So when my husband, for example, got involved in new things, it was thanks again to the fact that I encouraged him to do this. So at some point he combined computers with language teaching and now he has a better job than me.

Gail also feels that joining the cohort of trainers changed her life:

Actually, I think a single event which happened in the university changed my life significantly. And this event is when I saw a notice on the noticeboard saying that British Council Sofia is organising a kind of teacher-training course and anybody can apply.

Career progression and professional development

As mentioned in the preceding section, many of the participants were not aware of the exact nature of the trainer training and how it might impact on their lives and professional development. These reflective comments indicate that:

I somehow didn't foresee at that time the impact ... because I just thought I was going to some kind of seminar or something, it wasn't quite clear that it would be such a big thing that would develop. (Yola)

I had really no idea about what was going to happen, and whether I would stay there, I really did it quite accidentally. It was just somebody mentioning the project and encouraging us to try. We'll see whether there's something for us there. (Sara)

For some trainers the change to what was, to all intents and purposes, a new way of thinking and behaving, was quite shocking, although the team became very supportive towards each other.

It was Maria, if you remember her [...] while we stayed at the centre she supported and helped me. And later on I appreciated the fact that I had the courage to stay on. At some point I was on the verge of giving it up because I thought it was very difficult, I couldn't understand. (Yola)

As the training progressed it was clear that not only did we need to train more trainers in terms of the methodology of training, but time also needed to be spent on other areas of professional development such as materials design, syllabus development and issues around testing. Although not initially part of the intended outcome of the project, this broad foundation proved invaluable later on for some of the trainers who moved to different areas of training. For example, Vera found that when she moved to teaching in a medical university she was able to use her previous experience to help design a new syllabus and create materials, as she explains:

This teacher-training period helped me a lot in materials design and programme design and syllabus design. When we were about to train teachers, we had to design our own materials and somehow the fact that I always was used to sitting down in front of a white sheet of paper and writing down the plan of the seminar or the plan of the course, it helped me a lot, planning the syllabus for nurses, for midwives for pharmacy students as well.

Over a period of time the new trainers became respected and were asked more and more to deliver teacher-training programmes, as Syria said:

At some point I realised that quite a few people in quite a few places all over Bulgaria, had heard about me, I was known, I became known to many people. And I felt great about it.

Others took part in research projects, while many took up lectureship and professor posts in Bulgarian universities. In some cases the enthusiasm with which some of the trainers devoted themselves to the teacher-training programme and other associated professional development programmes meant that they neglected their own academic careers. In one or two cases some very expert trainers and methodologists did not get promotion because they had not devoted their time working towards a doctorate, which was required in the system. However, all the trainers in that position felt that instead they had developed professionally, as these comments demonstrate:

I would separate professional development and career development, because in terms of promotion, getting higher in the hierarchy, there's not much, not really, very minor; in terms of professional development and development as a person who deals with other professionals - a lot. The career development is perhaps personal. Because we had the option not to become PhDs we didn't, because it was not a university where you were required to grow in the hierarchy and have a PhD almost from the start. We were encouraged to do research work and develop like that but it was not so forceful. So we focused on teaching and good professional teaching. (Syria)

I don't think I would have gone this way without the British Council, definitely. I would probably have gone on teaching probably. Think of our colleagues who did not do any teacher training when we joined the university, some of them never did any teacher training, some of them just continued lecturing. They didn't become involved in many projects. Others wrote PhD projects. I didn't. This is a very sensitive subject ... I mean academically there is probably something more to be done. (Sveti)

The immediate result from the trainer-training programme and CPD programme, when funding was gradually withdrawn, was for the trainers to take it upon themselves to continue with their own professional development. Some did this via research, others through developing new courses at universities and colleges, others via writing, following up initial contacts and getting involved in new projects, as we see here:

And actually it was this event [undertaking the trainer training] which triggered off a chain of events. After that, the first thing I did, I established some contacts, and then I applied on an individual TEMPUS project, the same place in two year's time. Again, the University of Leeds, and again ESP area. It was a very successful one. I also established some contacts there with people at the university and I managed to publish my first article on Suggestopedia. (Gail)

Yola also commented that the project enabled her to learn a new way of doing things:

First of all I learnt things from you - how to write an article, for example. Nobody before that had ever told me how to approach a piece of writing, so these things are all things that I later on used in my job. All the seminars that we had in this project were very useful because they had practical aspects so this gave me the literacy for teaching in general.

Extract from ‘Innovations in the continuing professional development of English language teachers’ (A Wiseman, p309 - 312)

Click here to download the complete publication.

Who is responsible for continuing professional development?

This is the second in a series of articles which presents extracts from the British Council publication, ‘Innovations in the continuing professional development of English language teachers’. Here, the authors discuss who the stakeholders in continuing professional development might be and who is reponsible for CPD.

‘Continuing professional development policy 'Think Tank': an innovative experiment in India’

Learning from the Think Tank

Teachers' ongoing professional development is not a matter of concern for teachers alone. Various stakeholders - school heads, education authorities, state, society and parents - have interests in teachers' CPD for their own reasons, depending on their place in the education system. Consequently, each of these stakeholders may have differing priorities for and expectations of CPD. Teachers may have their personal developmental priorities, usually determined by their needs, interests and aspirations. Institutions may have different expectations from teachers' professional development, related to their concern with strengthening institutional performance, culture and image. Apart from these, the teaching profession also has interests in teachers' professional development, which are reflected in education policies, politics and administration. Figure 1 represents stakeholder priorities in a general way.

Figure1: Priorities in teachers' professional development

(Adapted from SACE, 2008: 5)

Though the figure shows a balance between the different priorities, in reality professional priorities (including administrative, social and political) and institutional priorities are seen to greatly outweigh teacher priorities. Such different priorities both stem from and lead to different understandings and interpretations of the very notion of CPD. This was the immediate challenge that the Think Tank faced when it commenced its work. Coming from different backgrounds, agencies and organisations, the members showed differing views of the notion of CPD. For example, the representatives of national and state teacher education bodies perceived CPD in terms of traditional INSET, particularly various kinds of training necessitated by curricular reforms, textbook changes, methodological shifts, and so on. In their view, equipping teachers to effectively implement the various programmes and policies of the state was the main objective of CPD. The practising teachers and representatives of teacher associations prioritised teachers' personal interests and professional needs such as enhancing competence in English, becoming trainers, attending conferences and publishing papers. The administrators looked at CPD in terms of enhancing teachers' teaching skills and classroom management, and ensuring the good performance of students in examinations. In the course of subsequent discussions it soon became clear that, while none of these perspectives could be downplayed as unjustified or unimportant, each represented only one aspect of CPD. The Think Tank members summed up this insight in terms of the 'elephant and blind men' metaphor, as in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Multiple views of CPD

It was therefore considered essential to arrive at a broad and inclusive understanding of the notion of CPD as an important prerequisite for the subsequent work. The unique contribution of the Think Tank was to bring all these differing, and at times conflicting, perspectives together face to face, which facilitated thrashing out of differences, identifying commonalities and arriving at a shared understanding. The outcome of this churning was the following working definition of CPD, which the Think Tank adopted as the basis for further thinking and action:

CPD is a planned, continuous and lifelong process whereby teachers try to develop their personal and professional qualities, and to improve their knowledge, skills and practice, leading to their empowerment, the improvement of their agency and the development of their organisations and their pupils. (Padwad and Dixit, 2011: 10)

The process of evolving a shared understanding of CPD also led to frequent discussions about key challenges in ensuring effective CPD. There was a general agreement that the CPD scenario in India was not a very happy one, and that there were no effective CPD mechanisms in place. Some of the reasons for this were easy to identify, such as the neglect of CPD in teacher education policies and programmes, the lack of a well-formed and comprehensive CPD policy and the lack of general awareness about CPD. But others only emerged in the course of animated discussions and debates. It was yet again the diversity of views and approaches within the group which helped in understanding the complexity of the challenges. The collective thinking within the group helped in evolving a clearer understanding of challenges, and also a more concrete and specific formulation of issues, even if it wasn't always possible to identify solutions.

An interesting and enlightening example of this process was the discussion around the question of whose responsibility teachers' CPD was. This question is not much explored in research and policy documents on CPD in India, perhaps because it is generally assumed that the education authorities (in other words, the state) are responsible for teachers' CPD. A small-scale study carried out by two Think Tank members also found such an assumption clearly prevalent among the teachers and the authorities they interviewed (Padwad and Dixit, 2012). Even within the Think Tank the initial view of many members was that CPD was obviously the state's responsibility. However, as the cycles of discussions continued and as the members started bringing in findings from their individual studies and initiatives, it became clear that the issue was much more complex. Many studies by the members reported in the Think Tank publication (Bolitho and Padwad, 2012) indicated that teachers' taking responsibility for their CPD was the key factor in the success of the CPD activities in question. For example, Maya Pandit-Narkar's study (2012) pointed out how the member teachers' initiative helped them exploit the District English Centre set up in their town under an education ministry scheme for launching CPD activities. As Rama Mathew found out in her study (2012), the success and value of her experiment in promoting CPD through reflective practice were premised on the participating teachers' voluntarism and willingness to take responsibility for their development: '[a]lthough there [was] no acknowledgement/benefit of any sort in the school for teachers to take on CPD-related work.' (Mathew, 2012: 69) The account of the 30-year-long developmental journey of a voluntary teacher development group (Shivakumar, 2012) clearly established that the member teachers taking responsibility for their own CPD was the crucial and indispensable element in launching and sustaining the group. On a more theoretical level it was remembered that 'development' was not something that could be done by others to an individual; one developed oneself. In the final analysis, none but teachers could be responsible for their own CPD. At the same time some other studies reported in Bolitho and Padwad (2012) showed that support in the form of policy provisions, resources, incentives, freedom and opportunities was crucial for CPD, and that this would basically be the state responsibility. In a study exploring various stakeholders' views about CPD (Padwad and Dixit, 2012), expectations of state support were explicitly indicated by the participants, who included not only teachers but also administrators, managements and state officials. Another study into the use of school libraries as a resource by teachers (Waris, 2012) indicated that good support of resources like libraries led to better involvement in CPD by teachers. Pandit-Narkar's (2012) study of the District English Centre at Nellore quoted above also showed that the support and opportunities brought in by a 'top-down' intervention of the federal education ministry significantly enhanced the impact and success of the teachers' CPD initiatives. These observations about the need of supportive policy provisions, resources, incentives and opportunities were further corroborated by the two 'guest' contributions from Montenegro (Popovic and Subotic, 2012) and Serbia (Glusac, 2012), countries with explicit legislation and elaborate official provision for teachers' CPD. While underlining the value and significance of policy support for CPD, these studies also highlighted how the importance of school-based CPD was recognised and prioritised at the ministry level.

Eventually the Think Tank came round to the conclusion that CPD was a joint responsibility, and would succeed only through a combination of teacher responsibility (teachers' personal initiative and voluntarism) and state responsibility (support of policies and provisions for CPD), i.e. a combination of bottom-up initiative and top-down support. In this combination, schools, administrators, management and teacher education institutions (TEIs) played an important mediator role. Figure 3 shows a visual representation of this conceptualisation.

Figure 3: A model for effective CPD

The Think Tank thus led to the raising and analysing of a critical issue in CPD for the first time in India. It also helped in further clarifying the roles and responsibilities of teachers and other stakeholders in CPD.

Extract from ‘Innovations in the continuing professional development of English language teachers’ (Chapter 11, A Padwad and K Dixit, p258 - 262).

Click here to download the complete publication.

Tomorrow in our next extract we look at the theme: 'Can continuing professional development change lives?'

Don't forget to register for next Monday's CPD webinar with Silvana Richardson on 'CPD that works'. Silvana will look critically at the INSETT model of contining professional development and discuss more relevant, useful and personalised CPD approaches that put you in the driving seat of your development as a teacher and engage you as researcher as well as practitioner. This approach can have a positive impact for the CPD of other teachers, and also for the organisation you work for.

Find out more here: http://englishagenda.britishcouncil.org/continuing-professional-development/webinars

ELT Ideas too good to be taken seriously

The idea: Gamification, that is the use of games or elements of gaming to enhance the language learning experience.

The problem: Often taken too literally by teachers to mean any game in class or misrepresnted by publishers and reduced to ‘listen and click’ style flash games which fail to appeal to today’s PlayStation/X-Box gaming generation.

How it should be done: Let’s face it - a school student who fills his/her free time with the likes of Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto (however age inappropriate) is hardly going to be enticed by the prospect of being instructed to click on the red balloon, find the hidden star or color the puppy yellow, is he or she?

This game aims to bring together target language and the type of games your students love to create a truly engaging listening experience. The student takes the role of either a mob hitman, a secret service sniper or a rogue agent (always important to offer them choices) and sets himself/hersefl up in a camoflagued location overviewing a crowded scene such as an enemy army camp, a political rally or a meeting of the local mafia.

Instructions are then received from the mysterious unseen ‘commander’ via the shooter’s earpiece like this:

“Can you see the short, fat, bald man who is wearing a green jacket and sunglasses? Shoot him in the leg.”

Or…

“Locate the red building. That is where they store their fuel. Hit it with an RPG.”

Or even…

“You see the boss’ wife? She’s holding a white puupy. Make it red!”

There is also the opportunity to recieve corrective feedback:

“Great shot! He won’t be walking for a while.”

Or…

“I said the RED building! You hit the oranage building - that’s the canteen where they eat lunch.”

Students of course have the opportunity to level up, receive new weapons and earn promotions. Topics to be covered potentially include colours, buildings, descriptive adjectives and, of course, parts of the body.

In order to avoid too much controversy, for very young learners, a version will be available in which the shooter uses a paintball gun as is instructed to splatter the given targets with different colours.

Would students enjoy it? Absolutely

But would it work? Alas, this one is destined to never make it intoı an ELT publisher’s catalogue. Parents, teachers and the media are likely to ignore the instense contextualised language practice on offer in a format similar to games we let kids play anyway to focus on the ‘controversy’ of it all…

5 Learning Strategies That Make Students Curious

Understanding where curiosity comes from is the holy grail of education.

Education, of course, is different than learning.

Education implies a formal, systematic, and strategic intent to cause learning. In this case, content to be learned is identified, learning experiences are planned, learning results are assessed, and data from said assessments play some role in the planning of new learning experiences. Learning strategies are applied, and snapshots of understanding are taken as frequently as possible.

This approach is clinical and more than a smidgeon scientific. It arrests emotion and spontaneity in pursuit of planning and precision, a logical trade in the eyes of science.

Of course, very little about learning is scientific. While data, goals, assessment, and planning should all play a role in any system that purports to actually accomplish anything, learning and education are fundamentally different. The former is messy and personal, painful and fantastic. The latter attempts to assimilate the former—or at least streamline it as much as possible in the name of efficiency.

An analogy might help.

learning:education::true love:dating service

True love may very well come from a dating service, and dating services do all they can to make it happen, but in the end—well, there’s a fair bit of hocus pocus at work behind it all.

Hubris and Education

Education is simultaneously the most noble and hubristic of all endeavors. This may all reek of sensationalism, but watch anyone at play, honing a craft, lost in a book, or engaged in a digital simulation and you’ll see a completely different person—one there physically, but far removed in spirit.

In a better place.

Causing this in a classroom is possible, but is as often the result of good fortune than good planning. The best substitutes that can masquerade as curiosity are dutiful compliance and engagement. Neither of these are curiosity, which has among its sources a strong sense of volition, accountability, and curiosity.

Here, let me try.

I want to show you what I can do.

I want to know.

And that last one—a sign of curiosity–is a bugger, one we’ve talked about before. Like the caffeine in coffee, the chords on a guitar, or the wet in water, genuine curiosity is not a thing, it’s the thing.

Not temporarily wanting to know, or being vaguely interested in an answer, but being able to put together past experience and knowledge like the millions of fibers on a network–only to be maddeningly stopped from branching further without understanding or knowing this one bit.

Like stopping an incredible movie right at the climax—that awful, crazy feeling inside would be unfulfilled curiosity—and it’d just kill you not to know. But where does it come from?

And can you consistently cause it in a learner?

If formal learning environments driven by outcomes-based systems have taught us nothing else, it’s that while we often can “cause” something to happen in learner, it is only by considerable effort, resources, and angst.

But we certainly can create ideal conditions where natural curiosity can begin to grow. What we do when it happens—and disrupts our planned lessons and tidy little units—is another story altogether.

5 Things That Make Students Curious

1. Old Questions

The simplest curiosities arise from old questions that were never fully answered, or that no attempt to answer was made.

Of course, any question worth its salt is never “fully answered” any more than a good conversation is ever finished, but as we learn and reflect and grow, old answers can look positively awkward, as they are bound by old knowledge.

Strategy to actuate: Revisit old questions—through a journal prompt, Socrative discussion, QFT (Question Formulation Technique), or even a fishbowl discussion. And also revisit the thinking from the first go-round to see what has changed.

2. Ambition

Ambition precedes curiosity. Without wanting to advance in position, thinking, or design, curiosity is simply a biological and neurological reaction to stimulus. But ambition is what makes us human, and its fraternal twin is curiosity.

Strategy to actuate: Well thought-out mentoring, peer-to-peer modeling, Project-Based Learning and a genuine “need to know.”

3. Play

A learner at play is a signal that there is a comfortable mind focused on a fully-internalized goal. It may or may not be the same goal as those given externally, but play is hypnotic and more efficient than the most well-planned instructional sequence. A learner playing, nearly by definition, is curious about something, or otherwise they’re simply manipulating bits and pieces mindlessly.

Strategy to actuate: Game-Based Learning and learning simulations like Armadillo Run, Fun, Civilization V, Bridge Constructor, and Age of Empires all empower the learner to play. Same with Challenge-Based learning.

4. The Right Collaboration At The Right Time

Seeing what is possible modeled by peers is powerful stuff for learners. Some may not be initially curious about content, but seeing what peers accomplish can be a powerful actuator for curiosity. How did they do this? How might I do what they did in my own way? Which of these ideas I’m seeing are valuable to me—right here, right now–and which are not?

Strategy to actuate: Grouping is not necessarily collaboration. To actuate collaboration, and thus curiosity, students must have a genuine need for another resource, idea, perspective, or something else otherwise not immediately available to them. Cause them to need something, not simply to finish an assignment, but to achieve the goal they set for themselves.

5. Diverse & Unpredictable Content

Diverse content is likely the most accessible pathway to at least a modicum of curiosity from learners. New projects, new games, new novels, new poets, new things to think about.

Strategy to actuate: Invite the learners to understand the need for a resource or bit of content and have them source it. Instant diversity class-wide, and likely divergence from where you were going with it all. At worst you’ve got engaged learners, and a real shot at curiosity.

Thinking Strategies

I came across this great website about Thinking strategies and ways to integrate them into our teaching practice to make learning more meaningful for our students.  Have a great one!

Thinking strategies