PROFESSIONALISM OF TEACHER EDUCATORS Реферат

Teacher education is increasingly bypassing traditional academic routes often neglecting relevant peer reviewed research on teaching and learning to teach. The ascendance of a view of teaching as skilled and somewhat technical work and learning to teach as somewhat unproblematic mostly happening on-the-job, often through trial and error, is evident in government policies in many countries. Moreover, the new market-oriented problematisation of teacher education countries, though politically expedient and perhaps popularly attractive, is a misguided attempt at quality assurance for teacher education and beginning teaching.

The author argues that university based teacher educator practitioners and researchers must address and take control of the quality assurance agenda whether we are thinking of teacher education occurring in the higher education institutions or it is incorporated into employment based pathways. He suggests that accountability must be at the point of graduation from a teacher preparation program with a focus on the quality of beginning teachers.

The teacher educators must frame our own accountability by developing authentic assessments of beginning teaching that provide opportunities for graduating teachers to demonstrate their professional knowledge, judgment and practice in diverse school contexts. The research in and on teacher education must respond directly to the challenges being put to us about the effectiveness of teacher education.

Attention to providing support and sustainability for effective professional learning is required from the outset. Specifically, effective approaches for professional learning need to have sustained duration over time, adequate resourcing and access to external support, and supportive and engaged leadership within schools and education systems.

International literature suggests that teacher commitment is closely related to or influenced by such constructs as career choice, retention, and career stages, which connect the personal and professional identities of teachers.

Teacher commitment has been identified in international research as one of the most important elements of performance contributing to quality and success in education. In the countries there are political, social and economic imperatives that focus attention on issues of educational quality, and particularly on the roles of schools and teacher education in improving educational quality. To date, particular attention has been paid to secondary teacher education and secondary teaching. Large numbers of secondary teachers are leaving the profession within a short time of being qualified, as well as there being an observable loss to the profession of those who are more experienced. This is seen as a risk for educational quality. Questions are raised, then, about the nature and level of teacher commitment and how this may intersect with concerns about teacher retention and teacher quality.

Commitment has been widely studied in organisational literature, particularly for its strength in improving the retention of employees and also because a committed workforce is generally associated with higher levels of productivity. These studies have given impetus for research into commitment within education. In explaining why teacher commitment should be emphasised, it was noted that teacher commitment is seen as: … an internal force coming from teachers themselves who have needs for greater responsibility, variety, and challenge in their work as their educational levels have grown. Second, it is an external force coming from the reform movement seeking high standards and accountability, which are dependent upon teachers’ voluntary commitment.

This view of commitment emphasises workforce needs and workforce planning.

This workforce view of commitment has been served by some research in the field of educational psychology that focuses on teacher commitment to educational institutions, in the service of institutions. Focusing on psychological dimensions, for example, Firestone and Pennell in their review of literature relating to teacher commitment, working conditions and policies highlighted the importance of the concept of teacher commitment, particularly because committed teachers were believed to be those with strong psychological ties to their schools, to their students and to their subject areas.

Other studies of teacher commitment have largely focused similarly on organizational commitment. These studies have been mainly quantitative using different organisational commitment scales to measure teacher commitment. Teacher commitment, therefore, is seen as something to be quantified in relation to qualities that are deemed to be desirable and needed by organisations.

Teaching is at a crossroads: a crossroads at the top of the world. Never before have teachers, teaching, and the future of teaching had such an elevated importance. There is widespread agreement now that of the factors inside the school that affect children’s learning and achievement, the most important is the teacher – not standards, assessments, resources, or even the school’s leadership, but the quality of the teacher. Teachers really matter. And the good news is that there is now a sense of great urgency in politics, in the teaching profession, and also among the public about the need to get more high-quality teachers. More and more people care about the quality of teaching. And this is putting teachers and teaching at the forefront of change. But alongside the urgency, or perhaps even because of it, there is a lot of argument and more than a little aggravation about what high-quality teaching looks like and what’s the best way to get it and keep it. The crossroads are shrouded in a fog of misunderstandings about teachers and teaching, and if we take the wrong road forward, precipices are looming on many sides.