by Lawrence Burke

Abstract:

This article explores the traditional concept of teacher professional development through the filters of controlled, dependent and uncontrolled variables. Controlled variables within the teaching profession determine the outcome of all teacher professional development programs. Dependent variables allow the measure of professional development to indicate the gains and losses in student learning. Uncontrolled variables forecast the predictability of teacher professional development due to the historical existential landscape of education and schooling, and the personal psycho-social development of people who choose a career in the teaching profession.

A paradigmatic shift is required in the conceptual understanding of teacher professional development. As teachers we are socially engineered to assume an identity that is dissociated from self. Our psycho-social growth and development is overlooked and runs counter to the social engineering of the new identity of the ‘professionally developed teacher’.  Building upon, A Psychological Model in Decision Making (Lau & Hiemisch, 2017) the article concludes by offering an integrated values based framework of teacher professional development intrinsically linked to personal growth and self-development. Our choices are informed through a high degree of reflection, self-awareness, and an explicit rationale for choosing our growth and development pathways, firstly as a person and secondly as a teacher.

Introduction:

Teacher professional development and support varies across the world. In some wealthy countries, it is devolved to private companies and organizations, on behalf of the Ministry of Education. In less wealthy countries, it may be non-existent, or rely on donor funding to support colleges of education which offer teacher training programs and professional development insets to local teachers. International curricula designers, who offer ideological driven programs of learning with ‘high stakes’ summative examinations, build into their curriculum frameworks, very costly teacher training, and professional development and support programs. Whatever the context, some is made mandatory, some is voluntary, most are expensive, and some are by invitation only.

What is Teacher Professional Development?

There are two key mainstays which contribute to effective teaching and learning:  (a) a thorough, comprehensive and wide ranging subject knowledge (area of teaching expertise), and (b) an all-encompassing understanding of pedagogy (theories on delivering subject knowledge), which by intent create the conditions for students to learn. Teacher professional development programs are designed to build upon these two pillars. But if it were only that simple. Controlled variables within the teaching profession determine the outcome of all teacher professional development programs. Dependent variables allow the measure of professional development to indicate the gains and losses in student learning. Uncontrolled variables relating to the historical existential landscape of education and schooling, and the psycho-social development of teachers and students forecast the predictably of socio-economic conditions, and the complex nature of the human character. Uncontrolled variables affect the success or otherwise of teacher professional development and successful student achievements.

Controlled Variables:

Teacher work load and school working conditions are a barrier to teacher professional development (Sellen, 2016) (Toropova, Myrberg, R, & Johansson, , 2021).  Top down decision making processes on teacher professional development, whether by government, school owners, school districts, independent private and international schools, or principals and school leaders, are also a barrier to effective teacher professional development (Lee, 2004-5). Top-down models often create disquiet and a degree of resentment amongst teachers. The terms used by highly paid educational consultants, school leaders,  principals and organizations who run top-down, mandated teacher professional development programs for teachers who aren’t given any choice on content, delivery or timing of such programs, are ‘resisters and saboteurs’ (Oriji & Amadi,, 2016).  

Other significant controlled variables across the global teaching profession are the prescribed multi-faceted and ideological driven approaches to teaching and learning, not limited to but including, 21st century learning skills, digital and educational technologies as learning delivery tools, student differentiation, emotional intelligence, student agency, the resilience quotient, individual learning styles, and the prescribed approaches to teaching and learning by international curricula providers.

Dependent Variables:

Testing and examinations are the dependent variables by which successful teacher professional development are measured. They are the fulcra in determining whether or not a person in the teaching profession is considered an effective teacher.  More recently, the creed of corporatism has infiltrated the teaching profession with its ‘profit for purpose dogma’, and schemes of linking teacher performance pay to student achievement. Finally, there are the mandated hours of professional teacher development, which vary greatly across the world. In the United Kingdom it is based upon the number of teaching hours per week; with the higher end at 30 hours of teacher professional development per year to the lower end of 6 hours per year (Institute for Learning, 2009). In the United States of America, each State has different mandated requirements; although it is suggested that over a 5 year period a teacher should complete between 120 and 180 hours of teacher professional development (Solution Tree, 2021). New Zealand, on the one hand does not have an hours per year requirement for teacher professional development; but it does have a mandatory professional growth cycle for teachers, with some stringent requirements teachers must fulfill, or risk losing their teaching practice certificate (Teaching Council of New Zealand, 2019)

Uncontrolled Variables

The amount of GDP per country spent on education doesn’t necessary accord with a successful education system; rather it is how the money is spent. It is the same with the allocation of resources for teacher training and professional development. More money, or expensive trainings in high end venues and hotels, doesn’t mean better teacher professional development programs, and improved student learning outcomes.

Vested interest groups, including governmental and non-governmental agencies, religion and religious institutions, powerful technology companies, corporations and influential parent groups are like the Spring tides. While predictable in their arrival and pronouncements, they create unpredictable undercurrents which may scuttle attempts to ensure equality of opportunity for teacher professional development, regardless of socio-economic status, race, religion, political affiliation, gender and sexual orientation.

In addition, schooling and education are distinctly different. A school’s or school system’s history, traditions and customs often negate the concept of teacher professional development, along with the multiple identities of teachers formed and developed in their families and communities. The State, and private educational sectors, along with international curricula, and professional development providers, task schools with creating a new identity for teachers. This is most evident in ‘special character ‘schools (religious), and values based curriculum models, where specific beliefs and character traits are framed within a ‘learner profile’, or embedded in the curriculum and its resources. The psychosocial growth and development of an individual teacher is overlooked and may run counter to the social engineering of the new identity of the ‘professionally developed teacher’.

Freedom in the decision making of teacher professional development:

Freedom of choice isn’t freedom to choose. The distinction is important here, because choice in the context of teacher professional development implies options; whereas freedom to choose implies opting out. Also, in exercising freedom of choice a high degree of self-awareness, self-introspection (reflection), and high level thinking skills are required, to shape and form decisions around choice, and avoid unnecessary inner struggles leaning towards external antagonism.

Saclarides and Lubienski suggest that freedom of choice in teacher professional development leads to tensions and conflict between the teacher and the provider (2018). However, they ignore the complex phenomena involved in personal decision making processes, and the relationship between a person and their identity as a teacher. This is a significant defining weakness in their Case Study.

Zhang, et.al (2021) undertook an extensive study and analysis of teacher professional development. The data sets gathered in their study were from the OECD’s Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2018. Around 113,667 lower secondary (e.g., grade 7 through 9) teachers from 45 education systems across the world contributed to the study (Zhang, et al., 2021).

Their findings are consistent with the findings of other large scale studies into teacher perceptions of professional development. Professional development which met the needs of the teacher and catered to content focused and active learning experiences were rated highly. Models which worked as a ‘one size fits all’ were not popular. Personalized learning models where freedom of choice of a program enabled a teacher to focus on subject knowledge, skills and competencies development to facilitate and improve student learning, are acknowledged as offering more relevance and meaningfulness in teacher professional development programs (Zhang, et al., 2021).

However, there are two key propositions in their findings which are of concern. Firstly, the authors’ suggest that “PD should be designed to meet teachers’ personalized learning and professional growth needs” (Zhang, et al., 2021). I would argue that professional development should be designed to meet teachers’ personal growth needs followed by professional learning needs. Focusing on personalized or customized professional development only goes half way to meeting a teacher’s needs, and continues with the social engineering of a new identity for the person who just happens to be a teacher. Personal growth needs must be prioritized and aligned with professional learning.

Secondly, the suggestion that educational technologies and digital interfaces which offer up a virtual face-to face session may offer more flexibility and scheduling of professional development doesn’t solve any problems (Zhang, et al., 2021). If we’ve learned anything from the past two years of the global pandemic it is that interpersonal interaction through face to face communication is our preferred way of being and existence. Moreover, just as teaching and learning is a social communicative process, so is teacher professional development. The danger in suggesting a shift to digitalized teacher professional development, is that it would remain a top down approach (perhaps tweaked to ‘personalize’). It could also fall prey to the ‘tick-box mentality’ whereby the lack of human interaction is replaced with an automated response and a task completion attitude.

The Psychological Variable:

Lau & Hiemisch (2017) propose a psychological  model of freedom in decision making processes predicated upon a person’s capcity to do so. They outline an argument for a psychological variable as an intrinsic factor in an individual’s ability to exercise a degree of freedom in decision making. The model is predicated upon the concept of “functional freedom”. In other words any person making a decision must decide on the options presented in parallel with their intuition (emotional) and rational (cognitive) processes (Lau & Hiemisch, 2017). All decisions, they argue, fall within the parameters of conscious or unconscious processes. The degree of freedom exercised by an individual making a decision within these two opposite and contradictory tendencies is determined at the higher end by the extent they engage in reflection (intuitive and emotional), the use of higher order thinking skills and self-regulatory skills (cognitive behaviors), while at the lower end are habit and impulse (intuitive and emotional) and low order thinking skills (cognitive behaviors) with limited self-regulatory skills and behaviors (Lau & Hiemisch, 2017)  (see fig.1.)

(Lau & Hiemisch, 2017)

Freedom within this context is the capacity to shape and form one’s being and existence. It is defined through a person’s weaknesses (determined) or strengths (under determined). For example if a person is incapacitated on a psychological and psycho-cognitive level, then decision making is often fast, impulsive and erratic, and triggered through habitual and unreflective behaviors and external stimuli. On the other hand, if a person demonstrates a high degree of self-awareness, is reflective and uses high cognitive skills, and understands that in decision making processes there will be rival and competing choices (under determined) then there is a high degree of functional freedom (Lau & Hiemisch, 2017). There is choice. A simple analogy explains the two processes. Suppose two people are whitewater rafting. One person decides to let the current direct their activity and where they’ll end; while the other person uses oars, perception and their rationality to decide how the current and other underlying conditions are behaving, and chooses actions that decide where they will end.

6 Steps towards an Integrated Values Based Framework:

Teacher professional development should be designed to meet teachers’ personal growth and professional learning needs. Traditional teacher professional development is tailored to the teacher, not the person, who just happens to have chosen teaching as their profession.

A values based framework of teacher professional development focuses on the choices being made (in some instances teachers are only given one choice of professional development), supports the teacher in their choices, and allows them time to think and reflect and define those choices. Following from this, the person is able to initiate a variety of internal processes (cognitive, intuitive and emotional), to create different scenarios and options in their mind, and begin to evaluate those options:

Imagine a scenario where a school community has engaged a highly regarded expert in the field of curriculum design and development. On the weekend the workshop is to be held, the teacher has been invited to a weekend food festival with friends at a local vineyard. Depending on their capacity for self-awareness and understanding, the decision on which event to attend could be fast, impulsive and rely on previous positive stimuli of earlier similar events. It would be a determined decision in which little or no functional freedom is exercised. For others, a conscious effort to process the abstract nuances and pre-formed attitudes and values developed over a life time will influence a decision outcome which extends beyond immediate wants and desires, and considers the needs of self in the light of the needs of other’s.The more under determined the internal resolution processes are, the less likely one is to be impulsive and self-centered in deciding one of the two options (Lau & Hiemisch, 2017).

Often we simply take for granted scenarios in our personal and professional life. We forget that free choice or freedom to choose are always provisional due to controlled, dependent and uncontrolled variables. Further, in our profession as teachers, our values are compromised, because we are constantly told what is best for our overall development by others, who position themselves as the ‘superior educator’.  An integrated values based framework allows us to become confident about who we are, and comfortable with the choices we make. In doing so, we avoid the plight of poor Ophelia, the protagonist and femme fragile of Shakespeare’s Hamlet  (Shakespeare, 1998). Confronted with grim choices and decisions, and acting with a diminished rationality, her actions are defined through grief and a loss of self-identity. She exclaims in a moment of unconscious anguish: “Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be” (Shakespeare, 1998). While our choices may not be as stark and as emotionally driven as Ophelia’s; we can choose who we are through informed internal processes, and know who we may be, firstly as a human being, and secondly as a member of the teaching fraternity.

Conclusion:

This article has explored the traditional concept of teacher professional development through the filters of controlled, dependent and uncontrolled variables.  It has been argued that a new conceptual understanding of teacher professional development-one which is values based-will not only lead to more effective, personalized teacher education; it will also recognize and respect the dignity and unique character of the person who chooses a career as a teacher. Moreover, freedom of choice in teacher professional development is informed through a high degree of self- reflection, self-awareness, and a rational view of our working environment, and the world in which we live. We are empowered to decide the terms and conditions under which we grow and develop, as human beings and in our role of as teachers.   

References:

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Lau, S., & Hiemisch, A. (2017). Functional Freedom: A Psychological Model of Freedom in Decision Making. Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 7, No.41, 1-18.

Lee, H.-J. (2004-5). Developing a Professional Development Model based on Teacher Needs. The Professional Educator, Vol.XXVll, No.1 & 2, 39-49.

Oriji, A., & Amadi,, R. (2016). E-education: Changing the Mindsets of Resistant and Saboteur. Journal of Education & Practice, Vol.7, No.16, 122-126.

Saclarides, E., & Lubienski, S. L. (2018). Tensions in teacher choice and professional development. The Phi Delta Kappan, Vol.100, No.3, 55-58.

Sellen, P. (2016). Teacher workload and Professional Development in England’s Secondary Schools. London: Education Policy Institute.

Shakespeare, W. (1998). Hamlet, Act, Vl, Scene, V. London: Signet (Penguin Random House).

Solution Tree. (2021, October 4). Professional Development (PD) Overview. Retrieved from Solution Tree: https://www.solutiontree.com/knowledge-base/professional-development-overview

Teaching Council of New Zealand. (2019, unknown unknown). Professional Growth Cycle for Teachers. Retrieved from Teaching Council of New Zealand: https://teachingcouncil.nz/assets/Professional-Growth-Cycle/TC-Professional-Growth-Cycle-for-Teachers_Elements.pdf

Toropova, A., Myrberg, R, & Johansson, , S. (2021). Teacher job satisfaction: the importance of school working conditions and teacher characteristics. Educational Review, Vol.73, Issue, 1, 71-97.

Zhang, L., Carter, Jr., R. A., Zhang, J., Hunt, T. L., Emerling, C. R., Yang, S., & Xu, F. (2021). Teacher perceptions of effective professional development: Insights for Design. Professional Development in Education, 2-14.