TEACHERS' PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

The question of professional development is still widely discussed. There are different

examples of pilot projects which can be worth implementing, to my mind. One of them you can find following this link: http://people.umass.edu/educ870/teacher_education/Documents/Craig-book.pdf

This is so called “Focus School Project” model.

One of such projects is The three-year Primary Science and Technology Project (Sci-Tec) between the South Australian Education Department and the former South Australian College of Advanced Education (now the University of South Australia.

Schools within the local districts are clustered together to enable joint professional development activities, the sharing of resources, and the dissemination of information. There is generally one focus school selected per district cluster. Thirty focus schools were identified and two teachers from each of the schools were designated focus teachers. 

The project had three phases. In phase one, the focus teachers developed their own classroom practice in teaching science. They then assisted teachers within their own schools to develop their classroom practices. In phases two and three of the project, the focus teachers worked in pairs in schools in their clusters to assist local teachers first to develop their own classroom practice and to develop the teaching skills. The project provided focus teachers with 20 percent release time from the classroom for three years. The focus schools were required to match this release time from their professional development budget. The teachers were provided with additional release time at the beginning of the project to attend a two-week program at the University of South Australia on classroom practice. At the end of phase one, additional teacher release time enabled focus teachers to work on their inservice skills.

It might be rather interesting (and challenging as well) to participate in such model of teachers’ development. Would you like it?