PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: PARALLEL TEACHING AND COLLABORATIVE MENTORING

Abstract

This paper aims to identify certain common issues in the field of professional development, namely, its’ main focus is on the issue of collaborative learning and teaching. The effects of parallel teaching and collaborative feedback are noticeably positive in the recent years of development. Reflective feedback, self-reflections and observations all serve as indicators of overall professional development and of course, provide teachers with insights regarding their teaching methodology. The term collaboration (which might also be found as cooperation), stands for equal treatment and understanding of the individuals in the classroom and implies “working together to achieve a certain, common goal.” Participants in the case study are MA students of Faculty of Education, English Language Teaching at IBU, which were engaged in parallel teaching in one of my courses. The procedure was followed by observation, self-reflection and self-criticism. The first procedure was implemented in order for students to observe each other in their teaching styles, namely, to observe how two different students teach the same lecture. The second part of the procedure, namely the self-refection part was intended for students to make a comparison between themselves and their colleagues by noticing what was lacking in their teaching and the third procedure, self-criticism served as a starting point in admitting that criticism is regarded as positive feedback in teaching, rather than negative. The whole procedure of events was followed by a round-table discussion, in which, students accepted their colleagues’ remarks. Questions that students responded to were questions such as: “What could I improve?” and “What was lacking in my lesson?” “How did the experience help me improve my theory?” “What did I enjoy in this experience?” etc. Also, statements that followed the experience were such as “I advise you to…” and “I would differently apply the following (in my teaching)” etc. The experience with the obtained results, student remarks and future recommendations will be presented below.