Teachers’ professional development and an open classroom climate

Aihua Hu,Lihong Huang

doi:10.7577/njcie.2871

Abstract

This article examines teachers’ professional development (PD) in terms of content knowledge and teaching methods, their sense of preparedness in teaching, and their teaching practice of civic and citizenship education (CCE) in lower secondary schools in Norway, Sweden, South Korea, and Taiwan, and how these variables influence students’ experience of classroom climate. We use data from the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS 2016) initiated by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). ICCS 2016 data from these four places contain responses from teachers (N=7,159), and students (N=16, 089; average age =14.4 years) from 558 schools. We find that the more PD training on CCE topics and teaching methods teachers receive, the higher their sense of preparedness in teaching CCE in all four education systems. We also find that students of different cultures have different experiences about open classroom climates despite that teacher’s in the four places have utilized the same teaching approaches.

Highlights

Introduction and backgroundCivic and citizenship education (CCE) is critical for cultivating future generations’ knowledge about democracy while engaging them in democratic life in the future
civic and citizenship education (CCE)-related topics and teaching methods are more likely to be addressed in preservice training than in in-service training for teachers in Norway and Sweden, while these topics are usually covered in in-service training in Taiwan and South Korea
Teachers in Taiwan generally receive more training when compared to teachers in the other three places, as only 21.6% of them receive no training on CCErelated topics, while two-thirds of Norwegian teachers and half of the Swedish teachers and South Korean teachers do not receive training on related topics

Summary

Introduction

Civic and citizenship education (CCE) is critical for cultivating future generations’ knowledge about democracy while engaging them in democratic life in the future. Citizenship education involves learning how to live as democratic citizens in a democratic society (Bîrzea, Cecchini, Harrison, Krek, Spajic-Vrkas, 2005, p24). “CCE” is an interchangeable term with citizenship education, and while it is not written in the. 34 Teachers’ professional development and an open classroom climate curriculum and literature reviewed for this study, the term CCE is used. Teachers’ participation in professional development (PD) is an indicator of teacher quality (Blömeke, Olsen, & Suhl, 2016) and has an impact on students’ learning (OECD, 2017). Teacher PD is a lifelong process that starts with preservice training (UNESCO, 1996). “Teachers must become lifelong learners and inquisitive professionals” (OECD, 2018, p. 31)

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Conclusion