Professionalization Of School Teachers Research Articles

The Roles of University Researchers in a University-School Collaborative Action Research Project - A Chinese experience

Teacher research as an international movement since the 1970s has been advocated worldwide to promote school curriculum reform and the professionalization of school teachers. University-school collaborative action research is a new attempt to support school teachers who learn to do research in their classrooms while providing opportunities for university researcher to develop a better understanding of classroom practice with more effective strategies to support teacher change. Such collaborative research has been promoted in the recent curriculum reform in basic education in China. This paper reports on an action research project conducted by school teachers supported by university researchers in the Chinese context with a focus on examining the roles and gains of university researchers in this project. Data was collected through project meeting observations, questionnaires, interviews and participants’ reflective journals. Both quantitative and qualitative analysis methods were used respectively for analyzing the data collected. The purpose of this study is to understand better the nature of such collaborations and the gains as well as challenges on the part of university researchers so that implications can be drawn for establishing a sound university-school collaborative research body that promotes the professional learning of both parties.

Perform or else: the performative enhancement of teacher professionalism

The Singapore Ministry of Education's Enhanced Performance Management System (EPMS) was instituted in 2005 as a system of professional accountability to enhance the standards and stakes of teacher professionalism in schools. This essay explores how the EPMS, with its underlying paradigm of performance management, functions as a “technology of discipline” within the political economy of teacher professionalization in Singapore. The analysis centres on the discursive mechanisms of a standardized appraisal instrument known as the Work Review Form. Applying speech act theory via the insights of J.L. Austin and J. Butler, I argue that teachers' professional qualities are not only described and prescribed but also produced by the appraisal protocols of the EPMS – a process contingent on the discursive performativity of the Work Review Form. Implicated in this notion of performativity are the rhetorical manoeuvres by which teachers perform “on paper” under the pressure to perform. Such performance pressures point to a range of ethical ambiguities surrounding the “enhanced management” of teachers' work under the profit-motive of performance excellence.

Profesionalime Guru Sekolah Dasar

Recently the demand on teacher’s profesionalism is one of the most important agenda in our National Education System. Based on the regulation mode by government about the National Standard of Education, it forces every parties involved in educational system to accelerate the improvement the quality of learning and education the aims are done through preparing and improving the teachers’ skill professionally and also by managing the educational supporting elements. In improving the Elementary School teacher professionalism, the Departement of Education has done this by preparing Elementary School teacher competency based as the guideline. It is also used for measuring the competency level the teacher has. Morever it can be used as guidance and improvement of the teacher’s profesionalism. Kata-kata Kunci: Profesionalisme Guru , Standar Kompetensi, Sekolah Dasar

The managerial role of the principal in promoting teacher professionalism in selected Eastern Cape schools

In the last two to three decades teachers’ work has been plagued by problems internationally. These problems include a growing dissatisfaction of teachers about their working conditions (characterized by heavy workloads and low salaries), the growing attempts by governments to control teachers’ work and the increasing negative public image of the teaching profession. This negative public image of teaching is manifested in the failure of the profession to attract enough students and the fact that those who are already in the profession want to leave. These factors had, inter alia, lead to a collapse of professionalism amongst teachers in general. There are, however, also other factors that have an influence on the professionalism of school teachers. It is argued in this article that the management role of the school principal is a crucial factor that influences teacher professionalism. This influence can be either positive or negative, depending to a large extent on how effectively the principal is managing the school. This article, derived from an empirical case study undertaken among a number of secondary schools in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, is an attempt to conceptualise the important and pivotal managerial role of the principal in promoting professionalism amongst teachers in this province.

Fostering Teacher Professionalism in Schools

Purpose: Schools necessarily employ elements of a bureaucratic structure to organize the complex task of educating large and diverse groups of students— elements such as a hierarchy of authority, a division of labor, policies, rules, and regulations. Although such a structure is useful, there is a danger that school leaders will overemphasize these elements and so adopt a bureaucratic orientation at the expense of cultivating professionalism in schools. The hypothesis that guided this study was that the degree of teacher professionalism in a school would be related to (a) the professional orientation of principals in their exercise of administrative authority—especially, the extending of adaptive discretion to teachers in the conduct of their work—and (b) the trust evident among various actors in the school community. Research Methods: Data on the five variables under study were gathered via surveys completed by teachers in 80 middle schools in a mid-Atlantic state. Teacher professionalism was assessed using a subscale of the School Climate Index. Four dependent variables were included: the professional orientation of principals and the trust of faculty—namely, in their principals, their colleagues, and their clients (parents and students). The professional orientation of principals was assessed using the Enabling Structure Scale, a scale of teachers' perceptions of how administrative authority is exercised by school leaders; faculty trust was assessed using the Faculty Trust Scales. Findings: The evidence supports the hypothesis positing that degree of teacher professionalism is related not only to the professional orientation of school leaders but also to faculty trust. Faculty perceptions of their colleagues' professionalism were found to be strongly related to a professional orientation in the exercise of authority by administrators, as well as to faculty trust in the principal. In a multiple regression analysis, a professional orientation by the principal and faculty trust in colleagues were each found to make an independent contribution to explaining teacher professionalism, whereas faculty trust in the principal and faculty trust in students and parents were found to play a moderating role. Implications for Research and Practice: For schools to foster greater teacher professionalism, school leaders would do well to resist adopting a bureaucratic orientation, with its implicit distrust. They would be better served by exercising their administrative authority with a professional orientation, extending adaptive discretion to teachers in the conduct of their work, and adopting practices that lead to strong trust among school leaders, teachers, students, and parents.

‘Unsatisfactory national identity’: School inspectors, education and national identity in interwar Latvia

The trajectory of the school system in inter-war independent Latvia was a microcosm of the larger experiences of the state. The devastation of World War I and the battles that followed undermined seriously the capacity of the new state. The first post-war years were spent laboriously rebuilding from near abject ruin. After initial reonstruction passed, however, the dominant concerns became what was to be taught and how in Latvia's schools. The process of this debate and the at times conflicting, at times complimentary, demands of schoolteachers, school inspectors, local government officials, teachers, and students built a modern, effective school system. This school system reflected an inreasingly sophisticated pedagogy, a professionalism of schoolteachers, and impressive construction of schools. The content of schools, however, was also severely contested. With the Depression of the early 1930s the opinions of some quarters of society became more emphatic in identifying a great crisis in society, a crisis that demanded more authoritarian action, a return to traditionalism, and increased importance on nationalist content. This trend supported and was supported by the Ulmanis regime, which considerably restructured the school system, the state, and society at large in the last half of the 1930s. This article relies primarily on archival sources drawn most from school inspectors' reports and other officials within and around the Ministry of Education.

Problems and prospects for primary school teacher-professionalism

Groups of academics, school practitioners, L.E.A. advisers and consultants — members of the Association for the Study of Primary Education — were interviewed about how legislated change is affecting teacher (primary-school) professionalism. A range of views was expressed, though three tacit theories of teacher professionalism were found to dictate many opinions. Most people believe that professional associations and other interested bodies need to work jointly to remedy public misperceptions of teaching generally and primary school teaching especially.