School Teachers’ Voice in Professional Development

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School Teachers’ Voice in Professional Development

Ashadi. 2008.  School teachers’ voice in professional development. Yogyakarta:  Yogyakarta State University. ashadiz@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

 

This article tries to reveal high school English teachers’ personal and collective voice in professional development. It is necessary to scrutinize their factual problems to have a deep understanding on their life, concerns and feeling. The underlying belief is that they have been long considered as ‘teaching students’ who must learn from teacher trainers and researchers without being asked to contribute or to share ideas in their own development.

It is based on a progressive qualitative research that employed interviews as the main data collection instruments. Relevant documents, written statements, observations and other artifacts served as support data. Participants of this study, five high school English teachers around Yogyakarta and surrounding towns, were selected purposively to represent maximum variation and adequacy of information. The data were analyzed systematically through coding process and constantly compared during the course of the study to form significant sub-categories.

The final interpretation of the categories led to teacher’s personal voice in professional development matters which varied in terms of motivation, manner and results of improvements on individual teachers. As a group, teachers voiced their concerns on three main areas namely, (1) control over this profession which is in form of regular, integrated and fair performance appraisal to ensure teacher autonomy, (2) supportive system to help teachers develop and learn best from their students and colleagues with the help from the principal as leader, and (3) harmonious programs and communication among the related parties need to be developed so that the effectiveness of the program can be beneficial for teachers and eventually students too.

 

Key words: voice, professional development, progressive qualitative research, interpretive approach.

Introduction

Professional competency has been a major demand in the world of education and sooner or later all teachers have to cope with this issue.  In attempts to raise competency, teachers usually participate in professional development programs provided by the authorities or they develop themselves independently. Unfortunately, not all teachers are driven to enhance their competency for some different reasons. They also respond differently to professional development programs despite the strong professional demand to improve their performance in classrooms.

Professional development is a response to the school reform agenda which demands quality education. Teachers as one of the school elements have also become important to consider because of the impact they might have on education process and eventually students’ achievement. Moreover with the recognition of teachers as professionals, all stakeholders of education need to pay more attention to this issue.

Our national education in general and English education in particular has received various criticisms in the areas like curriculum design, teaching process, teachers’ quality as well as funding. To answer that of teacher quality, the recent issues of national education standardization and teacher certification regulations are raised. Education standardization and teacher certification are aimed at competing in global culture and free trade. The coverage of the standard itself as mentioned in the decree of National Education System Act no. 20/2003 Chapter IX of National Education Standards Article 35, involves: content, process, graduate competency, teacher, instrument and facility, management, funding and educational assessment which should be improved systematically and regularly. It is in line with UNICEF’s definition for the quest of quality education which includes learners, environments, educational content, process and outcomes.

There is a growing perspective that teachers as main actors in the process of education, according to the new regulations, need to be standardized and certified to ensure their professional competency. Its underlying reason is to be competitive in the tight competition of modern world so that every institution, including education units need to be managed professionally. Yet, it is still disputable if the world of education should follow Western standards if it will only breed globalization instead of glocalization that we seek. With regards to the current postmodernism view with its dissemination of local values in the global competition, it is necessary to question the colonial attitude entailing the view.

Followed by Government Regulation no. 19/2005 of National Education Standard, the implementation of the regulation will, to a certain extent, influence high school English teachers’ professional development. This study tries to discover the true voice of high school English teachers in response to the issue of professional development as a reaction to teacher standardization issue. It is in line with the definition found in Article 1.1 of Law No. 14/2005 on Teachers and Lecturers which states, “Teachers are professional educators whose primary tasks are to educate, teach, guide, direct, train, and evaluate learners at the formal early childhood education, basic education, and secondary education” (translated). There is a growing assumption that in order to improve the overall outcome of education, teacher competence becomes the main priority. Professional development is in demand because the world of English education needs professional teachers who can cope with teaching tasks competently. Article 10 of the respective Law mentions further the competencies required of teachers which consist of pedagogical competencies, personality competencies, social competencies, and professional competencies.

However, Johnson and Golombek (2002: 1) states,

“For more than a hundred years, teacher education has been based on the notion that knowledge about teaching and learning can be “transmitted” to teachers by others. In the knowledge transmission model, educational researches, positioned as outsiders to classroom life, seek to quantify generalizable knowledge about what good teaching is and what good teachers do. Teachers have been viewed as objects of study rather than knowing professionals or agents of change. Researchers have been privileged in that they create the knowledge, hold it, and bestow it upon teachers. Teachers have been marginalized in that they are told what they should know and how they should use that knowledge. Even though many teachers personally reject this model, most of them continue to work and learn under its powerful hold in teacher education programs in the schools where they teach.”

It has been a real condition in teachers’ professional development in which they do not have their own ‘voice’. They have been viewed as ‘teaching learners’ who should follow what the researchers, policy makers and educational authorities have designed for them. However, with the recent emergence of the concept of teacher autonomy in the field of second language education, in my opinion, professional development would be more valuable aiming at such autonomous behavior.

This article is based on a progressive qualitative study that attempted to discover the true voice of school teachers in their professional development. It tried to understand the teachers’ development through their stories of professional experiences. In this description, lie the participants’ stories which become sources of data to interpret the meaning of their professional development. As teachers are considered as individuals and group of professionals, therefore the voices under study cover both sides.

Teachers’ Voice

The voice in this study refers to the individual and shared concerns based on the fact that teachers are both individual adults with professional experiences bound to their own working contexts and a group of professionals who need to articulate their collective concerns. It is a reflection of what they feel, need, want and feel based on their many years of experience in the profession. To put this issue in an article is also an attempt to express their concern through a professional channel so that teachers become well appreciated as professionals. This article can be their ‘vehicle’ to express personal and professional feelings so that they become more autonomous and empowered particularly in the way they develop as professionals.

The growing importance of teacher-based research has emerged, based on the fact that this kind of research process values inquiry, collaborative work, and teacher’s voice. Teacher research uses inquiry as a means of reflection about, and to improve the teaching and learning processes. Teachers as practitioners engage in the process of critically examining their practice and classroom reality to transform them in ways that are meaningful to their school context. Therefore, inquiry of voice in professional development advances from teaching and continues the learning process of teachers relevant with their roles and identity.

Professional Development

Teacher’s professional development is closely related to teachers’ tasks and their professional roles. Glatthorn (1995: 41) defines it as the professional growth a teacher achieves as a result of gaining experiences and examining his or her teaching systematically. It is the growth that occurs as the teacher moves through the professional career cycle. This definition notes the importance of experiences a teacher obtains during his or her service period.  It involves formal and informal experiences and they are processed to benefit for his/her improvement in performing the tasks. It is a difficult task to define professional development because it might have impact on the subsequent process.

Despite the many definitions of professional development, from lifelong education to in-service training to staff development, there is one shared aim: professional development is carried out to improve teacher performance and student achievement. Research shows the type of professional development in which a teacher participates does not only have impact on teacher quality, but it also has an influence on a teacher’s motivation to grow professionally. When teachers are involved in quality professional development experiences, their motivation to further their involvement in such growth activities and continue to grow in their profession is increased. Teachers need to feel competent, skillful in their profession, and achieve confidence and respect in their workplace. When a teacher’s professional growth needs are met, s/he has a boost in efficacy and competency in his/her teaching abilities. Such needs can be met through quality professional development opportunities.

Professional development has been associated to both teachers’ process and activity to improve themselves in response to the demand for competency in their profession. As a process, it begins since a teacher trainee enters teacher training faculty until s/he retires from the profession. During this period, teachers are required to maintain and improve their competency to meet the required standards and public accountability. The activity refers to various kinds of trainings, workshops, seminars and conferences they attend before and during employment. The effectiveness of such activities serves as the basis of inquiry in this thesis as the current view of postmodernism recognizes the need for teacher empowerment to become self-fulfilled. In this way, they will not become theory adopters or method users who will always be in subordinate positions.

Therefore, such definitions entail that professional development is an educative process that motivates and encourages the ongoing learning of teachers with all the related complexity. As a complex process of learning, it must contain various activities and aspects that should be deeply scrutinized. This article aims at interpreting their stories on their experiences in professional development to understand the meaning making process in it.

Methodology

This article attempts to understand the meaning of personal and professional experiences of the participating high school English teachers concerning their development as teaching professionals. It is based on a phenomenological study that needs opinions, arguments, statements, and behaviors as well as written documents from the participants in order to understand the studied phenomenon. As a scientific product, it has to be able to account for the trustworthiness of the processes and results; thus, a rigorous methodology is necessary to present. It required huge efforts from me as researcher during interaction with the participants. Data emerged from different kinds of interaction with the setting, such as recorded observations, written memos, artifacts as well as interviews with the participants. During data gathering the choice and design of methods were constantly modified, based on ongoing processes and emergent facts. It allowed investigation of important new issues and facts as they arise, thus, it enabled me to drop or to adopt new method or agenda of research from the original research plan. Holliday (2002: 64) declares,

“In a progressive qualitative research, the development of research strategy grows gradually with the process of learning about the research setting, and the data is less compartmentalized – essentially the researcher observes everything.”

Throughout the interaction with participants, some changes or even unexpected conditions really happened; therefore it was important to manage subjectivity though Kerlinger (1983) in his preface argues that strong subjective involvement is a powerful motivator for acquiring an objective approach to the study of phenomena. As personal involvement was unavoidable in this kind of research design, I had to make a stand, articulate my argumentation into academic judgment and control my emotional condition in the whole aspects of the study. Briefly, the methodology can be seen in the following figure.

Interviews &                                                                                                         Document

Re interviews                                                                                                       Checks

 

 

 

Observations

 

 

Emergent categories

 

Snowball

Interviews

 

Interpretation of the participants’ interpretation

Figure 1 Brief methodology

 

Trustworthiness

This qualitative study attempted to understand a phenomenon therefore, issue of validity and reliability as perceived in quantitative research was irrelevant to address. However, Miles and Huberman (1994:11) emphasize “The meanings emerging from the data have to be tested for their plausibility, their sturdiness, their conformability – that is, their validity” Here, validity refers to whether the conclusion has been made being drawn from credible, defensible, warranted data that can refuse to accept other alternative explanations so that the researcher, participants and readers share the same standpoint (Creswell, 2003: 195-196). Since this thesis is a product of empirical and academic research, I had to be able to account for my methodological decision and interpretation. Trustworthiness is very important so that the readers of this thesis have an understanding on the claims made by the participants, judgment on data gathering, analysis and conclusion drawing. It involved multiple ways of establishing truth to overcome the weakness or intrinsic biases and inconsistencies in single method, single observer, and single-theory studies.

In order to accomplish that purpose, I applied various attempts during the course of the study. First, I applied several data gathering techniques as seen in previous section; hence I could reduce or remove irrelevant data. During the course of the study, after and before consultation with my supervisor, I conducted ‘peer debriefing’ (Creswell, 2003: 196) in which my colleagues reviewed each chapter and gave me inputs, criticisms and questions for improvement in all aspects of the study. Subsequently, data, time and place triangulations were also reflected in further interview and snowball sessions, where I could examine the consistency of the data revealed by the participants. Through these ways, issues surrounding the importance and process of conclusion drawing and corroboration in qualitative analysis could be addressed. Besides, I also had each of the participants sign information consent so that I had clear legality and trust from them to gather information required in the study.

Table 1 Research strategic steps

Step	Instrument/ Method	Purpose	Result	Analysis
1	Initial interviews (non structured & open-ended)	1)      to have the participants recall their stories (and histories) and experiences2)      to see the actual problems and to obtain early data as categories	Recorded verbatim data	Translated, transcribed and coded into a table
2	Observations	1)      to see how the participants interact with students in classrooms2)      to ensure their statements are in line with their behaviors	Videotaped behaviors & field notes	Transcribed, confirmed, and put in table for analysis
3	Document checks	to check compliance with expressed statements and observed behaviors.	Photocopied/ scanned documents	Coded and compared to the other data sources
4	Re-interviews (guided based on emergent themes)	1)      to focus on the research topic and sharpen the participants’ voice2)      to confirm previous interviews 3)      to serve as time & place triangulation too	Recorded verbatim data	Translated, confirmed, transcribed and compared in a matrix/table
5	Snowball interviews	1)       to pursue more in-depth information2)       to see things from different angles	Recorded statements	Transcribed, coded and compared

With the set of strategic steps above, the research was carried out progressively to have an in-depth understanding on the issue of teachers’ personal and collective voice in professional development. However, as mentioned earlier, the schedule was not followed strictly due to different reasons like participants’ time availability and school management’s restrictions.

Findings and Discussions

The written study brought in two main results, namely the personal and collective voice of high school English teachers’. These two kinds of voice appeared in the interview sessions and after analyzed further different personal and collective voices occurred as a result of lived experience, previous knowledge and their own conception of teaching. In this section, the two kinds of voice will be discussed in details with regard to each teacher participants’ experience.

As individuals, teachers voiced their concerns in professional development over three main areas, namely: (1) their motivation to develop in their profession, (2) the approach they take in response to the demand for development, and (3) the result of improvement that varies from one participant to another. When a teacher had different initial motivation, their manner to develop professionally also varied. Self-motivated teachers tend to be more independent in the way they take forms of professional development, while many still depend on other parties’ initiatives. Teacher participants also feel different progress after many years of experience in the profession. Some improve in terms of teaching competency; few feel the growth in their self confidence, while others develop in their creativity.

Teacher participants collectively share their concerns, first, in the need for control over their profession in form of a good, integrated, regular and fair appraisal system. Such appraisal system is vital to ensure teachers always maintain their performances and skills in day to day instructions. In this category, participants express the importance of respecting teachers’ autonomy in classroom instructions so that they can use their creativity and skills in classroom instructions. However they also warn the danger of freedom teachers have in the classroom and in their profession due to the limited control over them. A stronger voice is addressed more to civil servant teachers whose accountability is split to the principal, program providers and the district

Secondly, the participants share similar ideas on the importance of school system support in their development. They shared the idea that the principals have a significant role in providing support for developmental processes and activities although they did not have similar relationship to their respective principals. Still in the school system, students and colleagues become the teachers’ sources of learning experiences because of the intense interactions with them allowing feedbacks, criticisms and inputs as means of reflections.

The third voice of the contributors, to whom I conducted snowball interviews, and the participants is the ‘project based’ professional development programs provided by the governmental institutions and other organizations. They demand such programs to base on teachers’ actual needs in classroom practices so that the result can be beneficial for the teachers and eventually the students. Specific, synchronous and inspiring programs are in expectation because many teachers have been bored with the repeated and irrelevant trainings and workshops conducted by related parties. As enquired deeper, it is partly caused by a lack of communication and coordination among the relevant parties in teacher professional development. The follow-up of program also becomes an important issue here because, so far, supervisions on teacher development have frequently been reduced to administrative aspects only. Thus it is difficult to check the effectiveness of the programs in terms of development teachers have made. The following table might help readers to understand the emergent and prominent issues of teachers’ collective voice in professional development. They are represented under categorical themes and sub-themes.

Table 2. Collective voice in professional development

CONTROL over the profession	Micro SYSTEM in the school	The existing PROGRAMS
Too much FREEDOM in the profession	SUPPORT from the management	GAP between  needs and implementation
APPRAISAL  on their competencies	Importance of school LEADERSHIP	The FOLLOW UP of the program
REGULARITY in the appraisal	The need for COLLEGIALITY	Poor COORDINATION among related parties
AUTONOMY in expectation	Feedback from STUDENTS	CHANGE in teachers, students and schools

Conclusions and Suggestions

Conclusively, the meaning of professional development varies from one teacher to another. Some teachers view it embedded in the dynamic profession of teaching and closely related to development of knowledge and competencies while others perceive it as means of improving status and career. Ideally the former is better but the poor recruitment process and loose control over the profession give no option that external stimulation should arise our teachers’ motivation. The essence of professional development, thus, is about maintaining teachers’ motivation to develop through various professional attempts.

The conclusion brings implications on some areas related to teacher professional development because it provides us with a thick description of teachers’ professional lives. The participants’ voice reveal the ‘untold stories’ particularly in teachers professional development and it is necessary to present the facts in this section because the stories are interrelated with the topic of this study.

Some participants of the study are civil servant teachers who feel the lack of challenge in their ‘safe position’. They have a clear career path in which they can step up to higher rank of occupation in every certain period as long as they work on the track. Such certainty has somewhat contributed to the feeling of freedom. Moreover when connected to the scarce appraisal, civil servant teachers need to be controlled because their accountability is, to some extent, vague.

Professional development should take teachers’ experiences and problems into account otherwise it will not be directly applicable in the classroom practices. To manage this, teachers need to have the awareness in their competencies and profession so that they can make their own reflection of experience and share it with others. When teachers are involved in their development trajectory, their participation in development can be beneficial for themselves, their school and definitely their students.

Motivation is unsteady and may change across time and environment. It is always an interesting issue in behavioral research however many studies have shown that it is manageable. It would be excellent if the recruitment process resulted in highly motivated teachers; if not then there should always be external stimulation to drive the teachers for professional improvement. My participants call it softly as ‘appreciation’ ant it can mean career and income which make them driven and sure in the profession.

In addition, teacher recruitment is an aspect given attention by contributors (principals) and participants because the existing model of teacher recruitment has paid little attention to the candidates’ commitment and competency. Developing instruments to identify a candidate’s motive and competency in the profession are crucial in early recruitment. These two issues are, in fact, very crucial in the development of professional teachers as found in the current study. By improving the way teachers are recruited, it is expected that teacher’s quality can improve because the inputs are better.

References