Professional Development of the Teacher. In-service training programme for the pedagogic staff of the RK,2012 ( to be continued)

1.Introduction In-service training programme for the pedagogic staff

of the RK.

The aims of the joint NIS Centre of Excellence and Faculty of Education ,

Cambridge University programme are synonymous with the Kazakhstan 2011–2020 education strategic plan which in turn shares similar aims and values with the highest performing countries of the world, such as Finland, Singapore and the UK. These common aims are,

· to educate young people about the culture of each country through passing on the spiritual, cultural and moral values,which are perceived to be important to each individual country.

· to prepare young people to be critical thinkers who are able to access and use knowledge, develop skills and good understanding so that they will to be able flourish in a rapidly changing world.

The CoE teacher development programme draws on existing research and advanced teaching experience to respond to the strategic plans of the country and develop teachers’ professionalism. The programme developers have structured the training programme into three distinct stages which supports an active mode of professional cooperation and mutual learning these are “face to face” learning workshops, practice at

school and the second phase of “face to face”.

The content of the first face-to-face programme addresses the key dimensions of the UNESCO functional literacy recommendations and will go further by providing pragmatic suggestions forhow following ideas can be integrated into school practice:

• New approaches to teaching and learning: ‘Dialogic teaching and learning’ and ‘Learning how tolearn’ (independent learning)

• Learning to think critically

• Assessment for and of learning

• Using ICT in teaching

• Teaching talented and gifted children

• Responding to age-related differences in teaching and learning

• Management and leadership of learning.

One of the new approaches that were also added to the programme is the requirement for teachers to reflect systematically on their practice and to engage in small-scale action research work.

The complete programme lasts for three months and is structured in three phases:

First Face to Face Phase: Weeks 1–4

The first face to face phase will be about learning about the key ideas and how to embed these into

classroom practice. This phase involves teachers:

• exploring what is known about how people learn and what is known about good teaching;

• examining and challenging their beliefs about teaching and learning;

• engaging in active learning, modeling ways of working in classrooms. This includes, collaborative group work, discussions, presentations, and individual research;

• addressing new approaches to teaching and learning from across seven themes;

• planning a sequence of four lessons incorporating ideas from the programme to be implemented in their classrooms.

Second School-based practice phase: Weeks 5–8

The school based stage will consolidate and implement these ideas through carrying out new methods in the practice. Two process will take place during this stage. The first process will be the introduction of the new approaches in the teachers own classrooms. This will include teaching the sequence planned earlier and also carrying out school based tasks issued during the first face to face training. The changes made by the teachers in their classrooms will be evaluated by the teachers themselves during the schoolbased process. Furthermore during the school based stages teachers will be supported through an online asynchronous forum.

This phase involves teachers:

• conducting the sequence of four lessons and collecting evidence of pupil learning in these lessons;

• carrying out eight school-based tasks which try out or explore ideas from the programme in the teachers own school contexts;

• reflecting on the implementation into their teaching practice of ideas from the programme;

• beginning to complete work for their portfolio based on their reflections.

Third Face to Face Phase: Weeks 9–12

The final face to face stage will focus on self and peer reflection, about the changes made and will self and peer evaluate the evidence gathered to measure the effects of the changes on childrens’ learning and the developing understanding of the teachers. Trainers will also assist teachers in the preparation of their portfolio by providing formative feedback for the final summative assessment in the final week of the second face to face phase.

This phase involves teachers:

• deepening their knowledge gained during F2F1 through reflections on and discussion about the tasks fulfilled in the school-based phase;

• collaborative presentations relating to deepened knowledge;

• self-assessment and peer-reviewing of draft work for the portfolios;

• completion of portfolio work portfolios to be summatively assessed;

• peer-reviews and feedback on presentations to be assessed;

• completion of presentations for summative assessment;

Summative assessment of presentations (week 12).

2. New approaches to teaching and learning: ‘Dialogic teaching and learning’ and ‘Learning how to learn’

We can define learning in terms of outcomes or as products of learning experiences. The literature lists five categories of learning outcomes:

1. Learning as a quantitative increase in knowledge. The outcome is acquired information or ‘knowing a lot’.

2. Learning as memorizing. The outcome is lots of stored information that can be reproduced.

3. Learning as acquiring information. The outcome is a large store of facts, skills, and methods that can be retained and used as necessary.

4. Learning as making sense or abstracting meaning. The outcome is that the learner can also relate parts of the subject matter to each other and to the real world.

5. Learning as interpreting and understanding reality in a different way. The outcomes involve comprehending the world by reinterpreting knowledge.

Conceptions 1 to 3 imply that learning is something external to the learner. It may even be something that just happens or is done to the learner by teachers as in the case for conception 1. These first three conceptions of the learning processes are bit like shopping for knowledge and acquiring information. It is significant that conceptions 4 and 5 are qualitatively different from the first three outcomes in the list. Points 4 and 5 are more complex recent interpretations and extend the notion of learning beyond acquiring and storing information. These two conceptions look also to the ‘internal’ or personal aspect of learning. Learning is seen as something that is done by the learner in order to understand the real world. It will be these recent ideas about learning that will provide the basis for the new approaches to teaching being introduced through the training programme. Central to the ‘new approaches to teaching and learning’ drawn on in this programme is an understanding of learning from a socio-constructivist perspective (Vygotsky, 1978; Wood, 1998). Children are seen as active learners who construct their own meanings from personal enquiry and social interaction.

The pedagogical approaches known as ‘dialogic teaching and learning’ (Mercer, 1995; Alexander, 2008) and as metacognition or ‘learning how to learn’ (Flavell, 1976; Vygotsky, 1978) are important contemporary interpretations of socio-constructivist ideas. Although ideas addressed under all seven of the topics may be considered as ‘new approaches to teaching and learning’, ‘dialogic teaching’ and ‘learning how to learn’ are prefaced by this phrase because of their close relationship to the socio-constructivist perspective.

Dialogic teaching and learning encompasses teaching approaches in which pupil-pupil talk and pupil teacher talk enable learners to build and develop their thinking. ‘Learning how to learn’ or metacognition is concerned with how pupils can be helped to understand and take responsibility for their own learning so that they can continue to learn independently.

The family of learning competences which teachers must actively help individual learners to develop are to:

• understand how to learn, to take account of preferred learning styles, and to understand the need to, and how to, manage personal learning throughout life;

• learn, systematically, to think;

• explore and reach an understanding of personal creative talents, and how to make best use of them;

• learn to enjoy and love learning for its own sake and as part of understanding oneself;

• achieve high standards in using words, numbers and spatial understanding;

• achieve high standards of competence in using digital technology.