El Campo Magn´ etico

Bubb and Earley (2009:23-37), in a research report that they undertook in the UK to highlight the role of continuing development of educators as crucial in helping to bring about school improvement and enhancing the quality of learning, pointed out the following facts regarding the professional development of educators: Most of the schools studied, had developed a learning-centred culture in which educator learning was valued as highly as learner learning. Many schools had useful resources to support adult learning. Several of the schools studied had a policy of encouraging people to achieve Advanced Skills Educator status and to work with other staff at the school. Schools that made successful journeys to school improvement had integrated systems so that professional development of educators linked naturally with performance management and self-evaluation for all educators. In some schools, performance management contributed strongly to keeping school improvement projects on track, because educators‟ targets were closely related to the overall goal of their school. Giving educators some element of choice in professional development programmes was viewed as important in some schools. The research attempted to show ways in which schools could improve and assist educators in becoming better at what they did, but also how they could become more effective in evaluating whether real improvements occurred in the quality of teaching and learning provided by the school.

From the international trends discussed here, it is evident that the continuing professional development of educators is viewed as central to school improvement and in promoting a culture of teaching and learning in all the countries mentioned. The literature also highlights the fact that as educators are at different levels of their

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careers, CPD programmes should provide different types of learning opportunities to cater for all educators. Furthermore, the body of literature leads one to conclude that educators should be encouraged to set goals for their own CPD, which are directly related to the overall goals of their school. Finally, educators need to have some choice in the types of CPD programmes their school decides on, as this will have a direct bearing on their personal and professional growth.

3.8 CONCLUSION

From the literature studied for the purpose of writing this chapter, it is evident that the professional development of educators and the support thereof, need to be central to any intervention strategies planned for education. This is supported by Mokhele and Jita (2010:1762), who view educators‟ professional development as increasingly becoming a priority in most countries throughout the world. CPD is seen as the most effective approach to prepare educators adequately and to improve their instructional and intervention practices during their teaching careers. Today, educators are expected to be dual professionals who can focus on their discipline and engage in CPD in generic teaching and learning skills. To be able to do this, educators have to receive high quality professional development and be given time to implement what they learn through valid interventions. CPD programmes are regarded as systematic efforts to bring about change in the classroom practice of educators, in their attitudes and beliefs, and in the learning outcomes of learners.

Similarly, Steyn and Van Niekerk (2005:132) argue that educator learning is most likely to happen when educators have influence over the content and process of CPD. For many educators, they state, CPD is a mind-numbing experience in which they passively “sit and get”. By empowering educators, a sense of ownership is facilitated, which promotes internalisation of learning. Educator ownership is crucial for CPD effectiveness. One could therefore safely conclude that educators should be encouraged to innovate and improve their performance in the classroom in order to improve the quality of education in this country. In addition to this, Maistry (2008:373) maintains that if we believe that learning is social in nature, the challenge then is to create contexts in which educators and other stakeholders interact in ways that will help them to overcome barriers to continuing professional development.

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With regard to the role of school leadership in the CPD of educators, Steyn (2007:269) is of the opinion that principals can play a key role in CPD by identifying educators‟ needs, motivating and supporting their development and working towards a collaborative school culture with shared values and norms.

It is evident from the literature that the role of leadership would be to create a school culture that is conducive to sound inter-personal relationships, effective support systems for CPD, and adequate resources and opportunities for educators to learn in a collaborative manner. Nir and Bogler (2008:379) support this view, stating that principals are the key participants in determining the characteristics of CPD programmes and educators‟ influence over these programmes, and that these principals are expected to exhibit strong and consistent instructional leadership.

In addition, November et al. (2010:791) claim that principals are expected to be knowledgeable about curriculum changes, instructional effectiveness, staff development and learner leadership development. November et al. (2010:791) cite Fullan and Boltoms (1998) as arguing that the role of principals is to encourage collaboration among staff, learners, school governing bodies and communities to play a more central role through active participation in school affairs and activities.

Another aspect highlighted by the literature is the fact that new policies and programmes should not just be implemented at random, but that those already in existence should be utilised functionally and optimally. This is substantiated by Anderson and Kumari (2009:283), who state that the idea of CPD should be about deepening expertise through existing programmes and practices, not just about adding or replacing them with new ones.

Teaching learning is to refine what educators already do versus those in which the goal is to learn to use methods and programmes that are new to the implementers, in this case, the educators. All of this is summarised by Steyn (2007:272) who cites Guskey (2002), Birman (2000), Somers and Sikovara (2002) as arguing that CPD programmes and policies, I might add, must be contextualised for the school and should deepen educators‟ content and pedagogical knowledge and skills relating to a particular subject.

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The literature in this chapter highlighted that the CPD of educators should, amongst others, display the following characteristics, namely it should:

- be related to the overall goals of the school

- be long term with constant feedback and follow-up - encourage educators to work collaboratively

- have sufficient support from the school leadership and - take into account educators‟ existing beliefs and practices.

The next chapter will focus on the methodology of this study. The research design, instrumentation, methods of data collection, as well as the data analysis procedure will form the basis of this chapter.

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CHAPTER FOUR