1. Conditions in which teachers work
2. Variation in teachers' backgrounds, practices and in-service needs
3. Teachers changing their own practice
4. In-service activities provide new knowledge and skills.
5. Use of distance education
6. School administration and organisation and whole school policies
7. Sustainable change versus radical solutions
8. Closing commentary
Articles that contain some comment on the conditions in which teachers work and how such conditions determine the selective retention of certain teaching strategies.
Miti & Herriot (1997) report on a Zambian cascade project with a budget of £13M over 7 years. Progress on teacher development and change with the AIMES project (Action to Improve English, Mathematics and Science) is reported as slow and disappointing. The report carries information on quality control systems and other managerial techniques. My interpretation of the report is that grand plans and management tools are of little value if you do not understand the reasons why teachers behave as they do in the first place.
Radical reform is unlikely to be implemented in a sustained way if it runs counter to the expectations of local people. Soudien & Colyn (1992) illustrate this by providing a warning report on how a well meant intervention (with support from the South African Committee for Higher Education (SACHED)) totally missed the target of local people's aspirations for their children's education. They worked as volunteer mathematics teacher trainers in a school for the children of squatters in the KTC area of Cape Town. Soudien and Colyn were offering an emancipatory, child-centred education, inspired by the writings of Freire, with a focus on investigational work in mathematics. The parents and teachers wanted a 'first rate' education for their children. For the local people first rate meant the children having a school uniform, there being a timetable with regular lessons in which the children sat at proper desks and learnt lessons from an expository teaching style. The authors bravely re-interpret their own failure in terms of the sedimentation of ideas in the local community received through the hegemony of the white middle-class and their approach to education. The recognition of the failure of the project is deflected by reference to resistance, compromise and contestation in the educational process.
Crossley & Guthrie (1987) review research on INSET in South Africa and the role of examinations in shaping classroom practice. They comment:
(i) Inset should not be viewed in isolation but should form part of a continuous and systematic process of professional development.(ii) The trend is to remove the focus of activity from specialist institutions and concentrate upon individual schools and their personnel.
This helps to differentiate school based INSET from school focused INSET. The development of local clusters of schools involved in school focused INSET add mutual support. Crossly and Guthrie go on to observe,
"A necessary, but not sufficient, condition of attempt to change classroom practice is that innovations should not be incongruent with teachers' and pupils' perceptions of the requirements of any public examination system.""Teachers are not generally irrational opponents of change but they rationally weigh alternatives according to the realities they perceive."
Teachers are severely constrained in what they can do by the resources they have to hand. Knowing fancy activities for pupils is of little value if there are no materials to support such activities. Peacock, (1992) gives a brief introduction to the In-Service Training and Assistance for Namibian Teachers (INSTANT) project where the Free University of Amsterdam and The University of Exeter provided expatriate experts to run "diffusion" workshops for science teachers. The three day workshops had the first day devoted to doing practical activities, the second to improvising apparatus and the third to brainstorming how to teach difficult topics. It was decided that kits of basic equipment like, scissors, paper clips, pins and glue, as well as more scientific materials like weights, magnets and lenses, should be provided for any hope of teachers retaining any of the activities in their repertoires.
Teachers are often more realistic in their judgements on educational innovation than educational evangelists or researchers. Akinyemi (1986) interprets 48 Ilorin primary school teachers' lack of awareness and interest in educational technology as being a phobia. Whereas in fact the teachers simply did not have the equipment to hand. The author betrays himself with,
"A few privileged primary schools in urban areas have some of the items (of educational technology) listed above."
Proposed changes involving technology need to be small scale, locally repeatable and workable within the constraints of current practice. van der Wal & Pienaar (1996) report on "Bringing Computers to Qwaqwa" a rural area of South Africa. Plans for expansion to other centres were put on hold due to costs and infrastructural problems: unreliable power supplies.
Salaries are an important aspect of the teacher's condition of service and poor remuneration is a determining factor of the degree of professionalism that can be expected. Teachers' poor pay, or worse - no pay, means educational administrators cannot expect to demand certain standards of professionalism. Osuala (1987) reports a survey of tutors working in adult literacy at the First School Leaving Certificate level in Anambara State, Nigeria. The major finding is that remuneration varies considerably with 172 out of the 303 sample never having been paid. Tutors lateness for class, or irregular attendance, can not be disciplined when people are unpaid. 97% of the sample said they would welcome training. For 84% this would be their first training. 40% had been tutors for less than 2 years, 38% for 3 to 5 years and 22% for more than 6 years. Teachers often show more dedication than they are either given credit for, or paid for.
How do head teachers and heads of department provide a clear vision of alternative futures, clear departmental objectives and motivation for their subordinates when the teachers' income from teaching is pitiably small? Carey, & Dabor (1995), faced with a runaway deterioration of teacher quality and ever shortening length of service in Sierra Leone, pitched their in-service at heads of English language departments rather than un-promoted, un-trained classroom teachers. By focusing on middle management issues they hoped to promote school based teacher development. The heads of department had to be persuaded that they had a staff development responsibility and then handed tools and techniques to engage in staff development. The input was a series of 2 day workshops.
Highly skilled, well equipped teachers with relatively good salaries can adopt change. Olukoya (1986) reports workshops for medical teachers run between 1979 and 1985 at the College of Medicine in Lagos. The scheme has been extended to other colleges. The focus of activity was to develop self-instruction packages for medical students. The enterprise was underwritten by Mager's ideas on learning objectives. The workshop format was of cycles of formal input, followed by evening assignments and then mornings of practical group work. Some medical instructors followed up the workshop with videoing their own teaching and then discussing their teaching with colleagues. Such activity did change teaching habits.
The comfort in routine that enables teachers to go about their business is a powerful force of resistance to change. Uncertainty is unsettling. von Kotze (1995) reports adaptive resistance to new teaching methods by members of a re-habilitation centre run by a religious community in Durban S.A. The author raises the question of, "we taught them but did they learn?" in connection with the introduction of experiential learning. The author claims that the goal of emancipation through experiential learning can be subverted by teachers adopting the pedagogic techniques but rejecting the central concern for clients to find their own solutions - not prescriptive ones based on the tenets of some religious authority. von Kotze also considers whether it is indeed possible (we know it is not easy) for individuals to identify their needs, and feel comfortable doing so, when socialised into an authoritarian community.
Summary point 1
Teachers' actions are not ones of whim or fancy. They are constrained by the classroom resources, social as well as material, of the teacher's circumstances. Whilst variation is possible, it is within circumscribed limits. The material and social features of a teacher's environment exert selection pressures as to which varieties of action will continue to be sustainable in the classroom.
Articles recognising variation in teachers' backgrounds, practices and in-service needs.
Teachers are not a homogenous group. There is variation amongst the knowledge and skills of teachers which echoes the variation that one would find in the population at large. Akpe's (1991) survey of Nigerian pre-service teacher trainees showed that the trainees chose to study and teach those things they thought they were good at. In the sample population only 39.5% chose science and mathematics against 60.5% choosing humanities options. There lies at the heart of these statistics the common observation that nothing succeeds like success. Teachers are no different to others in the way they chose to direct their energies for future self-improvement.
Subject differences will influence which in-service is likely to be most beneficial. Oladejo (1991) laments the falling standards in ESL work due to the unbroken cycle of bad teachers producing bad students, who go on to become bad teachers. From his survey of 95 ESL teachers and 370 other-subject teachers he concluded that ESL teachers worked with larger classes, for longer hours, compared with their other-subject colleagues. This is attributed to English language being a core subject in Nigeria. Oledajo's implications are that due to varying workloads, the needs and priorities of teachers for in-service will vary widely between subject groups.
Teachers will use things they have confidence in. Practice in a safe environment (Joyce and Showers, 1988) enables them to build confidence. Teachers' aims for activities are powerful selectors of activities. The unqualified teacher may have quite different aims for an activity to the qualified teacher. Lubben (1994) reports on in-service (IMSTEP) for secondary mathematics and physics teachers in Swaziland who had poor or no qualifications to teach these subjects. The reported focus of attention was confidence building. This was achieved through regular informal meetings where attention was paid to topics, equipment and manipulative skills. The way in which specialist trainers can be blind to the needs of non-specialist trainees was of paramount concern. Differences in perspectives on the aims of science education need expression, discussion and development.
Macdonald et al. (1985) make a similar point in their review of the description of the changes brought about through the SEP programme in South Africa. The categories of concern used in the paper are mapped onto Gray's phases of:
|
- concern for security |
with the teacher as subject specialist |
|
- concern for methods |
with the teacher in the classroom |
|
- concern for aims |
with the teacher as professional |
The category of teacher as employee is flagged as alerting us to the problem of teachers' roles and role conflicts. One key message from this study is that teachers need different experiences from in-service at different times in their personal development. The early focus of in-service may be on subject content and only later the focus might shift to more professional concerns.
Macdonald et al.'s use of Gray's phases for inset provision parallels Beeby's (1966, 1980) more general work on educational systems, where the majority of teachers in any one educational system can be identified as being at a particular stage of development. The stages are the unskilled, mechanical, routine and professional stages. The in-service point one would want to make from Beeby's ideas is that teachers cannot turn their attention to fancy pedagogic tricks when they are still struggling with their own poor content knowledge.
The early concern for content knowledge is to be found in Kachelhoffer (1995) with the identification of under qualified teachers in Kwa Ndebele producing poor student learning. In his paper, under qualification is interpreted in terms of subject knowledge. The paper reports an attempt to help mathematics and science teachers through specifically addressing their lack of content knowledge. The paper goes on to advocate what is effectively sponsored mobility for the "intelligent" with lengthened teacher training so that subject knowledge can be secured. Kachelhoffer adds that learning in a second language adds additional difficulties to the learning process. This is an issue that causes constant concern throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
Msanjila (1990) questions the decision to switch from one language (English) as a medium of instruction to another (Kiswahili) for teacher training colleges. Problems of meanings, collocations, register and familiarity of usage make inconsistencies in language policy a nightmare for teachers. Consistency in language policy needs to be accompanied by suitable plans for training. The choice of language as the medium of instruction is bound to have advantages and disadvantages no matter what the choice. The problem is choosing so the advantages support your programme and the disadvantages offer minimum damage.
Honig (1996) reports the way in which well intentioned government policies on the use of local languages in primary schools in Ethiopia actually lowered the participation rates in basic education: the drop reported is from 36% to 25%. Parents took their children out of the state schools. Honig makes the point that,
"History has demonstrated that the inability to deal adequately with teachers in their central role condemns even the most enlightened educational reform to failure."
Kahn's (1990) survey of 74 science and mathematics teacher graduates from the University of Botswana, 12 science and mathematics teacher educators or education officers, and 72 classroom teachers - half with long experience - provided data for his study of attitudes to the content of initial teacher education courses in science and mathematics. The teachers showed most concern for:
- working with the less able pupils;
- science and mathematics in society;
- lesson presentation;
- classroom control;
- establishing aims and objectives for work.
Whilst the teacher trainer/education officers were more concerned with:
- lesson presentation;
- aims and objectives;
- producing schemes of work;
- assessment of pupils;
- classroom questioning skills.
The implications are that people's concerns are congruent with their positions in a social institution such as schooling and education. The concomitant of this is that different positions give rise to different viewpoints and different sets of priorities for exactly the same feature of social life.
Summary point 2
Although the teachers' circumstances exert selection pressures on which varieties of practice will survive, teachers are not homogenous in their pedagogic content knowledge. The teachers bring differing biographies to the classroom and therefore have different in-service needs.
Articles that are relevant to teachers' changing their own practice.
Depressingly, Onocha & Okpala (1990) report how experienced integrated science teachers in Nigeria resort to much more monologue in their classes than do pre-service teachers in training. Pre-service student teachers use a lot more teacher prompting and even small group work. The data was collected by using observation schedules in integrated science classes together with an attitudinal survey. Amongst the pre-service teachers a positive attitude to integrated science correlated with a greater use of student activity in the class, but this was no the case for experienced teachers. The key difference between pre-service and experienced teachers is that pre-service teachers expect to be observed whilst at work. One place to start helping teachers to develop their own practice might be to get them to invite a colleague into lessons to systematically observe what happens and then discuss the record of the lesson. Of course this will take time and cost money for teacher release.
Rogan & Macdonald (1985), evaluating the SEP programme in Ciskei, Transkei, Soweto and Durban, comment that teachers need to experience new ways of working, either directly, or perhaps vicariously viewing videos, before they can have any confidence to adapt them. Rogan and Macdonald comment that in the South African context, the upgrading of black teachers subject knowledge is more pressing than introducing new pedagogies. When teachers have moved through the security phase of developing a gap between their content knowledge and that of the students they can move onto the method phase. After teachers have security with new pedagogic methods they are then in a position to adapt content and methods to suit their personal aims for the education of their students. Rogan and Macdonald think short regular meetings are more supportive of change than one off long workshops. The focus of supervisory visits should be on team-teaching, offering help and advice. The use of zonal clusters for grouping teachers on in-service helps to focus the groups attention on local problems that may vary from urban to rural and from one part of the country to another. The implications are that local groups, meeting regularly, building confidence in content is a good way to start in-service for under qualified teachers. Local conditions allow for faster or slower confidence building through adaptive stages.
Adler's (1997) article, written a decade later in a more positive political climate in South Africa, comments that there is a continuum from the formal - teacher as researcher - through to the informal of reflective writing on classroom experience. Adler proposes the "teacher as inquirer" as a suitable appellation. She wants to get teachers reflecting on their practice and writing it down no matter what the standard of writing.
Walker (1993, 1994) has a similar positive attitude to action research. Reporting the Primary Education Project (PREP) in Cape Town the 1993 paper makes several important points:
- most teachers do want to improve their practice, they will not have considered, let alone committed to, action research as a means of achieving this;- action research as a means of teacher development can slide into an involvement mode, where teachers are part of a directed project, rather than participatory mode, where they direct their own project;
- publication of outcomes is the defining feature that differentiates plain development work from action research;
- action research "enquiries may help develop classroom practice but they will not necessarily shift into a critique of the contexts of that practice"
- it is useful to follow Grundy (1982) in recognising three modes of action research: the technical, the practical and the emancipatory.
Teachers can be reflective practitioners if they see a need for changing their working conditions, and there is a commitment to changed structural support from the system in which they are embedded, together with a recognition of the desirability of flexible transferable skills. My reading of this is that action research is no more easy to use as a tool for teacher development and change than other tools such as supportive coaching in classes or structured release programmes.
Berg & Todes (1986) report the history of the development of the Cape Teachers' Professional Association (CTPA) and its Education Research Committee (ERC) against a background of apartheid. What is of interest is the menu of project activities. These included: videotaped natural phenomena and demonstrations for use in science lessons; workshops on the use of the OHP; leadership skills courses; a Spring School crash course of 1 week in school subjects for pupils; Saturday School 10 week programmes; Teacher Opportunity Programmes to improve teaching skills. Pupils are probably more enthusiastic about out of school activities than teachers. Teacher development on a voluntary association basis is possible. But we don't have any good way of understanding or developing teachers' associations.
Bax (1995) introduces a promising comparison of the failure of in-service with "tissue rejection". Unfortunately the simile is not pursued. Instead Bax uses it as a springboard to introduce the English at Secondary Level (EASL) project for English language teachers in South Africa. The in-service activities reported were designed to further teacher development rather than to be teacher education or training. The principles alluded to in the title of the paper, "Principles for evaluating teacher development activities." are of:
- content negotiability, where teacher development provides the form but not the content of the in-service. The tutor can decide how to proceed but the teacher must decide what is of sufficient importance to pursue.- transferability, where others must be able to do what we do. For Bax in-service providers must recognise we are all resource persons for each other.
Ballantyne & Tooth-Aston's (1989) article prompts the question of whether such self-help can ever, at best transcend, at weakest de-couple, the way in which education is very much an epiphenomenon of the economic and political. These two authors railed against the politics of apartheid and how it stood in contradiction to any attempt at environmental education, which the authors claimed, needs an open democratic society to be worthy of the name education. In recognising Grundy's (1982) distinction between action research that operates at the different levels of the technical, practical and emancipatory, reflective-practitioners, engaged in action research that is anything other than the emancipatory, might be seen as shufflers of deck chairs on sinking ocean liners.
Summary point 3
In the literature there is a line of work that supports the idea of teachers reflecting on their own practice.
* This is best done with the help of colleagues in school.
* Local support groups are a necessary complementary strategy.
* Inputs from advisory staff can be supportive.
Changes to pedagogic content knowledge can be achieved with deliberate interventions as well as through the teachers own variations in practice.
Articles that point to various ways in which in-service activities provide new knowledge and skills.
The single longest and most intensive in-service that all teachers undergo is their own experience learning as students. Stan Maher (1995) writes about battling to help teachers to overcome the tendency to teach as they were taught. In workshops targeted at Class 1 and 2 teachers in Cape Town teachers started out attending Saturday workshops at the Uluntu Centre in the Gugeletu township for a year. This was changed to an intensive 3 day input followed by 8 workshop sessions. The trainers used Rudolf Steiner's ideas, with which they were very familiar and in which they had a strong a personal belief. The trainers made regular use of sessional evaluation and programme evaluation. The report claims success. Their aim was to, "put the heart back into teaching." The combination of tutors' clear vision and boundless enthusiasm reversed the formative experiences of studentship.
One problem is that teachers need first hand experience of successful use of new methods to even consider using them routinely. This could be a chicken and egg situation. In a paper on workshops held in Botswana for primary teachers, Duffy (1993) reports how tutors worked directly with individual teachers to give them first hand experience of pupils successfully using novel learning strategies. The workshop methods were modelled as contagion rather than cascade. The intention was to stress quality in education through individualised programmes and to this end Duffy claims the maxim, "move from minimum for most, to best for each" was a useful directional aid.
Shommo (1995) reports a Sudanese experimental study where home economics teachers were trained to use critical thinking skills so as to introduce problem solving methods into their home economics teaching. The design of the study allowed comparisons to be made between the traditional and new problem solving methods whilst controlling for teacher and topic. The 4 day in-service delivered to 16 teachers of 234 students was deemed a success as judged by teacher's affective evaluation and student scores in tests. The implications appear to be that focused in-service can change teachers attitudes, modify their classroom behaviour and improve students' learning.
The Yankari National Park (Nigeria) was the site for a 2 day training workshop for teachers that focused on environmental education. The intention was to provide practical activities, so that teachers developed awareness (action strategies) that were congruent with their knowledge and not at odds with it. Adara (1996) used questionnaire methods to monitor gains in awareness scores. Exposure to practical action strategies appeared to change skills, affect and values and started to bring these in line with scores for knowledge obtained by questionnaire.
Harber (1987) reports on the West Midlands-West Africa Project (or UK geography teachers teaching about Senegal and the Gambia) with lessons for in-service training in general. He comments that one day general courses (for UK teachers) are evaluated as of little use for teacher change and even change to teachers values. The need to provide teachers with experience of specific skills is critically important. It is better to spend the one day (if that is all one has) on using specific materials. The advice to other trainers is clear: get people familiar with new materials before you engage them in general conversation. Work from the specific towards the general.
From work on improving the tuition of the French language in secondary schools in Zaire, Koivukari (1987) concludes that the efficient development of skills may require a more general understanding by teachers than simply skills training. Although the in-service focused on Saussure's ideas on linguistics, the conversations in the INSET programme (36 hours of in-service over 2 months for 12 teachers) spread to wider pedagogic issues. Sessions included conversations on cognitive development, the psychology of learning and Berne's ideas on transactional analysis. Using direct observations, Koivukari claims to have detected changes in teachers classroom questioning styles with an increase in the use of open questions and a reduction in the use of closed questions.
Writing in 1987, Dienye reports from Nigeria on gains in score on the Nature of Scientific Knowledge Scale (NSKS) attributed to an in-service programme. The reported gains are independent of gender or previous qualification. The implications are that the meta-activity of understanding the nature of one's subject, rather than just the content of the subject, is also open to development through in-service work.
Peacock (1993) reports on the In-Service Training and Assistance for Namibian Teachers (INSTANT) project and lists 7 possible strategies for in service:
(a) full-time training;
(b) cascade dissemination
(c) advisory/mentorship schemes
(d) (expatriate) experts
(e) diffusion by workshops
(f) distance learning
Peacock selects out (e) diffusion by workshop as an appropriate starting strategy. On review and evaluation it is suggested that strategy (c) - the development of a mentorship scheme with advisory teachers - should have been started at the same time, rather than left as a follow-on strategy. As an aside Peacock suggests that if stage models of teacher development (see reference to the work of Beeby, 1966) and change are correct then cascade strategies can not succeed as the targeted teacher typically hears the message only once.
Part-time or evening in-service is compared with long vacation or sandwich in-service for Cross River and Akwa Ibou states in a paper by Esu (1991). For in-service to be successful the implications of Esu's study are that:
- teachers decide their own needs;
- support is given by the administration and management;
- colleagues discuss and share ideas;
- evidence of gains in student learning is readily/quickly available;
- changes in teachers' practice are evaluated systematically;
- there is an assessment of learning outcomes;
- where coaching is used budgetary provision must be built in.
Labour intensive mentoring appears to offer no quick solution to countries faced with pressing needs on a large scale. In 1982, faced with 55,000 under-trained primary teachers, the Ministry of Education in Kenya planned to revive in-service provision. 3,500 primary teachers a year were enrolled in a distance education scheme that involved the use of study guides, radio programmes, an attempt to improve the turn around time on marking of assignments, together with 21 weeks of face to face tuition over 3 years. The planning was informed by mostly American literature on achievement and motivation. The literature directed the project team to devise tasks that were tightly structured, had a single purpose, involved classroom application and were to be completed in a short time scale. The distance learning instruction was designed to help teachers enjoy a series of quick successes. Gitau's (1987) paper reports plans, not outcomes. But, already the project team were aware of the fact that maintaining teachers' motivation is crucial in any distance education programme. It has to be carefully built in and cannot be left to chance.
If and when money becomes available to equip schools or colleges the problems are not over. Throwing money and equipment at teachers, without training, is not a sensible solution. Laridon (1990) reports research in South Africa on teachers working with computer assisted instruction as being problematic. Instructors tend to relapse into dealing with technical issues of how to work the system, rather than content knowledge and skill issues. Students, and teachers on INSET, are reluctant to expose their ignorance to instructors and therefore instructors need to learn to work systematically around the room to monitor learning. Laridon criticises the on screen material as often insufficient for the task. Some on screen material can be of poor quality, misleading and even wrong. This is due to programmers not being subject specialists. The start up of any new cohort is exhausting for instructors as they are confronted with maximum ignorance in a short space of time.
Summary point 4
We can distinguish a teacher's content knowledge, skills, meta knowledge about the nature of their subject and general affect, from their pedagogical content knowledge. Activities that will change a teacher's pedagogical content knowledge are best carried out with demonstration and coaching. In-service aimed at changing teachers' actions, rather than their knowledge, values, or affect, does require the teachers to practise those actions.
Articles that look at the use of distance education through paper resources or other media.
Faced with a population scattered across rural areas distance education appears to be a way forward. Holmberg's (1985) paper comments on a distance education programme in Kenya and contrasts experiences of primary teachers, literacy tutors and paramedics. Where paramedics engage tutors on matters of course content, the education students are reported as only arguing over marks. Holmberg judged the education programme to contain material that was very arcane. Generally distance education is marred by slow administration, poor turn-around in marking assignments and still relatively high costs compared with local incomes. Distance education is a solution with its own problems.
A more positive report is of a programme of distance education for primary and middle school teachers comes from Ghana (Carr, 1987). This programme was started as a fire-fighting exercise in 1982. The target was the up-grading of 40,000 under qualified teachers, 3,500 of them were admitted to the programme each year. Postal tuition with textual materials was used. The teachers then met on 6 occasions for 3 day meetings to discuss the materials and had a total of 12 weeks a year of residential meetings. The training bill was half that of full-time training. The principal advantages of the mixed mode of distance education is that rapid expansion is possible at less cost when the instructional materials have been produced. The disadvantage for teacher training is the lack of school-based supervision.
Broadcast media such as radio and TV have long supported, and in some instances supplanted, textual resources for distance learning. Mojo (1992) makes the point that where the media infra-structure exists, teacher training can be added at marginal extra costs. It is suggested that (at the time of writing) an Institute for Distance Education for Teacher Training should be developed in South Africa.
Wal & Linde (1991) report on the use of computer assisted instruction to upgrade the subject knowledge of mathematics and science teachers in the Orange Free State, S.A. The Research Institute of Education Planning (RIEP) reports working with 5,417 teachers from 1976 onwards. CAI provides opportunities for repetition of learning tasks and small group work in learning. Wal and Linde comment that such instruction is motivating to most learners.
Traditionally distance education has involved the lone scholar linked to a tutor through textual resources. Shaibu (1990) looks at the possibilities of centralised/support service as a cost-effective way out of the school library chaos in Gongola State of Nigeria. The paper starts by railing against the deplorable state of school libraries in Nigeria, and then turns quickly to advocating the centralisation of library resources. Of course there are gains in economy due to centralising resources in libraries and media centres but these cost benefits from large scale installations can be off-set by diminished accessibility and loss of personal control for teachers. Perhaps, when considering distance education, the implication is to be cautious of the claims made by people with grand plans.
Chadwick (1990) notes the need to include instructional system design (ISD) principles into text production for school books. This also applies to distance learning materials. Chadwick's accusation is that the average school book author is ignorant of ISD and therefore produces texts that are actually difficult to learn from. Teachers themselves can be helped to change their practice if school books are written to ISD which thereby leads teachers to use new activities with students. Linking teacher development to the changing demands of a school curriculum reform, through the introduction of new school textbooks, might be an effective strand in distance education.
Summary point 5
Distance education has many advantages for developing teachers' knowledge. It also can be used to develop affect and values. What is more difficult is to support change in teachers' skills through distance learning. The use of new curriculum materials is one possible strategy to help develop new pedagogic skills.
Articles referring to school administration and organisation or whole school policies.
Kitavi & Westhuizen (1997) investigated the problems facing newly appointed principals in Kenya. A questionnaire survey of head teachers asked the heads to provide rankings of their possible problems. School fees and money matters come out as being of most concern. In special pleading, supported by reference to literature, Kitavi & Westhuizen want head teachers to receive more training as they are the most influential figures in any school. In a similar study focused on head teachers, Kogoe (1986) investigated the perceived administrative needs of school executives in Togo. The paper draws attention to the fact that administration is not the same as leadership. Kogoe claims head teachers need to adopt leadership roles by closer instructional supervision. In fact for secondary heads or heads in large schools this is not so easy and delegation to heads of department is important. The survey of 200 administrators and 177 teachers in Togo indicates that teachers expect leadership, whereas heads may prefer to see themselves as just administrators. The implications are that in-service training of head teachers to either take, or delegate, more active leadership through instructional supervision might take priority over in-service for teachers.
Brown & Reid (1990) are concerned about the cynicism, and even despair, that can set in when teachers on in-service are returned to schools where change is not possible. To deal with this they suggest that teacher change has to be set within the context of the whole school. Again, the recommendation comes that head teachers need to have been oriented or trained first. The co-ordination of INSET for personnel at sequential points in line management needs to be built into in-service planning: start with the head, then h.o.d.s, then teachers. Brown & Reid report on workshops held in Lilongwe and Mzuzu to help develop skills in heads of departments. The authors identify a flat management structure, of head teacher and the rest, as being a problem for teacher development in Malawian (African) schools. They suggest the devolution of many responsibilities and decision making to heads of department. They suggest that ideally workshops should be short and intensive (12 hour working days) with close contact between facilitator/tutors and participants. The need to build personal friendships between colleagues was seen as being an important task for the workshops. Newsletters, specifically targeted at heads of department on issues of line management, are suggested as one way of maintaining momentum.
The Lesotho Action Research Network (LEARN) uses a whole school approach. Teachers are encouraged to watch colleagues at work and then talk over the teaching styles and techniques used. Teachers in the schools involved started to use more open questions and make more explicit corrections on students' work. A monitorial system was simultaneously developed by some teachers to cope with the problems of marking the work of so many students. Sebatane (1994) reports on the involvement of 348 teachers in 45 primary schools, with an average class size of between 67:1 and 91:1. Sebatane claims that such action research builds self-confidence and resourcefulness and develops innovation directly from teachers' needs. A newsletter from the National University of Lesotho disseminates the products of teachers reflective, and reflexive, practice.
A paper reporting on the adoption of computers in schools in Kenya and Zimbabwe (Hawkridge, 1991) turns attention to private schools. It is commented that private schools often lead in the introduction of change and teacher development. Whereas Ministries of Education often lag innovative developments. The way in which Ministries will often seek to regularise and approve innovation is also commented on. Hawkridge thinks teacher resistance to development and change comes from lack of contact, control, confidence and appropriateness to the curriculum. This paper carries a Thatcherite message of market economics: watch what private schools are doing as they have the money, more freedom for manoeuvre and are more directly linked into the geo-political economy through tighter parental backing.
Working in Eritrea, Guariento (1997) raises the question of whether innovation can be successfully transplanted from one developing country to another? Looking beyond the school, to the local administration, Guariento suggests that time spent in helping local administrations take responsibility for innovations, so they can work in partnership, is time well spent in the long-run even though it may appear to be frustrating in the short term. Two further point are made:
(i) teachers who are poorly paid and live in rural areas should still be asked to attend INSET on a compulsory basis (the local administration should handle this) but recognition must be given to their travelling time and out of pocket expenses.(ii) responsibility should be delegated to local trainers to enhance the chances of sustainability. Appeals should be made to:
- performing competently before peers;
- altruism;
- and giving time off in lieu.
A survey of vocational training, in-service courses and higher education for graduates in Botswana (Mugisha & Mwamwenda, 1991) points to how career structure may be influential in promoting personal development of skills. Although not directly related to teaching there are lessons for the organisational administration of education and the provision of career pathways. The paper reports on the careers of economics and social science graduates from the University of Botswana who graduated between 1980 and 1983. Practical, on the job experience, helps in decision making about which further training to apply for. Mobility appears to enhance job satisfaction. It is claimed that in the commercial sector training improves qualification, employability, efficiency, productivity, self-confidence, job satisfaction and a sense of career direction. Perhaps there are lessons for education in this?
Summary point 6
The circumstances which exert selection pressures for the teaching strategies that are workable, and against those which are not, can be modified through managerial intervention.
Articles that relate to the idea of sustainable change growing out of present practice rather than its replacement with radical solutions.
No one can deny that teacher change takes a long time and is likely to occur before students' performance shows similar gains. Modern management fashion for targets and indicators needs to take acount of this delay if it is to be used. Macdonald & Rogan (1988) report changes to teacher behaviour and student performance during the Science Education Project (SEP) programme in Ciskei, Transkei, Soweto and Durban. Using a Science Teacher Observation Schedule (STOS) the classroom practice of SEP teachers did move towards that of UK and Canadian teachers. Student performance in examinations did improve but was still poor.
Crowther (1995), a UK home economics teacher, reports on a brief visit to a school in Lesotho as an additional teacher. The usual issues are reported: poor facilities and low budgetary capitations; little participation by students in classrooms with no planned student activities; problems of learning in a second language; no direct linkage of education to employment opportunities. The implications are that seeing the problems is not difficult. The hard part is finding sustainable engines of long term development and growth.
O'Neill's (1995) paper reports misgivings over evaluations using naturalistic approaches (Guba & Lincoln 1981, 1989). Such evaluations involve iterative negotiations of critical accounts of the project. O'Neil's principle criticism focuses on the inappropriateness of the concept of negotiation in circumstances where power and power relationships are strong. Project workers are (not surprisingly) the most involved in the proposed changes to teachers' practice. Teachers themselves may have marginal interest in the proposed changes. Differences in communication skills, tenacity, abilities to represent the subtleties of a particular case and negotiating experience, all call into question the notion of a negotiated evaluation of educational projects. O'Neil comments on how formal evaluations are little used as sources of information for decision making. The particular evaluation discussed in the paper was of the School Science Project (SSP) in Kwazulu Natal. For me, the message is that our methodologies are poorly matched to the demands of our problems. There is also a warning to beware of people peddling algorithms for the easy resolution of your difficulties.
Daniels & Halamandaris (1992) provide a short paper in a professional, rather than academic journal; that makes some interesting points in a succinct way. The experience reported is that of Canadian educationists. The positive points are worth noting from Adams and Chen's (1981) work. There is a need for strong, but culturally sensitive leadership. There needs to be:
- credibility for the change proposed;- functional relevance for the evaluation (this involves features of Adam's and Chen's International Development Educational Model (IDEM));
- adequate financial and physical resources;
- stability of personnel;
- adaptiveness of the project;
- sequencing of critical events;
- stability of the educational system in which the innovation is located.
A more cynical view would be something like, "Don't all project directors claim they have taken account of the above before their projects start?", and "Don't they all blame inadequate features of the above at the end?"
Summary point 7
Because teacher development is an open process there are lots of loose ends. This is a recognition of the post-modem position that we cannot plan the future (modernism) the future evolves out of the present.
Closing commentary
One message for in-service teacher development and change that emerges from this literature review is an echo of Asubel's dictum that one should first find out what one's students know and proceed from there: one should first find out what teachers can do and then proceed from there. Shulman's (1987) introduction of the term pedagogical content knowledge (pck) usefully captures that combination of content knowledge and pedagogic skills that is necessary for the organisation of classroom activities for learners. Teachers may need help, through in-service, with developing their content knowledge, their pedagogic skills or the realisaton of certain practices. Pedagogical content knowledge has a component that is to do with the teacher's ideas on what it is to be a good teacher and how one goes about that.
All teachers comment on how the physical environment of the classroom has a strong bearing on what they can attempt to do - numbers of students, seating, desk spaces, space to move around the room, availability of AVA, computers and even blackboards. This is obviously the physical component to their environment. All teachers also comment on how social and political factors influence the range of strategies they can use in the classroom. So normative practices, head teacher's opinions, parents' and students' expectations should also be considered as part of a teacher's environment. Together these constitute a social component. Classroom settings have both a physical and social components in which the teacher has to work.
For too long we have assumed that teachers select their pedagogical strategies from their stock of pck in a conscious and reflective way (Schon, 1983, 1987). Whereas teachers in what Beeby (1966, 1980) refers to as stages of development that are less than professional (the unskilled, mechanical or routine stages) may not be able to do this. Instead, the direction of cause and effect may be reversed. That is, it is not the teachers who chose to act in the classroom setting in which they find themselves, rather, it is the classroom settings that exert selection pressures on which of the strategies in the teacher's pck will survive in the teachers repertoires and which will be extinguished.
An understanding of the intimate interaction between a teacher's pck and the classroom setting is vital to any hope of developing the teacher's pedagogical content knowledge. In-service that ignores this interaction will produce changes that are short lived or still-born.
Beeby, C.E. (1966) The quality of education in developing countries. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
Beeby, C.E. (1980) The thesis of stages fourteen years later. International Review of Education, 26: 451-474.
Feiter, L, de., Vonk, H. & Akker, J. van den. (1995) Towards more effective science teacher development in Southern Africa. Amsterdam: Free University Press.
Schon, D.A. (1983) The reflective practitioner. New York: Basic Books.
Schon, D.A. (1987) Educating the reflective practitioner. London: Jossey-Bass.
Shulman, L.S. (1987) Knowledge and teaching: foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57: 1-22.
