[NIFL-4EFF:2771] Teacher change--a crosspost

From: MWPotts2001@aol.com
Date: Thu Jun 10 2004 - 11:20:12 EDT


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Colleagues,

This is a cross post from the AALPD list.  There has been an in-depth 
discussion over the past two weeks about teacher change--How does happen?  How do we 
know when it has happened?  Why do we think it's important for teachers to 
change, anyway? 

I am posting David Rosen's thoughtful message, in which he responds to 
another post, and he also asks several questions of EFF folks.  I hope that many of 
you will reply to his queries. 

Thank you,
Meta Potts, Moderator 4-EFF List


From: David Rosen <djrosen@comcast.net>
Date: Thu Jun 10, 2004  9:43:04  AM US/Eastern
To: nifl-aalpd@nifl.gov
Subject: Teacher change to what, for what, according to teachers and 
learners

Pratt's categories provide some useful ways of looking at  teachers'
perspectives of what they are trying to do. That is one valid way to 
look at teacher change. But suppose we start from students' 
perspectives, what _they_ say they want to learn, what they want 
teachers to help them know and do.

For example, we have Equipped For the Future, a set of curriculum 
standards built on a careful analysis of what adult learners say they 
want to know and be able to do.  We also have teachers across the 
country who think these standards make sense, some of whom have 
participated in professional development activities to be able to use 
these standards well in their teaching.

I wonder if there are teachers reading this message who use EFF 
standards, who have participated in formal or informal professional 
development to learn to use them better, and who feel that this has 
resulted in change in their teaching.  If so, please share an example 
or two of how this has changed your teaching.  Possibly EFF PD folks 
have examples from their experiences of how teachers have changed.  
Let's hear those, too.

So far, one might conclude from the lack of concrete examples offered 
in this discussion that teachers _don't_ change or that no one knows if 
they do.

Or is it that teachers don't have the time to reflect on their change?  
Or that they don't have time to write about how they have changed?  Or 
that there are very few actual classroom teachers or tutors 
participating in this discussion? Or that researchers haven't studied 
this?

Has adult education teacher change been written about elsewhere? Are 
there good narratives by adult education teachers of how they have 
changed?  Is there teacher research on how teachers have changed? If 
you know of some good examples, please post the references to the AALPD 
list, and maybe we can discuss them in the future. I think this is an 
important PD research question: what do we know about how teachers 
change, from their own reports of this process?  Would others be 
interested in this as a future topic?

David J. Rosen



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