Teacher Professional Standards

Behaviour management is the beating heart of effective teaching. Wilson and Thomas (2014). It goes without saying that teaching as a professional vocation is much more than a mere behaviour management practice, however, through my continuous involvement in teaching a variety of classrooms in different schools and colleges so far I can justifiably reflect that: classroom management is a teaching skill in its own right and acquiring this skill is crucial in setting the learning standards and expectations of a given cohort. Not having a firm and consistent behaviour management model in place could and will lead to disruptive behaviour in the classroom.

This paper reviews evidence on the interplay between professional standards for teachers, the content of teacher education and educational sciences, and provides three case studies to illustrate these interactions from Estonia, Australia and Singapore. In particular, it investigates what aligning teacher education programmes to standards really mean; and what conception of educational sciences is reflected in the standards and the curriculum. Analyses suggest that alignment, as an explicit, direct and consistent correspondence, is difficult to achieve, in part due to different conceptualisations of professional knowledge. However, this paper argues that the main value of standards as policy tools lies in their capacity to create mutual dialogue between different artefacts (standards’ requirements, curriculum, course descriptions, accreditation standards, etc.), as well as among stakeholders. Regularly renegotiating the standards as a result of such dialogue and reflections should be a crucial part of the policy process.

This workshop paper for primary and secondary school  teachers in the South West, Nigeria focused on the concepts of ethics, conduct, code, code of ethics, code of conduct, types of conduct, and moral agents for enactment, enlightenment and enforcement of professional standards.  It centrally highlighted Four main sections of the Professional Standards for the Teaching Profession produced by the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) in 2019.

The study explores the novice teachers' competencies in integrating education technology in lesson preparation. The paper is anchored in the professional standards for teachers, specifically, domains that focus on the positive use of ICT. The study utilized an explanatory research design. The selected one hundred thirty-two novice teachers answered the online survey questionnaire introduced using Google forms and ten (10) participants for an online interview through purposive sampling technique. Data were collected using Blended Teaching Readiness survey questionnaire and semi-structured questionnaire, respectively. Analysis of data progressed through SPSS statistical software and thematic coding. The study reveals that the self-evaluation of novice teachers on their abilities is very competent. Qualitative data exposed the different struggles in teacher preparations in instructional methodologies. Hence, novice teachers must undergo additional professional development to enhance their competencies in designing online learning. Teacher education institutions must intensify in equipping teachers with knowledge on integrating technology in lesson preparations. The government must provide resources for the teachers that will help them prepare instructional materials such as ICT rooms, technicians for technical support, laptops, and internet connectivity. Enough time will also help teachers to design better instructional materials for their class. The current situation of the education system of our country needs a more significant push and optimistic view that we will be able to make progressive change. Teachers should think of personal initiative, welcome the possible ways to enhance the current system, and become part of reforms to help our country uplift and face challenges and endeavors.

It is easy to assume that the word assessment simply means taking a test however, this will be an ill-informed assumption and a narrow definition of  assessment as a pedagogical concept. In this reflection evaluation of my progress, I hope to show that the true meaning of an assessment, in its pedagogical sense, can be much broader and multipurpose. NFER (2019) defines an assessment to be any activity that guides learning, suggesting that an assessment can be viewed as an evaluation tool to dynamically measure the ongoing learning process. This infers that every learning and teaching task offers assessment opportunities, thus assessments can be implanted in all day-to-day teaching spaces and classroom activities to continuously inform about progress within a lesson or from lesson to lesson and to help pupils recognise their successes. Frost and Ingle (2014) explain well-designed, innovative and engaging assessments can encourage active learning and foster crucial learning skills such as critical thinking and self-awareness, especially the use of exam-style questions to assess students’ prior knowledge.

The importance of good teachers is no secret. Over the last two decades, research on student achievement has pinpointed the central role of teachers as one of the key propellers referred to in terms of a focus on student outcomes. This review exploits the teacher’s effectiveness and what makes an effective teacher. Classroom management, classroom climate and teaching are the three factors that had statistically significant positive impacts on student academic outcomes. Teachers’ sense of professional identity influences their relative commitment and resilience as well as their capacities to manage variations to sustain their teaching effectiveness. It draws out implications for policymakers in education and for improving classroom practice. In order to improve teacher efficacy, greater subject specific training in theory and practical work, both in pre-service and continuing teacher training programs could be offered. Conclusions are drawn that highly-qualified teachers are still in high demand for boosting student’s motivation for optimum outcome. The findings unraveled in this study that the trend of augmentation in the Sri Lankan science secondary education context is growing at a slow but steady pace and also no significant impacts of teacher training on either teacher or student  thus imply the ineffectiveness of short-term teacher training programmes on teacher and student performance.

The incidence of professional misconducts among public secondary school teachers seems to be on the increase as cases of sexual assault of students and child labours are observable in southwest Nigeria. Teachers appear not to be complying with set standards on professional knowledge, skills, values, attitudes, conducts and obligations. This study therefore investigated the enforcement of education laws and conformity with professional standards among public secondary school teachers in Southwest, Nigeria. The study equally examined the influence of demographic factors such as location, gender, experience and qualification on teachers’ conformity with professional standards.  Three research questions were answered and thirteen hypotheses were tested in this study. Descriptive research design of the survey and ex-post facto types were adopted in this study. A total of 1,305 teachers (subject teachers and Head of Departments) participated in the study. The samples were selected following a multistage sampling procedure. Two instruments: Enforcement of Education Laws Questionnaire (EELQ) and Professional Standards for Nigeria Teachers Checklist (PSNTC) were used to collect data for this study. The face, content and construct validity of the instruments were ascertained. The instruments were subjected to trial test and reliability coefficients of 0.72 and 0.76 were obtained for EELQ and PSNTC respectively using the Cronbach Alpha.  Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were used to answer and test research questions and hypotheses respectively. All hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Findings showed that the level of conformity with professional standards among public secondary school teachers and enforcement of education laws were moderate. It was discovered that significant relationship existed between the enforcement of education laws and conformity with professional standard. There was no significant difference in the level of teachers conformity with professional standards based on school location and teaching experience while it existed based on teachers’ gender and qualification. It was discovered that enforcement of education laws makes significant contribution to variation in the level of conformity with professional standards among teachers. A coefficient of determination (R2 = 0.663) was obtained and it implies that enforcement of education laws accounted for 66.3% of the total variance in the level of teachers conformity with professional standards. Enforcement of education support service regulations (β = 0.347) and discipline regulations (β = 0.002) were respectively the best and least predictors of the total variance in the level of conformity with professional standards among public secondary school teachers in southwest, Nigeria. It was concluded that the level of conformity with professional standards and enforcement of education laws were moderate. It was also concluded that enforcement of education laws is associated with conformity with professional standards. Location and teaching experiences did not influence conformity with professional standards while gender and qualification did. It was recommended among others that government at all level should make concerted efforts to ensure that education regulations are adhered to in the management of public secondary schools so that teachers can conform with the professional standards.

Abstract: The paper Review the Gifted Teacher’ Standards which published by National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) and Council for Exceptional Children (ECC) in 2006 and 2013. And the paper present some points as Future research points.

الملخص: يتناول المقال عرضاً لمعايير إعداد معلم الموهوبين التي توافق على إصدرها الجمعية الوطنية للأطفال الموهوبين (National Association for Gifted Children) (NAGC)، ومجلس الأطفال غير العاديين (Council for Exceptional Children) (ECC)، في الاصدارين 2006، 2013، وبعض الاختلافات بينهما. وتقترح الورقة بعض النقاط التي يمكن أخذها كموضوعات للبحث والدراسة مستقبلاً.


Key words: Gifted teachers Standards, Teachers of the Gifted, Giftedness and Creativity.
الكلمات الدلالية: معايير معلم الموهوبين، معلم الموهوبين، الموهبة والتفوق
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6893-9469