Search results for: Teacher professional development

Teachers in the constitution in Indonesia are professionals who must meet pedagogical, social, personal, and professional competencies. This qualitative research with a phenomenological approach aims to explore the experiences of the teacher professional education program (PPG) participants in gaining soft skills. The research data were collected through in-depth interviews conducted on fifteen PPG participants consisting of seven females and eight males. The fifteen participants attended PPG in five universities spread out from universities in Central Java, West Java, Yogyakarta Special Region, and Jakarta Special Capital Region. The sampling technique used was purposive sampling. Data analysis was carried out through the horizontalization, texturally, structurally, and essential descriptions stages. The results of this research found that PPG participants received soft skills learning in hidden curriculum patterns so that each participant had an initial understanding and how to get various soft skill understandings. Soft skills obtained by participants during the PPG implementation are self-confidence, collaboration, hard work, respect for culture, patience, wisdom, maturity, mental resilience, humility, responsibility, creative thinking, positive thinking, cooperation, humility, respect for others, and tolerance. This research recommends that soft skills learning at PPG be implemented with a structured curriculum so that participants have better abilities as teachers.

Teacher professional development (TPD) through supported pedagogical innovations relies on teacher understanding (TU) of what is proposed, how the innovation can be enacted, and ways in which an innovation might be effectively adapted to local conditions. This article describes evolving TU during a 1-year reading comprehension innovation. Analysis, based on a two-dimensional neo-Bloomian framework, revealed that types of TU aligned with specific strategies used at specific times in the innovation program to some extent. Initial concerns about cultural appropriateness tended to fade as participating teachers came to their own understandings of how to employ the new instructional strategies. Other teacher concerns shifted from hypothetical to more concrete concerns about how to further enhance classroom interactions, evidencing evolving TU. Importantly, while examining in-class practices shows only the outcome of an innovation, tracking teachers’ developing understanding was important for gaining insights into the ongoing TPD process.

This study presents an overview of the tensions regarding professional identity that was experienced by a group of beginning teachers.Interviews with beginning teachers resulted in 59 tensions that could be classified into three themes: (1) The change in role from student to teacher, (2) conflicts between desired and actual support given to students, and (3) conflicting conceptions of learning to teach. Most of the tensions experienced conform with those found in the literature. In most cases, feelings of helplessness, frustration, or anger were dominant in accompanying the tensions, and the teachers had a strong desire to learn to cope with them.

The current article reports on a small‐scale study of five cases located in one urban primary school. This study examines the views of primary school teachers in Cyprus in relation to teacher leadership. In particular, the study investigates the perceptions of teachers as to their potential to exhibit leadership functions as formal and/or informal teacher leaders.