Quality of professional staff, their research potential & development

A professional educator is supposed to know & be aware of:

a) Standards

b) Vertical curriculum requirements

c) Horizontal & vertical syllabus requirements

d) Intermediate & final goals & outcomes

e) Individual learning style & pace of learning

f) Approaches to teaching & learning

g) Cross syllabi connection meeting points (точки соприкосновения)

h) Teaching materials & resources recommended aloud & available

If a textbook does not have this or that degree of recommendation, it cannot be used as a textbook. This is an important regulation policy, exercised by the state in order to avoid undesired or incorrect content.

The question: what can a teacher do if there is no a textbook? The answer is simple: the teacher prepares a curriculum in which he/she names topics, goals, classroom hours & which is accredited by adjoined committee. A teacher is expected to be a researcher in terms of quality & knowledge management. A professional educator is like a professional engineer or doctor whose work is to use the guidelines & technical specifications set by an authority. A teacher is supposed to know how to implement standards, requirements, specifications rather than to be involved into the creation of the standards, requirements, specifications. A professional educator can never do quality work without an integrated system of professional development. Modern standards prescribe at least one development program in five years. If he/she does not go through a development program, he/she cannot meet the requirements. It means that the quality of work becomes worse.

All of these bring us to another factor: conditions to maintaining quality.

1. Regular professional development (developing classroom materials, attending conferences & workshops, participating in learning programs, doing research)

2. Availability of materials & resources (access to many materials & resources, to technologies)

3. Teaching equipment & devices (from enough pencils & pens to enough computers & excellent traffic in internet)

4. Professional interest & motivation

5. A reliable customer who needs the product range

Is time an important condition for attaining quality?

Lecture 3

How to assess?

Educators have always tried to create an effective system of definite criteria of assessment but have often failed. Even today it is still a problem to work out sound general principles for the assessment methodology. It seems that there is agreement on how to assess but in real terms there is a lot of discrepancy. Reason 1 – it is almost impossible to carry out a logical comparison of educational goals & educational outcomes. Educational goals are usually indentified & defined in more general, more integral & rather abstract categories such as to prepare qualified specialists or to build a scientific world view or to teach to use scientific principles or to develop communicative competence & the like. An attempt to test & assess the degree or quality of such goals tends to be a highly unattainable venture because the object of assessment is absolutely illusive. Reason 2 – measuring the results or outcomes of teaching is traditionally done at another level which is more pragmatic, a tangible, focused, discreet, functional. Teaching & learning outcomes are concrete real life units. They are: knowledge, abilities, skills, habits. Another category appeared – competence. It is usually defined as an ability to understand, use something for real life purposes. Still the problem remains the same – competence is very illusive. It is given life only when it is manifested through skills & knowledge. E. g. communicative competence – an ability to communicate effectively. What can or must teacher assess? What are the criteria of communicative effectiveness? A shaking fist of the learner to the student when he is late. Is the person a competent communicant? It means that communicative competence is a very general idea. It is probably the integrated whole of skills, knowledge, habits & abilities & strategies used for real purposes in real situations. It means if the teacher wants to have a clear image, picture of one’s communicative level, he/she must assess KASH (knowledge, abilities, skills, habits). Modern educational programs & standards include the category of competence. Competence is usually of 3 sides:

1. General learning competence (understanding where & how to get additional resources on the subject or knowing how to use the textbook etc.)

2. Subject related competence (communicative competence or mathematical competence etc.)

3. Life awareness – understanding & knowing how to implement KASH to solve real life matters (a shaking fist to a student when he/she is late)

Reason 3 – education innovation theories & suggested innovative practices are often ahead of time while the system of education usually reflects the current demands. Reason 4 – a country’s education system is based on tradition & when priorities, goals, outcomes change teaching & assessment however usually follow a tradition. The 2^nd aspect aspect needs enough time to catch up with the 1^st. E.g. V. A. can possibly never change quickly even if educational requirements change. The question remains – how to assess?

Controlling learning results usually take the form of a graded assessment. GA (graded assessment) is a system that identifies a degree of knowledge acquisition skills & habits acquisition. In the GA system educators often use a mark of grade. A mark is a quantitative, numerical representation of grading, it is often represented from numbers or points. A grade & mark are never the same things though are often misused as synonyms. Sometimes they are combined. A number is combined with a verbal equivalent. E.g. our credit books. «5» - отлично, «4» - «хорошо». This example has a long history. Logical questions arise. Arise – возникать (to come into being; originate), rise – восходить (to get up from a lying, sitting, kneeling, or prone position), raise – поднимать (to move, cause to move, or elevate to a higher position or level). Should learning outcomes be always assessed by a mark or score or grade? Are there other means of assessment? Is it enough for the teacher to assess a student’s outcomes by a verbal approval or criticism or by expressing official “thanks” & giving a reward or by giving a best learning accomplishment certificate or by taking a student in another class? Usually since education is a human invention we often do everything of these, but only scores or marks or grades are accepted for consideration. The scoring system or the system of marking has existed long was traditional in the 19 century Russia. The main object of assessment was knowledge & was based on the 6-score principle (from 0 to 5). Later the zero mark was abolished & the system came to known as a 5-score marking system. Social attitudes towards this grading system were different in different periods. In the 1^st half of the 20^th century until the mid-60s our country favored to the idea of educating without mark. The main principle – the doctrine of a Soviet school, according to which the most important thing is the learner’s interest, personal initiative, his/her desire for creativity & good discipline. Prerevolutionary methods of assessment were considered wrong & useless. National ministry of education of those time stated:

1. Use of the scoring system in assessing learner’s knowledge & conduct is cancelled in all types of schools.

2. Transition from class to class level to level & issuance of certificates are done with the view on learner’s accomplishments as interpreted by the teaching staff. That decree forbade any forms of exams in schools/universities. Moreover it was disallowed to check one’s individual knowledge in the lesson. Very rarely was it allowed to do whole class oral assessment or write credited written works. Assessment was only done for the whole class orally. This decree recommended oral discussions on the study topics & revision. Student presentations on the read books & articles, self-reports on their interests. Self-testing tasks, self-quizzes. Any external form of assessment was substituted by self-assessment, by reflecting upon whole class & individual achievements. All of these allowed & disallowed external or internal assessment still coexist today but are used for different levels, situations, reasons.

This system changed in the mid 60s due to the main reason – the quality of knowledge, skills & learning discipline was very poor. Attendance was not important. Grading system started to be used again. First chaotically than graded assessment returned completely. Every student was responsible for the level of knowledge. The marking system from 1 to 5 was now complemented by the verbal system “excellent”, “good”, “satisfactory”, “poor”, “very poor”, that happened in 1935. From 1 to 5 was not used in documents. Documents were marked verbally. But again in 1943 verbal system was substituted the marking system from 1 to 5. Every mark was explained in detail & even today educational subject programs include the paragraph about the system of grading. Today there is a lot of disagreement about the system though it has proved to be the most effective one. Argument against: in 90% of all cases (learner cases) are usually marked by “5”, ”4”, “3”, “2” & “1” are used rarely. Marks “5”, “4”, “3” are never exact in different classroom situations (ordinary schools, classes of gifted children, correctional classes – in all of them “5”, “4”, “3” are different).

Дата добавления: 2015-12-08