Teachers, Teacher Education, and Professional Development
Requirements for Ongoing Professional Development in Reading for Teachers
Teachers, including primary level language teachers, at the first stage of their career path are required to participate in professional development activities. The first level of a teacher’s career ladder is “practitioner teacher.” To move to the next level (senior teacher) the teacher must participate in a certain number of professional development activities to acquire credits. Another requirement for teachers at the lowest career level is passing the teacher certification examination. The teacher can be certified as a primary level teacher (all subjects in Grades 1 to 4) or as a language teacher at the primary level (Grades 1 to 6). In both cases, the certification examination covers effective reading strategies. Professional development requirements at subsequent levels of teacher career progression include classroom observation, action research, and instructional projects. These activities do not necessarily include a reading component.
The Teacher Professional Development Center (TPDC), a state agency dedicated to teacher professional development, has implemented the following activities since 2011:
- Development of teacher professional development resources—TPDC has developed an Effective Reading Strategies video series and disseminated it to all public schools. The videos contain a collection of classroom activities aimed at developing student reading and literacy skills. The series contains about 100 videos.
- Teacher training to develop effective reading strategies—During the 2014–2015 academic year, primary level teachers received training in development of effective reading strategies. During the training sessions, teachers discussed the cases presented in the Effective Reading Strategies video materials. Teachers developed teaching plans that they had to implement, and reported their reflections on the implementation of these strategies. The objective of the training was to demonstrate to teachers the implementation of the strategies, encourage the use of the strategies, and discuss the challenges in the implementation process as well as ways of overcoming challenges. Around 5,000 teachers participated in the training.