EDU 3083 Leadership and Professional Development of Teachers

EDU 3083Leadership and Professional Development of Teachers

EDU 3083

Leadership and Professional Development of Teachers

1.0 Introduction

To nurture is to nourish. Nurturing a child encompasses all aspects of

development: social, emotional, cognitive, and physical. In every interaction, a

teacher should nurture appropriate growth and development. According to Gay

(2000), teacher are cultural organizers, cultural mediators, and orchestrates of social

contexts for learning. Based on this notion, being an early childhood teacher also

means that we have to be willing to wear many hats. As experienced teachers, we

are already prepared to be flexible according to our task requirements. This may

involve professional tasks from inside and outside the classroom. Today, teachers

are not only teaching in the classroom during the interactional hours. Teachers today

are well rounded and must be capable of multitasking. This also includes

administrative and management tasks that must be perform from time to time.

According to Gulamhussein (2013), the reasons why teachers are involved in

organizational tasks are:

a) Most teachers only experience traditional, workshop-based professional

development, even though research shows it is ineffective:

Over 90 percent of teachers participate in workshop-style training sessions

during a school year (Darling-Hammond et al., 2009). This stands in stark contrast to

teachers’ minimal exposure to other forms of professional development (Darling-

Hammond et al., 2009). Despite its prevalence, the workshop model’s track record

for changing teachers’ practice and student achievement is abysmal.

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b) In order to truly change practices, professional development should occur

over time and preferably be ongoing:

During the implementation stage, initial attempts to use a new teaching

strategy are almost certain to be met with failure, and mastery comes only as a result

of continuous practice despite awkward performance and frustration in the early

stages. Without support during this phase, it is highly unlikely that teachers will

persevere with the newly learned strategy. Research bears this out. When

professional development merely describes a skill to teachers, only 10 percent can

transfer it to their practice; however, when teachers are coached through the

awkward phase of implementation, 95 percent can transfer the skill (Bush, 1984;

Truesdale, 2003). Therefore, if districts want real changes in teaching practice, they

have to provide ample and ongoing support during implementation. Studies show

that effective professional development programs require anywhere from 50 to 80

hours of instruction, practice, and coaching before teachers arrive at mastery

(French, 1997; Banilower, 2002; Yoon et al., 2007.

c) Professional development is best delivered in the context of the teacher’s

subject area:

Regardless of whether teachers are working with coaches or in professional

learning communities, teachers need to be working with the content they teach.

Teachers don’t find professional development on generic topics useful (Peery, 2002;

Redding and Kamm, 1999; Dunn and Dunn, 1998). However, professional

development that focuses on teachers analyzing the specific skill and concept they’ll

teach in their discipline is not only well-received by teachers, but has also been

shown to improve both teacher practice and student learning (Bland de la Alas and

Smith, 2007; Carpenter et al., 1989; Cohen and Hill, 2001; Lieberman and Wood,

2001; Merek and Methven, 1991; Saxe, Gearhart, and Nasir, 2001; Wenglinksky,

2000; McGill-Franzen et al., 1999; Darling-Hammond et al., 2009.

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d) Research on effective critical thinking strategies is lacking, but teachers don’t

have to wait and can lead the way by establishing professional learning

communities:

While there are several research-backed instructional strategies, the research

base is still in its infancy. Therefore, schools need teachers to not just be

implementers of effective teaching strategies, but also innovators of strategies that

foster critical thinking.

2.0 Definition

By definition, administrative is defined as “relating to the management of a company,

school, or other organization” (Merriam Webster, 2014). Based on this definition,

there are several administrative tasks that require participation from most teachers

so that the school can function to serve its purpose. These administrative tasks,

among a few, include:

a) Collecting money from pupils and parents. A designated member of the

office staff should be responsible for receiving and recording money.

b) Investigating a pupil's absence. Teachers will need to inform the relevant

member of staff when a pupil is absent from a class, but they should not

have to telephone pupils' homes, for example).

c) Bulk photocopying for whole class use.

d) Typing or making word-processed versions of manuscript materials and

producing revisions of such versions especially during school and panel

meetings.

e) Word processing, copying and distributing bulk communications, including

standard letters, to parents and pupils.

Management on the other hand is defined as “the act or skill of controlling and

making decisions about a business, department, sports team, etc.” (Merriam

Webster, 2014). Effective task management requires managing all aspects of a task,

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including its status, priority, time, human and financial resources assignments,

recurrency, notifications and so on. These can be lumped together broadly into the

basic activities of task management (Wikipedia, 2014).

According to Kelly (2014), in schools, the management tasks that require

teachers’ participation and contributions include:

a) Meeting Professional Obligations:

Every teacher must meet certain professional obligations depending on their

school, their district, their state, and their area of certification. These

obligations might range from something as mundane as hall duty during their

planning period to something more time consuming like participating in

professional development opportunities required to get recertified. Further,

teachers might be asked to sponsor a club or chair a school committee. All of

these require a teacher's time and are a required part of a teaching career.

b) Assessing Student Learning:

All instruction should be built around assessments. When a teacher sits down

to develop a lesson, they should begin by determining how they will measure

whether the students learned what they were trying to teach. While the

instruction is the meat of the course, the assessments are the measure of

success. Therefore, it is important that teachers spend some time creating

and refining valid assessments for their students.

c) Housekeeping and Recordkeeping Tasks:

For many teachers this is the most annoying part of teaching. Time has to be

spent taking attendance, recording grades, and following through on all

necessary housekeeping and recordkeeping tasks. The way that a teacher

handles these tasks says a lot about their classroom organization skills. With

effective and easy-to-use systems in place, teachers will be able to spend

more time focusing on actually instructing and interacting with their students.

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d) Managing Student Conduct:

Many new teachers find that this are of teaching is what scares them the

most. However, a couple of tools if properly used can really help you create

an effective classroom management policy. These tools include posted rules

combined with a posted discipline policy all of which are consistently and fairly

enforced. If you are not fair or do not follow through with your posted policies,

you will have a very hard time keeping a well-managed classroom.

3.0 Administrative and Management Task: Secretary of Parents and

Teachers Association

As a teacher, the involvement in administrative and management tasks is

important as they nurture professional development skills along the process.

Therefore, it can be said that it is a compulsory experience that differentiate an

employee from one to another. It adds the value to our yearly evaluation by the

administrations as an extra element beside our key performance index. In school, we

teachers are also given an abundance of these tasks to be performed alongside our

professional core business, which is teaching.

The administrative and management task that I will discuss in this section is

the Secretary of Parents and Teachers Association (SPTA). There are a few smaller

tasks that needed to be performed by SPTA. There are:

1. Organizing files

Basically, there are two big files that are needed to be organized by SPTA.

These files are labelled as “Minutes of Meeting” and “Others” which includes all

letters from PPD and JPN as well as other book programs related to PTA as a

whole. The process of organizing files can be very difficult. This is due to the fact that

documents after documents keep coming in from everywhere. Having a more

manageable file system is beneficial to both the society and also the school

administrations. It is helpful when we need access to the information at hand. There

are a few steps that involved in organizing files:

a) Determine where the documents should be kept. For example, the letters from

the PPD and JPN or any other places should be kept in the “Others” file so

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that everything that comes from these sources is easily accessible whenever

needed.

b) Gather all documents of the same purpose of nature in the same file. This is

almost similar to the explanation above. However, this may also include other

documents such as from any workshops, seminars or book programs.

c) Sort the information or files. This also includes files in my laptop. As a SPTA, I

need to issue a lot of letters to parents, schools, PPD, JPN or even the

surrounding societies. Therefore, if the documents are not sorted accordingly,

I may have to re-do almost every letters every time they are needed.

2. Organizing Management Meetings

Management meetings must be organized regularly so that the members of

the PTA are informative and know exactly what is going on within the school ground.

The meetings are the best platform to keep them informative and at the same time to

exchange information and views on how to help the school develop form time to

time.

Basically, the management meetings should be organized at least 4 times a

year depending on the necessity and programs. Most organizations use meetings in

the course of their work, and these meetings can be successful or unsuccessful,

depending on whether they are managed properly. Managers must learn to properly

organize and conduct meetings to contribute to organizational effectiveness. There

some preparations that need to be done before a meeting can take place. They are:

a) Issuing calling letters:

In order to organize successful meetings, SPTA must first issue a calling letter

to all members, including the teachers who are selected during the Annual Meeting.

This letter must be issued at a week from the meeting date. For this calling letter, the

SPTA can simply sign it as it does not involve any financial information.

b) Previous Minute Report:

It is always easier to provide a copy of the previous minute report attached

with the calling letter to all members prior to a meeting. This will give everyone

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concerned a little bit of time to complete their chores so that when the meeting is in

progress, they can report their progress.

Besides that, providing the minute report especially the one that contains

financial statement will give the members a room to study the flow and thus suggest

any methods to increase income or to ask for clarification as to where and how the

money have been spent.

3. Organizing Annual Meetings

There are a lot of processes involved in organizing annual meetings. These

processes are:

a) Organizing management meeting:

Before organizing an annual meeting, it is very important to have a

management meeting to discuss all issues that are still pending and needed to be

completed. Depending on the schools respective PTA rules and regulations, the

committee members may have to be reselected yearly or for every two years.

Reviews of programs and financial statement must be clarified so that when the

report is presented to all parents, they would understand how the PTA have spent

the money and how their children were benefitted from them.

The management meeting must be conducted at least twice before the event

took place. A week or a few days before the red letter day, all committee members

must report on their work progress and to see if any special attention or budget is still

needed for their part.

b) Deciding the figure to officiate the meeting:

It is very important for PTA to have someone influential in terms of politics,

supports towards the school or ability to aid the school financially to officiate the

annual meeting. In fact, their presence alone is an attraction for parents to come.

When we have such person coming to the school ground, the attendance will be

close to what is expected or even more, thus enabling the school to spread words or

information more accurately as these are the target audience that need to hear to

such information first hand.

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c) Preparing a work schedule and committee members:

To run a successful annual meeting, SPTA must organize a working schedule

and their committee members. The committee members must be formed earlier so

that they can function at the time needed.

d) Allocating budget:

Budget allocation is very important as the annual meeting is biggest event in

all PTA programs. It includes giving prizes to the officials, PTA committee members

and all pupils who display outstanding progress in both academic and sports

activities. Besides that, the allocation for refreshments, performance and set up

should be considered during the management meetings so that it can be included in

the overall budget that needs to be issued by the treasurer and at the same time to

be approved by the PTA members.

e) Preparing venue:

Usually, the annual meetings are conducted within the school ground. But,

there are also few exceptional where meetings are conducted outside. The venue

must be prepared in accordance to the ceremony so that speeches and the meetings

can both take place at the same place.

Therefore, the SPTA must ensure that the committee who are preparing the

venue able to provide every small detail that are crucial to run the event.

f) Refreshment::

Normally, the committee meetings will decide the budget allocated for each

person present at that time. If the committee agrees to have RM 3 per head, then the

treasurer will issue the amount needed so that the committee can make their

arrangements.

g) Prizes and Gifts:

The discussion on the prizes and gifts are made during the management meetings to

decide the budget and the items. Once approved, the committee in charge will start

to buy and prepare the presents, in terms of wrapping and giving them away for the

ceremony.

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4. Organizing Annual Programs

As PTA is the backbone to the school, it has its own annual programs that must run

in the course of that year. These programs although may be carried during different

time as to compared to the year before, but still have to be conducted. These

programs are both exclusive for PIBG or even conducted as join venture with the

school management:

a) Solat Hajat UPSR

b) Gotong Royong Perdana

c) Kem Motivasi UPSR

d) Hari Pelaporan

e) Hari Terbuka

f) Sukan Tahunan

g) Hari Kecemerlangan

h) Hari Permuafakatan

i) Program Lawatan Sambil Belajar

5. Dealing with Budget Allocation for School Development Programs

The school, from time to time, will ask a certain amount of money from the

PTA to support its programs. In order for the treasurer to issue the money, these

head of programs must present their official letters signed by the headmaster to the

SPTA. Once these letters are in the possession of the SPTA, he will need to bring

these letters to the attention of PTA members during the management meetings.

The management meetings will then decide the amount of money that can be

issued by the treasurer. For example, if the program asked for RM 250, the PTA

members will discuss it based on the current financial state. They may or may not

have the amount they asked. That amount must be recorded so that they will be

shown in the financial statement.

6. Organizing “SARANA IBU BAPA and SARANA SEKOLAH”

As SARANA is a new program developed by KPM, it involves a lot of

meetings, workshops and seminars. It also asked for online data that must be keyed

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in the JPN online portal according to a specific time. This will be under the

management of SPTA.

7. Organizing online records and data for PPD and JPN

Almost similar to the explanation above, the SPTA must, from time to time

present an online data to the PPD and JPN. This has nothing to do with SARANA,

but more to attendance records of every program as stated in the portal.

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4.0 Reflection

In strength wise, I have been holding the post as SPTA since March 2006.

From then, I have developed a well understanding on how to run the PTA efficiently

and effectively. Although there are times that I needed second opinions on how to

run the association, I still managed to complete them as I have a wonderful team of

teachers and PTA members who are willing to help me organizing any event in a

nick of time. In fact, during the first year, I was given a lot of coaching and guidance

by almost everyone so that I can get the job done right. It was truly a blessing for me,

because without everyone who always supports me, I wouldn’t be able to organize

any single event then and would still be crawling at this point.

The weakness that I do notice is that, I still do not have what it take to take my

school PTA to compete in district level or state level. As PTA is now have more

functions than what it used to be around 10 years ago, I should take the challenge to

bring recognition to both my school and PTA. It is, for a fact, will involve a lot of

preparations and supports, but I am more than sure that everyone around me will

always provide me a helping hand throughout everything.

In terms of acquiring knowledge and new skills, PTA has served me a lot of

professional development especially when dealing with parents. Parents, although

may seem friendly and easy going, can also be too critical at the same time. They

tend to find the teachers’ mistakes rather than confronting the right person to solve

their children’s’ problems. In fact, they could be way too defensive and may not

accept their faults or their children’s.

Lucky for me, while holding this post for as long as 8 years now, I now have

the advantages to talk during the annual meeting, where I can share my part of story

and share what it’s like in the classroom walls. Sometimes, parents would not

understand and tolerate their incompetence when we pin point them individually, but

as whole or in general, it is easier for them to take it.

I still hope that, this post will teach me more professional skill and help to

develop in the future. At first, I felt too reluctant to give it my all, but now I hope

nothing more than to continue holding the post for at least until I can bring

recognition to my school. It’s nothing fun especially with all the workload, but I do

enjoy myself as I knew I have instil professional growth along the way.

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5.0 Reference

Banilower (2002) ) in Gulamhussein (2013).Teaching the Teachers: At a Glance. Centre For Public Education. Retrieved on August 3rd, 2014 from http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/teachingtheteachers

Bland de la Alas and Smith, 2007; Carpenter et al., 1989; Cohen and Hill, 2001; Lieberman and Wood, 2001; Merek and Methven, 1991; Saxe, Gearhart, and Nasir, 2001; Wenglinksky, 2000; McGill-Franzen et al., 1999; Darling-Hammond et al., 2009 in Gulamhussein (2013).Teaching the Teachers: At a Glance. Centre For Public Education. Retrieved on August 3rd, 2014 from http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/teachingtheteachers

Bush (1984) ) in Gulamhussein (2013).Teaching the Teachers: At a Glance. Centre For Public Education. Retrieved on August 3rd, 2014 from http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/teachingtheteachers

Darling-Hammond et al. (2009) in Gulamhussein (2013).Teaching the Teachers: At a Glance. Centre For Public Education. Retrieved on August 3rd, 2014 from http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/teachingtheteachers

French (1997) ) in Gulamhussein (2013).Teaching the Teachers: At a Glance. Centre For Public Education. Retrieved on August 3rd, 2014 from http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/teachingtheteachers

Gay, G. (2000). Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, & Practice. New York: Teachers College Press.

Kelly (2014). Top 6 Teacher Tasks, What Teachers Do. Retrieved on August 5th, 2014 from http://712educators.about.com/od/teachingstrategies/tp/teaching_tasks.htm

Merriam Webster (2014). http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/managementWikipedia (2014). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task_management

Peery, 2002; Redding and Kamm, 1999; Dunn and Dunn, 1998 in Gulamhussein (2013).Teaching the Teachers: At a Glance. Centre For Public Education. Retrieved on August 3rd, 2014 from http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/teachingtheteachers

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http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/teachingtheteachers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task_management

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/management

http://712educators.about.com/od/teachingstrategies/tp/teaching_tasks.htm







Truesdale (2003) ) in Gulamhussein (2013).Teaching the Teachers: At a Glance. Centre For Public Education. Retrieved on August 3rd, 2014 from http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/teachingtheteachers

Yoon et al. (2007) ) in Gulamhussein (2013).Teaching the Teachers: At a Glance. Centre For Public Education. Retrieved on August 3rd, 2014 from http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/teachingtheteachers

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EDU 3083 Leadership and Professional Development of Teachers

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