Making Sense of Teacher In-Service Training in the Philippines

• In Event: Cultivating dynamic educators: case studies in teacher behavior change in Africa and Asia

Proposal

In this chapter we discuss teacher professional development and teacher change in the context of the Basa Pilipinas (Read Philippines) program (referred to as Basa in this chapter). Basa is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC). Data presented in this paper were drawn primarily from the program’s research component aimed at measuring teacher improvement. The central argument is based on the hypothesis that teachers are a key mediator in influencing pupil achievement. The conceptual theory of change posits that undergirding classroom instruction are inputs controlled at the macro level of the school system, be it at the national, regional, or district level. ese inputs, over which teachers usually have little control, include (1) educational policy, leadership, and supervision; (2) standards and benchmarks; (3) curriculum; and (4) opportunities for professional development. The mediator between these macro-level policies and structures (inputs) and pupil literacy achievement (outputs) is ultimately the actual instruction that teachers deliver, and pupils receive (processes). Teachers enact curricular and instructional goals and objectives in the classroom daily, and the quality of this enactment is associated with pupil gains. To build teachers’ capacity to adopt new teaching practices, new models for what effective literacy instruction “looks like” are essential. Although effective teaching practices are readily identifiable and can be taught explicitly to teachers, all teachers need guidance on how to enact new instructional strategies in their own classrooms. This presentation uses Desimoine’s (2011) framework of five key features for professional development workshops in literacy instruction: Content Focus, Active Learning, Coherence, Duration, Collective Participation. The presentation describes how the Basa program—which showed measurable gains in teacher competency and student achievement—integrated these five components into professional development opportunities. The measurement of teacher capacity was achieved through a custom classroom observation tool (SCOPE). The key message is that effective professional development can be thought of as a three-legged stool: Face-to-face training, teaching and learning materials for both students and teachers, and ongoing support are the three legs. The legs on the stool are mutually supportive. If one leg is removed, the stool is not stable. All three combine to encourage teacher behavior change and student improvements in literacy achievement.

Authors

• Nancy Clark-Chiarelli, Education Development Center (EDC)

• Bonita Cabiles, University of Melbourne