Professional Development

4. Professional Development

While in American universities researchers had already started working on the professional development of teachers working in tertiary education in the 1960s, in the European Union it was the establishment of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and the increased attention to quality teaching that resulted in supporting the professional development of teachers working in tertiary education. As a result of the increase in the status of teaching, a series of research was begun with the aim of exploring the defining characteristics of

183 excellent education and working out the models and programs of effective development.

The metaphor of ages in the work of Sorcinelli et al (2006) gives a graphic description of the changes in both the views on the professional development of teachers as well as in international practices which happened in the last few decades. According to this metaphor, the time period starting with the 1960s was named the Age of The Scholar, in which developmental efforts were directed at perfecting the knowledge and skills of successful scholars. In the 1970s, during the expansion of tertiary education, the universities in the United States of America found themselves facing a large and diverse student population which signalled the beginning of the Age of The Teacher, in which the goals were slowly shifted more towards developing skills and abilities related to teaching.

The strengthening of student activity could be felt both on the level of teaching and learning: students wanted more control over defining the quality of teaching, because of which student assessments on the work and performance of teachers appeared.

Rethinking of teaching roles and tasks were foregrounded and the previously established behaviourist approach in studying the process of learning and teaching was superseded by an approach that emphasized the development of teaching skills and abilities. This was the time period in which so called centres or units were established, which operated with an independent staff and budget in an institutionalized framework, seeking to develop the teaching profession and increase the quality of teaching and learning. Creating these units at the universities served multiple purposes: it gave a formal framework to the developmental work and research done in the field, acknowledged the study of the quality of learning and teaching as important by officially turning it into a topic of discourse, and last but not least, it legitimated the continuous and diverse efforts to develop the quality of learning and teaching. Alongside cost reductions and retrenchments came program developments and the Age of The Developer in the 1980s, in which a more holistic developmental activity was outlined. This period not only answered personal needs but extended to the entire institution, resulting in complex programs and support systems for the faculty. The 1990s brought significant changes in higher education: the Age of The Learner came due to the rise of the learner-centred paradigm, which included teachers capable of learning and organizations capable of professional development. The realization that ensuring teachers' professional development was a key issue in educational excellence resulted in the establishment of teaching development programs and various forms of supporting and incentive systems at foreign universities. After the turn of the millennium, in the age of knowledge, there came new expectations of higher education and university teachers which they could only answer with the aid of communities and knowledge created within these communities. Diverse and rich systems supporting and encouraging educational development were formed under the aegis of collaborative learning: due to a joint initiative among universities, professional groups, online systems supporting education, and portals for sharing experiences were created in the last decade

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which rewrites our knowledge on previous developmental models and practices. This period, the one in which we live, is the Age of The Network.

The programs and activities that support and give incentive to the development of the quality of learning and teaching, that support the professional learning and development of teachers, along with the work of organizational units are uniformly called educational development in the profession (Kay - Douglas, 2010). The difference between professional development and support is illustrated by the change in the orientation and content of so-called developmental activities: initially the explicit development of those skills and abilities that are related to teaching were of central importance, which people sought to realize within the framework of classic training.

There are numerous models for the support of professional learning in which the support of learning and community-based formations and feedback are increasingly emphasized. In the division of Vescio et al (2008) the communities supporting professional learning have four definitive elements:

- successful cooperation

- positioning the learning processes of students in the centre - the continuous learning/education of teachers

- teachers' authority (decisions about the curriculum, decisions about their own learning processes)

More complex and modern interpretations of professional learning and programs and forms of support that foregrounded the encouragement of individual development were created at the same time. They heavily relied upon individual needs and took the characteristics of work-place learning into consideration. This approach is well-illustrated by Candy (1996) with the CAREER-model, which interprets personal development within the framework of a learning organization – unlike economic organizations which rely on the deficit-model to even out the knowledge and competence shortcomings of their employees. According to the CAREER-model, professional support must have the following characteristics in tertiary education:

C – (comprehensive) – it should be comprehensive and should cover all aspects of the teaching-researching role

A – (anticipatory) – it is anticipatory rather than reacting to already existing problems R – (research-based) – theoretically grounded and based on research results

E – (exemplary) – brings exemplary samples from the methodologies of teaching and learning organization

E – (embedded) – it is embedded within an institutional culture and context R – (reflective) – it is reflective and also encourages reflection

185 5. Incentives for the Professional Development of Doctoral Students: Points of View and Forms of Support

The diverse interpretations and research experiences of the identity-formation and professional socialization of doctoral students point out, as we noted in previous sections, that their professional/pedagogical support needs to be worked out and realized in complex ways, going beyond the classic understanding of the system of formal education and trainings that develop their teaching skills and abilities.

Mathieson (2011) suggests the socio-cultural approach in working out programs to support junior teachers, keeping in mind the supportive but often inhibitory factors of their cultural surroundings, which support professional identity formation in a complex way. Consciously dealing with the diverse cultural effects of institutions and disciplines relies on those professional socialization models in which one does not only passively receive and reproduce professional expectations, rules and behaviours but critically interprets and constructively changes them. In other words, one of the expectations towards professional support programs is to ensure that participating junior teachers and doctoral students have the opportunity to express their personal opinions and explain the effects of expectations and diverse environmental factors on their professional development. From this perspective of the professional commitment, views regarding learning and teaching, and behaviour repertoire of junior teachers develops and changes through intensive professional identity work. The process and results of work-place learning occur in latent form and making them explicit enables the teacher to pro-actively network with their surroundings and meaningfully process contradictions.

Simmons (2011) arrives at similar conclusions in her research, in which she studied the development of interpretations regarding the teaching role among junior teachers and doctoral students. The doctoral programs primarily consider professional development worthy of support in terms of preparing students for researching while preparation to become teachers is secondary. And due to a lack of formal education, this preparation happens within the framework of the socio-cultural specificity of the institution while performing concrete tasks. The supportive role of professional communities and continuous reflection on individual developmental processes might present real solutions to dealing with anxieties; fears and overburdening that go hand in hand with carrying out teaching tasks. Simmons identifies five stages in the formation of the identity of teachers which reflect the first five years of practical experiences. The different stages can be characterised by different focuses and coping strategies and as a result require different forms of support.

- survival period (< 1 year): forming ideas about teaching, striving for content accuracy and preoccupation with the instrumental aspects of teaching

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- safety (1 year): ensures sense of security regarding education with thorough preparation, teaching is less and less frightening

- sense of belonging (1-2 years): focus shifts from the teacher to the students, capable of more complex thoughts tasks related to teaching

- period of self-esteem (2-4 years): sensing their own role and effect on students and in the teaching process

- self-actualization (>5 years): capable of reflective assessment of own developmental process and capable of developing their performance

Each phase follows Maslow's hierarchy of needs, interpreting the needs that arise for teaching roles and activities in a complex way. The structure outlined above gives concrete pointers to working out personalized professional support for junior teachers. For teachers struggling with initial uncertainties concrete and very specific assistance might be effective, while in the case of more experienced teachers paying attention to the students or reflective techniques might bring reassuring results.

Research results confirm that one of the most successful forms of professional support that responds to individual needs is mentoring (Remmik et al. 2011). A mentor can give emotional and psychological support and the mentor-trainee relationship not only dissolvesone's sense of isolation but the trainee can also strengthen self-efficacy, develop self-reflective and problem-solving abilities, and with a mentor who can supply outside points of view in difficult situations one's satisfaction with work can increase as well. The mentor also has an important role in terms of professional socialization, supplying their personal explanation of the cultural customs and expectations of the given institution and community. In other words, in different problem situations there is a possibility for a professional discourse, in which the junior teacher or doctoral student can shape his or her own professional identity along the lines of continuous feedback. Remmik et al. highlighted as a result of their study the fact that junior teachers get support for their professional learning and for performing their learning organization tasks primarily through the informal relationships in their workplace communities. Because of this, the presence or lack of support, as well as its quality, are significantly influenced by the characteristics of the relationships within the community – in other words, they are influenced by the junior teacher's ability to ask for help.

In addition to informal forms of support, the programs in formal frameworks provide diverse and rich opportunities to encourage professional learning. Pill (2005) identified four models of professional support for junior teachers in her study of professional programs at English universities:

- reflective practitioner: supports the connection of theory and practice in professional development

187 - action research: professional development that is linked to researching can provide a

sufficient basis for expert academic knowledge

- from being a beginner to becoming an expert: supports the different forms of encouraging the learning process depending on practical experience

- metacognitive approaches: conscious development of different areas of professional knowledge: (self-knowledge, co-knowledge, skills etc.)

Those programs that support reflectivity and metacognitive awareness can help in making one's professional views and knowledge explicit, thereby having an impact on one's professional practices. Practices become the object of analysis in action researches and during the process of becoming an expert. The expected effects are the formation and development of professional knowledge. Those professional development-concepts that form the basis of programs can be grouped along the lines of another dimension: in supporting reflectivity and becoming an expert making things explicit often works with those preliminary knowledge elements and naïve views that cannot be explained so well with the concepts of professional knowledge. As opposed to this, action research and metacognitive approaches either builds on already existing academic and professional knowledge or on their formation. Based on interviews with seniors, the frequency and quality realization of the enumerated models in professional programs were influenced by a number of factors:

the expectations of institutions towards the professional programs, the commitment and professional development-related views of the leader of the unit that is in charge of the professional support programs, and the success of previous programs (Pill, 2005).

However, the adaptation of each model needs to keep in mind the reaction to the given institutional and individuals needs.