Many of the public and private sector
educational institutions in Giligit-Baltistan endeavor to contribute towards
the equity for education, to improve the quality and relevance of education within
the region. One of such institutions is Al-Mutaza Academy (AMA) which carries
out various
activities such as in-house sessions for the teachers, students, conduct parents’
meeting to mobilize them in school improvement process, on the job classroom
support and professional development trainings for teachers. In this accordance,
a teacher training for capacity building on national curriculum which was named
as “Summer Intensive Training Course on National Curriculum” was conducted for
AMA teachers.
The following sections of this piece
of writing comprises training course rationale, objectives, executive summary,
day wise planning followed by achievements, challenges and recommendations.
Teachers’ professional
development plays a vital role in school improvement to achieve the aims and objectives
of any educational organization. There are many ways that educational organizations
carry out programmes to provide opportunities for the professional development
of their staff. One of the strategies to develop teachers professionally is
conducting training programmes for the teachers. This training was designed to
provide teachers of AMA with an opportunity for their professional growth. The teachers in AMA needed the support on
methodological side through an intensive training. It was found when a needs
analysis was conducted. Thus it was decided to conduct training on national
curriculum and SLOs based teaching approach.
The objectives of this Training
Course were:
·
Providing teachers with basic Knowledge and
understanding of national curriculum
·
Providing an opportunity to learn to apply SLOs
based teaching approach
·
Developing their pedagogical skills and prepare
them for implementing their learning in their context
·
Equip teacher with teaching survival skills such
communication, presentation and reflective writing skills.
A six days’ professional
development training course was conducted on national curriculum and SLO based
teaching. This whole process was started from a needs analysis to answer the
genuine call on teachers’ part. Then another phase was started to plan for the
whole training in form of a training manual which took four days. After that
the execution of training was carried out followed by training evaluation
phase. The subsequent sections of this report contain a detailed account on the
execution and evaluation phase which left a strong impact on teachers’ professional
development.
Day 01: On the very beginning day the training was started
with an opening ceremony where Head, Finance chaired the programme and provided
messages regarding the importance of the training. Principal shared the whole
background of the organization of the training and emphasized CPs to take maximum
benefits from the training. Then training consultant said welcome to guests and
CPs followed by sharing the objectives of the training.
It is to be shared that there
were two types of trainings commenced one for subject teachers and one for ECD
teachers but the first day was planned combined to be conducted.
Before going into the formal
sessions of the training, CFs developed norms for the training sessions followed
by a pre-test for training evaluation purpose. After that a session was taken
on reflective practice for professional development. Due to unavailability of
electricity to have a multimedia presentation, another theme namely multiple intelligences
(MI) was addressed thinking its application and importance in classroom
teaching. Then professional standards for teachers under national curriculum
were discussed. At the end of the day, sessions of the whole day were recapped
and assigned a home task to CPs.
Day 02: The session on second day of the training started
from recitation of the holy Quran. Then reflections on previous day’s sessions
were shared followed by CF’s feedback. Unit planning and analysis of textbook
were planned themes of the day to be addressed. CPs were involved in group,
pair and individual activities. CPs were given the opportunities to present
their productive work with the whole class and receive feedback. CPs developed
unit plans of their own subject areas for teaching in next semester looking at
the SLOs A short session on setting specific objectives for lesson planning was
conducted where CPs were supported to apply Performance Condition and Criteria
(PCC) model for setting objectives. CPs were assigned tasks to set some
specific objectives as samples and they shared with the whole class. CF then
provided feedback to reinforce CPs’ learning.
Day 03: Child protection policy (CPP) is an important
segment of any type of teachers’ training. On day three along with the lesson
planning and students’ learning outcomes (SLOs), a session on child protection
policy was conducted. Luckily there were many mothers to get the progress cards
of their children. They were also invited to attend the session which was much
relevant to them as well. Mothers and teachers at the end of the session
reflected that we were unaware of the rights of the children. Now an onward
they will be ensuring to keep children protection. Other sessions were on
lesson planning and students’ learning outcomes. CPs were given individual task
to review the students learning outcomes given in the national curriculum. Then
they were assigned to develop lesson plans under students’ learning outcomes
(SLOs). By the end of the session CPs presented their productive work after practice.
Day 04: The sessions on day four were started as usual
from the recitation and reflective sharing. Themes covered were classroom management
and demonstration of lessons under CPs developed unit planning. CPs were
provided with opportunities to read and discuss dimensions of classroom management
in pairs. They prepared presentations and delivered with the whole class followed
by CF and CPs feedback to reinforce new learning. Then CPs were assigned tasks
to design lesson plans and deliver demonstration lesson for 15 to 20 minutes
time. After each individual demonstration lesson CPs reflected on teaching and
CF provided feedback to improve the need improvement areas.
Day 05: Home work is mostly debatable aspect of educational
process in every educational organization. Although it was planned to be
addressed on day 06 but there was little change in training plan on demand of
the CPs. A detailed presentation was delivered by CF on “what, why and how”
about home work. CPs were assigned a task to set realistic, creative and challenging
home work for students in their subject areas. Then they shared their developed
home work which was critically reflected by CF and CPs. Second session was
about demonstration lessons on the basis of unit planning developed under
national curriculum. CPs delivered demo lessons while CF and other CPs critiqued
and provided feedback.
Day 06: It was the last day of the training started with
the recitation followed by reflection sharing by CPs. After that a session was
conducted on communication skills and its importance in classroom teaching.
Seven Cs related to communication skills were addressed. Then another session
on assessment process in teaching and learning was come under discussion
through a multimedia presentation. CPs were oriented with various assessment
techniques and tools to assess students’ learning in classroom.
Then training was switched to its
evaluation phase. A post test was conducted to measure the change took place
among the CPs before the training and after the training. A training evaluation
tool (TET) was filled by the CPs regarding the effectiveness of the
training.
A short combined closing ceremony
for both the trainings was organized where CPs and CFs shared their reflection
on the whole process of the training. Key note messages were exchanged by CPs
and CFs regarding the application of the learning during training in actual
classrooms for professional development of teachers and school improvement.
Analysis of TET: training
evaluation tool (TET) contained nine indicators to see the effectiveness of the
training through a Likert scale of 1 to 5 showing a continuum of strongly
disagree to strongly agree respectively.
On relevancy and appropriateness
of the content covered during the training, CPs responded a high level of agreement
as 1 out of 9 (11%) responded in strong agreement while 8 out of 9 (89%)
responded as agreement.
33 percent CPs showed strong]]ly
agreement and 56 percent showed agreement on clarity of training course instruction.
Appropriateness of learning
material was given a rat of 33 percent (3 out of 9) on strongly agreement, 22
percent (2 out of 9) on agreement while 33 percent (3 out of 9) on uncertain
and 11 percent (1 out of 9) rated on disagreement.
An indicator regarding the
stimulating learning activities was gauged by CPs as 2 0ut of 9 (22%) in strong
agreement, 3 out of 9 (33%) in agreement while 4 out of 9 (44%) in uncertain.
Course facilitator’s presentation
skills, knowledge and command over content responded with a very high level of
strong agreement as 7 out of 9 (78%) and with agreement of 2 out of 9 (22%).
Regarding conducive learning
environment during training, 44 percent showed strong agreement, 44 percent
agreement and 11 percent showed uncertain.
4 out of 9 (44%) responses were
on strong agreement and same responses on agreement were found while 1 out of 9
(11%) on CPs’ participation in learning activities during the training sessions.
For the duration of training 33
percent CPs showed strong agreement and 11 percent showed agreement while 56
percent remained neutral.
During the sessions 100%
attendance of the CPs was found through the training courses. It meant that a
high level of commitment among the CPs for their professional development was
achieved.
One of the CPs in an informal
conversation said, “Once there was a delegation of AKU-EB board visited school and
they asked us about national curriculum and we were surprised of what was that.
We searched in library books and could not found and confused. Now we got
familiarity with national curriculum particularly SLOs”.
It was first time that a formal
training has been conducted on national curriculum for teachers I have seen
ever and that is very much important for teachers to understand the standards
of teachers.
There was an encouraging positive
variation from +5 to +14 (20% to 56%) found between the CPs’ scores of pre and
post test (see the Comparison sheet given above).
Analysis of the TETs filled by
CPs showed a high level of agreement to the effectiveness of the training as
most of the CPs rated highly on most of the indicators about training
evaluation.
The following challenges were
encountered during the training course;
Due to the month of the Ramadan,
timing was kept short being insufficient for addressing the content in the required
depth of understanding level for CPs.
Some of the CPs were feeding
mothers, due to which they some times needed to feed their children missing important
segments of the sessions. Thus it was a challenge for them as well as CFs.
Skewed level of understanding of
the themes under discussed among the CPs remained a challenge for CFs to implement
the learning activities as planned.
Communication skills among some
of the CPs particularly in target language, was a challenge during the presentations
in fixed timings.
On the basis of understanding,
analysis, findings and discussions about the process of training course,
following are some of the recommendations made for bringing about changes in
the school organization;
·
Such type of trainings/workshops and refresher
courses need to be conducted frequently so that the teachers may be timely
supported in real direction of their professional development.
·
An intensive training needs to be conducted on
content (subject matter) in different subject areas.
·
Follow up of CPs’ application of their developed
unit plans on the basis of SLOs needs be carried on to improve teaching and
learning in classroom.
·
CPs need to be supported on keeping reflective
practices on daily basis to help them becoming reflective practitioners.