Teacher Development
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Introduction
Welcome to Module 6!
In this module, whether you view yourself as a ‘lecturer’ or as a ‘teacher’, we’ll focus on various ways by which you can continue to develop your skills and knowledge as an educator. You may feel that the most effective ways to develop your effectiveness as an educator are to complete training courses (such as this one 😊), attend workshops and conferences, or even complete further post-graduate study. These are all effective approaches; however, the time or expense they often involve can make them prohibitive.
In this module, you’ll be introduced to a variety of other less time demanding and/or less costly methods by which you can continue honing and refining your skills as an educatoroptions for your continued professional development.
Completing this module will help you to:
- gain knowledge of several alternative pathways to continued professional development, including reflective practice, practitioner/action research, and team teaching.
- gain insights into the benefits of collaboration, both with those in your own field and those in other fields.
- make principled decisions when evaluating which particular approaches to continued professional development match your particular needs and the resources you have available.
During the module you will hear from:
Dr. Jim McKinley from University College London, the UK, who will discuss:
- reflective practice.
- action research.
- adopting a case study approach.
Dr. Steve Walsh from Newcastle University, the UK, who will:
- discuss the features of classroom interaction and his framework for analysing teacher talk. It is Self Evaluation of Teacher Talk (SETT).
An interview between Dr Nurmala Simbolon and Dwi Kartikasari will:
- discuss the importance of collaboration between English language and subject specialists in EMI programs.
Glossary of key terms
Before continuing with the module, you may find it useful to familiarise yourself with the following key terms.
| Action research | A cycle of classroom-based research involving observing, reflecting and identifying a problem, planning and collecting data on a problem, and acting on this, all in order to improve practice. |
| A case study | Similar to action research but with the focus on investigating the problem (rather than acting on it in an intervention). |
| Narratives | Short stories of your life e.g., as an EAP or EMI teacher; reflecting on these can give more insights for example into your practice, and identity. |
| Initiation Response Feedback (IRF) | Questions where students show or display knowledge (you typically know the answer, e.g., ‘what is the answer to question’ 1). |
| Display questions | Questions where students show or display knowledge (you typically know the answer, e.g., ‘what is the answer to question’ 1?’). |
| Referential questions | Questions where you do not typically know the response will be; asked to get greater or new understanding , e.g., what did you find challenging when reading that article? |
| Mode | A specific section of a lesson/class with a specific pedagogic (learning) aim and interactional features. The language used in each varies. E.g., checking instructions compared to classroom discussions. |
We hope you enjoy the module!
Module content
Discussion forum
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