Page 157 - The SpeakTeach method - Esther de Vrind
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principles of teacher’s self-evaluation and modularity. Both existing and innovative teaching approaches were presented in the same modules. This use of modularity enabled targeted self-evaluation and helped the teachers to see how to integrate the new teaching approach into their existing teaching practice. We conclude that this was successful, because the results in chapters 3 and 5 showed that almost all teachers did indeed integrate the teaching approach into their teaching practice.
In addition, in the same way that self-evaluation by students was one of the design principles to make the teaching approach adaptive and practical, self-evaluation by the teachers enabled the professional development trajectory to be tailored to the teachers’ needs as it provided information for both the teachers themselves and the facilitator of the professional development trajectory about what the teachers did, experienced, wished to achieve and which tailored input and activities were needed. Instead of prescribing a certain method and activities, the self-evaluation allowed facilitator and teacher to make decisions together about the necessary guidance, input and activities and what the next steps could be. Since teachers are likely to differ in their existing situations and their goals, the study assumed that there was a need for adaptive learning routes. The data from the study showed that the teachers did indeed start from different regular practices with regard to the three design principles of the adaptive teaching approach and did indeed have different goals or needs. We can conclude from the results that the principles of modularity in combination with teachers’ self-evaluation enabled all the teachers except one to follow different adaptive learning routes. Adaptive because, despite the differences in starting points, they were generally satisfied with the achievement of both the goals of the innovation and with the achievement of their other goals.
It would be interesting to observe and follow the teachers to see how they continue to use the three design principles of the adaptive teaching approach in their practice and to investigate whether the patterns in learning routes persist or change over the course of time in order to refine theory about teacher professional development.
In conclusion, this study adds a new pedagogy designed to support teachers in their professional development. Kennedy (2016a) distinguished four pedagogies for teachers’ professional development: providing prescriptions; providing strategies accompanied by a rationale that helps teachers understand when and why they should implement these strategies; providing insight and presenting a body of knowledge. The approach in this study
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