Teacher abilities and enthusiasm both are important

 

Teacher abilities and enthusiasm both are important

(even though many educational systems pretend they aren't).

 Teachers must teach successfully in order for pupils to learn, but many educational systems pay little attention to what teachers know or do in the classroom. Focusing on the abilities and motivation of teachers can pay handsomely.

 After prepared and motivated students, the most important component of learning is equipped and motivated teachers. Teachers are also the most expensive budget item, with salaries accounting for more than three-quarters of the primary education budget in low- and middle-income nations.

Despite this, many educational institutions place teachers in classes who have limited knowledge of the subjects they are supposed to teach, particularly in classrooms serving disadvantaged children.

Most teachers participate in some form of professional development once they are hired, but much of it is inconsistent and overly theoretical. Meanwhile, many school systems lack appropriate mentorship and motivational methods for teachers.

Models of human behavior can provide light on such shortcomings while also pointing to potential solutions.

Three ideas emerge from a review of the research in these areas as crucial to achieving learning success through teachers:

• Teacher training must be personally focused and repeated, with follow-up coaching, frequently around a specific pedagogical technique, in order to be effective.

• To avoid learners falling behind to the point where they are unable to catch up, instruction should be tailored to the student's level.

 • If the incentivized behaviors are within teachers' capacity and failure to do those actions has hampered learning, increasing teacher motivation with incentives can improve learning. The majority of teacher education is ineffective, but certain ways do succeed. In-service professional development takes a lot of time and money.

According to a survey of 38 developed and developing nations, 91% of teachers have taken part in professional development in the preceding year. In the recent decade, two-thirds of World Bank initiatives with an education component included teacher professional development. Developing countries spend millions of dollars each year to improve teacher training. However, much teacher professional development gets untested, and much of it could be unproductive. Professional development in the United States has been described as "episodic, myopic, and often useless" by a group of US teacher training professionals. Teacher education in low- and middle-income nations is frequently inadequate. Many countries run multiple training programs at the same time, often dozens, with little to show for it.

Though pre-service teacher education is vital for imparting basic skills, there is conflicting information regarding teacher training credentials. Much of the scarce research on teacher qualifications, mostly from high-income nations, suggests that they have no or very minor effects on student learning. Simple statistical connections across francophone Africa imply a favorable relationship between teacher preparation and student performance, but other factors, such as selective placement of good teachers in attractive areas, could drive that relationship (where students would perform well in any case). It is critical to properly prepare teachers, but the political economy problems may be larger than in-service training, and the evidence is weak.

The same ideas that contribute to good in-service training can be used to improve pre-service training as well. Is in-service training or professional development a viable option? Yes, without a doubt. High-income countries' experience suggests that pragmatism, specificity, and consistency are essential for effective teacher professional development.  Teachers are taught in practical approaches rather than theoretical notions, and the training takes place in the classroom.

Teacher education programs that teach pedagogy particular to a subject area are the most effective (say, how to effectively teach a mathematics class). Continuity refers to teachers receiving ongoing help rather than one-time sessions. The addition of follow-up visits in school in teacher training programs leads to higher learning gains.

Developing countries should make better use of follow-up visits in which trainers monitor and support teachers in the classroom to bridge the gap between learning new approaches in training and putting them into practice. In Africa, a variety of long-term teacher mentorship and coaching programs have demonstrated significant learning outcomes. In India, a program that gave instructors limited initial training but continued to support them throughout the year greatly improved math and language abilities, with the biggest gains going to pupils who were struggling at the start. Teachers in Shanghai, China, participate in continuous Teaching-Research Groups, which provide development, mentoring, and peer evaluation based on classroom observation, and where performance is good by worldwide standards.

Similarly, training that is linked to a certain pedagogical style is more effective. Programs that teach a specific pedagogical style have more than double the influence on educational interventions in the United States than programmes that focus on broad pedagogy. Low-skilled teachers, who may lack the ability to be effective even when motivated, require specific coaching on a global scale. In situations where teachers have inadequate skills, this may entail delivering heavily scripted lesson plans that outline concrete procedures for teachers. Many countries would argue that delivering high-quality in-service professional development at scale—repeated, with follow-up visits in school, frequently around a specific technique—is out of their budget. Teachers, on the other hand, will not learn unless they are taught well.

If a country is faced with this dilemma, it may be better to give high-quality training in stages rather than ineffective teaching to all at once. It has been established that assisting teachers in teaching at the student's level is effective. Only pupils who begin at the highest levels of learning may be able to continue learning in many countries experiencing a learning crisis. This is partly due to the fact that teachers prefer to instruct the most advanced students in a class. These are the easiest pupils to educate, and when teachers ask for answers, the high achievers are the ones who are most likely to volunteer them. This leaves the pupils who came to class with less information behind.

Another reason why many students fall behind is that the curriculum in many countries is simply too demanding. Even when pupils are struggling to keep up, teachers feel compelled to teach to the curriculum. Helping teachers educate to the level of their pupils is a critical principle in leaving no learner behind. This method has been successful in a variety of settings, including deploying community teachers to deliver remedial lessons to the lowest performers, restructuring classes by ability, and adapting teaching using technology. It often does not necessitate a large increase in teaching effort, but rather relies on class reorganization or remedial instruction for the lowest performers.