article reflection: standard 6
Post on 10-Dec-2015
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Kennedy, Aileen and Clinton, Colleen (2009)’Identifying the professional development needs of
early career teachers in Scotland using nominal group technique’, Teacher Development, 13:1,29
– 41
This article talked about a study done in Scotland that focused on professional
development in the early stages of ones teaching career. The nominal group technique (NGT)
was used to pin point the needs to teachers in years 2 – 6 of their career. The nominal group
technique is a problem solving process that starts with identifying the problem, making
generalizations, and then making a decision. The process of the NGT was to interview teachers
that fall into the year range (2 – 6) and gather information on their needs for professional
development. After all group interviews were complete an analysis was done first compiling a
list of ‘nodes’, or categories and then the categories were ranked basked on top five priority. The
research showed that the professional development done by teachers in early stages of their
career needed to be more collaborative based with encouragement in engaging with colleagues.
As I was picking what article to read I was drawn to this one based on the topic alone. At
my school we are constantly attending mandatory professional development trainings and I
almost feel that I am wasting my time. The findings in this study discussed in the paper tend to
reflect the opinions of myself and some of my colleagues who are just now in our second and
third years of teaching. I agree with the comments of the teachers interviewed regarding the
professional development not meeting their particular needs. In my personal opinion I would
rank the nodes a little differently, however I found that most everything on the list would be
beneficial to me at some point in my career. The main node that stood out to me, that has yet to
happen since I started teaching in 2011, is the subject based professional development. I would
love to attend mandatory trainings to grow in my subject field, as it is not a common one
throughout our school. In my own personal rankings of the nodes identified in this article, I
would place planning in my top priority. Lesson design and unit planning is a big deal at my
school right now so it falls on a higher level of importance. A CPD as the article calls it, on our
schools design model, which is very similar to the design model in our Chapter 1 reading, would
not only beneficial to myself but also beneficial to my colleagues that have been in their teaching
career a lot longer than myself. Overall, I appreciated this article due to the simple fact that it
focused on what a teacher needs in their profession rather than what someone else of power
wants them to do.
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