Educators CPD Dilemmas and Challenges

Ene-Silvia Sarv, Viive-Riina Ruus

Cadiz 18.-21.Sept. 2012

NW 1 Continuing Professional Development: Learning for Individuals, Leaders, and Organisations

Schools once set the information agenda, although that term was not used, while home and church set the moral agenda. Now the cultural agenda is set electronically. Schools and even homes seem to have become part of the counter- culture, the resistance, fighting back with a declining share of the action. Barry O. Jones

The background
transition from the industrial to the post- industrial state,
Education integral part of culture => integral part of economy . Neoliberal . Globalisation (Europeanisation) economical and culturaltechnological areas. (NB Estonia as 10th by globalisation index) Are the education, teacher education and CPD 20/21 a failure? Was the post-modernist moment a fore-sign of neo-liberal crises of 21st?

Some theoretical considerations driven out from practice

Revolutionary (?) changes in educational reality
E-learning/teaching Tablet- and e-books E-school Life-long learning
for teachers for students

Nonformal educational e-environment, incl multilinguage practices

Controversies
Rhetoric sounds right -- deeds might be quite opposite E-environmental diversities, freedom, multi-sources -organisation of knowledge into systems of knowledge (need for new qualities of personal knowledge management) Decentralised centralisation in education, incl. a great part of CPD Norming (official and hidden) versus research and knowledge based development, dynamic Acnowledged need for research of SPD etc versus nonfinancing

Research questions
how teachers, schools and the local educational society were and are really involved in CPD, especially research based teaching-learning and development of a curriculum how CPD was and is organised and regulated on state level both by content and by financing (incl mentoring) educators involvement and cooperation in and between schools, universities, NGOs, educational enterprises, governmental organs as well as other stakeholders and interest groups.

Sources and perspectives of research and action

No project financing => alternative ways
Documents Students (pedagogical field)
As source of information As researchers - accomplishing co-operative mini-research as part of learning process (science and philosophy of education) As researchers master work

Main problem unified and strict method and methodology in combination of students initiative and degree of freedom

Models of CPD
Late (up to end of 1980s)
Life-long learning: system of 5-year cycle + short courses on actual themes. Ca < 90% involvement.

Contemporary
Chaotic - depends on trends, trainers abilities and popularity, will of teacher/headmaster not of educational/andragogical needs; training for stateexams. ca 30% involvement.

Desired /needed CPD

Co-operation of life-long system and personal interests and needs. Full involvement

New areas of CPD

Methods of e-learning (e-modulas for independent or group learning) Methods of collective/team knowledge creation and knowledge management
Organisational bees (mysletoloki/mttetalgud) Rotators, other methods of organisation of thinking processes with intense reflection

Synthesised methods: different combinations of eenvironments + organisational bees (etc) + pedagogical or educational-political knowledge creation simulations or practical outcomes; widening of knowledge and skills.

Some rarely touched challenges

Changing parentship and teacher-parent relations
more pedagogically un-educated parents, break of generations-traditions in parentship Teacher-parent alienation (e-school, Less rights for teacher to influence family environment

De-culturisation of teachers Lack of futures

New dimension of CPD and education: futures - as informed optimism

some approaches to implementation: The introduction of discrete units and modules on futures into an existing curriculum program. The introduction of futures as a dimension of existing subjects and curriculum foci. The re-conceptualisation of a school's modus operandi according to a futures paradigm Change of mental models towards futures dimensions in life and learning (incl via groupmethods)