Ç.Ü. Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi 1997, Cilt 2, Sayı 15, S. 154-162
CREATING AWARENESS TOWARDS CHANGE
Dr. Turan PAKER Ç.Ü. Eğitim Fakültesi İngiliz Dili Eğitimi Bölümü
ABSTRACT
In this paper, the focus will be on various types of awareness activities which may lead teachers to improvement and change in their classroom instruction. No matter what type of research a teacher makes use of, such as doing research by himself/herself, or collaborating with a colleague, a counselor or a supervisor in teacher development, being aware of what s/he has been doing in the classroom is the starting point in the change process, i.e. the analysis of the status. Being aware of his/her status, a teacher can investigate the hypothesis s/he has formed related to teaching previously. Thanks to such an investigation, the teacher may/will try to find out other alternative ways to improve his/her status.
ÖZET
Bu makalede, öğretmenleri ders verme faaliyetlerinde, içinde bulundukları durumun farkına vararak ders verme yöntem ve tekniklerini geliştirebilecekleri çeşitli aktiviteler üzerinde durulmuştur. Öğretmen mesleki gelişimi için hangi yöntemi (bireysel araştırma, bir meslektaş veya bir danışmanla çalışma) kullanırsa kullansın ilk yapması gereken şey sınıfta ne yaptığının, dersi nasıl verdiğinin farkında olması gerekmektedir. İşte bu farkına varma sayesinde, öğretmen önce olumlu ve olumsuz yönlerini keşfetmekte ve daha sonra, bir taraftan olumlu yönlerini pekiştirirken diğer taraftan da olumsuz yönlerini iyileştirici veya geliştirici alternatif yöntem ve teknik arayışlarına yönelmektedir. Bu attığı ilk adım olan durumunu keşfetme sayesinde mesleki alanda kendini yenileyebilme ve geliştirebilme olanağına sahip olabilmektedir.
Teacher development is handled by experts from various approaches under different titles such as teacher training, teacher empowerment, teacher
enrichment, supervision, clinical supervision, action research, coaching of teachers and so on. As a matter of fact, all these approaches aim at improving
teachers' teaching skills as professionals. However, each of them looks at the issue from their point of view with great or slight differences.
The purpose of all teacher training and supervision is to prepare independent, effective teachers (Reznich, 1985:14). Joyce and Showers (1988:115) claim that "effective staff development programs bring about change and growth in teachers, just as affective instructional programs bring about change and growth in students."
According to Ur (1992:59), the aim of teacher development should then be to get teachers to develop such theory of action; "a private, integrated but ever-changing system of knowledge, experience and values which is relevant to teaching practice at any particular time (Handal and Lauvas, 1987:9)." Hargreaves (1992:1) states that "different approaches to training or improving the teaching force may be called:"
• teacher development as knowledge and skill development,
• teacher development as self-understanding, • teacher development as ecological change. Now let's look at the process of change. Here, various ideas of experts as to how change takes place will be reviewed. It is unrealistic to expect all teachers to be interested in change, or to participate in the same way if they are interested. According to Fullan (1982:40), change takes place in a process as in the diagram below:
Initiation
Impleme ntat ion
Continuation
Outc ome
Chart 1 A simplified overvie w of the change pr oc ess
Fullan (1982:39) clarifies his ideas about change process in three broad phases as follows:
Phase I - variously labeled initiation, mobilization, or adoption--consists of the process which leads up to and includes a decision to adopt or proceed with a change. Phase II - implementation or initial use (usually
the first two or three years of use)--involves the first experiences of attempting to put on idea or program into practice.
Phase III - called continuation, incorporation, routinization, or institutionalization--refers to whether the change disappears by way of a decision to discard or through attrition.
Elton (1987:165) quotes Lewis (1952) who identified three stages in a change process:
Unfreezing Moving Freezing Chart 2 Three stages of change process
According to Elton (1987:167), people need time to get used to new ideas if they are to accept them and act on them. This process of mental development has been conceptualized by, for instance, Rogers (1967) in a number of stages:
Chart 3 The process of mental development Avareness
Interest
Evaluation
Trial
Adoption
At each stage, rejection is possible and change agents-whatever strategy they use-have to allow time for their clients to go through each stage if they want to avoid rejection. Joyce and Showers (1988:7) quote Fullan (1982) that an innovation is not sustained unless there is a shared understanding of its purposes, rationale, and processes.
Now let's look at this point from classroom point of view: A teacher wants to know about her/his teaching listening in the classroom. Imagine that this teacher videotapes himself/herself, and after the class s/he watches the tape and realizes that Ss cannot carry out the activity as desired. (Awareness). Then s/he shares the situation with a colleague and they watch the tape together. Later on, they try to find out the real reason for this outcome, and they see that the main reason is that most of the students have not understood the instructions clearly. So s/he decides to focus on having the students understand the instructions clearly (Interest in doing something about the matter and having some decisions to solve the problem). After that the teacher focuses on giving clear instructions in the next lesson and checks some students whether they are aware what they are going to do or not. Finally, let's say, s/he observes that the students can carry out similar tasks in listening when they know what to do clearly. (Trial and Adoption). From then on, s/he will be more careful in giving instructions and check the students' comprehension if they have understood them or not.
Freeman (1989) gives an account of change process in teacher development by working with a collaborator. According to him (1989:40), change does not necessarily mean doing something differently; it can mean a change in awareness. Some changes occur over time, with the collaborator serving only to initiate the process. Through development, the collaborator works to trigger the teacher's awareness of what the latter is doing. By asking questions, by making observations in a detached way, by sharing personal teaching experience, the collaborator endeavors to start the teacher on a process of reflection, critique, and refinement of the teachers' classroom practice.
Freeman (1989:40) also maintains that "the prerequisite for change is that the teacher's experience and perceptions of teaching situation should form the basis for the collaborator's work in development. Solutions are generated by the teacher, with or without the collaborator's help, but they are ultimately based on the teacher's awareness and understanding of the situation." On the other hand, Richardson et. al. (1991:579) believe that "... genuine changes will come about when teachers think differently about what is going on in their classrooms, and are provided with the practices to match the different ways of thinking."
Bents & Howey (1981:31) define the idea of change from various aspects:
Change (innovation) is appropriate. Not all innovations are positive; an innovation that might be positive in one context may have a negative consequence in another context. Change is a process, not an event. Often, decision makers and even adult learners assume that change is an event rather than a process. It is not possible to bring about change instantaneously through passing a law, sending a memo, or holding a two-day workshop; a period of time is involved. Change is a personal experience. There is a personal side to change; feelings, perceptions, frustrations are a natural part of change for each person involved. It is neither logical nor possible to deny the existence of this personal dimension to change and rather than deny it, we should attend to it.
Diamond (1991:49) warns us that "if there is only
anxiety and threat out there, no change is likely to eventuate. Rather than invoking moral condemnations, it has to be realized that change is possible for all of us only when there is some understanding of an alternative."
According to Rudduck (1991:322) consciousness is only possible through reflection on action. He maintains that "a capacity for critical reflection or consciousness, alongside a commitment to supporting the development of competent and confident practice, provides a basis for sustained professional inquiry, which in turn enhances professional excitement and motivation as well as professional competence." Rudduck (1991) gives an account of a reflective teacher by referring to Hextal et al. (1991) According to her a reflective teacher:
1) tries to stand back from their own practice and identify and specify from within that practice features, areas or skills which call for further development.
2) can articulate and defend their own purpose as a teacher and relate this to other professional opinion.
3) recognises that within practice, dilemmas will arise which must be honestly confronted, analysed and acted upon and which, although they may be managed, may not be resolved.
4) observes and records the social and learning processes in the school and classroom, as a basis for reflection upon development and action. 5) can produce accounts of how their actions in the
professional stance (Hextall et al, 1991:16).
Now let's go through the practical side of the issue. Initially, a teacher can collect the data about his/her teaching in the classroom. It could simply be done by video/audio recording. However, he/she may ask a colleague to observe him/her and collect the data by a checklist (See Appendix 1). The other way could be asking a counselor or supervisor to do the data collection by observing the teacher in the classroom. After collecting the data about the teaching status, the teacher alone or with a colleague or with a supervisor, he/she should go through the data, analyse everything carefully so that he/she can come up with certain patterns of deficiency, weaknesses or strengths because awareness is necessary to reinforce the strengths of the classroom instruction as well as to find out weaknesses and improve them. When he/she decides on the weaknesses, now it is time to diagnose what the possible reason(s) could be. This is the awareness stage. Finding out the weaknesses would trigger him/her to look for other ways of doing things.
The next stage is to put new ways/ideas into practice and assess their efficiency in application. In order to go through the change process, we can follow a spiral. The idea is taken from Clinical supervision approach in teacher development by Acheson and Gall (1980). - Pre-observation activities
- Observation - Data Analysis
- Post-observation activities
Chart 4 Stage s of Clinical Super vision
P re-observa tion Obse rvation
P ost-obse rvation & P re-observa tion for the second cy cle
Obse rvation
P ost-obse rvation & P re-observa tion for the third cy cle
Data analysis
Data analysis
A list of things that we can observe and create awareness in teachers is given as follows; of course, this is not a complete list, so many items can be added.
- lesson objectives - class organization
- amount of ss/teacher talk - teacher questioning - teacher's wait time - control and initiative - ss-teacher interaction - Ss-ss interaction - scope of ss response - amount of instruction - correction
- digression; good or bad variety of activities - methods used
- materials used
- how language is practiced - lesson cohesion
- context for language - teacher's language - eliciting techniques
- ideological aspects of lesson content - giving instructions
- evaluation possibilities
REFERENCES
Acheson, K. A. & Gall, M. D. 1980. Techniques in the clinical supervision of teachers. London: Longman.
Bents, R. H. & Howey, K. R. 1981. Staff development Change in the individual. In. B. Dillon-Peterson (ed.), Staff development
organization development. Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development 1981 Year Book Committee. Diamond, P. C. T. 1991. Teacher education as transformation: A psychological perspective. Philadelphia: Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
Elton, L. 1987. Teaching in higher eduction: appraisal and training. London: Kogan Page.
Freeman, D. 1989. Teacher training, development, and decision making: A model of teaching and related strategies for language teacher education. TESOL Quarterly, 23: 27-45.
Fullan, M. 1982. The meaning of educational change. London: Teachers College Press. Hargreaves, A. 1992. Foreword. In A. Hargreaves, and M. G. (eds.) Understanding teacher
development. London: Cassell.
Joyce, B & Showers, B. 1988. Student achievement through staff development. London: Longman. Nunan, D, 1990. Action research in the language classroom. In J. C. Richards and D. Nunan, Second language teacher education. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.
Reznich, C. 1985. Teaching teachers. [?]. The Experiment in International Living, Save the Children Federation, Inc., and World Education. n.p.
Rudduck, J. 1991. The language of consciousness and the landscape of action: tensions in teacher education. British Educational Research Journal 17/4: 319-331.
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APPENDIX 1
LESSON EVALUATION CHECKLIST
Put X in the appropriate box
A. The Beginning
N
o
n
e
P
o
o
r
F
a
i
r
G
o
o
d
E
x
l
n
t
Com
ment
There is set induction; seating arrangement board, materials,
equipment, etc.
The lesson objectives are made clear and stated in performance
terms
The lesson procedure is explained
B. The Strategy
Warm up activity is effective
Essential points stand out
Students'time is maximized ontask
Teacher uses multiple teaching/ learning styles
Materials are organized in terms of objectivity
C. Questions and Feedback
Questions are congruent with obj. and level of students
Converging questions are used appropriately
Diverging questions are used appropriately
Time is allowed for Ss response
Teacher redirects questions when needed
Ss accountability is maintained
Modified from Margaret S. Phels (1981), Box 5032, TTU, Cookville, TN 38501, and D. Nunan (1990), Action research in the language classroom.
Put X in the appropriate box D. Classroom Management N o n e P o o r F a i r G o o d E x l n t C o m m e n t
Instructions are clearly given
Positive reinforcement used effectively (verbally, non-verbally)
Teacher is in control, and monitors the activities Interaction appropriates the obj.
Classroom management is handled non-verbally
Teacher knows Ss' names Teacher uses peer patterns Intrusions are minimized
Ss are encouraged to take part in the activity
Teaching aids have been used effectively; board, visuals, audio/video cassettes Timing is appropriate
E. Evaluation
Assignments are based on obj. The lesson is evaluated Each objective is evaluated
F. The End
Each objective is achieved
