Professional Responsibility And Identity

Introduction

"The duties of a teacher are neither few nor small, but they elevate the mind and give energy to the character". I believe in this quote and I would like to engage in a teaching policy that creates sustainability in schools. Over the years, I have developed my skills as a trainee teacher. My journey has been associated with ups and downs so far. I have acquired knowledge on education philosophies. I have researched the best philosophies that can be used for the betterment of my students, with a particular focus on education dissertation help. I do gaining ideas on how to make education interactive. As a trainee teacher, I have improved my skills by designing an online feedback form for students to help me figure out the aspects that I need to work out. Studying student feedback, they are important in terms of gaining an overview of my teaching style. Students these days do not find interest in lectures (Timperley et al. 2008). They like to participate in activities regarding the module and attend interactive sessions.

The four key sections that are going to be analyzed here are Professional identity, Professional responsibilities, and accountability, Key legislation, and impact of law on teachers, Development and advancement of professional knowledge.

It is important to develop personal teaching philosophy as it gives a direction of teaching (Timperley et al. 2008). I find that using a philosophy I will be able to analyze the classroom situation from the perspectives of students. I have developed my philosophy based on the available ones such as “essentialism, perennialism, progressivism, and social reconstructionism”. As a teacher, having a philosophy is expected to highlight the way students perceive an action.

Professional identity

The term teaching philosophy can be defined as “a systematic and critical rationale that focuses on the important components defining effective teaching and learning in a particular discipline and/or institutional context” (Schonwetter et al. 2002). My definition of teaching philosophy is to develop a concept that will effectively measure my success rate as a teacher and the values that I wish to impart to my students. The clear comparison lies between two definitions as in the definition provided by another author an institutional context is explained whereas, in my definition, I have focused only on the student growth. In my opinion, the teaching philosophy should be made as interactive as possible. From my personal experiences, I have found out that having a philosophy helps in coming up with specific and concrete examples of teachers and learners to achieve the goals of success. Lack of philosophies puts pressure on teachers as they try to engage in their work (Timperley et al. 2008). My teaching tactic is simply engaging in quiz games related to the module and creating role-play sessions for students. My take on the philosophy is to build an independent study habit for students. Writing philosophy is unimportant as it provides reflective practice, helps in writing job applications, helps in professional development, organizes own thoughts and views.

My own professional experiences are quite similar to the approaches described in traditional literature. According to Schonwetter et al. (2002), teaching philosophy reflects my own beliefs of learning as well as teaching. There is a disciplinary culture developed in my teaching area along with institutional culture improvement. Goodyear and Allchin’s six questions have helped me shape my career by understanding the requirements of students and answering some fundamental questions. I found out that my motivation for teaching is associated with gaining good feedback from students. I learn from my day-to-day activities. I might not find the right words to explain a student's query and that is when I find my weakness and try to improve it. Other's are expected to learn from their daily activities as well. I expect that students are not just sitting in my class for attendance, they are listening to what I am saying and participating in activities. I expect that I would build a student-teacher relationship where a student will be able to contact me regarding their doubts at any working hours. I can measure my success as a teacher by classroom artifacts, student feedback, and getting a regular insight into student learning. I wish to impart the values like honesty, respect for others, teamwork and leadership building, cooperation with others, and forgiveness. Maintaining academic integrity throughout their learning is what I engage the most. My professional experience in teaching high school students includes essentialism, perennialism, progressivism, and Social Reconstructionism that emphasize knowledge, values, experience, and social reform. I promote equal learning in my class, as the students with deformities have the right to learn and grow as well.

My philosophy helps in shaping me as a teacher as I regularly think about improvements that I can make while imparting knowledge on the other side. The benefits of having a teaching philosophy help in becoming aware of the approach taken to combat the education inefficiencies (Bentall, 2020). Beliefs about student learning and their perspectives towards absorbing information can be analyzed after considering a teaching philosophy.

The basic five models of philosophies include "Essentialism, perennialism, progressivism, and social reconstructionism, Idiosyncratic,”. These models focus on knowledge, values, experience, social reform, and the combination of all respectively. Out of these types, the most suitable one that relates to my philosophy is a progressive model. Progressive models focus on experiences and I do encourage experience-based learning. I have asked my students many times to participate in role-plays so that they understand the learning aspects better. This progressive method emphasizes thinking rather than memorizing. I try to make sure that the classroom becomes "a collaborative environment that requires teamwork, critical thinking, creativity, and the ability to work independently". I engage my students in active participation in quiz games related to the module to identify whether they are listening actively or not. Sometimes students find it difficult to gather references. I try to help them in evidence gathering via providing online library access, therefore they engage in ethical learning and reference.

My philosophy has changed since beginning at different stages. Initially, I used to focus on Essentialism, which focuses on knowledge only. However, with every passing moment, I got to learn that gathering knowledge is not everything. It requires it to become applicable in the daily lives of pupils. Interactive learning is always better than memorizing and I switched my philosophies towards Progressive one. My philosophy influences the effectiveness of the teaching process. I never ask students to read out a section or just follow some worksheets. I ask them to explain what they understand from the modules. I always try to engage them in pre-tests before starting a module. The current landscape of restricting human touch due to covid-19 protocols creates a barrier for my cooperative learning and team building. Working in teams and maintaining social distance is difficult to process (Schönwetter et al. 2002). Hence, my philosophy is being restricted in terms of promoting teamwork. Within the next 12 months of being promoted as a newly qualified teacher, I would like to work on perennialism, which deals with values. In my opinion, students need to learn how academic integrity takes place. Education is not only for self-growth, it should be applicable in helping others to develop and share the values with other students (Bentall, 2020). A helping nature development and honesty in the academic background is something that I would focus to impart within students as an NQT.

Professional responsibilities and accountability

I believe that the "roles and responsibilities of the teacher are complex". As a teacher, some key responsibilities, that need to be followed are identification of needs, assessment, evaluation, planning, and design along with delivery. I find myself responsible for preparing lesson plans and educating the students that have different merit levels. I try to focus on the use of simple language that is understood by all. I will assess the children's growth by taking tests at regular intervals. After each module is finished a test is taken for grading the student's level of understanding. This in turn reflects my level of learning as well. Documenting the progress will be done in terms of moving forward with excel sheets that will contain student names and their performance grade (Binmohsen, and Abrahams, 2020). I will check individual student progress every month. It is a teacher's responsibility to ensure that students learn to work collaboratively with others. Presentation matters in this process of understanding how much information the student is absorbing. In my case, I try to make the presentation as interactive and catchy as possible by using a hook statement and sharing an anecdote. Then further audio and visual aids are expected to impart the knowledge successfully within them (Boye, 2012). The progress report might have tensions as every child has not similar learning capability. Now, assessing each one using the same question paper might not reflect on the child's progress. Hence, I find it suitable to promote differentiation in the classroom. Although there are time constraints and a load of the syllabus, providing individual care to students is possible with support from school authorities. Creating a special learning slot for students who need extra support can release the tension in my opinion.

MARRA stands for monitoring, assessment, record keeping, reporting, and accountability. In my teaching process, I like to engage in online monitoring by designing google forms and asking the students to fill them up. Therefore, I become aware of the incompetence in my teaching style and the incompetencies associated with students. Assessments are taken at regular intervals, with every single module completed. Record keeping in my setting is done using excel sheets where entries on student performances are done (de Paor, and Murphy, 2018). Reporting of student performance will be done to the higher authority and student council that try to find out the best talents hidden in a bunch of pupils via sending an email of the excel record sheet. Accountability is achieved in my setting by promoting a culture of trust and responsibility. I try to build a relationship where students can come forward for any mental support outside academics as well. Any family or social issues that are bothering the students and leaving an impact on performance can be discussed with me for assistance.

As teachers, we are responsible for the stakeholders identified as parents, principals, and students. It is all about a student's future. Hence, no negligence can be tolerated as parents have given the responsibility of shaping their child's future in our hands (Goodyear, 2017). Like in my case, some parents initially opposed promoting collaborative learning ideas and shifting focus from worksheet-based learning to interactive learning. They thought the idea would reduce class work timing. Therefore, the idea of being autonomous has been effectively reduced as a teacher in the current context. The stakeholders such as propose some conflicting demands upon us:

Passing rates should be increased so that the university gets its funding on time

Lack of boundary-crossing within the department as some teachers are not ready to go the extra mile for student development

Internal competition between subject-matter groups

Renegotiating the professional identity

The teacher's professional responsibility affects my professional development. Effective CPD leads to greater confidence among teachers and a larger self-efficacy is projected (Humphreys, 2020). Innovation in practicing self-development is seen while performing the duties of a teacher. Professional CPD helps the teachers to deal with:

Improvement and evaluation of pupil outcomes

Prioritized leadership and sustainability over time

Robust evidence and expertise underpinning

Collaboration and expert challenges

These values are determined by our own perceived needs and the focus of the school. Some schools have the criteria of recruiting the teachers using the criteria of 50 hours of CPD training. Even after recruitment, online teacher development modules are to be attended by teachers (Kartal et al. 2018). CPD training will contain leadership, school management, competency-based learning as well. National education policies also emphasize the improvement of skills for teachers and learning the latest innovations of teaching methods by emphasizing CPD.

As an NQT, I will be entitled to meet regularly with a suitably experienced induction tutor. This person will provide subject matter planning help. Career-entry development program profile will be discussed with the induction tutor (Maass, and Engeln, 2018). I will be participating in a colleague meeting, an induction tutor or headteacher, working on my portfolio, reviewing and revising objectives, visiting an advanced skills teacher. My responsibilities will be:

Checking evidence of being passed in skill test and being awarded as QTS

Participating in fully developed MARRA program

“Raise quickly any concerns about the content and/or delivery of the program of monitoring”

Discussion of aspirations with the head teacher and participate in regular professional reviews

Start working on career entry development profile and a reduced timetable

Altering responsibilities while shifting towards NTQ from RTQ for me will be as follows:

Practicing the craft of classroom

Planning, marking, and written feedback submission

Making mistakes and reflecting on own practice (Merliza, and Retnawati, 2018)

Organization of day-to-day activities in terms of priorities

Creating a work-life balance

Understanding the school community rules

Key legislation and impact of law on teacher

Teachers need to perform their duties as they are bound by legislation. To manage the responsibilities assigned to them, teachers need to follow the common law duty of care. Safeguarding and practicing the equal rights of knowledge for all children is important. Common law duty of care is important for managing the foreseeable harm to students in the form of personal injury. The statutory duty of care raises for teachers as they need to ensure student's safety and the board of education supports these duties listed in the teacher’s contract of employment (Owens, Miller, and Grise-Owens, 2014). Some important laws that are associated with students include the following such as:

Children Act 2004: This act is associated with children's protection from abuse, which is to be looked after by teachers. Cooperation and relationship development with a student is done for safeguarding students in school

Health and safety at work act 1974: This helps in developing a safe environment for teachers and their basic employment rights. Teacher's safety at the workplace matters as they might fall prey to uncertain injuries (legislation.gov.uk, 2021).

Education act 1996: Teachers need to abide by a law that allows pupils to be educated under any circumstances. Following a child's parent's wishes, children will be able to become educated simply.

Education and inspection act 2006: In this act, power to regulate student conduct outside school premises. This law is enforced for ensuring that children in all schools get the right amount of education they need to fulfill their potential.

Key legislation that I want to discuss in this context are as follows:

Equality act 2010: Under this act, it is unlawful for any educational personnel or institutes a student based on their gender, race, age, skin color, and religion. "Direct discrimination by association, when a pupil is treated less favorably because of his/her association with another person who has a protected characteristic”. Moreover, “discrimination arising from disability occurs when a disabled pupil is treated unfavorably because of something related to his/her disability". Harassment related to violating a pupil's dignity or degrading and humiliation is evidence of a disability (legislation.gov.uk, 2021).

Children and Families act 2014: Schools need to ensure that specific arrangements are made to cater to students with critical medical conditions like epilepsy, asthma, diabetes. Parents will therefore have peace of mind that their children are in safe hands.

Such laws are introduced so that a balance in educational services is created. Both teacher and students will work according to the rules listed. Now, legal responsibilities that come upon the teachers are as follows:

Providing quality supervision

Student’s privacy must be protected

Respecting students and observing boundaries (Panda, 2018)

Raising concern while a student needs medical help

Incident reporting of discrimination regarding age, sex, gender, pregnancy

Looking after mannerism and anger control

Looking and reporting whether a student is losing academic integrity and ethical values

Safeguarding can be defined in terms of protecting children from maltreatment. In schools, preventing impairment of children's health and growth is associated with safeguarding. Children should have the right to grow up in a consistent provision of safe and effective care (Rosell-Aguilar, 2018). As a teacher, it is my responsibility to safeguard my students. Once, a fellow student because of early maternity mistreated one of my students. She was bullied for being pregnant at an early age. Therefore, I stood by her and immediately reported the incident to a higher authority for taking immediate action.

Teacher’s standards are found out as:

Setting the high expectation that inspires, motivates, and challenges pupils potential

Demonstrates in-depth subject and curriculum knowledge

Provide accurate and productive use of assessment

Fulfills professional responsibilities

Planning and teaching well-structured lessons

Adopting teaching methods for accessing pupil needs (Ruge et al. 2019)

Treating pupils with dignity and build deep-rooted mutual respect

Ensuring no personal belief is exploiting the students future

Delivering peer observation reports

Conducting class tests to clarify lesson aims and objective

Safeguarding pupil’s well being

All these aspects leave a positive impact on me as a teacher. I find this quite effective as it makes me collect an engaging number of resources. Peer observation reports help me understand my flaws and give recommendations on other's practices. As a trainee teacher, following QTS for teacher's standard helps in showing tolerance and respecting other people's rights (Sahagun, Matriano, and Bueno, 2019). I also get to understand the requirement of safeguarding pupils throughout their academic careers. In my case, these standards positively help me deliver quality teaching.

As teachers, we do not get chances of being autonomous quite often. Professional autonomy in teaching is associated with higher job satisfaction and intention to stay in teaching. Students should be at the center of attraction for law legislation. As a teacher, I would try to keep the classroom fair and try to maintain the code of conduct as much as possible. I met a situation where a colleague was fired for using a derogatory word in school. Being abusive with students is never appreciated. I am bound to practice quality due to legislation associated with education boards. As per the legislation, I have to stop any promotion of discriminatory acts inside the school. My thoughts and beliefs are changing and my thoughts should not be imposed upon the children. Legislation like Children Act 2004, helps me become a better career of children and stop any injuries that might occur to them on school premises.

Development and advancement of professional knowledge

The importance and impact of engaging CPD are associated with me. Being a maths teacher, I find it important to create adequate understanding for the students. I ensure that students take part in small grade math first and then I ask them to move forward with complex ones like high levels of subtraction and additions. Ten factors that lead to high quality CPD are:

Highly engaging: Teachers need to engage themselves as much as possible with class (Bentall, 2020). I do not receive personal calls during class and follow all sets of rules determined for me.

Driven by the needs: Student needs is my topmost priority list. There is the effective utilization of students' understanding of the subject matter as I am also learning with them.

Subject-specific: I try to focus on knowledge sharing of specific subjects; therefore, my internal level of understanding is developed.

Collaborative: I try to collaborate with students by asking them to participate in math quizzes and refresh my knowledge as well.

External expertise: The expertise I have received to date is a master's degree. I am also working on my Ph.D. for gaining more knowledge and imparting it to people.

Classroom-based: Classroom-based learning is essential in terms of managing the load of the syllabus and I get to understand how the learning of students is processed.

Sustained: CPD training is encouraged for sustainability over time and evaluates the impact on students and teachers.

Relevant and targeted: Teachers should keep pace with current standards of working in education (Wyatt, and Ončevska Ager, 2017).

Independently assured: Providers have to be independently assured for quality and evidence on learning of math.

Peer review: Providing the schoolteachers information on how they are performing with each other has been analyzed.

Characteristics of effective CPD can be demonstrated as:

1. Driven by identified learning needs

Day-to-day activities are associated with school-based learning events. I find this effect to participate in mathematics learning programs. As beginners, teachers need to understand how the pupils are reacting to the course work.

2. Sustained

CPD providers need to check their attendees and the way they participate in events (Utami et al. 2019). Post-training reinforcement is essential. I find that repeat visits of coaching are incorporated within this.

3. Subject-specific

Most learners are deprived of subject-specific learning and sometimes teachers start complaining about multiple issues like inadequacy of assessment.

4. Based in the classroom

Teachers' values are always updated and educational myths should be burst (Sum et al. 2018). I have found out that learning styles are heavily dependent upon evidence-based practices.

5. Collaborative

I have understood that teachers should focus on collaboration with other teachers as well as students for managing the base level of understanding.

6. Makes use of external expertise

Asking for help from teacher forums and learning from online channels can be effective for external expertise gaining.

CPD needs to be changed as I move forward with my career. Being a lifelong learner is important as I want to work positively with my students in the math domain. Policy and sector pressure also support my CPD development in the future (Schönwetter et al. 2002). Sometimes it might feel like a barrier to success. Lack of remuneration, overcrowded classrooms, sexual harassment or abuse, and lack of respect shown by the students towards teachers are barriers to professional development. Outdated teaching and learning materials are also overpowering the wish for learning more in teachers. To date, there are various engagements observed that influence me to develop CPD differently in further stages of my life. I have started learning from different teacher's forums online and focus on online learning. Communication skill development has helped me in proving clarity on finding the right resources and understanding well-being components. Developing the progress of learning materials to gain maximum student attention is also associated with enhanced CPD.

Conclusion

Over the years of training, I have developed as a teacher. I have understood that students are no longer interested in lecture-oriented classrooms. They tend to participate in interactive lessons and I try to provide them with that facility. As a teacher, I have identified my own professional identity and responsibility. The first section of the discussion concerning teaching philosophy has been conducted. I have focused on organizing my thoughts and views along with the professional development component. Disciplinary culture in my subject area mathematics is essential in terms of understanding how well the students are learning problem solving, reasoning, and proof. Rather than teaching behavioral skills, thinking and analyzing situations logically is done.

I believe in quality first teaching and I think that the classroom is a living community. It should be safe for students to produce their ideas without any shame and doubt. Starting from teachers to the principals and students need to contribute towards creating a positive environment. The worksheet-based teaching style is quite outdated in the case of today's students. I also follow up the attendance sheet to keep a track of students that are attending class regularly. Professional development for teachers is identified as a lifelong process that gives ideas of learning even at the time of retirement. I have adopted the peer learning initiatives and even tried working out on student issues by chatting with seniors.

Dig deeper into Professional practical and Development Education and Training with our selection of articles.

References

Book

Timperley, H., Wilson, A., Barrar, H. and Fung, I., 2008. Teacher professional learning and development (Vol. 18). International Adacemy of Education.

Journals

Bentall, C., 2020. Continuing Professional Development of Teachers in Global Learning: What Works?. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Global Education and Learning, p.356.

Binmohsen, S.A. and Abrahams, I., 2020. Science teachers’ continuing professional development: online vs face-to-face. Research in Science & Technological Education, pp.1-29.

Boye, A., 2012. Writing your teaching philosophy. Teaching, Learning, and Professional Development Center. Texas Tech University: Lubbock, TX.

de Paor, C. and Murphy, T.R., 2018. Teachers’ views on research as a model of CPD: implications for policy. European Journal of Teacher Education, 41(2), pp.169-186.

Goodyear, V.A., 2017. Sustained professional development on cooperative learning: Impact on six teachers' practices and students' learning. Research quarterly for exercise and sport, 88(1), pp.83-94.

Humphreys, P., 2020. Engage, empower, evolve: Developing an institutional teaching philosophy to engage staff. English Australia Journal, 36(1), pp.39-53.

Kartal, E.E., Cobern, W.W., Dogan, N., Irez, S., Cakmakci, G. and Yalaki, Y., 2018. Improving science teachers’ nature of science views through an innovative continuing professional development program. International Journal of STEM Education, 5(1), pp.1-10.

Maass, K. and Engeln, K., 2018. Impact of professional development involving modelling on teachers and their teaching. ZDM, 50(1), pp.273-285.

Merliza, P. and Retnawati, H., 2018. Continuing professional development (CPD) for junior high school mathematics teachers: An evaluation study. REiD (Research and Evaluation in Education), 4(1), pp.79-93.

Owens, L.W., Miller, J.J. and Grise-Owens, E., 2014. Activating a teaching philosophy in social work education: Articulation, implementation, and evaluation. Journal of Teaching in Social Work, 34(3), pp.332-345.

Panda, S., 2018. Professional development of teachers in higher education. India higher education report: Teaching, learning and quality in higher education. New Delhi: Sage.

Rosell-Aguilar, F., 2018. Twitter: A professional development and community of practice tool for teachers. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 1.

Ruge, G., Schönwetter, D., McCormack, C., Kennelly, R. and Gareau-Wilson, N., 2019. Promoting resilience in university teachers through teaching philosophy statement (TPS) development. Positive Resilience and the Future of ED (C).

Sahagun, J.A.P., Matriano, E.A. and Bueno, D.C., 2019. Impacts of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Activities among Elementary School Teachers. IMRaD Journal, a Peer-Reviewed and Refereed Institutional Multidisciplinary Research and Development Journal, 2.

Schönwetter, D.J., Sokal, L., Friesen, M. and Taylor, K.L., 2002. Teaching philosophies reconsidered: A conceptual model for the development and evaluation of teaching philosophy statements. International Journal for Academic Development, 7(1), pp.83-97.

Sum, K.W.R., Wallhead, T., Ha, S.C.A. and Sit, H.P.C., 2018. Effects of physical education continuing professional development on teachers’ physical literacy and self-efficacy and students’ learning outcomes. International Journal of Educational Research, 88, pp.1-8.

Utami, I.L.P., Prestridge, S., Saukah, A. and Hamied, F.A., 2019. Continuing Professional Development and teachers’ perceptions and practices-A tenable relationship. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 9(1), pp.108-118.

Wyatt, M. and Ončevska Ager, E., 2017. Teachers’ cognitions regarding continuing professional development. Elt Journal, 71(2), pp.171-185.

Website

legislation.gov.uk, 2021. Available at: [Accessed on 18/06/2021]