Professional Development in Workspace

Regarding the professional development in my workshop, I will describe it from two perspectives, whole-school and panel-based.

As of the whole-school, it is a must for each school to conduct a minimum no. of professional development programme for all staff members. Surely, there is a theme for each programme, or even a central theme for all the programmes to be conducted through a particular academic year. However, in many cases, these programmes do not align with the needs of individual staff members and their effectiveness is questionable. There were cases in which these programmes are organized more successfully, usually it is when staff members have a common concern, for example, the workshop for preparing the school to face ESR (external school review). Since each staff member will be involved in ESR, and they do have an immediate concern for it, so the effectiveness is much better. Under the organizational learning framework by Newman et. al., it is more or less like staff member do not share the same vision, and so even there is much resources available and with a very detailed action plan, the effectiveness in these programmes is rather limited.

As of the panel-level, professional development involves teachers in the same subject discipline. Usually the vision is much clearer, and the collegiality is also much higher. In most cases, we will tackle issues that are more manageable, i.e. working under the available resources, and we are more aware of each other's skill. In terms of incentives, it may not be very encouraging but I think deep down each of us wants to be a better teacher, helping students learn better and ourselves to teach better. Therefore the effectiveness is much higher.