Staff development in schools should be in line with the school goals, which should not be restricted to the acquisition of skills and knowledge, but also professional attitudes, beliefs, values and morality. Apart from formal training courses, which include courses leading to academic and professional qualifications, short courses, workshops and seminars etc., other means of teacher professional development, like teacher appraisal, mentoring, classroom observation and sharing are also generally accepted and considered as effective ways contributing to teacher professional development.
Continuous Professional Development (CPD) in Hong Kong as a whole emphasizes on job-related training and seems to have paid less attention to professional, educational and moral development of teachers. The objectives usually focus more on organizational goals, less on personal and individual needs of teachers. Although teacher development should be in line with school goals, it is not necessary restricted to the acquisition of skill and knowledge. It is recommended that a more balanced approach with both personal and organization goals to be met, and both technical and non-technical skills, knowledge and value should be covered. Over-emphasizing organizational goals but ignoring teachers’ professional and personal needs may lead to less enthusiastic, passive and not innovative of teachers. The professional attitudes, values and moral standards, in addition to teaching skills, are all prerequisites of a good teacher. The success of a school not only depends on the teaching and administrative performance of teachers, but also teachers’ loyalty, commitment and identification with the school goals and mission. The establishment of a collaborative culture and good morale among all staff in schools are of vital importance to achieve the school goals and missions.
On the other hand, the courses led and provided by outsiders like advisors or university lecturers are also likely to be too theoretical and too general and may not meet the needs of the school. As such, a planned and balanced approach, in which there is more teacher involvement in planning staff development should be advocated. Moreover, apart from technical training, professional attitudes are also required for teaching professionalism. The all-round and multi-track continuous developmental approach is considered better cater the organization and individual needs.
To better cater the needs of teachers, more school-based teacher development programmes and activities should be planned and conducted. The most commonly conducted CPD activities are workshops and talks, day camps or outings, visits to schools in Mainland China or other countries. Other programmes like mentoring, lesson observation and study, collaborative teaching, lesson planning and preparation and parallel lessons should also be promoted.
Nowadays, there are a lot of different types of professional programme offered by different organizations,but I can see a potential problem that, somehow the external organizations wish to promote their products or service during the development session. It especially quite common in IT field. Personally I would prefer the training offered from the EDB or the workshops in school for more substantial and focus training =)
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