People get into the teaching profession because they want to make a difference to society and believe in the power of good education.
by Victor Cherubim
Education, training and access to employment are powerful drivers for employment of youth and social mobility. The key lies in strengthening the employability of young people,increasing their value on the labour market.
Researchers state the five top skills employers look for are:
1. Critical thinking and problem solving
2. Teamwork and collaboration
3. Professionalism and the work ethic
4. Oral and written communication
5. Leadership
The Focus
The growing focus on Higher Education now, is not only due to the desperation of youth seeking employment after the pandemic, but also the result of new thinking on the benefts of education for continued employment, which was thought to be in doubt.
For Teacher Training as a budding career development and aspiration,strangely but suddenly, there seems to be a reason for slight optimism. As teaching is more than employment, it is more of a vocation. Further, the new challenge faced by teachers after the pandemic may be the methodology of teaching and learning becoming not solely concerned with face to face delivery.Instead,it is combined with digital delivery, and “distance learning''. This is enticing youth to take up this profession.
Children don’t now have time for teachers to get the teaching discipline wrong, as they are desperate to plug attainment gaps during the year of remote schooling.
What are some of the new approaches?
Besides the ability to move from “room to zoom” and vice versa, some aspects of teaching have now become more diffcult. The new deal for “would be teachers” is to fgure out what “could and would” be delivered in a virtual environment and what “would and should” be delivered to students at school.
Developing new approaches to teaching and being resourceful has to be embraced in the new normal. Thus, Tech savvy teaching methods may have to be adopted,if not initiated. Teaching has had to switch between prepared videos and Powerpoint lessons and hosting live teaching via Zoom, Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams and others.They need to develop lesson plans as well as adapted Worksheets, as well as Assessment Sheets. All this requires retraining and upskilling. There is a “skills lacuna” in the teaching profession and it needs to be flled.
Will Teacher Training return fully to the old normal?
We need to know what was the old normal. The growing focus of Higher Education was and should be on developing excellence in teaching and learning. The ambition in Teacher Training was to attain a PGCE or Post Graduate Certifcate in Education,a popular qualifcation,preparing for life as a teacher. The actual need was only for a training course to offer QTS or Qualifed Teacher Status to teach.
A higher qualifcation was the PGCHE or Post Graduate Certifcate in Higher Education, which is a Masters’ Level 7 Teacher qualifcation.There is also SKE or Subject Knowledge Enhancement in particular subject felds and in Languages. All these courses cost at least one or more years of graduate study and over £2400 tuition fees, but some funding is provided by the Government.
What is the new role of a Teacher / Tutor?
The Teacher today has to engage in scholarship to ensure and develop creative, confdent and committed teaching,and also to be able to learn from his/her own work as well as the examples of best practices.
There is very much a sense that Teacher Training will never return to the old normal. Most education systems are still operating on the traditional form of education.Much as we now see a revolution in education,there is an understandable reluctance to follow the new normal?
There is likely to be a more fip or double sided approach with students or learners having to do more preparatory work and the teacher having follow up lessons to discuss, answer questions and address misconceptions in students’ minds.
Teaching online requires a particular form of pedagogy teachers have not been trained in up to now. New ways of teaching are now available. Survey data has shown that the inequalities between private school education and government schools are sharpened by the move to online education.This is compounded by the fact that students from economically weaker sections of society have become hard to reach and teachers do not know how to support hard to reach students. There seems to be a digital gap not only at learners level as well as teachers level and the gap varies from region to region, country to country depending on the infrastructure and the socio-economic background.
To put it simply, teachers need specialised training to cope with this situation.They have to shift their base to virtual platforms and conduct some classes online at least. This means sprucing up existing online platforms,web application apps and providing training to teachers to use these apps and platforms. Many teachers now who use online platforms are fnding it hard to adapt to new ways of teaching and are complaining.
This creates a new opening for a new breed of teachers and teaching to replace the old book learning method.
People get into the teaching profession because they want to make a difference to society and believe in the power of good education.
In 2021, Teacher Training courses now may offer a new dimension.
COVID-19 has laid bare socio-economic disparities between the young and the old. Are we noticing a chasm dividing youth and the aged?
Today students can learn anything,anywhere, thereby developing new skills in the process leading to lifelong learning. Online learning is no longer an option. It is a necessity?
Are we on the threshold of a new revolution in education and Teacher Training similar to the effect the Industrial Revolution had on employment, or are we going to lose a generation of youth in today’s schools, who are condemned to menial jobs and/or being lost and unemployed?
Post a Comment