By Jaya Carrier
I hope everyone is having a good week. With the half-term holiday coming around the corner, I was interested to see some early findings as reported in ‘The Conversation’ which are from a longitudinal study about teacher retention that says that teachers ‘ practising what they teach’ has a positive impact on their love of the job.
Objectives: To understand how engaging in personal subject-based learning or practice impacts teacher retention and satisfaction.
Summary:
The key overall themes are:
‘Practitioner teachers’ - e.g. Art teachers practising their own art, or Biology teachers observing nature - have a stronger self-perception of their own teaching and learning practice.
This, in turn, makes teachers more likely to stay in the profession over a longer period of time.
Developing subject expertise and passion should therefore also be part of teacher training and development
How does this impact me and my practice?: Some reflection questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are:
What things can I do to continue to engage in my subject? How might the half term break afford me some possibilities to do this?
How do I demonstrate my subject passion to students in lessons? What examples from real life can I use to heighten this?
How might I seek subject-development CPD to support my teaching practice? What might organisations such as the PTI (who specialise in this kind of CPD) be able to offer?
If you would like to discuss this further with me - please let me know! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.
Some great points there, Jaya, thank you. Back in January, I shared some of the traits that I believe characterise great teaches and one was "Is passionate about their subject and its value to students". It's certainly possible for students to *learn* from a teacher who is not passionate about their subject area, but I doubt that many students would be *inspired* by such a teacher. I hope that all WA teachers can speak enthusiastically about the value of their subject area and make regular use of real life examples to illustrate that value.
ReplyDelete