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Evolving motivated teachers in school

PLANwork
Last Updated 01 July 2015, 19:07 IST

A  motivated teacher is one who not only feels satisfied with his or her job, but also is empowered to strive for excellence and growth in instructional practice. Governments should continue to experiment with various strategies for attracting high calibre teachers, especially since the research base is not strong enough to rule out particular approaches. Increasing teacher salaries is not likely to attract people into teaching who don’t have the “calling.” 

However, adequate salaries to support a family and to save money for children’s education are likely to keep teachers who do heed the calling. All new teachers should be held to high academic and performance standards. It makes no sense to strengthen the requirements for college-based teacher education programmes, while at the same time ignoring standards for those coming through alternative licensure programmes. Based on the review of teacher recruitment initiatives, the following practices are effective and should be considered by policymakers.

Recruitment strategies
Buy the attitude of people — the attitude to work and to mould the young generation. If the employee has the right attitude, he will adapt to the ever changing teaching methods and practices. There is no point in answering all the questions raised by the interview board. General knowledge has little to do with controlling the class and moulding them.
Select people who are different. When they join as a team, diversity can be a positive thing. Recruit people for their lifetime and train them as per your needs. The preparation, recruitment and retention of teachers can be viewed as a pipeline that springs leaks over time. In many developing countries, the number of new teachers cannot keep up with population growth. Most teachers choose to enter teaching because they believe that teaching is important work and contributes to society.

Although salaries can make a difference in terms of teacher recruitment, teachers generally report the importance of good working conditions in making a decision to stay in teaching. A number of school organisational factors play a crucial role in teacher turnover, including inadequate support from school administration, student motivation, and discipline problems, and limited teacher input into and influence over school policies. These factors also affect the motivation and commitment of those teachers who stay at the school.

There are two kinds of teacher turnover: migration and attrition. Migration refers to teachers leaving one school to take a job at another school, which does not result in an overall permanent loss of teachers. Attrition refers to leaving teaching altogether, either to take another job outside of teaching, for personal reasons as child rearing, health problems, family moves, and retirement.

One approach to stemming the high attrition rates in teaching is to redefine novice teacher needs. Consistent with recent research, the first years of teaching need to be viewed as a phase of learning that follows and builds on the learning that occurred prior to entry into the profession. If teachers receive no support during this time, one of two outcomes typically occurs.

First, the teacher may leave the profession (attrition) or transfer to other schools in search of support (migration). Second, the teacher may stay in the profession but learn poor practices in an attempt to cope with his or her struggles. Although novice teachers indicate that induction support is important in their development as teachers, there is a great deal of disparity in terms of both the quality and accessibility of induction programmes found in schools. Effective induction programmes must address these areas if they are to meet novice teachers’ needs and improve retention rates.

Induction programmes
High quality induction programmes are effective in providing the support needed by novice teachers during their first years of teaching. Novice teachers indicate that where such programmes are supported and financed, the guidance offered them has increased the likelihood that they will remain in teaching. It takes several years to become an effective teacher. Unfortunately, many novice teachers leave the profession much too early.

High quality induction programmes are effective in providing the support needed by novice teachers during their first years of teaching. Novice teachers indicate that where such programmes are supported and financed, the guidance offered to them has increased the likelihood that they will remain in teaching. It takes several years to become an effective teacher. Unfortunately, many novice teachers leave the profession much too early. The following recommendations are intended to change this pattern.

The first is funding research on models of developmentally-staged supervision and induction. Support for teachers that enables them to move along the developmental continuum is also important. The second is funding the development of effective mentor/induction programmes and quality assessments of these programmes.

Because student learning is the ultimate goal of classroom instruction, the assessment of mentoring programmes must include the monitoring of student learning. When funding for induction programmes is on a par with that provided for recruitment of new teachers, both teachers and the educational system benefit. The time, effort, and money necessary to mentor novice teachers are substantial.

Fortunately, the rewards in terms of teacher retention are also substantial. Investing in the short term yields and long-term payoffs in terms of higher quality teachers who remain in the profession longer.

Feedback
Recognition and feedback have been cited as important motivators for teachers, so it would seem that evaluation is an obvious vehicle for using these incentives to direct the teachers on the path towards professional growth and improvement. However, the most common practices in evaluation are limited in their capacity to improve teaching, and chiefly serve as monitors of minimal competency for retention.

Discovering what matters to teachers and how best to motivate them for sustained and improved performance is a complicated challenge. Extrinsic rewards that have been tried in the past have generally not produced the desired results. Research and experience show that teachers are most likely to value intrinsic rewards such as self-respect, responsibility, and a sense of accomplishment.

One clear finding of the research points in a hopeful direction - helping young people to learn is the central goal of both those who enter the teaching profession and those who are working to reform public education. Therefore, new directions in participatory school improvement, comprehensive and meaningful staff development and supportive teacher evaluation hold great promise for improving teachers’ professional motivation.

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(Published 01 July 2015, 16:25 IST)

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