Facilitating Teachers ’ & Educators ’ Effective Professional Development

Contemporary educational systems in Western societies are being redefined within the context of technological and scientific evolution in relation to socio-economic globalisation. Therefore, it is important for educational authorities to design staff development programmes with a view to helping professionals adjust their ideology and practice effectively in order to contribute to the implementation of a learning culture and the formation of the “knowledge-based society”. The aim of the present paper is to review the field of teaching staff professional growth, identifying weaknesses, highlighting trends and practices, and providing suggestions, most important for professionals and educational authorities in Greece where staff development programmes fail to reach standards met by other European countries. It focuses on staff development models that enable facilitation of teachers' efficacy, cognitive development, and career development, as well as teacher collegiality and the improvement of school culture, reconceptualising schools as “learning organisations”.


Introduction
Modern societies are pressured by the impact of socioeconomic internationalisation, digital technological advancement as well as demographic reallocation (Giddens, 1990).In this context, seeking to adapt or respond to the new socioeconomic and scientific challenges emerging from continuous change, educational system needs to undergo various structural and cultural transformations.It is believed that, under such conditions of dynamic change, professionals will excel if they learn to keep apace with changes and exert impact upon them (Fullan, 2004).
In the light of a great deal of contemporary literature, continuous professional development is viewed as an essential factor for teaching staff's efficient growth and fruitful adaptation to the new regularities which are being formed under the influence of the "knowledge-based society" (Craft, 2000;Fullan, 2001;Hargreaves, 1999;Hargreaves, 1994).
Previous work shows that in their effort to improve education, educational authorities must encounter the professionals' ethos, values and beliefs, characterized by conservatism, presentism and isolation and consequently resistance to change (Lortie, 1975).They are the inevitable response of professionals to unhealthy educational environments (Barth, 1980(Barth, , 1990)).In terms of knowledge, skills development, self-concept and classroom behaviour, nothing within education has more impact on students, than the personal and professional growth of the teaching professionals.When educators and teachers individually, as well as collectively, examine, question, reflect on their ideals and attempt to develop new practices, education and learners become dynamic and active.In order to change schools, it is important to deal with the frustrating conditions under which teaching professionals work, rather than replacing the professionals (Barth, 1980).
Generally speaking, the focus of staff development in most countries has been on correcting or modifying practitioner deficiencies.In-service training conducted mainly by outside has been a response to such a strategy.In the name of expedience, teaching professionals have often been excluded from any meaningful participation in planning and implementation of staff development programmes.The practitioners' learning experiences have not seriously been considered in determining how, when and where staff development programmes need to be delivered (Pellicer & Anderson, 1995:141).
This may have something to do with the fact that most professionals begin with more lack of awareness than they usually accept.There is nothing wrong in starting a teaching career without full understanding of the complexity of the profession, requiring systematic training and practice before an adequate level of proficiency can be acquired.The complexity of the teaching profession makes the transitions from training to practice rather difficult, which may influence the fundamental nature of staff development programmes, making them ineffective for practitioners (discussed later).As educational authorities have long been accustomed to operating staff development programmes from a deficiency model viewpoint, professionals quite naturally associate in-service training with a negative feeling.Not surprisingly, therefore, some teaching professionals are dissatisfied with most of the staff development programmes they have experienced over the years and have resisted the idea of retraining (Pellicer & Anderson, 1995).
It is fairly well recognized by educators that change imposed upon professionals does not work; at best it promotes momentary base subservience.On the other hand, changes that emerge from within the individual teacher are authentic.The person who has invested in the change is intrinsic to the situation, committed to both the change and making it work.Changes emanating from professionals themselves persist as long as they are committed to the idea, which is usually as long as the idea is productive for both the practitioner and students (Barth, 1980:146-47).
During the last thirty years or so, the issues surrounding staff development have attracted renewed interest, mainly for the following reasons: 1) The realization that people are the most important resource available to authorities seeking to achieve their educational objectives.
2) The growing interest of a critical mass of people in restructuring the educational system.
3) The increasing number of professionals (particularly adult educators) being recruited from fields other than education.In most cases these educators have no knowledge, if any, of teaching pedagogy.
4) The recent emphasis placed on accountability and the resultant need for educational authorities to produce quality assurance (Pellicer & Anderson, 1995:141-143).

Teaching staff development in Greece
Legislation concerning teaching staff professional development in Greece, can be traced back to 1910 with the establishment of the "Didaskaleion", a training institute for Secondary Education teachers (Law " ", Official Gazette A 152/22-4-1910), while in 1922, Law 2857(Official Gazette, A 133/1-8-1922)  Framework, have been launched for the academic and professional upgrading of staff in the Greek educational system, addressed to newly appointed teachers of primary and secondary education, older teachers and administrative staff.
As far as teaching staff employed in the field of adult education is concerned, until 2002 there had not been any organised professional development programmes, with the exception of scattered attempts made by some organisations such as banks, companies, etc (Papastamatis & Panitsidou, 2008).The absence of specialised qualification prerequisites and systematic training programmes, along with the fact that most educators have mostly been practicing adult teaching in addition to their main occupation, highlight the insufficiency of the resources employed to effectively respond to the key role they have been appointed to, a limiting factor itself for the promotion of Lifelong Education (LLE) in Greece (Panitsidou & Zarifis, 2009).In this context, to cater for deficiencies in LLE and comply with European Union requirements for quality promotion, the Greek Ministry of Education endorsed under Law 3687/2008 art.10 (Official Gazette, 159/1-8-2008), the implementation of a National Register of Adult Educators, catering, along other issues, for the ongoing training and education of adult educators (Official Gazette, Decision 4444/2008: art.2).
However, "Achilles' heel" of all teaching staff development initiatives in Greece, has been the development of programmes inconsistent with actual needs of the teaching staff.Thus, they have often been characterised by a discrepancy between theoretical framework and teaching practice, ignoring diversity among trainees, with reference to needs, professional experience and background knowledge.Participation (except initial training of newly appointed teachers) has usually been done on a voluntary basis and therefore, possibly not attended by those in greater need (Panitsidou & Papastamatis, 2009).Moreover, programme contents have been randomly selected, rather than being grounded on systematic investigation of practitioners' needs, limiting thus, their impact on teaching practice.Additionally, training provision has mostly been carried out through conventional rigid practices, lacking the necessary flexibility.Finally, there has been absence of provision for a continuous professional development scheme, in order to enable constant acquisition of necessary skills and competences to respond to overall demand for quality educational services and restructuring of the educational system (Panitsidou & Papastamatis, 2009).
A critical factor accounting for most of the aforementioned deficiencies, is the fact that in the name of transparency and merit-based management, the Greek state has been entrapped into a bureaucratic structure of the public sector, a tendency which indisputably restrains flexibility (Panitsidou & Zarifis, 2009).Thus, Greek educational policy ought to focus on setting more flexibility and granting greater autonomy to schools and educational institutions, so that they could be able to function as "learning organisations" fostering sustainable professional development of all employees.As stated in the White Paper on Education and Training (European Commission, 1995), decentralised systems are more resilient and flexible and thus, function effectively in the adoption of innovation and adaptability to changes, such as through modern European society.
At this point, it is useful to explore aspects of helping teaching professionals grow professionally.

Teachers' and Educators' professional development: Adults as learners
In most cases, adult learners have somewhat different needs and characteristics as compared to children.They are more self-directed, more mature, more experienced, more problem-oriented and live under different social circumstances and expectations.It is imperative, therefore, that educators should not equate and treat adult learners as children.Reflective adult educators have come to realise that treating adults as though they were children results in ineffective teaching and unsuccessful learning.
It is widely recognised that one of the most enduring issues with staff development programmes for professionals has been the tendency on part of staff developers to treat adult learners as children rather than as adults.Some institutions and educators tend to maintain an authoritarian teaching style, relying upon the educator teaching from the front with very little interaction with the learners.Such practice would seem unsuitable for teaching adults.If adult educators and their adult learners need to share in a positive and meaningful educational experience, it is important to acquire greater understanding of the process involved in adult learning and the methodologies that can enhance this process.Staff development planners should take this fact into account and adapt their teaching strategies and techniques accordingly.The extent and quality of the professional education and training, received by professionals, influence both the quality and the style of their teaching.The more knowledge and skills they have in planning and delivering instructions, the better their students will learn.Professionals without sufficient teaching knowledge tend to teach by instinct and are doomed to trial-and-error approaches (Arrends, 2006).
Having briefly discussed the educational needs of adult learners in relation to their professional growth experiences, we will present a model of staff development, as it is equally important to recognise the professional growth needs of teaching professionals on the basis of the stages of their career.

A model of staff development
Becoming an effective teaching professional is a developmental process.It is a journey, not a destination.Becoming truly accomplished in almost any human endeavour takes a long time.To appreciate this, professionals need to recall the fear they had at the beginning of their teaching career.
In a sense, on their journey to achieving true professional status, teaching professionals go through a series of normal and predictable stages.In this context, a number of theories have been developed to describe teachers' development.Teaching professionals develop through stages in which they focus initially on themselves and their teaching.For example, Benner (1984) and Berliner (1994) suggested that teaching professionals go through five levels of proficiency: novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient and expert.
1. Novice professionals are beginner teachers who have had no experience in what they are expected to perform.Even though teaching skills are taught during pre-service many beginning professionals believe that they never acquired them.Because of the lack of practical experience, novice professionals must give an inordinate amount of their time and energy to an understanding of the classroom environment, mastering the basic tasks to be performed and formulating a set of general rules to guide their daily actions in working with students.
2. Advanced beginners are professionals who can demonstrate marginally acceptable performance.Nevertheless, in most cases they are still unsure of how to react to specific problems when they arise and when to follow or deviate from some of the rules of teaching they acquired during the novice stage.As is also true for novices, advanced beginners in many cases fail to take full responsibility for their actions in the classroom, as they are still applying the rules of teaching in a mechanical way without really recognizing what is happening.
3. Competent performers are teaching professionals who have been on the job in the same or similar situation for several years, and have worked hard in honing their skills professional knowledge.Competence develops when the practitioner begins to see his (her) actions in terms of long range goals.Competent professionals are in most cases in control of their classrooms and practise their teaching skills effectively.
4. Proficient performers are teaching professionals who perceive situations as a whole rather than in terms of aspects and performance as guided by maxims.In so doing, they acquire a holistic sense of what occurs in the classroom and can recognize similarities and differences among events that occur in the classroom accordingly.
5. Expert performers are teaching professionals who perform their work in a way that is qualitatively different from others.They no longer rely on the analytic principles (rules, guidelines) to connect their understanding of the situation to an appropriate action.Expert professionals are so skilled that lessons under their direction seem to move along effortlessly.
In the same vein, Fuller (1969), Feiman-Nemser (1983) and Richardson & Placier (2001) proposed that teaching professionals experience processes as they move from novice to expert status.As a result, the above authors have developed similar theories that describe three stages of concern that professionals go through as they learn to teach.They are summarized below.
1) Survival stage: When people first begin thinking about teaching and when they have their first classroom encounters with students, in front of rather than behind the desk, they are most concerned about their personal survival.They wonder and worry about their interpersonal adequacy and whether or not their students and their supervisors are going to like them.In addition, they worry about classroom control and about things that might get out of hand.
2) Teaching situation stage: At some point, novice professionals start feeling more adequate and pass beyond the survival stage.Various aspects of interacting with students become routinised.At this stage professionals start shifting their attention and energy to the teaching situation itself.They start dealing with the time pressures of teaching and with some of the stark realities of the classroom, such as large numbers of students, inappropriate instructional materials and teaching methods.
3) Student results and mastery stage: Eventually, individuals mature as professionals and discover ways of coping with survival concerns.During this stage teaching professionals reach for higher-level issues and master the fundamentals of teaching and classroom management.It is only then that professionals start asking questions about the social and emotional needs of students, being fair and being concerned with the matching between teaching strategies and materials and student needs and learning.
Over the past few years there has been a gradual shift away from the stage theory described above toward a more flexible view about how teaching professionals' development occurs.This more flexible approach indicates that developmental processes for teaching professionals are evolutionary and gradual and not as precise as suggested in the previous models (Griffiths & Tann, 1992;Richardson & Placier, 2001).These models are useful for thinking about the process of learning to teach.Their principles help to put present concerns under consideration and to train novice professionals to move on to a higher level of concern (Arends, 2006).For instance, Kagan (1992: 145) concluded that novice professionals with little knowledge of students and teaching "tend to grow increasingly authoritarian and custodial"."Obsessed with classroom control they may also begin to plan instruction designed not to promote learning, but to discourage students' misbehaviour".It could be suggested therefore that a beginner practitioner who is worried about personal concerns may need training and experiences which can improve self-esteem and encourage independence, so that if class control takes too much mental energy, he/she can be able to find ways to modify the situation.
Like theories of adult learning, theories of developmental stages of teaching have heuristic value for thinking about staff development opportunities for teaching professionals.Understanding that all teaching professionals go through readily identifiable developmental stages can help educational authorities realise that professionals at different stages, have different needs as well as different capabilities to benefit from a range of staff development activities (Pellicer & Anderson, 1995).These models suggest that learning to teach is a developmental process in which individuals move through stages that are simple and concrete at first, and more complex and abstract later.Developmental models therefore provide a framework for viewing professionals' growth (Arends, 2006).
In this context, teaching professionals can use the models to diagnose their own level of concern and development.This knowledge can help them accept the anxiety of the beginning years and plan learning activities that will facilitate growth to more mature and complex levels of functioning.Their unique staff development needs may be served best by programmes that focus on arming them with survival skills, such as workshops dealing with organisation and classroom management and the improvement of their self-concept.At the middle development stages, professionals would have little need for staff development activities designed to build skills in classroom management but might be keen to learn new teaching methods to improve student performance.At the highest levels of development, professionals should share their abilities on a broader basis with others in their schools and the profession at large.
It can be said that a major part of staff development has been an attempt to help teaching professionals progress from the lower to the higher stage.The higher stage seems to be a desirable goal for various reasons.Professionals who have reached this stage are usually in a state of reduced anxiety, while those who are in lower stages can exhibit considerable anxiety and transmit this to other professionals.Needless to say, no one learns well or work effectively in a state of high anxiety (Barth, 1990:54).

Proposals for effective staff development of teaching professionals
The foregoing discussion describes a picture of the unique professional growth needs of teaching professionals, who have been characterized as adult learners going through stages of career development.If educational authorities are to use this information wisely, they must translate it into effective reshaping of staff development programmes.It is worth mentioning that the characteristics that influence the effectiveness of professional development are multiple and complex (Joyce & Showers, 1980).It may be unreasonable therefore to assume that a single list of effective professional characteristics will ever emerge, regardless of the quality of professional development research (Guskey, 2003: 16).With this in mind, we believe that the following suggestions would seem essential for the development of such programmes.
1. Encouragement and experimentation.Teaching professionals should be encouraged to try out new ideas, and even conduct their own classroom research on how well those ideas work with their learners and under what conditions they work best.They need to take time to reflect about what they are doing.Educational authorities need to provide them with opportunities to do so.To use modern methods effectively, professionals need first to understand the research upon which those methods are based.Considering that they have either not been taught or be experienced in these methods, they also need to practise them.They need to practise newer methods with guidance making necessary modifications so as to develop student learning (Feden & Vogel, 2003).
2. The teaching professional must be at the center of staff development.Professionals must undertake the primary responsibility for their own professional growth.They must be given the responsibility for planning staff development in terms of diagnosing their own learning needs, designing and identifying programmes to meet these needs and deciding when their needs have been adequately met ( uomi, 2004).Placing professionals at the center of the staff development process means that they will both determine the nature of programmes for their own professional growth and will assume a major responsibility for supporting each other in their efforts to grow.Sharing knowledge and experience with their peers can improve teaching practice, progress learning and foster true conceptual change (Feden & Vogel, 2003).
3. Staff development programmes must be characterized by mutual professional respect.Professionals who take part in professional growth need to value and respect the professional skills and abilities of their colleagues.They should honour learning, participation, and cooperation above prescription, production and competition.This is the critical factor that enables professionals to teach and learn from each other (Hargreaves, 2001).In this kind of endeavour emerges the concept of the school as a learning community.All participants, teaching professionals and learners, engage in learning and teaching, and school becomes a place where students and professionals discover (rediscover) the difficulties and satisfaction of learning (Johnson, 1998;Pellicer & Anderson ,1995).

Education and training is a lifelong process.
Teaching professionals need to think about education and staff development not merely in terms of initial courses but more fundamentally in terms of rhythms by which communities and individuals continually renew themselves.In this way education becomes a mutual developmental process between community and individuals, one that goes beyond mere socialisation.It is an investment of a community in its own future, not as a reproduction of the past through cultural transmission, but as the formation of new identities that could take its history of learning forward (Wenger, 1998).

5.
Learning must be related to the needs and expectancies of adult learners.Adequacy provision must be made for teaching professionals to give and receive feedback in relation to the relevance of the staff development programme.The needs identified will help justify decisions by the educator and learners.The needs identified by learners and by others can be distinguished as felt needs and prescribed needs.Felt needs are those desires and wishes of the learner, while prescribed needs are premised upon educators (Brookfield, 1986: 22).It is inappropriate to plan a staff development programme for adult learners on a felt needs approach and it is equally unacceptable to plan a programme totally on needs prescribed by others.Combining felt needs and prescribed needs would seem to be a more rational approach.In this way a mutual collaborative teaching-learning environment can result that ensures greater participation and desire to persist and achieve in teaching and learning situation.
6.The primary focus of staff development programmes should be on sustained long-term growth.It is common place that one-shot quick-fix approaches to staff development have little to offer teaching professionals in terms of real professional growth.The reason one-shot staff development has not been more growth enhancing for professionals, is the fact that instruction typically is delivered at the lower levels (knowledge and comprehension) of the cognitive domain.Professionals, therefore, are not afforded needed opportunities to apply and practice new skills (application), much less to adapt them to their present teaching repertoires (synthesis) or to take judgments about how well they are working (evaluation) and then determine the reason why they work or do not work (analysis) (Hammerness et al., 2005;Pellicer & Anderson, 1995).This approach to staff development overemphasizes narrowly defined, technical teaching models that minimize the complexities of teaching and encourage teaching professionals to function as technicians rather than professionals.Only when professionals are encouraged to function at the higher levels of the cognitive domain can real growth be expected (Pellicer & Anderson ,1995).7. Learning to teach requires that professionals come to understand teaching in different ways from what they have learned from their own experience.Actually, they need not only to understand but also to perform a wide variety of things, many of them simultaneously.To achieve this requires much more than simply memorise facts and procedures, since there is a major difference between "knowing that" and "knowing why and how" (Hammerness et al., 2005).
8. Teaching professionals work with diverse students and have to achieve multiple educational aims requiring trade-offs from time to time.Although, some aspects of teaching could be routinised, what professionals do will be influenced by changing student needs and unexpected classrooms events.Many decisions in teaching are contingent upon student responses and the particular objectives sought at a given time.Therefore, these decisions cannot be routinised.Thus, helping professionals think systematically about this complexity is extremely important.They need to develop metacognitive abilities that guide decisions and reflection on practice (Hammerness et al., 2005;Jackson ,1974).
Typically, however staff development programmes attempt to cope up with the complexities of teaching as if they could be understood at a single sitting.In doing so, the education profession has effectively devalued teaching and, at the same time, turned off professionals to the potential opportunities that exist for personal and professional growth through continuous staff development.Modern professional development has a variety of purposes beyond skill training, including facilitation of teachers' efficacy, cognitive development, and career development, as well as teacher collegiality and the improvement of school culture.The broadening of professional development has been accompanied by an expanding body of literature on effective development programmes (Glickman, Gordon & Ross-Gordon, 2001).

Conclusions and suggestions
Knowledge grows within those who discipline themselves to think about what is known and what still needs to be known.The design of effective learning opportunities needs to begin with a clear idea of what we want people to know and be able to do.In this way we learn from one another and we develop new insights.Teaching professionals are people, and their personal professional growth is as legitimate a concern of education as is the cognitive and affective development of students.Learning to teach is a developmental progress from early concerns with "self" to a gradual focus upon issues related to student learning and eventually to the school climate.If we can help educators understand where they stand, and if they can stand there with dignity, security, satisfaction and competence, then everyone will make improvements (Barth, 1980).
Taken collectively, theories and ideas we have discussed in this paper can have a significant influence on the culture of teaching professionals, since they contribute in unanticipated ways to the development of individual professionals.
It is commonplace that leadership for improving staff development is the key to unlocking that potential.Staff development offers many worthwhile benefits to teaching professionals.It can effectively provide the keys to improving professional performance, reducing isolation, providing support system, and generally improving the professional lives of teaching professionals by making them more productive.
In line with the discussion of this paper Scribner et al. (1999) identified a growing consensus of guiding principles as • on going professional learning, • professional development connected to the teaching practice, • school communities that encourage shared learning , and • professional development that is integrated into the school plans.
The major function of educational authorities is to build an educational culture that values professional development and involves teaching professionals in planning learning activities, which best support their practice.The challenge remains in creating schedules that allow time for teaching professionals to participate in continuous development.
It is therefore important to encourage professionals, namely the most critical actors in the educational process, to learn and develop, realising that this goal is apt to be met when they all work together to make it happen.Moreover, it is imperative for educational authorities to make staff development so worthwhile, so exciting, so effective, and so clearly adjusted to the growth needs of teaching professionals, that every single of them will demand to be part of the programme.
Nonetheless, it has to be acknowledged that although serious steps have been taken towards this direction in other European countries, in Greece there is still a long way to go to build effective professional growth strategies for teaching professionals (Papastamatis & Panitsidou, 2008).Until nowadays, professional development programmes have failed to reach professionals' needs while they run randomly and uncoordinatedly, ignoring most rudimentary principles discussed in the present paper.Thus, further action is required in order to make available to teaching professionals in Greece a multitude of quality professional development alternatives adapted to individual needs, meeting both quantitively and qualitatively, professional growth programmes provided in other member states.
introduced training programmes for Primary Education teachers at the University of Athens.The most important step however, towards implementation of a coherent teacher training framework in formal education, was enforced under Law 1566/1985 (Official Gazette, A 167/30-9-1985), providing for a general framework for the restructuring and operation of education in Greece.As far as teacher training was concerned, earlier forms of training were repealed and initial training of newly appointed teachers, annual training of teachers having completed at least five years of service and short periodic training, were introduced.According to Article 29, teacher training could be provided by schools, Regional Training Centres (PEK), Higher Education Institutions, Higher Technological Institutions (TEI), Training School of Employees in Vocational and Technical Education (SELETE), along with the Pedagogical Institute.Since 1985, several changes concerning purpose, curriculum content, and structure of training programmes, have been initiated, not substantially altering though, teacher development framework as established by Law 1566/1985.A major innovation was the implementation, under Law 2986/2002 (Official Gazette, A 24/13-2-2002), of the Teacher Training Agency (OEPEK), a private entity based in Athens and supervised by the Greek Minister of Education, responsible for setting training policy, coordinating and implementing training activities.Moreover, the critical role of the European Community should be highlighted, as, since 1997, several training programmes, financed by the Community Support