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DOCUMENTING ASPECTS OF PROFESSIONAL GROWTH IN A LOCALLY DESIGNED TEACHER CENTER
Abstract
This study has addressed the problem of how to examine the professional growth process in a locally designed inservice program based on new principles of teacher growth that emphasize teacher input and initiative. Through a review of the professional literature, the researcher demonstrated that a revised evaluation paradigm, which emphasizes a process approach and encourages the use of individual's perceptions, offered strategies worth field testing in one type of newly devised inservice program, the locally designed teacher center. In this case, the center studied was the Amherst Area Teacher Center (AATC). Over the course of the study, procedures were identified and field tested for: (1) identifying the AATC's paid helpers' beliefs, (2) describing the implementation of their beliefs, and (3) ascertaining the level of "congruence" between their beliefs and practices. Among the procedures utilized in the study were: the in-depth interview, the examination of archival documents and a mostly closed-response questionnaire. The professional staff members' ratings of the helpers obtained from the questionnaire, and presented as mean scores in tabular form, showed conclusively that the helpers' practices were highly congruent with their beliefs. Some discrepancies were noted between elementary and secondary school teachers' responses. The study also produced a vast array of data about strategies employed by helpers to implement their beliefs. The major implications of this study are: (1) that it outlines a four-step process for assessing relationships between purposes and practices in a locally designed teacher center; (2) it describes a teacher center program that is successfully practicing what it preaches, thus it is a model inservice approach; and (3) it offers one more example of the effective use of an alternative evaluation paradigm supported by several prominent educational researchers. The information contained in this study should have wide professional appeal. Among the populations it might serve are: inservice program planners or evaluators, teacher center staff or researchers and educational evaluators.
Subject Area
Education
Recommended Citation
CIESLUK, JOHN H, "DOCUMENTING ASPECTS OF PROFESSIONAL GROWTH IN A LOCALLY DESIGNED TEACHER CENTER" (1982). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI8210308.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI8210308