Teacher Exchange Experience
The ineffectiveness of traditionally implemented forms of professional development has led to a search for alternative means to encourage practitioners’ to improve their professional capacities (Bayar, 2014; Steward, 2014). As an alternative approach to professional learning, the ITU School of Foreign Languages has initiated a project to develop a new professional development framework which might lead to more meaningful experiences by practitioners: Teacher Exchange Experience.
The piloting of the framework has kicked off in the second semester with the participation of 10 pairs teaching at the English Preparatory Program. The purpose of the Teacher Exchange Experience is to encourage practitioners to reflect on their teaching and collaborate with and learn from an experienced colleague.
The project started with a careful selection of teachers who agreed to be a part of the piloting phase. In the second step, the pairs were created and were asked to get in touch to agree on a date to swap their classes. They were then given a reflection report to fill at the end of the lessons. The next step was to meet to share their insights, which was followed by the writing of another reflection report, this time with the purpose of contemplating over the meeting and reviewing the overall merits of the entire process.
With the Teacher Exchange Experience project, it is aimed to create a handbook and offer an alternative means for professional development framework to ELT professionals. The project aspires to be a meaningful contribution to the field.
REFERENCES
Stewart, C. (2014). Transforming professional development to professional learning. Journal of adult
education, 43(1), 28-33.
Bayar, A. (2014). The Components of Effective Professional Development Activities in Terms of Teachers' Perspective. Online Submission, 6(2), 319-327.