Essay Example on Staff Development: Improving Teacher Induction Programs

The area focused on in this practicum was supervision, resource management, and staff development. Since these areas are broad fields, I selected only a few indicators from them. It is important to apply the theory of supervision in an authentic area. For this reason and my passion, I chose to focus on staff development. This gave me a great opportunity to conduct research and come up with a strategy that would improve teacher induction programs. This will go a long way to promote staff members in the teaching profession. The other thing that I covered was resource management. I was able to gain a lot of knowledge and skills from the course. However, learning requires application of the acquired skill set and knowledge to create an institutional budget and schedule with the help of the administrator. Focusing on these areas during my practicum made me resourceful and more equipped.

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The course of leadership involved interaction among various concerned parties as well as some assessment methods. The idea that resonated from the course experience concerns the assessment strategies used. They are summative and formative assessment types (Dixson & Worrell, 2016). These types of conducting evaluations gave the basis of the course, guiding me on how to lead the followers. I discovered that there is a possibility of coming up with stronger assessment procedures that are learner-based to assist the learner in developing an understanding of the leadership issues. These methods make it easier to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the learners since focusing on leading oneself gives better results.

The method of assessment whose application in academic institutions results in a greater impact in the activities of the practicum is formative assessment. The criteria used to select this method of assessment is based on which one provides room for change control. The method focuses on the tutor as well as the notions regarding the changes that are intended. However, I think that it should have also focused on the perceptions of the learners. This would have increased the levels of participation for the learners. This method aimed to cause the highest levels of change in the students. The practicum program involved the learner's interaction with the organization area as per the learning materials, skills, and knowledge that is provided in class.

Activity-based learning was important in helping the students to achieve their objectives. It helped promote active participation in acquiring learning experiences among students and discouraged them from being passive listeners. By interacting with the students, it was easier to identify the areas in which they needed help to assist them in learning better.

The use of activity-based learning aimed to enhance the skills of creative and critical thinking. Supervision of the institution ensured that the learners are always motivated to work towards achieving their full potential. The teaching methodologies that were used made use of various interactive activities such as question-and-answer. The practicum determines the study's favorite areas for the students, the reasons for this, and the elements of motivation. During the practicum, the students were also pretested for evaluation of the success of the teaching method used. However, the practicum did not support all students. Some students had low cognitive abilities, and they took time to process. The times allocated for some activities did not favor this group of students. For teaching practicums to be more successful, it will be important to develop them in a way that accommodates students with low cognitive abilities

The other area of supervision that I leaned in my practicum was the plans for teacher improvement. I interviewed a school head to determine whether he had been successful in this or not. The school head interviewed revealed that he had worked closely with many teachers regarding improvement plans. He had laid off the teachers that did not seem to improve their skills. This might seem like an unfair thing to do, but students deserve teachers who can deliver in class (Wilson, 2017). I noted down the process that he used to do this. He had not begun the teacher improvement plan until he took a leadership course in coaching and conferring with tutors. This indicates how important leadership skills are in real-world applications.

Conclusion

Conclusively, as a leader, obtaining experiences of the real world as impacted by skills and knowledge acquired in class is important. The effects of this on the life of an individual determines the level of understanding concerning the various factors involved. The leadership course emphasizes the effects of refection and its usefulness in the successful application in cases of the real world to drive change. This course enabled me to develop good perceptions about leadership. For instance, I have learned that leadership is a tough, competitive, and uncompromising professionalism. A leader may be forced to make decisions that will not favor everyone, but help the institutions to get closer to its objectives, I also learned that leadership requires interactive empowerment.

References

Ahmad, N. J., Ishak, N. A., Samsudin, M. A., Meylani, V., & Said, H. M. (2019). Pre-Service Science Teachers in International Teaching Practicum: Reflection of the Experience. Jurnal Pendidikan IPA Indonesia, 8(3), 308-316. https://journal.unnes.ac.id/nju/index.php/jpii/article/download/18907/9591

Dixson, D. D., & Worrell, F. C. (2016). Formative and summative assessment in the classroom. Theory into Practice, 55(2), 153-159. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-0323-2.ch018

Wilson, E. (2017). Reflections on the process of implementing a large scale teacher improvement program throughout Kazakhstan. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1810/264236/Carnegie_wilson0317.pdf?sequence=1